Category: Haunted Passages

Three Haunted Passages Poems by Sheila Dong

fruit i adopt a cat from the shelter,then forget it in a box.the way it stareswhen i remember. the wayits head rolls off,a softened apple. noblood or rot.just another donation.on the night bus i feelsick so i get offtwo stops early to walkin the light-lack, touchingchainlink and weeds. thingsfall from branchesand roll toward me.the bus…
“Under Skin”: A Haunted Passages Short Story by Val Killpack

I lifted the veil and saw ten-thousand writhing maggots. I had found an old, white sheep lying on her side. I pulled her up and dragged her through the overgrown field and up the driveway toward the barn. She collapsed on the pavement. This was the first incident. My chest convulsed, and I downed the…
“From Unusual Angles”: Maxwell Malone Interviews Matthew M. Bartlett, Creator of The WXXT Program Guide

The WXXT Program Guide is a monthly chapbook subscription service that chronicles the strange goings on in and around small-town Leeds, Massachusetts, as transmitted via radio broadcast by a long-dead coven of witches. The tales contained within often take the form of short stories or vignettes, but they are just as likely to appear as…
“Mom’s House”: A Haunted Passages Flash Fiction by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

My double is bored; I tell him it’s not my fault—he still looks at me judgmentally. So we have a staring contest, because they’re fun, and the loser has to give the winner a piggyback ride. “All the way to Mom’s house,” I drawl, raising the stakes. “Smoking cigarettes,” my double shoots back, knowing how much…
“Bunnyman Bridge Is Haunted”: A Haunted Passages Hybrid Piece by Colleen Kearney Rich

The legend is that a bus from the insane asylum crashed near the bridge and patients escaped. One patient was never found. But they did find the remains of several dead rabbits. I remember stopping at the Sonic for onion rings and a cherry limeade. Max always has these tiny bottles of vodka in the…
Ricky Ray Poem: “The Dream” for Haunted Passages

In which the monster emerged sludgehearted and fond of hares.And triplets were born of a wish that blew itself apart.Candleflame ignored the wind.Her face, thirty years on ice,the one my waking mind can’t find in the crowd.Water in the streets so high you could swim.I was a woman.I was a wolf. I could hear hunger…
“Sour Candy”: A Haunted Passages Flash Fiction by Lindy Biller

My mother carried bright colored candies with her everywhere. Usually Skittles or M&M’s. It didn’t strike me as odd until years after she was gone. She would stop at a red light and reach into the Ziploc bag in her pocket. She created her own complicated meaning system for each color—red meant turn back, green…
Fred Gerhard: Four Poems for Haunted Passages

Chill November On a chill November afternoonmemory of colorclings to skylike pitch dark twigs alivereaching for a summer sunlong gone a poorly dreamt expanseof slate fogpearly mistfar away and departingour livesour graves leaves space forautumn hymns in thelow quiet tonethat falling breezesknowand hum where we would gobefore we let goand throwour shivering limbs aliveto the…
“Styrofoam”: A Haunted Passages Flash Essay by Sarah Robbins

“This is you,” she says, with a riiip to the Styrofoam cup. “When you start out, you are pure and without flaw—the way God intended you to be.” She pulls a new cup out of the plastic sleeve lying on the picnic table and holds it in one hand, level to her face. I look down at…