Ghost stories from EVP

The Night the Bricks Listened

The two weeks since the party had been quiet, save for the lingering memory of those luminous blobs in the digital photos—fuzzy, milky spheres that seemed to hover near the...

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The Last Frame

The night before Halloween in the town of Millbrook was always a strange one. For as long as anyone could remember, ‘Cabbage Night’—as the locals called it—was a time when...

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The Static Garden

I always thought the dead were quiet, that if I couldn’t see or hear them, they weren’t there. My girlfriend Mira, her son Theo, and I were visiting the Hillcrest...

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The Lamps of the Foundry

My girlfriend, Mara, and I took a trip to the old industrial district of Verdigris City for our anniversary. We booked a room at the Ironclad Grand, a hotel that...

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The Gravel in Her Throat

My daughter Mira had always been sensitive to things that others brushed off as noise. At twelve, she carried a battered voice recorder everywhere, claiming she could coax words out...

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The Cradle of Ash

My aunt Cora, my cousin Tess, and I rented a converted lighthouse on a stormy stretch of coastline for the weekend. The lighthouse, named ‘The Sentinel,’ stood on a rocky...

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The Painted Vigil

The chain-link fence stood like a row of rusted teeth, biting into the overgrown lot where the old Meridian Textile Mill had collapsed into itself. My friend, Maya, pointed at...

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The Silvered Corridor

The ferry to the mainland was a rust-bitten workhorse named the Meridian Queen, and we boarded her with the easy confidence of tourists. I was with my cousin, Leo, and...

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The Stained Glass Reflection

On a crisp evening in late October 2008, my cousin Lena and I were restless in her small apartment in the hills of eastern Kentucky. The autumn air carried a...

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The Filet Knife

The Salish Pines Rest Home sat on a bluff overlooking the gray Pacific, its grounds a patchwork of trimmed lawns and windswept cypress. It was not a cemetery, but a...

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The Weeping Cistern

In the dusty attic of the old Brinewell County Home, now a museum of faded photographs and rusted tools, I found the recording equipment. I was cataloging the artifacts for...

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The Unseen Guest

The night air hung heavy over the Rookery Community Center’s parking lot, thick with the scent of pine and damp asphalt. At 9:00 PM on July 7th, the lot was...

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The Tin Box

The recorder sat on the cracked marble of the oldest grave, a small black rectangle against the moss. I’d been here before, of course. The place wasn’t much—a dozen stones...

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The Cold Recital

In the hollow of November, when the leaves had turned to brittle brown and the wind carried the first bite of frost, Margaret Avery found herself standing at the edge...

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The Silent Huddle

The last evening of our trip to the Azores, we signed up for an off-road adventure through the volcanic hills. My partner, Marcus, and I, along with my sister Elena,...

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The Static Between Heartbeats

In the autumn of 2018, I moved into a refurbished Victorian house on the edge of Ironwood, a town known for its old mills and lingering fog. The house had...

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The Static Between Us

The old lighthouse on Marrow Point had been abandoned for decades, but the new owners, a couple named Dana and Ellis, saw it as a charming fixer-upper. They moved in...

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The Third Track

The house on Maple Street had a peculiar history, but the Ashfords didn’t care about that when they moved in. They were drawn to the wrap-around porch and the ancient...

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The Folded Map

Marta had always considered herself a rational woman. A retired librarian, she spent her days cataloging her late husband’s belongings and tending to her overgrown garden. But after his death,...

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The Late Call

I’ve spent years chasing whispers in graveyards, my digital recorder always at the ready. If a location didn’t yield results, I’d find a cemetery. At least four nights a week,...

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The Man Who Swallowed a Storm

The rain came down in sheets over the parking lot of the Cedar Ridge Mall, drumming a frantic rhythm on the asphalt. I stood under the thin awning of the...

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The Last Passenger

I’m not a believer in the supernatural, not in the traditional sense. I’m a mechanic, a practical man who trusts in torque specs and fuel lines. But my wife, Lena,...

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The Static Between Stations

The night air in the town of Millbrook was thick with the smell of wet earth and pine. It was late June, and the sky was a bruised purple, the...

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The Lantern Man’s Debt

I’ve spent every summer of my life at my grandmother’s farm in the low country of South Carolina, where the marshes meet the old railroad lines. The place has a...

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