Ghost stories from Illinois

The Static Breath

On a humid August night in 2019, I was house-sitting for my aunt in her sprawling Victorian on the edge of a dying town. The house had a basement—a dank,...

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The Broken Rag Doll

I was barely three when we moved into the creaking farmhouse on Hemlock Lane, a relic from the 1920s with peeling wallpaper and a cellar that smelled of damp earth....

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The Weight of the Night

Mara had always been a skeptic, at least outwardly. Growing up in the sweltering heat of a coastal town, she learned early to trust the tangible: the grit of sand,...

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The Third Landing

I had known Daniel since we were kids, and when he bought the old farmhouse on the edge of the marsh, I was happy for him. But when he called...

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The Hollow Man in the Headlights

The engine idled with a low, throaty hum, the only sound besides the patter of drizzle on the windshield. I had pulled the old sedan to the curb across from...

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The Sunken Path

In the damp hollows of Cranston, Maine, where the old logging trails snake through the pines, things have a way of untying themselves from the land. The locals know to...

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Secrets of the Forgotten Forest

In the small town of Eldermoor, whispers of unusual events in the nearby woods have circulated for generations. These woods, rich in history, were once home to ancient tribes long...

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The Static in the Attic

My name is Elle, and I’ve always been drawn to the unexplained. At twenty-six, I look back on my teenage self with a mix of amusement and dread. Back then,...

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The Flickering Circuit

I never believed in the supernatural, not really. I was a man of science, a technician who could trace a faulty wire or a failing capacitor in seconds. But three...

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The Salt Line

The first sign that something had changed was when the framed photograph of my father—him holding me as a baby, his face frozen in that gentle, unguarded smile—turned itself face-down...

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The Board in the Backyard

Things have been strange lately. It began when my son and his buddy found an old talking board in the attic. My partner let them use it. They spent an...

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The Toy That Brought Joy

When I was just a teenager, I became a parent for the first time at 17. My little one, like all infants, would often cry, and I would rush to...

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The Self-Winding Lullaby

At nineteen, I became a mother, though I was barely more than a child myself. My daughter, Alice, was a colicky baby, and our nights were a blur of feedings,...

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The Gift of Rain

The summer I turned nine, my family drove out to my grandmother’s farm in the dust-choked valley of Sorrel Creek. My grandfather had just passed, and the funeral had been...

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A Visit to the Garden of Stones

In the autumn of my ninth year, we went to see my grandmother. The loss of my grandfather was still a fresh wound. The field where he rested was a...

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The Static Between Stations

The motel was a squat, two-story slab of concrete and peeling paint, clinging to the edge of a Nebraska highway that seemed to go nowhere. Rain had been falling for...

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The Late Night Reflection

It was a Tuesday night, and the clock on the nightstand read 9:47. My wife was already asleep, and the kids were tucked in, or so I thought. I was...

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The Cartography of Rust

The iron staircase of the Meridian Elementary Annex groaned beneath my sneakers, each step a metallic sigh that seemed to echo in the hollow space above. I had waited all...

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The Sounds in the Old House

We moved into the house on Elm Street last spring. For the first year, everything was peaceful and quiet. Then, around Halloween, the noises began. Late at night, I would...

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The old Victorian manor had stood silent for decades, a hulking silhouette against the perpetually bruised sky of Blackwood Creek. Elias Thorne, a man whose fascination with the forgotten outweighed...

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The Girl on the Stair

My father told me this story from when I was just a baby. We lived with my grandfather in a house with a sad past. Long ago, a terrible sickness...

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The Stain on the Floorboards

The old house on Oakhaven Lane had always held its breath. Not with anticipation, but with a deep, settled dread. Elias, a man whose beard had more gray than brown,...

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The Weeping Sill

When I first posted about the trouble in our new home, I was desperate. The floorboards had begun to creak in a pattern, not random, but rhythmic, like footsteps pacing...

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The Unseen Visitors

From a young age, Ella began to notice unusual figures darting in and out of her vision. At just five years old, these glimpses evolved into clearer sights of people,...

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