When I bought the land, the only structure on it was this tiny stone shed. It was lashed to the ground by crooked saplings and overwhelmed by weeds. There were no windows, just a single square door all boarded up. My plan was to knock the thing down so I could use the space for […]
The Noctrium Library
Ghost Stories & Poems
The musty smell of yellowed pages fills your nostrils as you enter the library and survey the shelves. Cobwebs fill the spaces between worn covers. Each faded spine beckons with the promise of a sleepless night, and for a moment you wonder if you are not imagining the whispered calls that seem to linger in the air.
An Open Door to Belief or Doubt
I guess I was five or six when I first really believed in ghosts. The belief must have been growing for some while before then, but only in the form of stories I tried not to think about too close to bedtime. Never as something that would ever show up in my house. But show […]
Anniversary
For the thirtieth time, they pulled the book from its place on the shelf. He blew a year’s worth of dust from the cover before smiling at her and leading her to the sofa. They sank into the tired cushions, wiggling closer to each other as together they pried the cover open. “Zero,” she said, […]
Off the Path
“Whatever you do,” I call from the door, “don’t leave the path.” Melanie looks at the carpet of blazing leaves to either side of her, then offers me a bemused smile. “No. Wouldn’t want to trample your verdant lawn.” “It’s not that,” I say as I receive her from the stone path into my home, […]
Knock
Knock. It was a strange time for someone to be knocking on the door. A strange time for someone to even be awake. But I’d been having a strange dream, so I guess the strangeness of real life seemed normal by comparison. In the dream, I’d been standing in a dark hallway. There was someone […]
The Only Thing We Have to Fear
My dad always said the way to beat your fear was to face it. So much of fear, after all, is not knowing. If you know, you won’t be afraid. That’s why, for a week when I was a child, I slept with one arm dangling off the bed, within easy reach of whatever might […]
Battery
“You see, we realized that it was drawing its power from us. That our fear was its strength. Every time we saw it, heard it, we made it more potent. The solution was obvious to us then: ignore it. Pretend it didn’t exist. So we just locked the door.” She stared at me, at my […]
Windows to the Soul
For a long time, debate raged over whether or not there existed such a thing as a soul. Science nearly discredited the entire idea, but then came the breakthrough. The soul became an accepted fact of human existence, as widely believed in as the existence of the stomach. Of course, there’s a big difference between […]
The Family Cabin
My family owned a big cabin in a wooded gorge several hours from town. Every summer a bunch of my aunts and uncles and cousins would join us there for a week-long vacation. The last year we did it, we showed up and everything looked normal on the outside. Inside, however, the place was a […]