Danny's ghost is the main antagonist in the Goosebumps story The Ghost Next Door and appears as a black silhouette who stalks the protagonist, a teenage girl called Hannah. The ghost's ultimate goal is to break free of the spirit world.
Biography[]
Danny's ghost first appears when Hannah is at her Summer holidays and going back home after cycling round town for the day. She notices a strange black silhouette who seems to be following her. She thinks it's just her shadow but she realizes it's something different when the silhouette appears to be a man. He follows her home and says "Beware of Danny." The second time she sees the phantom, she is again cycling home and this time he follows her right to her door and says "Hannah, stay away. Stay away from Danny!" Hannah begins to be disturbed by these encounters.
Hannah has had suspicions that Danny, a boy who had become her new neighbour, is a ghost, because of his unexplained disappearances and eerie manner. At one point she goes to talk to his mother but she never answers the door or even hears her.
However, in one case the dark figure appears in front of her own door telling her to stay away, and he blocks her entrance until her father appears upon which the shadow vanishes. Having not seen him vanish, Hannah believes she's going crazy. Then the shadowy figure appears again in a nightmare which is presumably set in Hell itself. In the dream, the ghostly shadow leers at her, and glides right up to her until it stares in her face, then he unveils himself, revealing that underneath his veil of darkness is Danny's face. Hannah wonders if this means Danny is the dark figure, however she believes this is crazy and decides her dream makes no sense.
However, later on Hannah realizes that Danny isn't the ghost when she hears two women talking about a fire which destroyed a house and killed an entire family - her own family. Hannah soon realizes that she is the ghost, she has returned after ten years, and she begins to realize that the phantom who has been following her might be a ghost too.
She rushes home to warn her family but then finds they're all gone - they've departed back to the Afterlife. So Hannah is a ghost, by herself, and she broods, but then she notices Danny and his friends break into the house next door and pour oil all over it, then set alight to it. However, the ghost traps Danny in the house, and his friends run out to get help. Hannah gets up to the door, and she meets Danny's ghost, who pulls back his hood, and reveals himself as Danny's ghost, and says that he is there to replace Danny, as when Danny dies in the fire, he will no longer be a ghost - he will be reborn, and Danny will go to the Afterlife in his place. Hannah pushes through the fire, knowing she can't die again (being a ghost) and saves Danny, and then Danny's ghost is full of rage at being defeated, and vanishes - this time permanently imprisoned in the Afterlife.
Trivia[]
- He is only revealed as Danny's Ghost in the book, he was never revealed in the TV episode.
