6 Ghostly Short Stories You Can Read Right Now
There’s so much short fiction freely available online. The trick is finding it.
The great thing about short stories is that you can read them in one sitting. But just because you finish it quickly, doesn’t mean the story won’t stay with you for longer.
In horror short stories, ghosts can be protagonists or antagonists or even just side characters. They can be vengeful or sad or conniving or happy. Whatever role they play, they always add an interesting tang to a story.
The setting, atmosphere, and words used to tell the story all help prime the reader’s emotions. The ghosts themselves remind us of our own mortality and tap into that well of uncomfortableness when we think about death.
Do short stories stand a ghost of a chance against longer fiction? Absolutely.
It’s fantastic that there’s so much freely available short fiction online. It’s like a smorgasbord or an all-you-can-eat buffet. So, dig in and enjoy the taste of the following six short stories about ghosts.
Contents
1. Adventures in the Ghost Trade
By Liz Williams
Adventures in the Ghost Trade is a supernatural crime story.
“Chen bent his head in a brief prayer, then picked up the photograph and held it over the stream of smoke. The girl’s face appeared by degrees, manifesting out of a dark background.”
Eight girls from wealthy families in the city of Singapore Three have died of anorexia in a four-month period. The latest one is Pearl Tang whose mother has received a ghost-photo showing her in Hell rather than Heaven.
Detective Inspector Chen is a policeman with connections to the underworld. In charge of supernatural investigations, he investigates why her soul never made it to Heaven.
This story was later expanded into the first book of the five-book Detective Inspector Chen series.
Published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 62, you can read this short story now: Adventures in the Ghost Trade.
2. Gravenwell Lake
By GK Bird
Gravenwell Lake is a Halloween ghost story.
“Gravenwell Lake,” Janice read out loud as they passed under the crosspiece of the old wooden entranceway. The name burned into the wood was barely visible under overhanging branches. The pole on the left leaned precariously, held up by a combination of tightly-wound wild vines and luck.
The Buckleys go camping every Halloween. This year they go to a new campground by a lake. When they get there, there’s no one else there but they’re determined to enjoy themselves anyway. Then their young daughter meets Elizabeth.
Published on Vocal, you can read this short story now: Gravenwell Lake
3. A Ghost Story
By Mark Twain
A Ghost Story is a supernatural comedy horror story.
“All at once I found myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own heart—I could hear it beat. Presently the bedclothes began to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling them!”
A man takes a room in an old boarding house. The first night there, he’s disturbed by ghostly occurrences and noises.
Available on the TOR website, you can read this story now: A Ghost Story
4. The Eleventh Floor Ghost
By Megan Giddings
The Eleventh Floor Ghost is a whimsical ghost story.
“Park Street Hotel is famous for its hauntings. Ghost hunters stare into cameras set to night vision and make vaguely constipated faces to signify the feeling of long ghost fingers on their hands and shoulders.”
There’s a real ghost culture at the Park Street Hotel. Each ghost has its own floor and haunts in a way that depends on its own interests.
The Eleventh Floor Ghost doesn’t remember who she was before she died and hasn’t got the heart to haunt.
Published on the Smokelong Quarterly website, you can read this story now: The Eleventh Floor Ghost
5. Men in Cars
By Lisa M. Bradley
Men in Cars is a supernatural horror story.
“It was dusk. I’d been walking alongside the road out of town. The locals called it Bad Luck Bends, had for as long as I could remember. I looked up from my usual path and she was simply there, like she’d materialized from the fog in the forest that surrounded us.”
A young girl walks home along a lonely road and is joined by a woman wearing white.
The unnamed girl and the woman talk as they walk together along the road. The woman is trying to attract a lift from men who drive past. When they meet more than once in the same place, the girl assumes the woman is a prostitute, rather than a hitchhiker.
One night, the girl discovers a scrap of newsprint calling for the police to re-examine the accidents that have been occurring along this road.
Published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 138, you can read it now: Men in Cars
6. The Haunting of Dr. Claudius Winterson
By Sarah Monette
The Haunting of Dr. Claudius Winterson is a revenge ghost story.
“…that was when the child turned his head toward me, and I saw that he had no face. From his hairline to his high collar was a gray blank, as if he were an unfinished drawing.”
Mr Booth works at a museum. He attends the lecture of Dr Winterson, a man most of Booth’s colleagues dislike. At the reception after the lecture, Booth sees a child with no face following someone, but he’s not sure who he’s following.
Booth is shaken, especially when he sees another faceless child the next day outside Dr Winterson’s office. He tries to ignore them but then Dr Winterson comes to him and asks him to help get rid of the ghost children.
Published in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 44, you can read it now: The Haunting of Dr Claudius Winterson
Published: 15 September 2022
Related Posts
A Selection of Ghost Novels
If longer fiction is more your thing, try some of these.
- Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims
- Soon by Lois Murphy
- The Ghosts of Sleath by James Herbert
- Ghost Story by Peter Straub
- The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James
- Mystery Walk by Robert R. McCammon
