Ghost stories from United States

The Dandelion Debt

My father collected antique newspapers, and one rainy afternoon he showed me a yellowed page from an 1843 edition of the Larkspur Ledger. The headline read: ‘The Ellery Farm Slayings.’...

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The Grease-Stained Door

I’ve always had a knack for sensing things that aren’t quite there—a chill where there shouldn’t be one, a whisper of movement in my peripheral vision. My best friend, Marcus,...

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The Cold Drawer

I moved into the old house on Hemlock Lane three weeks ago, after my grandmother passed. The place had been in my family for generations, and my parents thought it...

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The Red Ledger

In the fall of 1991, I was a mechanical engineer in Tucson, Arizona, until the copper mine I worked for went belly-up. Six months of unemployment left me hollowed out,...

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The Last Lightkeeper’s Ledger

My earliest memories are sharp-edged and cold, like the frost that gathered on the inside of our windows each November. We moved into the old MacAllister house when I was...

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Can A Homemade Ouija Board Haunt You?

I am not sure where to begin. I guess I will start from the beginning of it all. When I was in the 5th grade my cousin had a sleep...

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The Night the Air Turned Solid

I was eight, not five, but that doesn’t change what I saw. It was the summer before the big move, and my parents had rented an old farmhouse on the...

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The Unplugged Jukebox

Mara had always felt the weight of Gran’s farmhouse, a sagging Victorian that smelled of old wood and dust. It was the kind of place where every creak and groan...

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A Chance Encounter in the City

In the summer of 1995, I found myself in Portland, struggling to make ends meet after losing my job. Months passed with no leads, and the weight of uncertainty hung...

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The Cartographer’s Last Patient

My work has always been a quiet procession of small duties: adjusting pillows, measuring out pills, and learning the secret language of the old. I am not a nurse, not...

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The Lamp That Flickered at 1:47

My old dog Buster had a habit that used to creep me out as a kid. Every night, when he padded from the kitchen to my parents’ bedroom, he would...

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The Mulberry Mark

My name is Elara, and I’ve always been a bit strange. My older sister, Mira, was the one who opened my eyes to the paranormal. At first, I was terrified...

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The Man in the Hall

It was late October when we moved into the old farmhouse on Hemlock Road. The previous owners had left in a hurry, and the place had a musty, forgotten smell...

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The Crease in the Linen

Three mornings ago, I found my four-year-old daughter, Eliza, sitting bolt upright in her bed, her small hands clenched around the quilt, her eyes wide and fixed on the closet...

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The Crying in the Walls

Mara and her husband, Julian, had moved into the old farmhouse on the edge of a dying town, hoping for peace. The house had stood empty for years, its paint...

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The Weeping Mannequin

In the sweltering summer of 2006, I had just graduated from high school and moved into a sprawling, forgotten department store on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. My cousin,...

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The Pale Afternoon

I was eleven, the summer before sixth grade, when the heat in our small desert town of Pinnacle Flats turned everything to a shimmering blur. We lived on the edge...

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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 Granary’s Second Tenant

I moved into the old granary loft at the edge of Millford in mid-May. The building had been converted from a 1920s grain storage facility, and the landlord boasted about...

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The Blue Door of Hollow Creek

I grew up in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, where the rain was a constant companion and the woods pressed in on every side. Our house was an...

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The Cloth Merchant’s Bargain

I first met Mr. Alistair on a Tuesday, during the annual autumn market in the village of Thornwick. He was a tall, gaunt man with a thin mustache and a...

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The Drowned Orchard

My name is Lena, and if you’ve ever seen the map of our town, you’d notice a strange gap in the middle of a dense patch of woods—a place called...

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The Filet Knife

The Salish Pines Rest Home sat on a bluff overlooking the gray Pacific, its grounds a patchwork of trimmed lawns and windswept cypress. It was not a cemetery, but a...

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The Bag on the Door

I was nine, not ten, when we moved into that house in the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a sprawling ranch-style place, all on one floor, but with long,...

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