Delilah

Scared woman in a house via Pixabay

Delilah loved her new home, except for the weird feeling she experienced in certain locations, particularly near the front door. This past week, she'd felt so scared near the door that she began exiting the house through the patio and coming around the side. The house was beautiful, but Delilah began to have thoughts of moving away, far away. 

She stood on the patio, sipping her coffee, wondering if she was losing her mind. Maybe she was just lonely with Tom gone all the time now that his band was a success. All the good things he had promised her in his silly hit song had come to pass, so why wasn't she happy?

"Hey there, Delilah!" Andy the pool guy greeted her with the line from the song. Everyone knew she was that Delilah, and while at first it was off-putting to be famous, she'd long since gotten used to it. 

She watched him unload the supplies from his cart and begin to test the water. "Morning, Andy." Usually, she went back inside while he worked, but today she didn't feel like being in the house alone. Sometimes lately she felt it was alive, breathing, waiting. Waiting for what? She didn't know.

When Andy was finished, Delilah invited him in so she could write his check. "Does it seem funny in here to you?" she asked him abruptly with her pen in the air.

"Funny?" he repeated. "Not sure what you mean."

"In the foyer especially." Delilah motioned for him to follow her toward the front door. "It's... colder right here or something. It gives me the shivers. And the light never works. I changed the bulb twice."

Andy glanced up and around. "Well, it could be the AC vents. Want me to close them for you? I can grab my ladder. Not sure about the light, but I know an electrician who could check it out. Or maybe you're psychic and getting flashbacks of the stabbing. Haha, just kidding!"

"Wait, what stabbing?" she stared at him in horror, as a dark, cold fog seemed to settle around her.

"Yikes, you don't know." He shrugged. "I guess it was just a local story."

Delilah was growing increasingly annoyed as well as terrified. "What was it?" she yelled, opening the door to let the sunshine in. 

Andy seemed startled at her tone. "Nothing for you to worry about. Around twenty years ago, a crazy guy was obsessed with a woman who lived here. One morning he knocked on her door and stabbed her to death when she opened it. He told the police she was cheating on him, but it turned out they'd never met and he'd been stalking her for months. He would stand over there," Andy pointed at the park across the street, "watching her from behind the trees. They said he was unfit for trial and committed him to a mental institution."

"Oh, my God, that's horrible." Delilah vowed she would tell Tom that they had to move. After Andy left with his check, she began googling for information. She skipped dinner and kept searching as it grew dark outside. There was no way she would be able to sleep in this house again. Maybe she should go to a hotel. She realized that Tom had forgotten to call, so she texted him, but it didn't go through. She resumed her online search. It was hard to find old news stories with all the ads and crap cluttering up the pages, but she kept clicking. Finally, she found it, just like Andy had described.

Except he had left out one thing: the murdered woman's name was Delilah.

~*~

Written for Fandango's Loosely Based series with inspiration from the Plain White T's song "Hey There Delilah" (writing credit to Tom Higgenson) as well as the oldie "Delilah" sung by Tom Jones (writing credit to Barry Mason).