Dark and windy, the rain was beating against the window. Although he had read it many times, Harry was again reading his favorite poem, “The Raven,” by Edgar Allen Poe, the king of American Gothic tales.

The mood was haunting; the lights were low. A perfect night for a ghost story. It was nearly midnight. Harry sat alone reading in his living room chair. Harry read:

      Once upon a midnight dreary,

      While I pondered weak and weary...

"Ah, a long ago story of a broken-hearted man sitting alone at night reading letters from his deceased lover,” Harry thought.

      Suddenly there came a tapping,

      as of someone gently rapping,

      rapping at my chamber door...

      ...here I opened wide the door

      Darkness there and nothing more.

"No one there, creepy," Harry felt a little chill run up his spine.

      Deep into the darkness peering,

      long I stood there wondering

      fearing...

At that very moment, Harry heard a tapping on his own door. Tap, Tap, Tap.

Harry's heart jumped! He froze in his chair! “Who could that be?” he thought. “No one I know would be visiting me at this late hour.” His mind was racing, his heart too.

Knock, Knock, Knock. The sound was louder. Harry sat ... and sat ... and sat. "Maybe they'll go away."

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. Harry nearly fell out of his chair. "I can't take it any more!" he said aloud. He jumped up and went to the door.

If it was a ghost, he would just have to face it. Maybe if he screamed at it, he could scare it away. Harry yanked open the door and screamed at the top of his lungs, “AAAAAH! “

A shocked young boy screamed back, “AAAAAH!” as he stumbled backwards dropping several pizza boxes.

He picked up one box and reached out with it. "P-P-P-Pizza delivery" the boy said nervously.

"What?"

"Isn't this a-p-p-p-partment 4-13?"

"Are you kidding me? I would never live in such an unlucky apartment." Harry glanced at his door and sure enough it had the number 413. “What is this, some kind of joke? Who's been playing with my door?” Harry snapped off the 3 and the 4 from his door and snapped them back on correctly as 314.

"Sorry for the inconvenience," said the boy. He quickly turned and ran away, leaving the several pizzas on the floor.

"Inconvenience!" he huffed, "he has no idea."

“Well,” thought Harry, “no sense in letting good pizza go to waste.” He picked up the pizza, peered up and down the hall, and slowly closed the door. He returned to his chair, his ghost story, and free pizza.