Ghost stories from Illinois

The Awning House

Lyra was six when she first noticed the house on Thornwood Lane. It wasn’t the crumbling brick or the boarded windows that caught her eye; it was the awning. A...

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The Shadow on the Roof

A few years back, my friend Lucas and I found ourselves exploring an old, rundown farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the sun hung...

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The Salt of the Earth

It was a Tuesday in late October, and the sun hung low and pale over the Rusty Needle, an abandoned grain elevator on the edge of the Nebraska prairie. My...

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The Gray Dress Visitor

It was a Tuesday evening, the kind that draped itself over the small basement apartment like a damp blanket. I was sprawled on the couch, the flickering glow of the...

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The Visitor at Midnight

One evening, while I was relaxing in my room, I noticed a strange noise but chose to ignore it. Moments later, there was a gentle knock on my door, prompting...

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The Haunting in the Shed

One evening, Emma and her close friend Mia were at home enjoying a movie marathon. They had their two dogs, Max and Bella, curled up beside them. Before settling down,...

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The Pale Sentry

The evening had settled into that quiet hum of suburbia—lights flickering on in windows, the distant bark of a neighbor’s dog, and the low drone of a television set. I...

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The Last Lantern on Mallow Lane

At the age of eight, I met my first ghost on the night of the Winter Solstice. My family had just moved to the town of Harborough, into a house...

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The Cup and Saucer

I was seven the summer my parents split, and my mother dropped me at my aunt Miriam’s farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The house was old, with wide-plank floors...

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The Scent of Goodbye

Three months after my friend Marcus died, my youngest son, Leo, began to fixate on a corner of the living room ceiling. He was barely two, his vocabulary limited to...

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The Frequency of the Forgotten

My name is Miriam, and for a while I lived in a converted warehouse on the edge of the city, a place that had been a textile mill in the...

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The Grey Stain on the Fresh Paint

The new development of Silver Birch Estates rose from the Illinois prairie like a promise of fresh starts. Rows of identical two-story Colonials, their beige siding still stiff and unweathered,...

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The Cartographer’s Legacy

In the summer of 2008, my great-aunt Elara passed away, and exactly eleven days later, my great-uncle Bram followed. They had been married for sixty-two years, and the doctors called...

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The Last Ward

In November 2011, I was a nursing student completing a clinical rotation at a decaying rural hospital that had been closed for years but still held a reputation among locals....

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The Hollow Man in the Hall

I was eight when I learned that some doors are better left locked, and that the dark has a voice of its own. My name is Elena, and this is...

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The Rusted Circuit

I moved into the old farmhouse in late autumn, drawn by the cheap rent and the promise of solitude. The previous tenant had left in a hurry, and the landlord,...

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The Voice From the Old Well

I have decided to write about something that happened long ago. I hope I can tell it clearly. I have always felt that places can hold memories, even when I...

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The Visitor in the Blue Light

Lately, I have been having strange waking dreams. The first one was the most unsettling, though I am sure it was more than just a dream. I rose from my...

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The Unfurling Bloom

The scent of petrichor clung to Elara like a second skin. She was nine, and the ancient oak at the edge of her family’s neglected orchard was her kingdom. Today,...

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The Obsidian Bloom

The antique grandfather clock in the hall chimed midnight, each resonant stroke vibrating through the old house. Elias lay in his four-poster bed, the heavy velvet curtains drawn, a futile...

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The Third Diamond

When I first moved to Millbrook, I didn’t think much of the old fairgrounds. My sister would drive me past them on the way to the grocery store, and I’d...

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The Vanishing Wall

I still can’t shake the memory, even after all these years. It happened three winters ago, when I was staying at my grandmother’s old farmhouse, the one that creaked and...

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The Lamp at the End of the Hall

My grandmother never spoke of her youth, but the truth leaked out in fragments, like water through a cracked dam. Her name was Elsie, and she was born in 1935...

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The Kitchen Light Flickers

When I was a kid, maybe five, my little brother was two, and our grandmother used to watch us on weekends. Our parents worked late at the diner, and Nana...

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