Ghost stories from Philippines

The Last Supper of Ash

The Al-Mansouri family lived in a crumbling apartment block on the edge of the Bur Dubai district, where the neon glow of the city never reached. The father, Karim, worked...

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The Hollow Lot

In 2016, the city of Angeles was a furnace of fear. The anti-drug campaign had turned neighbors into informants and quiet streets into war zones. My father, Ernesto, had a...

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Our Unknown Tenants

I clearly remember this incident from when I was 8 years old. My mom, my two older cousins, my two younger siblings, and I were sitting on the sofa, watching...

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My Doppelganger Incidents

Incident # 1: When I was in college, my uncle told me something that happened when I was around 6 years old. One night, he and his friends were drinking...

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A Glimpse Of Kapre

When I was around 8 or 9, on weekends we’d gather on the sofa and stay up until midnight watching TV shows. At the end of the shows, they’d play...

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Sapi (possession)

I remembered when I was still eight or nine years old, it was May of 2004 when my uncle (father’s side) told me that we are going to the province...

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The Salt of the Earth

The grinding of the old conveyor belt was a sound I had grown used to over the years, a mechanical heartbeat that pulsed through the rusted skeleton of the plant....

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The Last Toll of San Miguel

Every Friday, Marco lived for the open road. His crew called him ‘Relentless’ for a reason—he never missed a ride, no matter the weather. But this particular Friday, his phone...

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Vacation Went Wrong

This is my first time to share my scary experience. This is about my uncle. We went on a vacation in our province, Cebu. When we got there, we saw...

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The Lantern Man

In the autumn of 2022, I was housesitting for my aunt in the remote village of Kestrel Hollow, nestled deep in the Appalachian foothills. The house was an old timber-frame...

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The Neon Hum

My name is Diego, and I work the graveyard shift at a call center in the heart of Makati’s business district. I’m from Batangas, but I rent a narrow townhouse...

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The Gift of the Final Session

I never believed in ghosts. Not really. I was the kind of person who needed evidence, something I could measure or photograph. That all changed during the last two weeks...

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The Concrete Bloom

The old teachers’ college stood like a gray tombstone against the Texas sky, its red brick weathered by a century of storms. During the Civil War, it had been a...

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The Lantern’s Wail

In the humid twilight of our farmstead, the outhouse stood like a sentinel of rusted tin and warped wood, a hundred feet from the back door. Papa always said a...

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The Dust That Breathes

My first day at the Vermillion Grain Terminal in the industrial sprawl of Mariveles, Bataan, felt like stepping into a tomb. The silos loomed like gray monoliths against the hazy...

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The Midnight Shift at the Mica Mill

The digital clock on the wall flickered to 10:30 PM as I clocked in, the fluorescent hum of the office a familiar drone. The call center floor was a labyrinth...

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The Third Sleet of Winter

The old farmhouse had stood for over a century, its bones creaking with every gust of wind that swept down from the ridge. My family had lived there for generations,...

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The Lizard’s Vigil

The apartment complex on Maple Street was old, with creaking floorboards and a persistent smell of damp wood. My cousin Lena had invited four of us—Marcus, Tia, Joel, and me—to...

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The Paleolithic Hum

The Anemone Business District rose from the reclaimed marshlands of the old Kestrel Airfield, a name that lingered only in the yellowed maps at the district’s archive. When I joined...

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The Cartographer’s Blunder

The retreat compound clung to the mountainside like a barnacle, a scatter of weathered cabins connected by switchback paths of packed earth. Our team, a motley crew of data analysts...

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The Last Harvest Moon

It was the final month of my senior year, and the town of San Isidro was buzzing with the promise of the annual barrio fiesta. The air smelled of ripe...

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The Crooked Bed

It was the summer of 2016 when I moved into my uncle’s old farmhouse in the outskirts of a sleepy town. The house had been in the family for generations,...

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The Maintenance Closet

The final bell rang at 4:47, but for Marisol and her group, the real work was just beginning. Their class presentation on the folk traditions of their region was due...

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