Ghost stories from United States

The Static Between Heartbeats

Maya had always considered herself pragmatic. Ghost stories were for people who left their windows open at night, who watched too many horror films. She was a nursing student, and...

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The Persistent Footsteps

The farmhouse on Cinder Lane had been in our family for generations, but I never questioned the weight of its history until I was old enough to understand the sound...

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The Photograph of the Lamp

We were eleven, living in a small town in the Appalachian foothills. My friends Daisy and Robin, and I—Jules—had been obsessed with the old Barlow house at the edge of...

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The Lantern Man’s Bargain

My name is Elara, and I’m seventeen. In a few weeks, I’ll be eighteen, and I’m writing this because I need to get it out before the anniversary swallows me...

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The Weight of Stillness

It was late autumn, and the old farmhouse creaked with every gust of wind that rattled the bare branches of the orchard outside. I had just finished my nightly ritual:...

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The Ledger of Salt and Ash

I’ve lived in this town for nearly six years now, ever since I inherited my grandmother’s old house on the edge of the marsh. It’s a Victorian relic, all peeling...

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The Tin Box

The recorder sat on the cracked marble of the oldest grave, a small black rectangle against the moss. I’d been here before, of course. The place wasn’t much—a dozen stones...

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The Man in the Dusty Duster

My nephew, Tommy, was barely two when he first pointed at the empty corner of his nursery in our dusty Arizona ranch house and muttered, ‘Shoes.’ My sister-in-law, Carla, thought...

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The Hollow Oak Vigil

When I was six, I almost died. The doctors called it a peculiar strain of pneumonia, but my grandmother called it ‘the wasting.’ I remember the fever dreams, the cold...

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The Hum of the Weeping Tile

The farmhouse had a way of holding onto heat, even in the deep autumn. That night, the air in the living room was thick with it, clinging to my skin...

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The Hat Man in the Greenhouse

I have a greenhouse attached to my bedroom, a glass coffin of a room where I keep my orchids and my secrets. The door is always ajar, and through the...

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The Winter of the Glass Lake

My father-in-law, Elias, was a quiet man who seemed to have been carved from the same rugged stone as the Oregon coast where he lived. When my husband, Marcus, was...

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The Pale Visitor

It wasn’t about me, not really. It was about my daughters, Lily, Rose, and Fern, ages six, four, and three. We lived in a drafty old farmhouse on the edge...

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The Interstitial

The rain had stopped, leaving the air thick and heavy with the smell of wet earth and rust. I stood in the middle of that field, the shotgun a familiar...

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The Lantern’s Last Gasp

It was the tail end of a bitter winter at the St. Austell Lighthouse, where I’d been the sole keeper for six years. I’d grown used to the isolation, the...

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The Keeper of Lost Things

The old farmhouse had been in the family for generations, but I only came to it after my aunt passed. The place was full of her peculiar collections: jars of...

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The Harbor at Dusk

I’ve worked at the coastal care facility for a decade, watching the tide of residents ebb and flow. My assignment that week was Elara, a ninety-four-year-old former lighthouse keeper’s wife....

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The Last Lantern of Blackwell

I never thought I’d tell this story. It’s not the kind of thing you share at dinner parties or casual conversations. But when you find a faded photograph in your...

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The Iron Lung Room

The night air was crisp and carried the scent of pine and distant rain. I zipped my jacket against the chill, my breath visible in the glow of the streetlights...

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The Lever That Kept Giving

It was a Tuesday in late October, and the air in the school hallways felt heavy, like the building was holding its breath. I was a seventh grader at Meridian...

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The Blue Christmas Photograph

This happened a long time ago, when I was just a toddler, barely able to walk. My parents and my older sister, Emily, who was seven at the time, used...

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The Visitor at 2:47

I was twelve that autumn, and my family had just moved into a sprawling Victorian house on the edge of a town that seemed to forget it existed. The house,...

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The Drowned Girl of Cedar Hollow

In 2014, we moved into a sprawling Victorian in the small town of Cedar Hollow, Vermont. The house was beautiful but had a heavy, somber atmosphere. Our neighbor, Mrs. Albright,...

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