Ghost stories from United States

The Static in the Corn

I worked the graveyard shift at the Hollow Creek Haunt, a sprawling corn maze outside a dying Iowa town. Every October, they hired locals to dress as the ‘Harvest Family,’...

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The Portrait at the Bottom of the Stairs

As a child, Elsie was a fountain of words, a tiny river that never ran dry. By the age of two, she could name the constellations from the backyard, her...

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The Wilted Crown

The air in my grandmother’s house always tasted of dust and dried lavender, a sweetness that clung to the back of the throat like a lie. I’d been back for...

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The Sibilant Threshold

My name is Elara, and I’ve lived in the Atwood Flats for five years now. It’s a converted textile mill, all exposed brick and industrial-chic, but the charm wears thin...

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The Static Call

It was the summer of 2014 when I started my new job at a call center in the sleepy town of Millbrook, Oregon. The building was a repurposed textile mill,...

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My Great Grandma’s House

My Great-Grandma lived in a little house in the small town of Curryville, Missouri. I think my Great-Grandpa and her moved into the house in the late 70’s early 80’s....

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The Bone-Gift

It was the summer I turned nine, and my family moved into the old farmhouse on the edge of Larkspur Hollow, a place so far from our cramped city apartment...

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The Gaze at the Foot of the Bed

Every visit to my childhood home brings a fresh unease, but this time the unease had a shape and a weight that pressed against my chest like a cold stone....

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The Cartographer’s Knuckle

It was a Tuesday, or maybe a Wednesday, when the knocking started. I’d just moved into the attic apartment of a crumbling Victorian on the edge of the city, a...

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The Carpet’s Edge

Ava and I have always shared a strange bond. It’s not something we talk about, but we both know. When I wake with a headache, I find her nursing the...

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The Swaying Ornaments

Elena had always been wary of the old house on Cedar Lane, but she’d lived there her whole life, ever since her parents inherited it from her grandmother. The creaks...

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The Porcelain Keeper

I never believed in inherited curses, not until the summer we moved into the old Harlow house. My grandmother on my mother’s side had been a ‘seer,’ as the family...

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The Floor’s Cold Breath

I was seventeen the winter my mother brought home the planchette. She said it was for fun, a parlour game, but she spent hours in her study with it, the...

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The Cold Thread

Lila had always considered the bathtub her sanctuary. After long days at the pottery studio, where the clay clung to her skin and the wheel’s hum rattled her bones, she...

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The Invisible Playmate’s Nap

The first time I noticed it was at breakfast. My granddaughter, Lily, had just turned two in February, and we were all sitting around the kitchen table, our new house...

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The Seventh Field

My family moved to the outskirts of a small town called Millbrook when I was nine. Every school day, my mother drove me along County Road 9, past a series...

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The Mirror’s Countdown

My wife and I had just finished scrubbing the last of our faded affirmations off the bathroom mirror, leaving only the bold red countdown to our move to the coast....

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The Last Ferry

I’ve never been one for recurring dreams, and I’ve certainly never had dreams about people I know, at least not with such vividness. But for the past month, my friend...

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The Hollow Wall

The first thing I noticed about the place was the smell—a thick, loamy scent, like wet earth and old copper. It clung to the air despite the windows being thrown...

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Ghost Hunting In Heiau

I have been involved with a group that promotes spiritual awareness for the last year and it has been amazing! I have learned so much during this time about myself...

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The Teal Room’s Tenant

My wife Elena and I bought the old Abernathy farmhouse last spring, drawn by its wraparound porch and the orchard that had gone feral with age. We had two boys,...

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The Weight of Stillness

I never believed in ghosts, not until the autumn I turned sixteen and my parents moved us into the old farmhouse on Marrow Lane. The house had stood empty for...

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The Persistent Rhythm

It was the summer of 2019 when we moved into the old farmhouse on Cedar Lane, a fixer-upper with peeling paint and a wraparound porch that groaned in the wind....

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The Lantern Room

The summer I turned nine, my grandmother, Abuela Rosa, died of a sudden stroke, and my family packed our bags for the long drive from the dusty plains of Oklahoma...

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