Ghost stories from Poltergeists

The Collector of Lost Hours

The trouble began, I think, with the blackout. Not the one that hit the whole neighborhood—that was just a storm, a tree branch, a transformer. I mean the one that...

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The Gable Room

In the autumn of 1983, I was twenty-two and desperate to leave my parents’ cramped bungalow in the suburbs of Halifax. When my friend Marlene mentioned that she and another...

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The Chalky Script

I never believed in the supernatural, not even after a childhood spent in my grandmother’s creaking Victorian, where every floorboard groaned like a tired old man. That house was just...

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The Midwatch Visitor

My name is Elias, and I have always been a creature of the dark. While the world slept, I thrived in the quiet hours, my sanctuary a cramped flat on...

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The Grain of the Floor

We moved into the Harlow house in early autumn, drawn by its price and the promise of a quiet cul-de-sac. The previous owners, the Merritts, had left in a hurry—their...

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The Static Garden

The house on Maplewood Lane had been quiet for months. Since the incident last spring, I had grown accustomed to the silence, convincing myself that whatever had been lurking in...

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The Lantern Man’s Return

The summer I turned nine, we moved to a dusty little town called Prickett’s Ford, where the heat clung to your skin like a wet shirt. Across the gravel road...

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The Salt-Stained Bell

The summer I turned fourteen, my mother’s voice carried her to a crumbling seaside hotel called the Mar de Ceniza, a place that had once been a glamorous retreat for...

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The Latch in the Wall

We’d been in the old farmhouse on Mulberry Lane for less than a week when I found the latch. It was behind the pantry’s top shelf, a small brass handle...

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The Twelfth Box

In the winter of 1994, in the small town of Ashburn, I was nine years old. My family had just moved into a creaky old house on Maple Street, and...

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Weird Living Room

First of all I am ten. This encounter happened a few months ago. We were having a no tech week so we couldn’t watch tv. We had the lego down...

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The Cigarette Packet

In the autumn of 1978, I was twelve and living in a cramped flat above a fishmonger’s in the seaside town of Grimsby. My family was poor but content; my...

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The Stillness of Fernwood

When I first moved into the Fernwood Manor, it felt like stepping into a sunlit painting. The grand old house, with its wraparound porch and creaking floorboards, held seven adults...

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The Saltwater Melody

Lena had been up late scrubbing the grime from the kitchen counter when she noticed the photograph of her late husband, Marcus, propped against the backsplash on the bar. It...

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The Uninvited Listener

I always thought it was just the old house settling, that groaning in the walls at night, the way the floorboards breathed under my feet. I was twelve, then, and...

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The Ninth Stair

I’ve lived in this old farmhouse for nearly twenty years, long enough to know every creak and groan of its bones. The stairs to the second floor are particularly vocal,...

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The Stairwell Lamp

The night was thick with the hum of the old refrigerator, a sound I’d known since childhood. My own house, a modest bungalow on the outskirts of Maplewood, usually felt...

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The Paperweight of St. Elmo

It was the summer I turned seventeen, the summer I thought I’d outgrown the childish fear of the dark. My parents had left for the 24-hour pharmacy to pick up...

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The Floorboard’s Debt

I never believed in ghosts. Not really. But when my best friend, Danny, told me about what happened to him in that old house on Mulberry Lane, I couldn’t shake...

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The Frequency of the Unheard

The house on Wrenfield Lane had always hummed with the quiet rhythm of domestic life. My wife, Clara, and I had moved there with our two children, young Oliver and...

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The Clockmaker’s Debt

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days, and the old farmhouse creaked like a ship at sea. I’d gathered my cousins and friends for a weekend of board games and...

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The House on Mulberry Lane

It all started in the summer of 1988, when I was nine, living in a small, sleepy town in Ohio. My family had just moved into an old Victorian house...

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The Static Field

I never thought much of the old house on Blenheim Road, not until the night the lights started acting up. I’d moved to Port Fremantle for a fresh start, and...

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The Rattling Crate of Varnwood

After my grandmother passed, I inherited her old farmhouse in the remote town of Varnwood. Among the dusty relics she left behind was a heavy wooden crate she had kept...

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