Michael thought he was ready for his 30^th high school reunion. He’d missed his tenth because he had just started a new job out of town. He missed his 20^th because he was going through a bad divorce and just didn’t want to have to explain it to every one of his former classmates who would inevitably ask, “So, how’s your wife?”

But as his 30^th approached he felt all the stars were lining up – long-time job is going well, new marriage is going great… Perfect time to revisit his youth. Coming in from out of town, he booked an Airbnb in the neighborhood he grew up in and went to the restaurant where the reunion was held… and left early.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Turns out, the people who went to the reunions were all the people he never hung out with. And even then, they were in their same isolated groups. None of his people from high school showed and he ended up having a few whiskey sours at the restaurant’s bar by himself and then took an Uber back to his Airbnb.

When he got out of the Uber, he started up the walkway to the little cottage surrounded by innumerable McMansions and stopped. His elementary school was just around the block. He wasn’t sure if it was the disappointing reunion, returning home, or the whiskey sours, but he decided to walk over to his elementary school.

When he arrived at the dark campus he was greeted with another disappointment – the place had been completely remodeled and from the front only the sign announcing “Hollyhock Elementary” was the same as when he’d gone there so many years ago. But he ventured into the dark hallways out to the playground. Of course, the enormous wooden jungle gym he remembered had been replaced by a brightly colored plastic play structure that didn’t look like a kid could so much as scrape a knee on it.

But next to the ultra-safe playground, somehow the old swing set still sat on the edge of the yard, long chains rustling invitingly in the light breeze.

Michael smiled as he stepped into the sand that ringed the swings and sat on the thin black rubber arc of a seat. His feet firmly on the ground, he rocked back and forth and thought back to when he and his friend, Dave, would see who was brave enough to jump off the swing at the highest point and soar farthest to land in the sand. Much older and more responsible, Michael snickered at how fearless kids could be. Then he drew in a deep breath because he hadn’t thought about Dave for a long time. His playground friend never made it beyond fifth grade, cut down by an errant driver that ran a stop sign as Dave was riding his BMX home from school, this school.

From behind him, in the dark of the trees that bordered the school grounds, Michael heard children’s laughter echo his own.

He froze at the sound.

He waited stock still, listening for the laughter again, his body tensed between frozen terror and reckless flight. He stayed perfectly still listening to just the night wind in the pepper trees so long that he wondered if he had hallucinated the sound.

Slowly he started to relax – it had to have been the alcohol and the memories of this place. That’s all. Or some animal making a noise that sounded like children’s laughter. He was being ridiculous.

He even pushed off the ground and let the swing arc him back and forth lazily in the darkness. As he swung he stared at the gleaming new buildings that replaced the 1950’s structure he remembered. He let his mind’s eye remember back to what this looked like when he was a kid swinging at recess. He swung higher now – maybe not as recklessly high as he did when he was young and invulnerable, but still high enough to get a little thrill again. And then as the arc hit its zenith, he pushed off of the swing, and felt gravity pull him down to the sand.

It hurt more than he remembered, but he didn’t think he bruised anything. As he knelt on his knees in the sand, he had to admit it was still fun.

“Welcome home, Michael,” Dave’s voice spoke right next to his ear.

This came from an idea that Akilah suggested. And I love it when I take one of her ideas and run with it because after I finish my story I take my ancient MacBook out to her and read the story aloud and inevitably she says something like, “I like it… but that’s nothing like what I had in mind.” And that’s totally fair! We all have ideas and in our own mind’s eye that idea blossoms in a particular way, the story curving this way and that in a way our imagination sees fit. So, when you loose that idea, that kernel and someone else takes it… that’s part of the fun. (She did say she liked it, though!)

Everyone has always been afraid of the haunted house at the end of the street. We just never really knew why.

Let me back up and tell you about the neighborhood. It’s your typical cul-de-sac with cookie-cutter houses – mostly two story – sat on lots maybe a little too small for the houses, with little postage-stamp sized lawns in front. Two car garages stuffed with bicycles, kids’ toys, boxes, tools – never cars (except that one family that keeps their pristine Camry in the garage – we’re all wary of them…). Every Fourth of July there’s a block party. We all coordinate Christmas lights. It’s that kind of a place.

Well, almost. At the end of the cul-de-sac there’s a weed-choked dirt road that leads into brambles and down the hill. At the bottom is the most haunted house in the world. Okay, I mean, I heard some kids saying that, but it’s probably just the most haunted house in the state, right? County? City? It’s absolutely the most haunted place in our neighborhood. But that’s really all anyone knows about it.

Those same kids will dare each other to see how far down that dirt road they’ll go by themselves at night. And there are stories about witches driving kids off their property, or stories about murderous drifters who squat in the house. Supposedly an old man lived there with his dog that loved to attack kids balls – no, sorry, that’s the movie “Stand By Me.” But you see? There’re so many myths about this house and no one really knows what the story is.

Well, I’m about to find out.

Because I’m dead.

Did I bury the lede there? I probably did, yeah. Alright, well, it’s true. I am dead. I died a couple weeks back. It was out of the blue, really. I got the worst headache I’ve ever had – it made migraines look like annoyances. My wife made me lie down in a dark room – we were thinking super migraine – and I never woke up. I stuck around to hear doctors say things like “subarachnoid hemorrhage” and “ruptured intracranial aneurysm”. I knew enough of those words to know they’re terrible. And watching my family dealing with my sudden death… I wanted to stick around and comfort them, but… I’m a ghost. I wanted to be like Casper the Friendly Ghost, right? But they were… look, I’m going to move on, okay? I didn’t want to be there when I couldn’t do anything to assuage their grief, so… I thought about the haunted house at the end of the street.

I walked through the (closed) front door of my house at 622 Western Court, turned left and walked to the end of the street. When I reached the dirt road, I took one more look over my shoulder at my old house. The Taylors had just pulled up… looked like they were bringing Myra and the kids a casserole. They’ll love that… I turned and started down the dirt road.

When the house came into view the sun was setting and the place was dark. I don’t know what I expected – of course it was dark: it was an abandoned house! But I don’t know, I thought I’d have some sort of ghost sight – like cats have? Spectral night vision? Something to see my soon-to-be haunted house mates?

When I walked through the boarded up front door, though, I was greeted by… nothing. There was nothing and no one in there! I went through the whole house top to bottom. By top I literally mean all the way up to the roof. By bottom, I went down into the basement because I figured I shouldn’t be afraid of what’s lurking in the creepy basement because I was an actual ghost myself – I should be afraid of myself! But nothing.

The most haunted house in the world (or just the neighborhood) was ghostless. “Was” being the operative word, because it was my new home. It was dark and drafty, or I assumed it was owing to the broken windows and lack of lights, but it suited me just fine. There was even a rotting old bed in an upstairs bedroom that was comfy enough for me to rest my incorporeal body in when I got “tired” (I didn’t actually get tired, but old habits die hard (no pun intended) and sometimes it was fun to sleep for the sake of sleeping). It also had a great view of the reservoir further down the valley.

Maybe I was making too much noise or something, but I don’t think I was enjoying my new digs for a month before I came downstairs and ran into another ghost. “Dwayne? Dwayne Russell? What are you doing here? I thought you were dead?”

Dwayne looked at me incredulously. “Yeah, Bob, we’re both dead.”

“Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. But, I mean, didn’t you die a couple years ago?”

He let out an enormous sigh and said, “I did. I was trying to stick around by my family but…”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “What brings you to this place?”

“You were making so much noise!”

Okay, that’s actually pretty funny from a ghost perspective because, no, I wasn’t making much actual noise that would resonate in the living world. But ghost noise – not unlike ghosts ourselves – is governed by some weird physics (or lack thereof). So, even me just being here made a certain kind of spectral racket that attracted Dwayne.

And it wasn’t long before Mrs. Andrews came by – she had died from Alzheimer’s a couple of years back. Honestly, I never knew her before the disease – she was a kick as her pre-Alz self in ghost form. Dead pets started coming around – Scooter, my daughter’s cat that got hit by a car, sleeps with me on my rotting bed every night. By the end of that month the house was teeming with ghosts from the neighborhood. We were our own ghost support group! The jury is still out on whether it’s now the most haunted house in the world, but I can say it’s the best haunted housing in the world.

I worked my way through UC Santa Cruz working at the Round Table pizza on Mission Street. It’s no longer there – they tore the place down and replaced it with a taqueria a number of years after I graduated. On the weekends I stayed late to count the registers and there were frequently unexplained noises from the empty restaurant. Some nights I counted the tills with a kitchen knife right next to me – a lot of good it would have done! One of the managers said the place was indeed haunted, but other than noises which could have been any number of things and likely were, I didn’t see anything. Most of our delivery drivers were Brazilian, which is where I picked João from. And there was a guy – very much living at the time – who regularly ordered pineapple and anchovies – I know that sounds like a made up pizza, but I assure you, I had to make and sell that to this guy quite a few times. I’m not saying that young Jordy didn’t wish he was dead when I had to deal with that monstrosity of a pizza, but, as I said, he was – at the time – very much alive. Or was he? 

João parked in the “Delivery Drivers Only” spot behind Murphy’s Pizza and Wings and went in the employee entrance.

“Hey, João,” Mike, the manager greeted him. “I’ve got one more delivery for you.”

“No,” João replied, “I’m off at nine – it’s already nine fifteen!”

“I know, I know – I was going to have Kenny do it, but it’s your favorite place,” Mike grinned.

João abruptly stopped and stared at Mike. “515 McGovern?”

Mike’s grin widened and he nodded, “515 McGovern.”

“Anchovies and pineapple?”

“The only thing they ever order,” Mike confirmed. “Came in online, paid for and tipped.”

João stood stock still for a moment and then said simply, “When?”

Mike was already in motion, pulling a pizza off the oven’s conveyer belt with a wooden peel and transferring it to the cutting board in a smooth, practiced motion. “Right here,” he said picking up the long two-handled pizza cutter blade. Before he finished the cuts João had a box ready and Mike slid the pizza into the waiting corrugated cardboard, placed a little plastic pizza table into the middle, closed the box and slid it into the insulated bag.

“Good luck,” Mike said. “I know you’re after your time. Text me when you’re done, I’ll punch you out.”

“Thanks, Mike,” João said.

At a stoplight he verified the printed order, but everything was exactly the same – the “Delivery Notes” said, “Please ring doorbell and leave pizza on porch.” He drove past the streetlights at the edge of town and turned down McGovern Avenue a mile further. At the end of the road stood a dilapidated house. No lights shone within – João wondered if it even still had power. He’d been here during the day after the first few deliveries out of pure curiosity. In the daylight the peeling paint, cracked windows, and overgrown yard made the place look decrepit and sad. At night, lit only by the wan moonlight, the house looked imposing and, frankly, terrifying. In his mind, this is what Casa das Sete Mortes looked like that his avó used to tell him scary stories about – the “House of Seven Deaths” outside of São Paulo.

He stopped in the dirt driveway with his headlights angled towards the front door so he wouldn’t twist his ankle trying to walk up the broken path to the porch. He closed the door and shivered even though the night wasn’t particularly cold. He hurried up the porch and carefully set the pizza down right in front of the door, rang the doorbell and quickly raced back to his car.

He jumped into the driver’s seat of the idling Toyota, turned quickly and sped out of the driveway. But as soon as he reached the road he stopped the car, turned the engine off, grabbed the binoculars he kept in the car just for this reason, hopped out and ran as quietly as he could back down the driveway.

João stopped behind a tree with a direct view of the front porch – a spot he had decided on when he reconnoitered the place in the daylight. Looking through the binoculars, he could see the pizza still on the porch – he was still in time! He tried to quiet his breathing and slow his heartrate, but fear, anticipation, and the run down the driveway conspired to keep him keyed up. Just when he wondered whether he was wasting his time, he noticed movement.

The door started to open slowly.

João held his breath and stared intently.

From the widening crack of the front door, João could see a luminous glow – not like from an electrical light, but a more indistinct, diffused radiance. As the door opened wide enough, a figure moved out onto the porch. João could see the glowing figure of what looked like a middle-aged man lean down, pick up the pizza and then step back inside the house and slowly close the door.

“Oh meu Deus,” João breathed.

“I know!” A voice behind him spoke. “I keep telling him if he keeps ordering that disgusting pizza, I’m staying outside. It smells terrible!”

João turned to see a glowing woman ghost behind him. With a shriek, João sprinted into the darkness towards his car. “Right?” The ghost said after him. “Who orders that?!”