Ghost stories from Misc

The Drowned Lantern

My earliest memory of the lake house is the smell of rotting wood and the constant whisper of waves against the dock. I was eight when my parents gave me...

Read Story →

The Cold Hollow

It was a sweltering July evening when my brother Marcus and I joined our granddad on one of his ‘night drives,’ as he called them. He’d done it for years,...

Read Story →

The Saltwater Room

I never believed in the old stories, not until the night I slept in that house on the Devon coast. The cottage was a crumbling relic, perched on a cliff...

Read Story →

The Snow Child’s Footprints

In the small coastal town of Umiak, where winter swallowed the world in white for six months, I spent my childhood listening to my father’s stories. One tale, passed down...

Read Story →

The Constant Static

The first time I noticed it, I was in the basement, hunting for a Christmas ornament my wife swore she’d stored down there. The house was a typical suburban split-level,...

Read Story →

The Lamp That Wouldn’t Stay Lit

My name is Ellen, and this happened to me about a month ago. My partner, Marcus, and I have been renting a small house on the edge of town for...

Read Story →

The Hollow Gate

It was a late October evening when my daughter Maya and I settled onto the worn couch in our farmhouse, a thick quilt draped over our legs. The television flickered...

Read Story →

Strange Occurence

This is the second time I have had an experience like the one I am about to tell. Strange things seem to happen around or close to my birthday. Yesterday,...

Read Story →

The Hollow Ceiling

The rental agreement called it a ‘charming cottage,’ but the moment I stepped inside, the air felt wrong. It was a standalone house, the last one on a gravel road...

Read Story →

The Locked Key

I never thought much about the sounds an old house makes. But this one, with its creaking bones and rattling pipes, had a way of reminding you it was alive....

Read Story →

The Stillness Between Breaths

I’m not one to believe in the supernatural, not until the summer I turned nineteen and moved into the old Carpenter house on the edge of Maplewood. The house had...

Read Story →

The Moonflower Incident

Ivy had always loved the quiet hum of the night. Growing up in the sprawling outskirts of a small desert town, she found solace in the rhythmic chirp of crickets...

Read Story →

The Pink Effigy

In late June, I was biking home from my summer job at the library, taking the shortcut through the outskirts of town. To get to the main road, you have...

Read Story →

The Iron Wife

I was seven when my grandmother died, and my family inherited her old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The house was a relic, with warped floorboards and a furnace...

Read Story →

The Poltergeist in the Penthouse

I’m not the kind of person who believes in ghosts. I’m a numbers guy, a logistics manager for a freight company. My life is spreadsheets and shipping manifests, not specters...

Read Story →

The Glass Ward

I remember the first thing that went wrong was the daffodils. They grew in a riot of yellow around the porch of the old farmhouse we’d rented, and I’d loved...

Read Story →

The Hollow Rapping

The night air hung thick with the scent of pine and damp earth, pressing against the windows of our cabin like a curious intruder. It was the third night in...

Read Story →

The Gilded Cage of Oakhaven Manor

The antique carriage lurched violently, throwing me against the velvet upholstery. It was the sudden, jarring halt that truly unnerved me, a screech of metal on stone that echoed through...

Read Story →

Spectral Television Experience

In 2006, my cousins and my aunt, Penny, were living at my grandmother’s house temporarily. Because the house is quite old and small, there were not enough bedrooms to accommodate...

Read Story →

The Curator of Ash and Bone

The old lighthouse on Gull Island had been abandoned for decades, its lamp long since extinguished. I had come there, seeking solitude after the end of a relationship that had...

Read Story →

The Sickle of June

The first time I heard the humming, I thought it was the radiator. A low, vibrating note that swelled and faded, almost like a lullaby. But it was too melodic,...

Read Story →

The Heartwood Line

The jolt was brutal, a sudden wrench that threw me from my seat and into the back of the seat in front. The overhead lights flickered, and somewhere a child...

Read Story →

The Clockwork Heart

The antique shop on Bramble Street was my sanctuary, a place where time itself seemed to slow. I’d spent countless hours among the dust and polished brass, cataloging the oddities...

Read Story →

The Clockwork Garden

The sudden lurch of the carriage sent us sprawling, my coffee cup leaping from my hand and painting a dark stain on the upholstery. Around me, the other passengers gasped...

Read Story →