(Image provided by Paul Cleveland)

Danny disliked the new home. It was fine enough during the day but at night things changed. At night, the walls began to whisper. Most of the time it sounded like faint hissing, or perhaps someone whispering just far enough away that you could hear them but not understand what they were saying. Then there were times when the whispering became louder and words were apparent.

“Get out,” they would say. “Leave this place,” was also a common refrain. “Only death awaits those who ignore our warnings,” was the most troubling of the messages.

It didn’t help that nearly everyone in Danny’s family kept getting sick at night. No one believed Danny about the voices, though. At best his parents said he was just dreaming even though Danny knew he was always wide awake whenever the voices started talking. It was hard to get people to believe you when you were eight.

“This house is haunted,” Danny announced on the fifth morning since they’d moved in.

“Please, Danny,” mom sighed while she got his breakfast ready.

His dad and older sister, Kari, were already at the table though niether one had yet to touch their food. Everyone looked a bit green and were still recovering from the previous night’s nausea.

“Just get something to eat and you’ll feel better,” mom said, “we always do.”

Danny sat down but, like the others, didn’t start eating just yet.

“Isn’t it weird that we all get sick at night?” he asked.

“It’s just a stomach bug,” dad shrugged. “It’ll pass in a couple more days.

“But we feel fine during the day,” Danny pressed on. “Why are we only sick at night?”

“Danny,” mom’s tone took on a hint of warning as she sat down with her own plate of food. She tried to force herself to take a bit but her fork stopped halfway to her mouth as her face flushed green.

“Maybe it’s the curse,” Kari said.

“Not helping,” dad said.

“But didn’t the people who used to live here put a curse on it or something?” Kari asked.

“No, because curses aren’t real,” dad replied, finally taking a bit of food and getting to down. “They lost the house in a foreclosure and were upset. They might have shouted a bit and said some crazy stuff, but there’s no curse.”

“What if they come back here?” Kari asked a bit more reserved now.

“That’s what the restraining order is for,” dad said as he contemplated a second bite. “If they come back then we just call the police and let them handle it.”

That reminder was enough to get everyone to stay quiet for the rest of breakfast. The previous owners hadn’t taken the foreclosure well. It scared Danny and Kari when they’d shown up the day after they’d moved in, shouting and screaming about curses and payback. Danny’s parents thought that was why he was hearing things but he’d heard the whispers on their first night in the house.

“Hurry up and get your shoes on,” mom said. “The bus’ll be here soon.”

Danny and Kari both hurried to finish getting ready. The nausea was gone by now and everyone was up and moving.

“I’ll see you all this evening,” dad called from the entryway before leaving the house.

“Love you!” mom called out but dad was already out the door.

“Bye!” both Danny and Kari called out before leaving as well.

The rest of the day went by like every other. School was just as it always was. Even though they’d moved, Danny and Kari were still in the same school as they’d been before so they didn’t have to worry about getting used to a new school, teachers, or classmates.

With everything else going on, Danny didn’t have time to really think about his haunted house until it was bedtime again. He really didn’t want to go to his room where he knew he’d begin hearing the voices again but his parents wouldn’t listen.

“Just go to bed,” mom pointed. “You’ve eaten, brushed your teeth, and you have school in the morning!”

“Can I sleep with you guys?” he asked. It had been a long while since he’d last done that but the fear of his room was too great.

“No, no go to bed before I have to pick you up and carry you there myself,” dad said.

Defeated, Danny slumped off to his room. Sleep was out of the question so he just sat on the edge of his bed, waiting for what he knew was coming. Sure enough, he began to hear the faint hissing, whispering sounds. Indistinct but obviously there.

“Death is in the walls.”

Danny stiffened as the first understandable whisper spoke.

“Tonight you will die if you remain here.”

This was too much for him. Danny leapt off his bed and ran out of his room. He made a bee line for his parents room and pounded on their door.

“I can hear it!” he cried as soon as they opened their door. “It says we’re going to die tonight!”

“Danny–

“NO! Come and listen for yourself, please!”

He was tugging on both of their wrists now and at last they relented and followed him. Once back inside his room they stood there, quietly listening. The hissing was faint but Danny could still hear it.

“Is that water in the pipes?” dad said after a while.

“Only if it’s a leak,” mom replied and both moved closer to the wall that whispered.

They looked at the wall a bit more while the hissing grew louder.

“Is this the noise you’ve been hearing?” dad asked.

“And the whispering,” he nodded.

“Is it always like this?”

“No, only at night.”

Both dad and mom looked confused.

“There is death inside these walls.”

Danny froze up.

“There isn’t death in these walls, Danny,” mom said, yawning.

“That wasn’t me,” Danny told them, “it was the ghost in the wall.”

Both his mom and dad gave him a flat look and were about to scold him when they were interrupted.

“Listen to the boy or death will claim you all.”

This time they knew he hadn’t been the one to speak. They’d been looking right at him. Slowly, all three of them turned to look back at the wall. Visually it was unchanged but now a powerful menace seemed to emanate from it.

“See?” Danny demanded. “I’m not making it up.”

“I think we’re all just tired,” mom said, shaken but not yet willing to believe.

“Sometimes people hear things when they’re tired,” dad agreed. “We all just need some sleep. Come on, you can sleep with us tonight.”

He bent down to scoop Danny up but Danny didn’t want that now. He wanted to leave the house and get away from this horrible place. He wanted to run, and even turned to do so but something caught hold of his ankle, tripping him and preventing him from leaving.

“Convince them or you all will perish.”

A cold sensation spread around his ankle. Before he could look, both his mo and dad cried out in shock and fear and leapt away from the wall and Danny. Now he really didn’t want to see what had him but his eyes were drawn to it as though he had no control over his own actions, like he was watching a movie.

A black shape was oozing out of the wall. It left no stain or other mark and was semi-transparent, almost like a body made out of shadow. One long and drippy arm was wrapped around Danny’s ankle while three other limbs worked to move the horror forwards. A pair of faintly glowing eyes marked its face.

“Death is in the walls,” it stated, pointing with one of it’s arms.

Danny screamed.

Mom screamed.

Dad threw the hamper at the thing and it passed through the body as though nothing was there.

Another horror came out of the wall but didn’t move towards Danny or his parents. Instead it turned towards the first horror and…and it sighed as though frustrated.

“You’re scaring them,” it said.

“There is death in the –

“In the walls, yes, and you’re warning them but they can’t hear you if they’re too busy screaming in fear.”

The first horror paused a moment, looking at the three people in the room, and then slowly let go of Danny’s ankle. The moment he was free he scrambled over to his parents who hugged him and then placed themselves between him and the horrors.

“There is poison leaking through your walls,” the second horror stated as it casually began ushering the first horror back into the wall. “It was hidden there by the ones who came before you. They seek retribution. You will die if you stay here.”

“They will not listen,” the first horror told the second, and indeed Danny noticed the look of stubborn resolve in his parents eyes. They would not believe what they were seeing or hearing.

“Can you help me?” Danny asked the horrors.

“We have tried to warn you.”

“You grabbed me,” Danny said as he formulated his plan. “Can you grab them and get them outside? I can get my sister.”

His parents looked at him aghast whereas the two horrors tilted their heads from one side to the other before nodding and crawling towards them.

“Get back!” dad shouted but there was nothing he could do against their slow yet inevitable advance.

Danny rushed out of his room and down the hall to Kari’s room. Already he was beginning to feel a little sick but he ignored it for now.

“Kari, come on,” he said, “we need to get out of here.”

Kari mumbled but didn’t rise. Danny tried tapping her on the shoulder, then shaking her but she wouldn’t wake. In the end he picked her up as best he could and then half dragged half carried her to the front door. His parent’s screams of terror were echoing through the house but they were drawing nearer which meant the horrors were proving successful in their attempts to force them out of the house.

It was dark and chilly outside but Danny wasn’t too bothered by that. He had more immediate concerns, like the couple standing on the edge of the front yard. They were the couple that was supposed to not be here. They looked disappointed to see Danny dragging his sister outside and then they grew worried. It was only then that Danny noticed there were a couple of odd metal tanks, like fire extinguishers, on the ground beside them and they were hooked up to some hoses that ran into the side of the house.

The screaming from the inside of the house was growing louder now, only adding to the strangeness of the situation. It wasn’t until the first horror backed out of the front door that the couple on the lawn seemed to shake out of their stupor. They pointed at the thing that was dragging Danny’s mom out of the house and stammered wordlessly, eyes bulging. When the second one began to emerge they turned to flee.

The screaming, however, had attracted enough attention that a neighbor had called the police and as the couple made to leave, the police car arrived.

“Stop!” the officer shouted and the couple, unsure of how best to proceed, hesitated long enough for Danny to shout.

“They’ve been poisoning us!”

The officers hurried to detain the couple and by the time that was done, the horrors had sunk down into the earth, leaving Danny’s mom and dad outside. They were pale and hoarse from screaming and it was Danny who pointed out the metal containers the couple had been standing by.

“Looks like they ran tubing into the house before they had to move out,” the officer said after inspecting the spot where the hoses went into the house.

“We’ve all been feeling really sick in the mornings,” Danny told them.

Paramedics arrived and began examining all of them. Kari had minor carbon monoxide poisoning but was coming around.

Danny didn’t mention the horrors to the police or the paramedics. His parents had made sure to get a quick and hurried word with him about that. In exchange, they promised he wouldn’t be in any trouble and they’d even go out for ice cream later. Then, perhaps, they’d start looking for a new home, although, then again, perhaps not. Maybe it was just the hissing they needed to deal with and not the whispering. Danny, for one, had decided he wasn’t so afraid of the whispers anymore.