I didn't want to meet him! I only wanted a picture!

I read that as a “puppet” and really freaked out at first. A doggie is much less scary!

Absolutely no part of this story is exaggerated, and I still don’t know what to make of it. Until I was five, I was raised in a teeny tiny town. My small neighborhood was more like a compound, where all of the people who worked in the clinic next door lived. There was a big garden in the middle of the neighborhood…

Hi friends. In years past, I have always submitted (late, sorry!) my story about getting lost in middle school, getting lost in the woods and accidentally finding myself in a Haunt, where Jason leaned, smoking, against a tree and helped my poor, young teacher find her way out of the (fake) haunt and back to our camp.

B…

Possible Shapeshifter

I’m going to keep specific details a bit vague because the following happened at a summer camp that I have a ton of personal ties to that still exists. I don’t want to fuck up their existence. So: I’ll say it’s on a big lake in New England, it’s rather popular, and its heavily religiously oriented. (Yeah, I know – my…

The Boy Who Wasn’t There

My Uncle Billy was the black sheep of the family. He was my mother’s older brother, who joined the military in the early 1990s and saw combat in the first Gulf War, but he didn’t come entirely back. My mom said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and something called gulf war syndrome. My father said he…

I’m going to call this The Man In The Attic.

When In New Orleans

I have a few. All are short, and all are very recent. Before I start, I want to explain why I’m putting them together: I’m Caribbean and come from a long line of santeros and people who speak to the dead. I grew up accepting spirits as a normal part of life, but until my birthday this summer, I hadn’t had any…

The Chimes

Okay, this story isn’t necessarily scary, but it solidified my belief in supernatural spirits.

About eight years ago, my family and I took a trip to Boulder, CO. We found an awesome airBnB right on the outskirts of downtown Boulder. It was an old Victorian house that had been rehabbed and converted into three…

Perhaps she was only trying to warn me

When I was in my second year of university I went to stay for the Easter holidays with my parents in the sleepy village they used to live on in the middle of Wiltshire. On Easter Sunday I gave the reading at the little village church and went home. When I checked my phone, a boy…

I wish I had a ghost story because I love them (although I’m too much of a scaredy cat to seek anything like that out). But this is the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me.

I’m not sure if this is truly scary but it has creeped me out and given me nightmares for many years. When I was 8 or 9 we lived in a pretty safe neighborhood and used to play with other kids in the area. One family with kids lived on the street behind us and a couple blocks over. We used to take a cut-through between…

“Back to Work”

Not scary, but a couple of happy paranormal (?) bits.

My mom met Paula through the Pittsburgh Junior League in the mid-80s. They’d both moved to the area after getting married, and became fast friends.

Over the years, we went to many a summer cook-out at Paula’s lovely 1920s bungalow, where she lived with her husband and two young sons. But one gathering in particular,…

“You know this whole neighborhood is built over old Indian burial grounds, right?” is something you might hear growing up from someone who’s just trying to scare you, but in my case it’s not that much of a stretch from what the reality is. Not too far away from where I live is a place called Cahokia Mounds, which are…

My childhood trick-or-treating neighborhood was fantastic. Safe, very few cars, generous neighbors, and lots of spooky darkness with houses set way back on half-acre lots with long driveways. On Halloween 1989, I looked forward to our standard costumed candy collection foray. I set forth with a pillowcase, my sister,…