Ghost stories from Friends Visits

The Last Lantern in the Mangroves

Kai was twenty-two, an only child from the Torres Strait Islands, living in Cairns. His mother had died of a sudden aneurysm when he was nine, and his father, a...

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The Empty Seat

The whir of the fluorescent light was the only sound in the sterile white room. I sat at a metal table, two chairs, no windows, just a door. I knew...

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The Blue Lamp

Elena had always been the skeptic in her husband’s large, boisterous family. When her father-in-law, Tomas, passed away just months before her daughter was due, the stories began: Aunt Rosa...

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The Stairway Watcher

When I was six, we lived in a creaking old farmhouse at the edge of a maple wood. My mother, pregnant with my little brother, was heavy and slow, and...

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The Lavender Room

In 2007, I was a seventeen-year-old boy named Caleb, lying on my bed in our cramped apartment above my mother’s bakery, listening to a burned mix CD on my Discman....

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The Clockwork Dog’s Howl

The rust-tinged smell of the old farmhouse clung to my clothes as I stepped through the back door, the screen slamming shut behind me. My fiancé, Marcus, was already in...

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The Charred Lace

The December light bled through the tall windows of the old rectory, casting long, cold shadows across the Persian rug where Elara played with her wooden train set. Her grandmother,...

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The Keychain’s Last Rattle

The television’s blue glow painted the living room of our rented lake house in ghostly hues. My sisters, Clara and Bea, were giggling at a cartoon, their laughter a bright,...

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The Salad Bar Specter

I remember the night it all started with a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. My friend Jenna had invited me over for a sleepover, and...

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The Cinder-Faced Visitor

The summer I turned twelve, my father’s job transferred us to a dusty little town called Barrow Creek, out where the highways fray into gravel and the sky presses down...

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The Last Ring

In the autumn of 1974, the small farming town of Bellhaven was gripped by an unseasonable chill. My mother, Elena, was eight months pregnant with my older brother, and we...

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The Day the House Went Cold

In the autumn of 2011, I was living with my father in the old farmhouse that had been in our family for generations. The house was nestled in a valley...

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The Harvest Portrait

The autumn of my sixth year, my grandmother, Nana Rose, held her annual harvest gathering. Our farmhouse, nestled in the amber fields of Nebraska, was the heart of these celebrations....

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The Lazarus Pager

In the autumn of 2003, my world had settled into a quiet routine after the sudden loss of my fiancé, Adrian, in a car crash that the police ruled as...

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The Marble in the Garden

In the quiet town of Ashwick, neighboring families shared a long fence line and a mutual love for sunflowers. I was eighteen, and the little girl next door, Elara, was...

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The Lantern of Hollow Creek

The call came at 6:47 AM, wrenching me from a groggy sleep on my cousin’s couch in Sacramento. I remember the disjointed fragments: my aunt’s voice, cracked and raw, saying...

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The Mannequin in Ward C

I was a night janitor at the Meridian Medical Research Center, a sprawling complex on the edge of the city that mostly emptied after 11 p.m. My shift ended at...

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The Last Nightshift at Rook’s End

Rook’s End Cemetery had always felt like a place that existed outside of time. It was a sprawling, neglected field of tombstones that leaned at odd angles, guarded by a...

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The Porcelain Smile

The old farmhouse had a way of holding onto silence. That night, the silence was heavier than usual, pressing down on the dusty floorboards and the peeling wallpaper. I was...

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The Last Stitch

I’m writing this in the dim glow of my oil lamp, the needle still in my hand, the fabric still damp with my tears. It’s been years, but the memory...

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The Rhythm of the Empty Room

The house on Mulberry Lane was a testament to new beginnings. Fresh paint, gleaming hardwood, and the faint scent of pine that clung to the frames of the windows. We...

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The Last Broadcast

The static hummed, a low, electric thrum that had become the soundtrack of my evenings. It was the only sound that drowned out the empty rooms of the house I’d...

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The Copper Horde

The day we moved into the old farmhouse, I found a penny embedded in the kitchen linoleum, right in front of the stove. I pried it out with a butter...

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The Man in the Hallway Mirror

I was eleven, the summer before sixth grade, when my mom decided I was old enough to stay by myself for the couple of hours between school and her shift...

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