Ghost stories from American Samoa

The Stone Creek Sermon

When I was nine, we lived in the parsonage of Red Hollow, a town that clung to the foothills like a barnacle to a hull. My father, Pastor Elias, was...

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The Last Row of Route 9

Three years ago, my family uprooted from the humid pine forests of Alabama to the dry, sun-bleached suburbs of Nevada. I was sixteen and angry about the move, about leaving...

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The Porch Light Theory

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been obsessed with the paranormal. I read every book, watched every documentary, and even set up my own little ghost-hunting kit when I...

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The Clock in the Kitchen

It began last autumn, on the final day of October. My aunt was driving home when her car slid off the wet road. She was gone before anyone could reach...

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The Clockwork Bloom

The old farmhouse creaked and groaned, a symphony of decay that had become Elara’s lullaby. It was New Year’s Eve, 2004, the kind of desolate night where the wind gnawed...

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The Sounds of Midnight

I was spending the night at my cousin’s place, and we couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. It all started when we heard a soft thud coming...

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The Hollow Halls of Ashworth

My first night at my friend’s new apartment in the old Ashworth building was meant to be a study marathon. We had finals looming, and Maya had scored a sublet...

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The Hollow by the Hall Lamp

The house on Mallow Street had always been drafty, but that night the cold seemed to seep through the walls, settling into my bones. I remember the date—March 2, 2007—because...

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The Room That Breathed

It was the summer before my senior year, and the annual town picnic was in full swing down by the lake. I was sixteen, and my sister Ellie was twelve....

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The Sounds of the Past

Three years ago, during our annual community fair, my grandmother was nearing the end of her battle with illness. She had been in and out of several hospitals, trying every...

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The Woman at the Window

It was the summer of my sixth year, and the heat had settled over Uncle Harlan’s farm like a wet wool blanket. I remember the screen door slapping shut behind...

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The Kernel’s Journey

My final year at Holloway University, 2013—I was twenty-two then, and though I’m thirty now, those months still cling to me like damp air. I’d always been open to the...

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The Spectrum of November

The room had always been a stubborn sort of cold, the kind that seeped into your bones no matter how many blankets you piled on. When I moved into my...

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The Lantern in the Hollow

My brother Caleb and I grew up in a tin-roofed house tucked into a deep hollow, where the trees leaned together overhead like conspirators. At the edge of our property...

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The Scent of Pineapple Bread

My grandmother, Lani, was born and raised in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii, but she spent her last years in a small, dusty town in Arizona, where she...

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The Long Staircase of the Black Barn

For three years, I’d felt it—a weight pressing on the back of my neck, a prickle between my shoulder blades, the certainty of unseen eyes in every empty room. I...

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The Green Umbrella

I was standing at the back of the funeral parlor, trying to keep my face blank, but my eyes kept drifting to the small, green umbrella propped against the wall...

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The Photograph at the End of the Hall

My grandmother used to say that we Carrows carry a shadow in the womb—a twin that never gets the chance to take a breath. It’s not a ghost, she’d whisper,...

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The Wind-Up Hare

My name is Elara, and I have always been watched. It began in the red-brick flat above my mother’s bakery, where the smell of yeast and cinnamon clung to everything,...

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The Clockwork Hum

The old farmhouse sat at the end of a gravel road that curved through a pine forest, a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor. We moved there when I was...

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The Salt Creek Pact

Elsie had never liked the old farmhouse, even as a child. Now, decades later, she was back, helping her aging aunt pack up a lifetime of belongings. The house sat...

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The Crying Room

The first night in our new apartment, I was convinced the walls were holding their breath. We had moved from our old place, a house with creaking floorboards and a...

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The Mannequin’s Feast

My name is Elias, and I work the graveyard shift at a 24-hour logistics hub. The company’s nickname for me is ‘The Night Owl,’ but my friends call me ‘The...

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