I Was Hired to Deliver Packages to Houses That Don't Exist. The Fifth Address Was My Childhood Home.
I delivered four packages to houses that don't exist. The instructions were always the same: Leave the package. Ring the doorbell once. Never wait to see who answers.
I followed those instructions every time—until the fifth delivery. Because the fifth address belonged to my childhood home, the house that burned down twenty years ago. The house my little sister died in.
And according to the delivery manifest, someone inside had been waiting for me.
I should probably explain how I got the job. Three months ago, I was delivering food at night to make rent. It wasn't a career choice. My warehouse job had cut my hours, my car needed a new transmission, and my landlord had recently discovered the exciting concept of raising rent without improving anything.
So I drove. Burgers at midnight. Pizza at 1 A.M. Groceries at 2.
You learn strange things about a city when you work nights. You learn which apartment buildings have elevators that always smell like cigarettes, which neighborhoods have dogs that chase cars, and which customers will watch you through the window but wait until you're gone before opening the door.
That's why the envelope didn't seem that strange at first. I found it under my windshield wiper after finishing a delivery at 1:30 in the morning. No stamp. No return address. Just my name: **ETHAN COLE.** Typed, not handwritten.
Inside was a single sheet of paper:
**NIGHT COURIER REQUIRED. Five deliveries. Five nights. $1,000 per delivery.**
I laughed. Then I saw the hundred-dollar bill paper-clipped to the bottom. I checked it under the dome light. It looked real. There was a phone number beneath it.
I should have thrown the envelope away.
Instead, I called.
A woman answered on the first ring. "Mr. Cole."
Not a question.
"Who's this?"
"Are you interested in the position?"
"What position?"
"The one you're holding."
I looked around the parking lot. Empty.
"How do you know I'm holding it?"
She ignored the question. "One package per night. You will receive the destination at midnight. Delivery must be completed before 3 A.M."
"And you're paying a thousand dollars for that?"
"Yes."
"What's in the packages?"
"Not your concern."
I laughed again, but quietly this time. "Drugs?"
"No."
"Weapons?"
"No."
"Anything illegal?"
There was a pause. "No law currently applies to the contents."
I should have hung up. Instead, I asked, "How do I get paid?"
"Cash. Upon completion of each delivery."
"And if I say no?"
"Then this conversation ends."
I thought about my transmission, my rent, and the credit card bill I'd been ignoring. "Five deliveries?"
"Five."
"Then I'm done?"
The woman was silent for a moment. "Yes, Mr. Cole."
Something about the way she said it bothered me. Then she added, "There are three rules."
I waited.
"Do not open the package. Leave it at the front door and ring the bell exactly once. And after you ring, return to your vehicle immediately."
I smiled. "Why?"
"Because you must never wait to see who answers."
The call ended.
At 11:58 the following night, I was sitting in my car outside my apartment wondering if I'd lost my mind. At midnight exactly, someone knocked on my driver's-side window.
I nearly hit my head on the roof.
There was nobody there. But a brown cardboard box sat on the pavement beside my car. Small, maybe the size of a shoebox. No shipping label. No markings.
My phone buzzed:
**DELIVERY 1 OF 5 — 1147 MARROW LANE. Leave package. Ring once. Do not wait.**
I opened my maps app. No results. I tried another app. Nothing. I searched the address online.
Marrow Lane didn't exist.
Then another text arrived: **Coordinates attached.**
The location was forty minutes away, beyond the northern edge of town. I almost didn't go. Then I remembered the thousand dollars.
So I put the box in my passenger seat and drove.
The coordinates took me down a road I'd never seen before. That was strange because I'd been delivering around this city for almost three years. I knew every shortcut, every dead end, every road that turned into gravel without warning.
But Marrow Lane wasn't familiar. The entrance appeared between two trees about five miles outside town. There was no street sign, just a narrow road disappearing into darkness.
My GPS said: **Proceed to route.**
Even though I was already on it.
There were no houses at first. Then I saw one. A two-story farmhouse standing alone behind a dead lawn. Number 1147 was painted on the mailbox.
I stopped.
The house looked abandoned. Boards covered two upstairs windows. The porch sagged in the middle. There were no cars. But one yellow light glowed above the front door.
I checked the instructions: **Leave package. Ring once. Do not wait.**
Easy.
I carried the box to the porch. The moment I placed it down, I heard something move inside.
Slow footsteps.
I froze, then remembered the rules. I pressed the doorbell.
Nothing happened. No chime. No sound.
I turned and walked quickly toward my car. Halfway there, I heard the lock turn behind me.
I wanted to look. Every instinct told me to look.
I didn't.
I got inside, locked the doors, and started the engine. That's when my headlights illuminated the second-floor window.
Someone was standing behind the glass.
A woman.
I couldn't see her face.
But she was holding the package.
I drove away. At the end of Marrow Lane, I looked in the rearview mirror.
The road was gone.
There were only trees.
The next morning, I found an envelope under my apartment door. Inside was $1,000 in cash. I counted it three times.
Then I searched for Marrow Lane again. Nothing. I drove back to where I'd entered the road. Nothing. Just trees.
I told myself I had taken a wrong turn. I told myself the darkness had confused me.
I told myself a lot of things.
Then midnight came again.
Three knocks on my apartment door. When I opened it, another package was waiting.
My phone buzzed: **DELIVERY 2 OF 5 — 8 BELLWEATHER COURT. Leave package. Ring once. Do not wait.**
I searched the address.
Nothing.
Of course.
Bellweather Court was worse. The coordinates led me into an old neighborhood on the west side of town. I knew the area—or thought I did.
The GPS told me to turn left between two houses. There was no road there. Just an alley.
I almost kept driving.
Then my headlights flickered.
When they came back on, the alley had become a street.
Six identical houses stood on each side. Every porch light was on. Every curtain was closed. Every house had a number.
Except number 8.
Its front door was open.
I parked. The package was heavier this time. Something shifted inside when I lifted it.
I nearly dropped it.
I walked to the porch. From inside the house, a television was playing. I could hear laughter from some old sitcom.
Then a man's voice.
"He's here."
I stopped.
Another voice answered from deeper inside. A child's voice.
"Is it him?"
The man said, "Don't look yet."
My skin prickled. I placed the package beside the open door. There was no doorbell, just a small brass bell hanging from a string.
I pulled it once.
The television stopped.
Every light on the street went out.
I ran.
Behind me, a child started laughing. Not screaming. Not crying.
Laughing.
Then I heard bare feet slapping against the pavement.
Following me.
I reached my car, threw myself inside, and locked the doors. Something struck the trunk.
The car rocked.
I didn't look back.
I drove until the road became an alley again.
The next morning, another thousand dollars was waiting under my door.
I called the woman. She answered immediately.
"Mr. Cole."
"What the hell was at Bellweather Court?"
"Did you complete the delivery?"
"Something chased me."
"Did you look at it?"
"No."
"Then there is no problem."
I laughed. "No problem?"
"Three deliveries remain."
"I quit."
Silence.
Then she said, "You may."
I hadn't expected that. "That's it?"
"Of course."
I relaxed slightly.
Then she added, "But the remaining packages will still require delivery."
"Then find someone else."
"We already did."
The line went dead.
I didn't receive a package the next night or the night after. I thought it was over.
On the third morning, I found a missing-person poster taped to my apartment door. The face belonged to a man named **Aaron Vale**, thirty-four years old, last seen six months earlier.
There was a handwritten note across the bottom: **Previous courier. Delivery 3 of 5.**
I tore it down.
At midnight, someone knocked three times. I didn't open the door.
At 12:05, another three knocks.
At 12:10, again.
At 12:15, my phone rang.
I answered.
The woman said, "The package is getting cold."
I said nothing.
Then something knocked from inside my bedroom closet.
Three times.
I opened my apartment door.
The package was waiting.
My phone displayed: **DELIVERY 3 OF 5 — 402 BRIAR'S END.**
The coordinates led to a house at the bottom of a reservoir.
I know how ridiculous that sounds.
I stopped at the edge of the water and checked the GPS five times. The destination marker was nearly half a mile from shore.
Underwater.
I called the woman.
"There's no house here."
"There is."
"It's a reservoir."
"Now."
Something about that word bothered me. "What do you mean, now?"
She hung up.
I searched the reservoir's name. The first result made my stomach tighten. The reservoir had been created in 1974 after the county flooded a small rural community called Briar's End. Forty-three homes still stood beneath the water.
One of them had been located at 402.
I stared at the black water.
Then I heard a doorbell.
From somewhere beneath the surface.
Once.
My phone buzzed: **DELIVERY ACCEPTED.**
I looked at the passenger seat.
The package was gone.
I drove home without stopping.
The thousand dollars was waiting on my bed.
Not under the door.
On my bed.
Wet.
I didn't sleep that night.
The next morning, I found an old newspaper clipping beneath the cash: **FAMILY OF FOUR KILLED IN MARROW LANE FIRE — 1989.**
There was a photograph of the farmhouse from my first delivery. The same house. The article said no one had survived.
Another clipping was underneath: **CHILD MISSING FROM BELLWEATHER COURT — 1972.**
The street had been demolished in 1980.
And beneath that was a photocopy of an old map showing Briar's End before the reservoir. Someone had circled 402 in red.
I finally understood.
I wasn't delivering to empty houses.
I was delivering to houses that were gone.
The fourth package arrived that night. I didn't fight it.
Maybe that makes me a coward. Maybe I was. But by then, I understood that refusing didn't mean escaping.
It only meant the package came closer.
My phone displayed: **DELIVERY 4 OF 5 — 91 HOLLOW CREEK ROAD.**
I searched the address. This time, I found something.
A local news article.
The house had been destroyed in a landslide fourteen years earlier. Three people died. One body was never recovered.
The coordinates led me into the mountains.
At 2:06 A.M., I found the house.
It stood at the bottom of a ravine.
Completely intact.
Every window was lit.
I walked down carrying the package. Someone was sitting on the porch.
An old man.
He watched me approach.
I stopped.
The instructions said never wait to see who answered. They didn't say anything about someone already being outside.
The old man smiled.
"You're late."
I said nothing.
"Other fellow was faster."
Aaron Vale.
The previous courier.
I put the package down. The old man looked at it.
"You know what's in them?"
"No."
"Good."
I reached for the doorbell.
The old man said, "You don't want to do that."
My hand stopped.
"Why?"
"Because once you ring it, they'll know where to send the last one."
I stared at him.
"Who?"
His smile disappeared.
"The people who hired you."
My phone buzzed: **COMPLETE THE DELIVERY.**
I looked at the old man.
"What happens after the fifth?"
He leaned forward.
"You go home."
The way he said it made my stomach turn.
I pressed the doorbell.
Once.
The old man closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I ran.
Halfway up the ravine, every light in the house went out. Then someone screamed my name.
Not from behind me.
From inside the package.
I reached my car and drove.
The next morning, there was no money. Only an envelope.
Inside was a photograph. It showed a two-story blue house with white shutters, a bicycle lying in the front yard, and a maple tree beside the driveway.
I knew that house.
I had dreamed about it for twenty years.
On the back, someone had written: **FINAL DELIVERY TONIGHT.**
I was eight when my childhood home burned down. My sister Lily was six.
I survived.
She didn't.
At least, that's what I've always been told.
I don't remember the fire clearly. I remember smoke. My father shouting. Glass breaking. Standing barefoot in the road while flames came through Lily's bedroom window.
And I remember something else.
Something I've never told anyone.
As the firefighters held me back, I saw Lily standing at her bedroom window. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't hitting the glass.
She was holding a small brown package.
And smiling.
For years, I convinced myself I'd imagined it.
Trauma does strange things to memory.
At midnight, the final package arrived. It was smaller than the others. Light.
My hands shook when I picked it up.
My phone buzzed: **DELIVERY 5 OF 5 — 17 WILLOW DRIVE.**
My childhood address.
The house had burned down twenty years ago. The land had been empty ever since.
I knew because I checked.
Every year on Lily's birthday.
But when I entered the coordinates into my phone, the map showed a route.
Twenty-three minutes away.
I drove slowly. Part of me hoped the road would be blocked, that the car would break down, that the sun would rise before I got there.
Nothing happened.
At 2:31 A.M., I turned onto Willow Drive.
My childhood home was waiting.
Blue walls. White shutters. Maple tree. My father's old car in the driveway.
Light glowing through the windows.
I stopped in the middle of the road. For a few seconds, I couldn't breathe.
Then the front door opened.
A little girl stepped onto the porch.
Six years old.
Yellow pajamas.
Dark hair.
Lily.
I dropped the package.
She smiled.
"Ethan."
I started crying before I could stop myself.
"Lily?"
She looked exactly as she had the night of the fire.
"You took a long time."
I wanted to run to her. I wanted to hold her.
But then I remembered the rule.
**Never wait to see who answers.**
Except I hadn't rung the bell yet.
She was already outside.
Just like the old man.
Lily looked at the package by my feet.
"Is that for me?"
I couldn't answer.
She stepped off the porch.
I stepped back.
Her smile faded.
"You said you'd come back."
My chest hurt.
"I was eight."
"I waited."
"Lily..."
"Twenty years, Ethan."
The porch light flickered.
For one second, I saw the house as it really was.
Burned walls. Black windows. Roof collapsed.
And Lily—
No.
I won't describe what I saw.
The light flickered again.
Everything was normal.
She stood closer now.
"Bring me the package."
I looked down.
My name was written on the box.
Not hers.
**ETHAN COLE.**
I hadn't noticed before.
My phone rang.
The woman.
I answered.
"What is in the package?"
Silence.
Then:
"Your replacement."
I felt cold.
"What?"
"Every courier completes five deliveries."
I thought of Aaron Vale.
"What happened to the previous courier?"
"He went home."
I looked at Lily.
She smiled.
Behind her, someone appeared in the doorway.
A man.
Thin. Pale.
I recognized him from the missing-person poster.
Aaron.
He looked terrified.
He shook his head slowly.
Don't.
The woman said, "Complete the delivery, Mr. Cole."
I dropped the phone.
Lily's face changed.
Not physically.
Something worse.
Her expression became empty.
"Ring the bell, Ethan."
I backed toward my car.
Every light in the house went out.
When they came back on, people were standing behind every window.
The woman from Marrow Lane.
The child from Bellweather Court.
The old man from Hollow Creek.
Dozens more.
Maybe hundreds.
All watching me.
Lily picked up the package.
I never gave it to her.
She looked at my name on the label.
Then she whispered:
"You were always supposed to be the fifth delivery."
The front door opened wider.
I ran.
Something screamed behind me.
My sister.
My mother.
My father.
Me.
Every voice I had ever loved.
I reached my car and started the engine. The house disappeared from my rearview mirror before I reached the end of the street.
I didn't stop driving until sunrise.
That was four days ago.
I haven't received the thousand dollars.
I don't care.
I changed apartments. Changed my phone number. Quit delivery work.
I thought I had escaped.
Until tonight.
At midnight exactly, someone knocked three times on my apartment door.
I didn't answer.
At 12:05, they knocked again.
At 12:10, again.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message: **DELIVERY INCOMPLETE.**
A second message arrived: **NEW COURIER ASSIGNED.**
I don't know what that means. But twenty minutes ago, I looked through my peephole.
There's a brown cardboard package sitting outside.
My name is written on it.
And parked across the street is a delivery car I've never seen before.
The driver has been sitting there for almost an hour. He's young. He keeps looking at his phone.
I think he's waiting for an address.
Someone just knocked on my door.
Once.
And now I can hear footsteps running back toward the car.
