Haunted Nights ✅ Completed

Chapter Two: Off to Never Neverland

"Hello! Anyone home! I need help!" Maya shouted as she pounded on the large wooden door.

She'd ran in the rain for what felt like forever, cold and weary she almost cried in relief when she'd spotted the large house in the distance. The washed out road ended at a rusty wrought iron gate. Wasting no time, Maya ran through the gate and down the long driveway to the promise of shelter.  

The house itself looked like an old plantation.  Framed with several white columns and a large wrap-around porch, it looked like something out of Gone with the Wind, but instead of burning to the ground, it had been left to rot over the years in the Louisiana sun.

The house may have been grand once, but no longer. Its white paint was now a crusty gray where it hadn't peeled and cracked from the weather. Some of the windows had been boarded up and the porch itself looked in danger of falling right off. It had the unmistakable air of a long forgotten ruin.

There didn't seem to be any lights on anywhere but Maya hoped someone was still home - someone with a working phone, or at least a halfway decent roof. She ran up the porch steps and pounded on the large front door for several minutes but no one answered.

Looking around, Maya knew she didn't have much choice. She'd been in the rain too long. She was so cold and wet she could feel it sinking into her bones, numbing her from the inside out. Even if there wasn't a phone or someone to help her with her car, she could still get out of the storm and dry out.   

Maya tried the door. It opened easily enough. It didn't even creak like something out of a John Carpenter movie.

She walked into the darkened house. "Hello? Anyone home?" Maya called again, her voice trembling from the cold.

"I'm sorry, but my car broke down a few miles from here. I need to use a phone." She tried to keep her voice as even and passive as possible. She didn't want to get shot because someone thought she was a criminal or something. She knew people in these parts didn't take too kindly to trespassers, even of the female variety.  

Maya took a good look around. The house had an ominous, almost oppressive feel to it. Like no one had lived in it for decades but maybe something else had moved in and now called this place home. Most of the furnishings were covered in dust-covered sheets and the cobwebs hung so low they rivaled the rotting drapes. Taking a deep breath, Maya headed further inside in search of a working phone or someone who could help with her car.

She was really holding out for finding a phone instead of an actual person. She really didn't want to meet anyone that called this place home.

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Daniel watched the drenched woman make her way inside his house with the eyes of a well trained predator. It'd been close to a decade since he'd had a visitor of any sort – even the occasional inspector stopped dropping by, robbing Daniel of even that little bit of fun.

Over the long years he'd found amusement in dealing with the curious trespassers who'd sought him out; men and women alike, interested in proving his existence was more than a colorful local legend. But people had changed. Curses, superstitions, even legends no longer drove the curious out. People no longer spoke of him in awed tones. They no longer ventured to see if such damned creatures truly existed.

Granted, he hadn't really helped his cause any over the years. The one time he'd been too lazy for his usual scares had to be the one time those stupid children from some production dropped by. With their bulky equipment and lights, he'd watched as they moved through the house looking for signs of the cursed plantation ghost. He'd almost made himself known, but he wasn't some kind of exhibit. He wasn't a trained circus animal one called out to do his little, "tricks." He'd given them a silent fuck-you as they spent the night in what had once been his home, but unfortunately for him, it'd been the proverbial nail in the coffin of his dying legend.

It wouldn't be long before Daniel was forgotten entirely. Then, even the morbidly curious would stop coming, yet he would remain. Cursed to live out eternity like a bloody wraith – like the starving shadow of the man he'd once been.

He studied the intruder as she made her way deeper inside, the storm blowing in more than just the late summer rain. This was not simply a wayward soul lost in the storm, this was a lone woman. His nostrils flared, his eyes glinting in the shadows as he pulled in the essence of her into what passed for his body. She smelled of wind and rain, dirt and soggy leaves but beneath that elemental aroma was the intoxicating scent of a woman in her prime.

As his eyes watched her progress, he was struck by the irony of his new visitor.

The woman was a hot mess.

She smelled pretty good, once you got past the top layer, but she looked like she'd walked straight out of the swamp. A ghastly sight, she stood in his foyer soaking and shivering in her clunky boots. The woman reminded Daniel more of a drowned sea rat than an actual woman. Her face was extremely pale and her dark hair clung to her scalp in ugly clumps. Mud coated most of her clothing and skin.

As she made her way down the hallway her shoes squelched, leaving tiny, brown colored puddles as she went. Her lips were so blue they were closer to purple. It looked like the cold had worked deep inside into her very core.

If Daniel could feel pity he might have felt some for her. She looked utterly miserable and he and misery had been kindred souls for some time now. But pity was an emotion he'd lost long ago. The only thing he had left was his voracious hunger. His only comfort the promise of retribution, of vengeance against the witch who'd cursed him.  

Still he was not without his own sense of curiosity. How would this woman react once she suspected there was something else with her inside the walls of his house? Would she head back out into the storm where she'd surely die? He'd been born and raised in Louisiana and knew the weather well. No one would be able to survive this type of storm without shelter. 

But people were strange. The strongest man would be the one to weep like a baby for his mama when a few mice scurried across his bed (though Daniel liked to use more than a few mice for that particular trick), while a young boy might stare unflinching into the face of a real ghost, even ask his name. The living were definitely odd, and they seemed to be getting more and more so as time marched on. 

Perhaps this mystery woman would put up with an angry, most likely insane ghost if it meant she could wait out the storm. Or maybe she'd run out screaming like so many others. Daniel wasn't sure. But he would be patient. His black eyes gleamed in the darkness as he retreated slowly into the shadows.

It had been too long since his last visitor, too long since he'd had some fun around this place of loneliness and death; his ultimate prison thanks to the bitch witch of the bayou. 

He would make this one last.  

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**A/N: The attached video is Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' because I think this is the sort of song that should play in the background whenever ANYONE enters a haunted house (so you know exactly what you're stepping into!). Enjoy! wendy =c]