The Delaney House

By M. E. Pickett

Now I know you’ve probably heard lots of ghost stories before, but I bet most of the ones you’ve heard end with the person who’s telling the story grabbing your leg and yelling, “Boo!” or some crap like that. I’ll give you fair warning though, the one that I’m about to tell you doesn’t end like that. The thing that makes this story special is that I lived through it…okay, that isn’t entirely true. But everything in this story did, as a matter of fact, happen to me. You see, I am a ghost.

I wasn’t always a ghost, though—well, of course I wasn’t always a ghost, because to be a ghost you got to be dead and to be dead you must’ve been alive once. So I was alive once, and not too long ago, neither. This story is about how I became a ghost, so I couldn’t exactly have lived through it. Now if any of you are squeamish, or scared of ghosts or anything, then I suggest you put this story down now, because it’ll probably give you nightmares. But to all of you that can handle it, I recommend that you read on, because you’re in for one heck of a story.

All right, now I’ll get on with what happened. Well, I guess I should introduce myself first. My name is Travis Hickman and I live in Orangevale, California. Okay, so I don’t exactly live here, at least not anymore, but I’m still here in Orangevale, at least as a ghost. When I was a kid—and alive—I went to Oakview Elementary School, which was right down the street from my house. All I had to do to get to school every day was walk out of my house on Oak Ave., and hang a left. I could walk strait down the street until I came to the school, on the corner of Oak and Chestnut. Getting to school was easier said than done, though, because between my house and Oakview Elementary School was the Delaney House. Everyone said that that house was haunted. I found out that they were right, and I’ll tell you how.

The story goes that there was a rich man who lived there once, a long time ago back when everything in Orangevale was just fields and cows. It hasn’t changed much since then except for the fact that there are paved roads now and more houses to line them, and there are a few less cows. Every house still has its piece of land, at least a few acres, but there are no big farms or pastures anymore. Anyway, the man who built the house, Mr. Delaney, had a wife and a daughter, and he built this big Victorian house, like his wife wanted, but he built it out in the country, like he wanted. It really looked out of place there in Orangevale.

Mr. Delaney tried to give his wife everything she wanted, but she was from the city, and was never happy living in the country no matter how big and Victorian the house was. One day she just left him and the little girl. As his daughter grew up, Mr. Delaney was real protective of her, probably because he thought she might run away too. And one day, that is just what she did. The man was so distraught that he killed himself, right there in that house. They say that late at night, you can still see him waiting at the window for them to come back.

I was too darn stubborn back then to say that there were real ghosts inside, but just the same, just walking by that house gave me the willies. I think my stubbornness comes from my mom. Once, when I was really little, like in third grade or something, I walked by the Delaney House in broad daylight and I could have swore I saw someone in there, standing at the window looking out right at me. Now everyone knew that that house was abandoned, so I was pretty darn scared when I saw someone inside. I ran all the way home to tell mom what I’d seen.

“Mom! Mom!” I yelled, letting the screen door slam behind me. “Those ghost stories are true! I saw one of them in the window down at the Delaney House.”

Mom stopped whatever she was doing at the kitchen sink and turned around suddenly. “Travis,” she shot out my name like it was a bullet. “How many times do I have to tell you to not slam that door?”

“But mom,” I squealed, “I saw a ghost.”

“Don’t talk that foolishness in this house,” her hands were placed squarely on her hips, and that’s when you knew she didn’t want any nonsense. “Only fools believe in ghost. You ain’t a fool are you?”

“No.”

“Then you didn’t see any ghosts, did you?”

“No.”

“Well now you’re talking some sense.” She turned back to the sink and that was that.

All my life, since that day, I’ve been telling myself that there is no such thing as ghosts, and that only fools believed in nonsense like that. Still, that house gave me the creeps, so sometimes I would go down on Oak from my house to Main Street and hang a right so that I could avoid the house and get to school the back way. It took longer, but I told myself that I just liked to have to climb through the creek behind the school. I didn’t think anyone paid any mind until one day, when I was in the sixth grade and the Pritchet boys were talking about that house.

“There ain’t no one brave enough to spend a whole night in there,” they were saying. Now, I got to tell you, the Pritchet boys were morons. They came from a whole family of morons and they didn’t fall far from the tree at all. Their old man was a total drunk who lived off the government on the outskirts of town. Their family came from Alabama, or Arkansas or something. There were two Pritchet boys around my age. Their names were Lee and Jackson. They always looked exactly the same. Stained white T-shirt, dirty jeans and shaved heads. The only difference between the two was that Jackson was a little shorter. Nobody cared what the heck they did at home, and so they thought they could rule the school, too. They knew plain well that I could whip them whenever I wanted to, but they liked to pretend that they didn’t know it.

“I heard that one time,” Jackson was saying, “this kid thought he could take on the ghosts and went in there and never came back.”

“I heard that one time five kids went in there together and said they were going to get some videos of the ghosts,” said Lee, the older one, forced to one up his little brother. “They was found dead the next morning.”

“You both are morons,” I said. “There ain’t no such thing as ghosts.”

They both turned to look at me. “You wanna bet, Hickman?” asked Lee.

“I would, but you don’t got nothing between the two of you that you could give me when you lose,” I replied. My best friend, Walter Smith, who was never too far behind me, chuckled. For me, that was more than enough to say that I had won.

“You act all tough, Hickman,” said Jackson. “But you’re just a little sissy.”

Now, I’m like most boys in that I don’t like being called a sissy, and I’d do pretty much anything to prove that I’m not one. So Jackson calling me one got me a little fiery. I struck like a snake and had his dirty white t-shirt in my hands before he even knew what was happening. “I’ll show you who the sissy is,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Get off him, Hickman!” shouted Lee, trying to pry me off.

I figured he’d learned his lesson anyways, so I threw the little maggot to the ground and yelled, “You better tell your brother to watch his mouth next time, Lee.”

“And why should I,” said Lee with a scowl. “You are a sissy.”

I made a motion at him, and he flinched. “You better watch it,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

“You just as afraid of them ghosts as everybody else,” said Lee.

“Yeah,” piped up Jackson. I shot him a look and he went for cover behind his brother.

“Ghosts are for fools like you idiots,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” demanded Lee, stepping closer to me. “Then why do you go three blocks out of your way to get to school just so you don’t got to go by the Delaney House every morning?”

That kind of knocked me off balance. “I don’t do that.”

“Yes you do. You been doing it for years.” Lee was less than an arms length away by now.

“You can’t prove nothing,” I said.

“I don’t got to prove squat. You’re the sissy,” said Lee.

“I ain’t no sissy!” I took a step forward, so that my face was right in his.

“I bet you are.”

“I ain’t afraid of nothin’!”

“Then prove it.”

“I will!”

There was a moment of silence and Lee got an evil-looking grin on his face. “Okay, then. What are you willing to do?”

“I already told you I’m not afraid of nothin’,” I said.

“Then you got to spend a whole night in the Delaney House.”

“That’s dumb,” I said, and my breath kind of caught in my throat just thinking about it.

“Then you’re a sissy.”

“No I ain’t!”

“Spend a night in the Delaney House, or you’re a sissy.” Lee’s head tilted up and he looked down at me with his eyes halfway closed like he had me beat. And he did have me beat. Well, he had me in a corner at least. I had no choice. I had to sleep in that creepy old house, or I was a sissy. And I sure as heck wasn’t no sissy.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll show you who the sissy is.”

The Pritchet boys walked off, telling everybody and their dog what I was going to do. That way, I had no way to get out of it.

“Are you crazy?” demanded Walter in his kind of squeaky voice. “All those stories might be nothing but stories, but that’s no reason to go and do something stupid.”

“Now don’t you be a fool, too,” I said, turning away.

“I’d say you’re the fool.” Walter had never talked to me like that. We called each other worse all the time, but this time different. This time he was serious.

“Don’t make me deck you, Walter.”

“Travis, you may say there’s no such thing as ghosts,” said Walter walking around to confront me, “but that doesn’t explain all the weird stuff that happens in that house. It makes me feel like someone’s watching me. I felt that way ever since we saw that person in the window. That house isn’t like any old house. Maybe there’re no ghosts, but something’s not right.”

I could see that Walter was really worried. We’d done some pretty dumb stuff together and gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble…well, it was mostly me getting him into trouble, but it never seemed to bother him. Afterwards, we could always laugh about how our parents or the principal or whoever had chewed us out, and how much fun we had deserving it. I always thought that Walter liked hanging around because I had all the good ideas and he got to join in all the fun.

“They called me a sissy, Walter,” I said, knowing that that would explain everything. “You know I can’t stand for that.”

“They’re not about to sleep in that broke down house. They’re the sissies.”

“Tell that to everybody else.”

“Who cares about everybody else? I thought you didn’t care what anybody thought.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what are you doing this for?”

This was starting to hurt my brain, and for the first time I can remember I was getting mad at my best friend. That should have been warning enough to tell me that this was bad news. Walter was, after all, the one who kept me from getting into too much trouble. All I could say was, “I ain’t no sissy,” and I walked away. I didn’t talk to him again for a while.

The night of the big event came and to get out of my house I told mom that I was going to sleep over at Walter’s house. I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t even talked to him for two weeks. She always told me that Walter was a good influence on me.

So anyway, I walked down the street, and cursed myself the whole way for not bringing my sweatshirt. It was getting toward October; that time when the days are warm enough, but it gets real cold at night. Since the day was so warm, I hadn’t thought about bringing anything to keep me warm after the sun went down. I could just see my breath swirl around in little puffs in front of my face. The further I went down Oak and the closer I got to the Delaney House, the more I started to shiver, too. I blamed that one totally on the cold.

As I got closer to the house, I could see a little group of kids hanging around on the opposite side of the street. Everyone had come to see this great moment in history, but they still wanted to stay as far away from that house as they could. They were the smart ones. They were all bundled up warm in their sweatshirts, standing with their hands shoved in their pockets. They must have listened to their moms, or their moms must have cared enough to tell them to put a sweater on. They weren’t really talking much.

“You guys cold?” I asked as I walked up with my arms dangling at my sides.

“Like you ain’t,” muttered Lee under his breath. He was wearing an old high school sweatshirt that was way too big for him.

I could see the awe come into the other kids’ eyes.

I worked hard to keep from shivering.

“’Bout time you got here, sissy,” said Lee, this time loud enough for everyone to hear. “We were thinking you were going to chicken out.”

“I ain’t no Pritchet, Lee,” I said. “My word’s worth something.”

“We’ll all see that pretty soon, now won’t we?” said Lee.

“Yeah,” piped up Jackson.

“There’s the house,” said Lee and we all turned. I did my best to hide the shivers that ran through me. The house was covered in black shadow. A few big trees in the yard shrouded the house from the yellow glow of the street lights. They were barely hanging onto their summer leaves, as if to protect them from the cold…or something worse. The house looked like a huge dark mountain of night. Like a sleeping monster. I could almost see it move, slowly rising and falling, as if it were breathing in its sleep. It blended in with the blackness around it, so I couldn’t tell where the house ended and the night began. “Its eleven thirty now,” pointed out Lee. “You go in now and you can come out at the same time tomorrow morning.”

“Well, I guess I better get to it,” I said. I didn’t move. I just stood there. All the kids turned to look at me.

“Are you going to go tonight or next year, sissy?” asked Lee and everyone started to giggle—like girls.

“Yeah, I’m…I’m going.” I looked down as if to plead with my feet to move, and slowly the right one came off the ground and put itself forward. The left one did the same, and I was on my way to wake a monster. The giggles turned into mumbles, but I didn’t dare look back. My whole body was tensed up and my back was starting to hurt. I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in a while, so I sucked in deep. The cold air made my throat hurt.

“Travis, wait!”

I almost jumped out of my skin. Lee and Jackson were rolling on the ground laughing at me. I turned to see Walter running down the street. Walter got to me panting. I noticed the laughter, but tried to ignore it.

“What is it?” I asked, expecting him to try and convince me to stop.

“You’ve always been my best friend, Travis,” he began, still panting and not making eye contact with me. “And I think you’re a downright fool for doing something so stupid, but you’ve done plenty other stuff that I thought was stupid too, and I always followed you anyways, so I was thinking…why should I stop now?” He finally looked at me. “If you’re going to go through with this, then I’m coming too.”

I didn’t have any idea what to say. I felt this huge relief go through me like the way hot chocolate warms you up on a cold day. I felt my muscles relax, and I didn’t have to remind myself to breath anymore. “Well,” I stammered out, “let’s get to it, then.”

I think Walter could tell how relieved I was, but he also understood why I wasn’t going to actually say it. He just patted my back as I turned back toward the house to lead the way. I had only made it about halfway across the street, even though it felt like a mile. Just then, a bright light shined on us from the right. I turned and saw two white eyes coming at us from down the road.

“A car!” yelled someone from behind. “Hide!”

Me and Walter scrambled forward and hit the dirt behind one of those big trees in front of the Delaney House. The grass—or more like weeds—was already wet with dew. I looked up just as the car raced by and the headlights lit up the house. It looked like that big old broke down Victorian house was looking down at me, scowling. It was only for a second, though, because the car passed, the sound of the engine faded in the distance, and the house was covered in shadow again. I shivered a bit. I looked over at Walter, who looked back as if he were expecting an order. “At least it’ll probably be warmer inside,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. But it came out without feeling and didn’t really help.

I got up and started walking toward the old porch steps that led to the front door. In the dark, the porch looked like a huge hole, or the mouth of some ancient giant just waiting for some dumb kid to wander in so he could gobble him up. He was all I could see as I made my way for it.

“What was that?” yelled Walter, and I almost jumped out of my skin again.

“What?!” Came out of me, like when the doctor hits you in the knee and your leg jumps up all on its own. My breath caught in my throat and my head shot around. Walter was looking up at the top story windows.

“I swear I saw some yellow eyes up there looking at us,” said Walter with a shaky voice.

I looked where he was pointing and all I could see were the black windows. I looked longer, and there was still nothing. “Just quit it,” I said. “You’re giving me the heeby-jeebies.”

Walter was saying that he really had seen something as I took the last few steps toward the porch. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but I didn’t want to think about it. I climbed up the porch steps one at a time. The rotting wood beams creaked under my feet. It felt more like hiking up Mount Everest than walking up a few stairs. Walter came up beside me. “Be careful,” he said, “this wood could break any—”

He stopped. A huge, moaning sound seemed to come from all around us. It started low, and then got louder and louder. It sounded like the giant was letting out a long, slow moan. We didn’t move, but the boards creaked under us. The windows rattled just a little. We stood stiff as stone. Then, the sound faded away. Me and Walter let out our breath.

We stood there for a minute, not daring to move, but the sound of a tiny “click” coming from the door broke the silence. We still couldn’t move. Time was standing still; there was no sound, no movement, nothing.

“What was that?” Walter finally said.

“I couldn’t tell you,” was all I could say in return.

I inched one foot in front of the other toward the door. I took another step and the boards creaked. I flinched. After a few slow steps, I was close enough to touch the knob. I reached out a shaking hand and grasped it. I turned it slowly and then tried to push the door in. It wouldn’t budge. It was dead-bolted. “It’s locked,” I said turning to Walter. “We got to find another way in.”

“You heard that sound,” pleaded Walter. “Someone just locked it. Someone’s in there, and they don’t want no visitors.”

“Nobody’s lived in this house for years,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything about living,” said Walter. I stopped. “Travis, I said I’d go in with you, and I will, but I still say we should turn back now.”

I was undecided for a minute. I wanted to turn back, to forget this whole thing, but then I would have to face the Pritchet boys and every other kid at school, and I would be a sissy for the rest of my life. My life would be as good as over. “Let’s find another way in,” I said.

I went to the front window to see if I could open it from the outside. It looked pretty old, and I didn’t really think it would open, but I figured I’d try anyway. At least I could tell everyone that I had tried to get in. As I pushed it came up a bit. I shimmied it a little more, and it slowly came up. When there was a space big enough to get through I turned to Walter and said, “See? Now let’s get to it.”

When I turned back to the open window, I came face to face with two yellow eyes, staring at me like they were trying to glare into my soul. I jumped back a mile, and out sprung a black cat, screaming at us. After a second, it hissed and scampered off. I was breathing like you do after you run a mile as fast as you can, and I couldn’t stop. “See,” I said between breaths, “it was…just a cat….Nothing to…nothing to be scared of. Let’s go.”

I crawled in through the window very slowly and looked all around before going all the way in. I told myself that I was doing it to avoid any more cats, but I didn’t really believe that myself. I climbed down onto an old dusty couch that was right under the window. As I stepped down onto the cushions, a cloud of dust surrounded my dirty shoes. I jumped down from the couch onto the floor and stood there for a minute. The dusty air made me sneeze a few times. I was holding back another sneeze when Walter came in and stood right next to me. He sneezed once, too. “Well, we’re in.”

“Yeah, let’s have a look around,” I said as I made my way to the staircase in front of the door. The floorboards creaked with every step I took.

“Hey, you might need this.” Walter pulled two flashlights out of his pockets and tossed one to me. He was always the one who took care of stuff like that.

I clicked the flashlight on and looked around the house. The front area was big and open, with the stairway cutting through the very center. We had come in the left side of the house, but from there we could see a big room on the right side with a bay window. An old chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling about twenty feet up. Old, wood-framed furniture was all around, and the rugs on the ground were laid perfectly square with the walls. It all looked like someone still lived there, except for the layer of dust and cobwebs that covered everything. It felt weird being in there. Kind of like being in a mummy’s tomb when the mummy might still be walking around somewhere.

I stepped toward the stairs, but stopped when I heard a huge thud from the second floor. “Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Walter replied. I could hardly hear him.

Then there was another thud, and the wood beneath our feet creaked. Thud. The chandelier rattled. Thud. The walls moaned. Thud. Thud. Thud. Everything in the whole house started creaking and rattling and moaning and groaning and shuttering all at once. The noise surrounded us; the thuds from upstairs, the creaking walls and floor, the rattling chandelier. It was too much. Thud, creak, rattle, moan. It almost hurt. Thud, creak, rattle, groan. We just stood there, not knowing what to do. Thud, creak, rattle, moan.

Then, the sound stopped. No more thuds. No more creaks. No more rattles. No more moans. No more groans. But then we heard an even worse sound. A door upstairs opened slowly on squeaky hinges.

I didn’t really care about being a sissy anymore. “We got to get out of here,” I hissed out. My voice didn’t seem to want to work. Suddenly, I felt something bump against the back of my legs. I looked down. It was just the couch, and it hadn’t moved, I had. Since I was already on the move, I decided to go the whole way and get out of that house. So, I stepped up onto the cushions. The old couch couldn’t hold my weight. My foot went straight through the padding and the wood frame, and I was stuck like a mouse caught in a trap.

Then I heard the sound of wood scraping against wood, and I looked up to see the open window sliding down all by itself. I frantically reached my hand under it to stop it, but it slammed shut, trapping my fingers underneath. Needless to say, I screamed out in pain. I’m sure you all have got your hand caught in a door, or something like that, but this one was worse, like the window was mashing my fingers on purpose.

Walter heard my scream and ran to me. “Get it off!” I cried.

Walter tried to pull it up, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he grabbed onto my arm and started pulling. My hand was stuck in there good, but I could feel it coming out. “Come on,” Walter muttered. We both strained. Suddenly, we both fell back as the hand finally came free. Walter fell down onto the floor, and I would have too, but with my leg still caught in the couch I didn’t make it to the ground. There was dust flying everywhere. Walter got up coughing. “You all right?” he asked standing over me.

“Yeah…(cough)…I’m fine. Just help me get my leg out.”

Walter leaned down and pushed me up straight, then he started working on the couch and pulling my leg up until it came free. I was wincing the whole time. I hadn’t felt it at first, but the broken boards had cut into my skin pretty bad. When my leg was out, there were a couple of really nasty cuts and some blood on my pants.

“You okay?” asked Walter.

“I’m fine, let’s just get out of here,” I said. I looked around for another way out. The front door looked like the best bet, but when I tried it, it wouldn’t budge, and the deadbolt wasn’t moving either. I looked around and saw a hallway going to some rooms behind the staircase. “Come on,” I said, ignoring the pain in my leg.

As we started to run, the thumps from upstairs started again, too. Only this time, they were louder. Everything was creaking and rattling and moaning and groaning, and it even looked like the walls were bending inwards at us. At the end of the hall was a huge, white kitchen—at least it would have been white if it hadn’t been for all the dust. It was the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen, but it was crazy in there just like it was everywhere else. The cabinets were opening and slamming shut all by themselves, and the oven was chomping away like a huge metal mouth. Through all that commotion, I looked past to see a door on the far side of the kitchen.

I had just started running to it when something whacked me right in the head. My vision went black and I could feel more blood oozing down the side of my head. After I got my senses back, I looked down to see pieces of a broken cup all over the ground. I looked up again just in time to see another little teacup flying out of the cabinets and coming straight at me. I ducked out of the way and it shattered on the far wall. “Watch out,” I yelled to Walter. He ducked down right beside me. “Follow me,” I shouted.

We carefully made our way through the kitchen, on the lookout for more flying dishes. We could avoid most of them, but a few grazed us. I thought we were nearly home free, but I was wrong. Just as we were passing the oven, it gaped open and almost got me good. But the real problem, however, was what happened next. Like a fire from hell or something, a huge flame sprung out of that oven and almost burned us to a crisp. The blast blew me back right into Walter, who fell back with me on top of him.

“I don’t think we can go that way,” said Walter.

“Come on,” I called to him as I scrambled to my feet and made for the hallway we had just come from. I was halfway through when I stopped dead. A huge, black figure filled the far side of the hall and he was coming right at us. Every time one of its feet hit the ground, the whole house shook. He was all hunched over and was coming like a freight train.

I frantically turned back and ran toward the kitchen again, passing Walter. “This way,” I yelled as I went by. Then, with an idea that struck me like a bolt of lighting, I grabbed one of the dusty, straight-backed chairs in the kitchen and ran to the oven, dodging plates and cups. I slipped the chair back through the oven handle and jumped to the door. I could have screamed with joy when it came open as I turned the knob. But when I looked back to let Walter through, I saw that he was barely coming into the kitchen, and the huge black figure was right on top of him! The man, all shrouded in black, reached out his hand, and nearly grabbed him.

“No!” I called out and ran back toward Walter, not really knowing what the heck I was doing. I stepped up onto the chair, pushed off, and flung myself clear over Walter and at the black figure. He tried to dodge me, but couldn’t. I latched onto him. He felt as cold as ice, but I held on anyway. He couldn’t keep his balance and fell toward the floor with me holding onto him, except we didn’t hit the floor. We just kept on falling. All I remember was falling down into blackness, and getting one little glimpse of the most horrid yellow eyes I had ever seen. They were so full of rage and sorrow and despair and every other ugly feeling all rolled into two little yellow circles. Just looking at them is something I wouldn’t wish on anybody, not even those dumb Pritchet boys, even though it’s their fault all this happened.

The look in those eyes still haunts me.

So that’s my story. Walter got out, and I hope he went and told my mom what really happened. I hope she knows that even though I wasn’t always the best kid, that I still love her, and all. At any rate, that is how I got to be one of the ghosts here at the Delaney House. There are quite a few of us now, and we all got our own story to tell. Come by and visit sometime, and you could hear each one of them. We’d love to entertain a few guests.