The Rats in the in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft, read by Mike Bennett.

On July 16th, 1993, I moved into Exum Priory after the last workman had finished his labors.

The restoration had been a stupendous task, for little had remained of the deserted pile, but a shell-like ruin. Yet because it

had been the seat of my ancestors I let no expense deter me. The place had not been inhabited since the reign of James I, when a tragedy of intensely

hideous though largely unexplained nature had struck down the master, five of his children and several servants,

and driven forth under a cloud of suspicion and terror, the third son,

my lineal progenitor and the only survivor of the abhorred line.

With this sole heir denounced as a murderer,

the estate had reverted to the crown,

nor had the accused man made any attempt to exculpate himself or regain his property,

shaken by some horror, greater than that of conscience or the law, and expressing only a frantic wish to exclude the ancient

edifice from his sight and memory, Walter de la Poor, 11th Baron Exum, fled to Virginia and there founded the family which by the next

century had become known as Delapore.

Exum Priory had remained untenanted, though later allotted to the estates of the Norries family,

and much studied because of its peculiarly composite architecture, an architecture involving Gothic towers resting

on a Saxon or Romanesque structure whose foundation in turn was a still earlier order or blend of orders,

Roman and even druidic or native Samaric if legends speak truly. This foundation was a very singular thing, being

merged on one side with the solid limestone of the precipice from whose brink the priory overlooked a desolate valley

three miles west of the village of Manchester. Architects and antiquarians love to examine

this strange relic of forgotten centuries.

But the country folk hated it.

They had hated it hundreds of years before, when my ancestors lived there, and they hated it now, with the moss and mold of abandonment on it.

...