There was a place, it was said, where if you held still, stopped your breath, waited, waited … you could see the ghostly funeral processions pass. Down the long road from the old mansion house, now a nursing home. The family, long since gone, had had the privilege, when one of them died, of having the coffin carried down the long road at midnight. Down through the fields, now housing estates, across the streams and becks, now paved over, past the stores and warehouses, now coffee houses and apartment complexes. If anyone were about, doing god knows what, out with cause, or not, they would turn aside, or step back into the shadows, eyes down, letting the procession step slowly by. Down towards the river, down through the town to the parish church. There to pause, to request admittance, a soft glove against the door, the slow creak as it opened and the priest stepping to one side. The service, brief with few hymns, a short summary of a life, sometimes long, more often not. The crypt opened, the smell of old bones released into the air.
Tag: ghost story
No One Knows I am a Ghost by Dominic Hemy
They don’t know I’m a ghost. Even I forget sometimes. After years of hiding it, I’ve become quite good at obfuscating the signs. So good that I fool myself. Occasionally I let my guard down, and a hint drops free, but no one has managed to piece them together. Yet.
The Reunion on Glacier St. by Ethan Kahana
It felt funny wearing my brother’s cologne. The fragrances wafted through the moist, trapped air of our old bedroom, the soft smell of the sage coming through the dimly lit room with a small hint of cedarwood and mint. I could tell that the air hadn’t been used in a long time. Years, maybe. I put on my brother’s black suit, the pinstriped jacket with the real-looking white rose lapel, the leather shoes, top hat, everything. It finally fit after years of hanging off my body every time I tried it on. I remember standing on homemade stilts and stuffing the suit with paper towels to try to get into it, much to mother’s consternation. Unable to look at myself in the mirror for too long, I pulled it off and hung each article of clothing with great care, making sure there was not a wrinkle to be found.
The calm after the storm by B F Jones
The grand piano lays discarded by the mossy path.
She sits on the frayed velvet of the wooden stool long rooted into the ground.
She slowly runs her finger up and down the black and white ivory.
Ghost Light by Kate Leimer
I am the Ghost Light, the one who stands and watches the stage when the theatre is closed.
I am here for safety; you wouldn’t want to tumble down into the orchestra pit while fumbling for the light switch, would you? I watch the ghosts who come to entertain the empty seats at night; the usherette in her apron and cap, who drifts through the wall that wasn’t there when she worked here, long ago.
A life worth living, after all by B F Jones
When Constance Dawson died, no-one really noticed nor even batted an eyelid, for she had been ill a long time and also, a bitter old bitch.
When she came back a few days later, re-materialising on a Saturday morning in the middle of the town’s farmers market, the overall response had been a bit more energetic, some gasping, some downright fainting but most whipping phones from back pockets in the hope to catch the eerie sight.
Xiaogui by Joseph Sale
Inspector Yao pushed his glasses back to the top of his nose, adjusted his suit jacket, blinked and looked again. He could have sworn he saw a girl standing beneath the archway, but it was two o’clock, and the students would not be permitted to leave for another hour and a half at least.
She certainly wasn’t there now.