Category: ghosts
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hereditary
Sitting at the dinner table, my daughter suddenly turns and looks over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” She turns back around. “That was weird,” she says. “I heard someone say ‘Yeah’ behind me.” We go on with our dinner and I make a mental note to talk with my wife. We’re starting to see more activity…
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rush
As I’m setting up the ironing board, something rushes towards me from the living room… low and broad and dark, like a wall of shadow. I do not flinch. It breaks around me like a wave around a rock, dissipates into streamers of fading black and gray… and then is gone.
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a voice on the wind
Coming home late tonight, long after midnight… As I was walking up the driveway, a few stray flurries of snow in the air around me… I stopped. A voice, far off . . . one word, harsh and cold and drawn out breathless like the frigid night air. My name. Not my real name. The…
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daylight come and me wanna go home
Sitting alone in the couch tonight, I slowly realize that I can hear someone singing. Somewhere in the house, a man is singing. It has a muted quality, as though it is coming from very far away. I stand for a moment and listen. I recognize it. The clear voice, the calypso intonation is unmistakeable.…
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morse
We awake to a burst of static from the baby monitor. This is not uncommon. It seems like almost anything can set it off, if we don’t put the damn thing in just the right spot. I reach over and shift the monitor on the nightstand, hoping to move it out of whatever signal is causing…
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music again
In my office tonight, getting ready to sit down and write… I stop. Music. Unmistakeable. Somewhere, someone is playing music. The house is asleep. I’m the only one awake. Yet there it is. Unmistakeable. I go out and stand on the front porch, just in case it’s a neighbor. Nothing. Back inside, the house is…
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forearms
Napping this afternoon on the couch, I dream… …we’re sitting at the dining room table, my wife and I. I hear someone call “Tom” from the back hallway. I turn to see something there, down at the bottom of the steps — small and pale, almost like a child. “Don’t look!” my wife says just…
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switch
Sitting in my office this afternoon, working. A few moments ago I heard the distinctive sound of the light switch in the back hallway snapping on. A few moments later I heard it snap off. My wife and youngest daughter are napping upstairs. Before I heard the light switch, it was quiet and peaceful. No…
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bathtime again
Downstairs, I run a bath for my daughter. I kneel down to check the water. When I rise, the old woman is standing in the doorway. She is hunched over, watching me. “Fuck.” And then she’s gone.
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in the bathtub
“What’s a haunted house?” My daughter is four years old and, a few days before Halloween, she’s decided to start asking questions. I wring out the washcloth, buying time. We don’t talk about these kinds of things around her. She has a couple of picture books, but… “What honey?” “What’s a haunted house?” “Well .…
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a fall
When I get home after work, my youngest daughter meets me at the door. I’m late and phoned ahead to say they should start dinner without me. A plate of half-eaten food waits at my wife’s place at the same able. But she is nowhere to be seen. “Mama went upstairs,” our daughter tells me.…
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hard knocks
My daughter an I are in my office when my wife calls from the TV room. I hear her but it doesn’t register until she calls again, a rising note of alarm in her voice. “What’s wrong?” She is pale, intense. I can’t tell if she’s angry or something else. “I just heard…” She stops,…
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shimmer
“There was something in the back hallway,” my wife tells me over dinner. “I saw it right before we were leaving.” “What did you see?” She thinks for a moment. “It was a blur in the air, almost shimmering. Just a movement…” Gooseflesh on my arms, the back of my neck. “That’s interesting you say…
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passing by
In the upstairs bathroom, I stand and wait for my youngest daughter to finish. My back is to the door. Given my history, that’s uncommon. As I help her down off the toilet, I catch a glimpse of someone passing behind me — walking through the hallway just beyond the door. I assume it’s my…
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morning visitation
…and as I open the door leading from my office to the front of the house, I see a pale shape, not much more than the impression of a white dress moving through the light coming in the windows. It flows from right to left. I stop. I blink. It is gone.
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stench again
That smell again. A warm, yellow smell of rotting fish. My youngest daughter and I are in the back hallway when it drifts past. It almost seems to stop and turn back, encircling us for a moment. I look down and see that my daughter has wrinkled her nose. After a moment, the stench dissipates.…
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a sad girl
…lying in bed this morning, I woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening. I hear my wife slowly close the door behind her. I hear her footsteps on the floorboards, approaching my side of the bed. I cannot move, cannot open my eyes. I feel a fingertip on my arm, just inside the…
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bath time
“Will you check the tub in a minute?” My wife comes into the room, a little cross. We are getting our daughter ready for bed. “What’s wrong?” “There was almost no water in the tub and it was cold.” “Really?” She repeats this again. Unspoken is the rebuke — or, perhaps, the fear — that…
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ghost weather
Early summer afternoon. Overcast skies. Waiting for storms. The house is gray. Quiet. Pale light from outside, dim within. The air still, dead. Every room feels empty and full at the same time. An unseen crowd gathers. Something around every corner. Watchful. Waiting. Patient.