I was a night owl, always had been. My most productive hours fell when the world was silent and shrouded in darkness. It was during these hours that I wrote my stories, played my video games, and most importantly, made my living. I worked for Uber Eats in Los Angeles, a job that suited my nocturnal lifestyle perfectly.
This story begins on a humid summer night. I had just finished delivering a late-night pizza to a college kid studying for his exams. As I drove back to the more bustling part of town, I noticed a new order popping up on my phone. It was an address I didn’t recognize, nestled in an older, less-traveled part of the city. It was a place few people ventured after dark. But an order was an order, and I accepted it.
The order was simple: a single cheeseburger from a fast-food joint. As I picked up the order, the server gave me a peculiar look. “That’s a long way to go for a burger,” she said, looking at the delivery address on her screen.
I shrugged it off, attributing her concern to the lateness of the hour and the remote location of the delivery address. I thanked her and headed out, the aroma of the freshly cooked burger filling my car.
The journey to the address was eerie. The further I went, the less familiar the surroundings became. The vibrant, crowded streets of LA gave way to narrower, desolate roads, shrouded in shadows and an oppressive silence. The city’s soundscape faded into a background hum, replaced by the haunting whispers of wind through the skeletal trees lining the road.
As I turned onto the street indicated by my GPS, a chilling sense of unease crept over me. The houses here were old and decrepit, their boarded-up windows and overgrown lawns indicative of a long-abandoned neighborhood. It was as if I had stepped into a ghost town within the heart of the metropolis.
My headlights landed on the house matching the delivery address. It was a dilapidated two-story building, the chipped paint and crumbling facade adding to its eerie appearance. But what unsettled me most was its windows - they were not boarded up like the others, instead covered by old, faded curtains that seemed to shift ever so slightly.
A sensible person would have turned back, but the reality of my financial situation compelled me to carry out the task. I got out of my car, the cheeseburger in hand, and approached the house. The overgrown weeds crunched under my shoes, the sound unnaturally loud in the unsettling silence.
I knocked on the door, the sound echoing through the hollowed-out house. As I waited for a response, a chill ran down my spine. There was something profoundly wrong about this place, an ominous aura that I couldn’t shake. And then, the unthinkable happened. The door creaked open on its own, revealing an enveloping darkness within.
“Hello?” I called out, my voice tremulous, swallowed up by the darkness inside. An unsettling stillness hung in the air, broken only by the distant echo of my own words.
I was about to turn around, my instincts screaming at me to get out of there when a voice drifted out from within the house. “Just leave it by the door, thank you.”
The voice was old and raspy, an underlying tone of weakness evident in its timbre. Sympathy momentarily dampened my fear, as I realized this could be an elderly person unable to cook for themselves. I put the bag down near the entrance, took a picture to confirm delivery, and hurried back to my car. As I drove away, I glanced back at the house. The front door was still open, the burger untouched.
The following night, a new order buzzed on my phone. My blood ran cold as I saw the same address from last night. It was the same order: a single cheeseburger. With a deep sigh, I accepted the order. I tried to convince myself that there was nothing to worry about. An elderly person, in need, was depending on me.
As I turned onto the same, abandoned street, my hands were shaking slightly. The sight of the house, bathed in the cold glow of my headlights, did nothing to ease my anxiety. Gathering my courage, I approached the house and left the cheeseburger by the front door. This time, no voice acknowledged me, and the door remained closed.
Days turned into a week, and every night, the order from the old house came in like clockwork. Each time, I left a cheeseburger by the front door, and each time, there was no response. My initial fear turned into an uncomfortable routine, the mystery of the old house and its unseen occupant never leaving my thoughts.
On the eighth night, things changed. The voice, frail and weak, called out again as I set down the cheeseburger. “Could you… could you come in and place it on the table? I’m… not feeling well.”
Against my better judgment, I pushed the door open and stepped into the house. The air was stale, heavy with the smell of decay and damp wood. I strained my eyes to adjust to the darkness, flicking on the flashlight on my phone. The narrow beam cut through the shadows, illuminally a pathway strewn with old, tattered furniture and cobwebs. I placed the burger on a rickety table and backed out, not daring to explore further.
As I drove away, the feeling of unease was stronger than ever, the image of the decaying interior imprinted in my mind. The house was not fit for habitation, yet someone was living there, surviving off of a single cheeseburger every night. But who were they, and why did they choose to live this way? And, most importantly, why did I feel an uncanny sense of dread every time I stepped foot on that property? As the nights wore on, I realized I was about to discover answers that I may not be prepared for.
My nights became plagued by nightmares, the old house taking on monstrous proportions in my sleep-addled mind. I would be back in the decaying living room, the weak voice whispering unseen, leading me deeper into the bowels of the house. I would wake up drenched in sweat, the echoes of the whisper still resonating in my ears.
And still, the orders kept coming. I started to dread the pings on my phone as night fell, knowing that inevitably, one of them would lead me back to the old house. Each visit felt like I was intruding into a story I wasn’t meant to be a part of, an uninvited character in a slowly unfurling horror tale.
On the twelfth night, my worst fears came to pass. As I laid the cheeseburger at the front door, the voice drifted out, sounding weaker than ever. “Can you… please… bring it… to me?”
I hesitated at the entrance, every instinct screaming at me to refuse. But the pleading tone in the voice tugged at my humanity. Swallowing hard, I stepped into the dimly lit interior.
The house seemed to groan around me as I walked deeper, following the voice that was now a barely audible whisper. My heart pounded in my chest as I moved past rotting furniture, the beam of my phone’s flashlight bouncing off peeling wallpaper and bare wooden floors.
Finally, I reached a dilapidated door at the end of a long, narrow hallway. With a trembling hand, I pushed the door open. Inside was a figure, huddled under threadbare blankets on an old bed, the room reeking of decay and neglect.
“Over… here…” The figure lifted a frail hand, gesturing to a bedside table. I placed the burger there, my eyes never leaving the shadowy form under the blankets. As I turned to leave, the voice stopped me.
“Thank you…”
Something in the tone, a mix of relief and sorrow, rooted me to the spot. I found myself asking the question that had been gnawing at me for days. “Who are you?”
There was a pause, the silence stretching on until it felt unbearable. Then, the figure under the blanket stirred. “Just… an old man… waiting… to be… forgotten.”
I left the house that night with a heavy heart, the sadness in the old man’s voice haunting me. As I continued to deliver the cheeseburgers night after night, I began to feel a sense of duty, a need to ensure that this lonely soul was not forgotten.
But with each visit, the atmosphere in the house grew more oppressive, the sense of dread escalating into tangible fear. I started to hear things - whispers in the silence, sighs in the creaking wood, laughter in the rustling wind. The house was alive, its malignant energy growing stronger with each passing night.
Until one night, the cheeseburger order didn’t come in. Nor the next night, nor the night after that. I found myself driving past the house anyway, a sick feeling of worry gnawing at me. On the fourth day, I summoned the courage to enter the house.
The silence inside was deafening, the usual whispering voice absent. I moved towards the room, my heart pounding. As I pushed open the door, the sight that greeted me made my blood run cold.
The bed was empty, the room colder than ever. But what truly terrified me was the state of the room. It looked untouched, unused, for years. No sign that the frail, dying man had ever been there.
In my heart, I knew I’d been delivering meals to a ghost, a lingering spirit tied to the old house, and I was part of his unfinished story. Fear took a backseat to an overwhelming sadness as I realized the truth. The urban legend of the old, haunted house wasn’t just a legend after all, and the ghost, the lonely old man, was finally at rest.
As I left the house for the final time, I could swear I heard a whisper on the wind, an ethereal voice saying, “Thank you.” The haunted Uber Eats house remained as a chilling reminder of my encounter with the supernatural, a tale that would haunt my dreams for a long time to come. YT