Best Paranormal Fiction

Jennifer Parrish sat in her living room distractedly drumming a box of Halloween decorations with a plastic femur bone.  Although she had purchased every “hauntifying” gimmick on the market, she never quite captured the true essence of Halloween.  November 1st, when all the bones and bodies were again tucked away, her impression would be that Halloween had somehow fallen flat again. Jen wanted creaking doors, thunder and lightning, secret passages where winds rushed through swaying cobwebs. It didn’t exist, or did it?

Jennifer turned on her lap top and brought up “haunted houses.”  Not the paranormal experience, but the haunted house that manufactures nightmares; sound effects and illusions made real by designers and clever actors. She clicked on one in her area called Mansion of Darkness.  Auditions were in another week, and Jennifer was determined to look for the ultimate Halloween experience with the other fanatics. Read more »

Rachel took the train up north from Pennsylvania into the thick forests of the Adirondack mountains.  As the train clattered against the tracks and across bridges, Rachel peered down into the dark rivers below.  They reminded her of the bridges she used to jump from as a kid—the abandoned railway ones upstate.   The water ran so black, rushing against the rocks by the shore.   The rails were hard to climb along because of jagged pegs and missing boards. When younger kids tried to crawl across, the older boys would shake the boards, taunting and laughing.    Everyone knew you had to make it to the middle of the bridge, because jumping too close to land could be deadly—broken pieces of the bridge jutted out from the dark water.  One wrong turn, and piece of twisted metal could tear right through you. Read more »

Every year, me and my cousin, Karen, would take Grandma to the theater to listen to the Syracuse Orchestra play Christmas Carols.  Our grandma is a small, kind old woman, one you expect to find in fairy tales, living in a log cabin in the snow.    Her back is slightly hunched over and her nose grew to a point.   She likes to cut out newspaper clippings and send them to us in thick envelopes in the mail.
“Look!” she writes in purple pen. “This girl has the same first name as you!”  And it would be an article about girl who won a boxcar derby or raised goats or died in a fire.  With the latter, she usually adds “Poor girl!”  not realizing how upsetting it was to know someone similar to you in some way (any way) is dead and gone and buried. Read more »

It is so funny how the weather can be so…perfect when your world is being turned upside down, or worst. Right now, this October night was the type of evening that should have been reserved for pumpkin carving, for hayrides, for sitting on the front porch sipping apple cider. The weather was crisp and warm, steady for a late October night.
But now I find myself running from the creature, and those thoughts of sipping cider now actually seem funny, although I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because I always took things for granted before, and never stopped to think that I should treasure, savor those moments, as they may have very well been my last. Read more »

I can’t recall when it started or when I noticed. I don’t want to remember that far back. All I want is for it to stop… and no, I’m not getting ahead of myself… My name is Zain. I work in an office doing things day in and day out. It’s what I do. Everything was fine, as life is as it does, a pattern from here to there that peaks and valleys along the way. I was fine with this pattern until it changed one day.
My cube is third from the door, close enough to flee during a fire but far away enough that the draft doesn’t touch me when someone enters. I’ve liked it for a long time… that is until a few days ago. An innocent thing you would never notice normally… There are drawers on the bottoms of the cubes that run on metal rails. I bumped my knee one day, drew blood, I had to wash it off across the hallway in the bathroom. Read more »

Morning

She told me the world would only end while I was alive. What a thing to tell a ten year old. That without them the world wouldn’t be a better place… it wouldn’t be a place period. Time slipped by and my grandmother died, my mother spent her life rubbing pennies together to make ends meet after my father died proving my grandmother right. Now I’m 26 and nothing has changed. Still broke and still the brunt of that statement.
Why was I born again? I’ve tried everything I found, but it hasn’t changed a thing. I’m different, I admit that, but isn’t everyone else? Isn’t everyone a unique example of humanity? Did I have to be the lucky one to pull the apocalypse card? Read more »

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you could do it all over, knowing what you know now? I certainly did. I was 37, mother of two beautiful children and from all appearances, very happily married. But appearances can be deceiving. Very deceiving.

At 18 I was highly sought after. I did some local modeling for a small, upstart magazine and suddenly Hollywood was knocking down my door. Offers were pouring in from all sides; movie offers, modeling offers, television offers, even the more famous nudie magazines… they all wanted me. They were throwing ridiculous amounts of money at me with promises of seeing the world and having all of my dreams come true. Read more »

From The Journal Of Joseph Strasburg

The year is 1828 and I am here, on assignment, in Vienna, the city of musicians. Quite a stir has been made recently of a violinist named Francesco Pastorini. He recently began a tour that is leaving his audience both captivated and frightened. There are reports that his skill, which is undeniably remarkable, is the product of a pact he made with Lucifer.

Today is the 23rd July, and I was finally able to secure admittance to a concert he is to give tomorrow evening. The sum for acquiring this ticket was more than I make in a two-month period, but that is of no concern for me right now. I am here to see, firsthand, if the great Pastorini has indeed enlisted the help of the Devil and his demons for his extraordinary talent. Read more »

The fog spread across the bay, rolling in over itself as if trying to reach the land upon which I stood.  It seemed to be the very personification of desperation in it’s act of reaching for a handhold in the grass strewn shores of Derby Wharf.  I crossed over the barrier between the worlds of nature and man as I stepped from the damp grass , through the gravel walk and onto the ancient dock.  Sturdy as they were, having weathered the storms that had infamously battered the Northeastern Americas, the thick, creosote laden planks creaked beneath my shifting weight.
As I slowly walked down the pier, meeting the deepening fog with the determination and calm of one who is about to die by their own hand, I smiled at the familiar dinging of the wharf’s singular buoy.  This was a perfect setting to end my own life; in the wide open, yet veiled to the world through God’s own hand, I would no longer be a blight upon my wife’s soul, and more importantly, I would no longer be constantly reminded of it.  I was Read more »

We moved to the town of Solemn Massachusetts about three months ago. Our house is a two story building with faded white paint, blue shutters and a blue roof. It’s an ancient thing over one hundred years old and in dire need of repair. It doesn’t matter. We’d probably be moving in another month or two. My mother’s selfish never ending quest for Mr. Right would see to that. My father left when I was four and my sister was just a few months old. I don’t remember him that well and when ever I used to ask my mom about him she’d reply that he was “just a fling”. A fling that lasted about six years and begot her two children. I know that I look just like him and that I’m named after him and whenever my mom and I fight, which is almost every day, her closing argument is “You’re just like your father!” followed by the slamming of a door. I guess I know him well enough. Read more »