My wife and I bought a house on see Lake Michigan just north of Chicago. Beautiful views of the water, the city, and the home is spectacular for raising kids. It was built in the 80s, so we didn’t think anything weird would come up. For the first 1.5 years in the house, nothing. The occasional creaky floorboard but…

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…

Home Sweet Haunted Home

We live on a short, dead-end street and we got to know many of our neighbours through our foster dogs that we had to walk from the far end of the street to the corner every time we’d take the dogs for walks.

This happened in November last year. The only positive I have been able to take away from it is that I finally have something for this story contest, because I definitely cannot afford to move!

So this is going to sound like nothing. At the time it FELT like nothing. It was only the next morning that I realized how fucked up it was. After the story last year about the yoga retreat (submitted by annclayborn) I figured I’d share.

When I was in college in the early 90's, I shared an apartment with a friend of mine in northern Alabama. Small, cotton town, with lots of large plantation homes scattered throughout our county. We lived in the Pryor Manor, right off of the courthouse square. The house was probably close to 150 years old. The Pryors…

This isn’t really scary and I’m certain there’s an explanation but it threw me for a loop at the time. It certainly isn’t going to be in the running for a prize, I just felt like sharing it as a supernatural-adjacent story.

No Running (in the Hall)

When I was a young girl my mother used to tell me these stories about a “shadow man” who at visited her at night when she was a kid. She said she’d often wake up with him standing next to her bed, or staring down at her. He was just a shadow in the shape of a man with no discernible features. She also tells me that…

I posted this last year and have been encouraged to repose, apologies to those who have read it before, but it was just so spooky.

Possible Shapeshifter

A Face in the Window

I went through every inch of that mental hospital while I was there. I found old patient underwear in a locker (bags of it, intended for new patients). I found restraints. I found a dental chair with restraints. I went through the morgue. I found one patient report. A twin, and the report went on about how she must ve…

Not really a scary story, but it contains a death and something I can’t explain to this day.

So I live in a mid sized town in the south and every weekend my mother and I would hop into the car and drive down to our local bookstore for some coffee and chat. This day I had also taken her to the craft store so it was now…

One night, toward the end of our project, an extra slips away and I and a few others are sent to find him. The building is old and dangerous, and we have given strict orders to keep people from going exploring. Johnny didn’t listen. I check the upstair surgery suites, and don’t find him. My team and I regroup on that…

The friend who is my ride has all the power and the keys. I am at the mercy of their schedule. Two days in, the day after my humiliation by the morgue, they declare it is time for a shower, and we take a break and leave.

Years ago, I worked on a movie being shot in an abandoned mental hospital. We worked round the clock, sleeping there for several nights. I am a skeptic. But I can’t explain the many things that happened there. It took me awhile to talk about this one.

So this will probably be dead in the grays, but I’ll share this anyway because it gives me goosebumps and it’s been passed down in my family and shared over many a weeny-roasts, holiday parties and bonfires for ages.

This isn’t your typical spooky/creepy/ghosty story but it’s haunted me since 2007.