Ghost stories from Australia

The Clockwork Hum

My father and I moved into the old Hendersen house when I was fourteen, a sprawling Victorian relic perched on the edge of a dying orchard. The place had been...

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The Ceiling’s Gaze

I turned forty-two last spring, but the memory of that house in the dry, dusty town of Bitterroot, Nevada, sticks to me like a burr. We’d moved there from the...

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The Glass-Tongued Man

I’ve always collected people like others collect seashells—picking up the strange and the broken along the dusty roads of my travels. In a sun-bleached town called Marrawah, on the wild...

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The Granite Hearth

My name is Elara, and I’m sixteen. I’ve always been drawn to the strange and unexplained, devouring books on local legends and folklore, but I’d never truly witnessed the impossible...

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The Salt-Stained Room

The house came with the smell of brine and old timber. My partner, Liam, and I had bought it from a realtor who described it as ‘a project with potential,’...

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The Silhouette in the Orchard

My name is Elowen Marsh, and I am thirty-two now, living in a small coastal town in Oregon. But my story begins when I was only three, in the autumn...

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The Brass Knob That Wouldn’t Turn

We moved to the old Hargrove place when I was eleven, a sprawling farmhouse in the Oregon high desert that had stood since 1903. The previous owners had left in...

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The Glass Door’s Reflection

I was sixteen when we moved into the Crestview Inn, a sprawling, old-fashioned hotel perched on a foggy stretch of the Oregon coast. My mother had taken a job as...

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The Static in the Walls

Maya had always been drawn to quiet places. The old farmhouse she and Adrian had rented sat on the edge of a sun-scorched field, its bones creaking with age. She...

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The Last Glass of Water

It was a quarter to midnight when I padded into the kitchen, barefoot, the cool linoleum a stark contrast to the warm bedroom. My wife, Elara, was in her third...

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The Lavender Sleeve

When my family moved into the old farmhouse on Red Mill Road, I felt the usual prickle of unseen presences—the static hum of history clinging to the walls. My mother...

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The Spiral in the Static

The clock on the nightstand glowed 2:47 AM, and I was still wide awake. I’d spent the better part of the night texting Maya, the only person who seemed to...

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The Sugar Wrappers

The thing about being a forensic accountant is that you learn to notice the little discrepancies—the numbers that don’t add up, the receipts that don’t match. I guess that’s why...

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The Hollow Sound of Empty Rooms

My grandmother had the sight, or so my mother always said. She could feel the weight of a place, the lingering dust of those who’d passed through. My mother swore...

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The Kitchen Mirror

I never trusted the kitchen after dark. It wasn’t the dark itself, but the way the window above the sink turned into a black mirror, reflecting the room behind me....

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The Lantern of the Hollow Oak

I had never believed in the supernatural. Not really. I was a man of science, a historian, and I had spent my entire life debunking the myths and legends that...

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The Last Orange Grove

My grandfather, Emil, was my anchor in a world that felt constantly adrift. He never called me by my given name, Marisol, but always ‘Naranja,’ because of my fiery copper...

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The Wall-Crawler’s Ward

When I was about twelve, maybe eleven, my bedroom door creaked open on its own, and a black cat poked its head around the corner. It sauntered in, climbed the...

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The Last Match at Hollow Creek

The town of Hollow Creek had been dead for decades, its bones scattered along the banks of the Yarra River where it twisted through the Gippsland hills. Once a thriving...

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The Candle’s Aftermath

It was late autumn when I moved into the old farmhouse on the edge of the marsh. The previous tenant had left in a hurry, leaving behind a half-packed suitcase...

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The Brass Hour

I have never been one to chase ghosts. My life as a marine archaeologist has been one of cold water, rusted metal, and the mute testimony of objects that have...

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The Lantern’s Vigil

In the autumn of 2011, my grandmother, Marta, passed away. She was a woman of strict routines, and one of them was that she never allowed closed doors in her...

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The 6:30 Wake-Up

I was in my apartment, trying to finish the second verse of my latest song. The hum of the city was a distant murmur, and my room was silent save...

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The Tally Marks in the Boiler Room

It began with the house on Meridian Street, a sprawling Victorian that my parents bought for a song after the previous owners fled in the night. I was eleven, my...

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