Category: Haunted Passages

“greetings from televillage”: A Poem for Haunted Passages by Ariel Clark-Semyck

I how the quiver of the camera makes it all seem so mine—my body flying over the bonnie green fields of the isle. my body sitting in the sodden rowboat of the old ferryman, the folds of his salty skin purling as he gabs on about last year’s failed crop. my body is a foot-soldier…
Madeline Vosch: “The Place Between Tongue and Teeth,” a Haunted Passages short story

At night it fills my mouth, this unnamable, unmournable ghost. I don’t know who it is, but on calm nights it tastes like smoke and cedar. On days when the wind sweeps in, hard and angry from the north, it tastes like ocean salt. It pushes against the corners of my gums, pressing down on…
Noah Thornburgh on B.R. Yeager’s cosmic horror novel Negative Space

Works of cosmic horror threaten to consume their characters by the end. We expect an ultimate resolution, not necessarily through an explanation of the mysteries that preceded, but by the total convergence of the experience in a singular mystery. The Outside snuffs out the characters, inspires madness in them, cripples them—some final effect demonstrating the…
Two Poems by Sean Burke for Haunted Passages

The Moon Lays Down a No Trick Hand When father left office a rag of colts followed on their hind legs. It was the damnedest thing. All that year, Ms. Jansen’s calves were born without bodies. Their heads—strange, unwieldy cabbages— sang ecstatically in the fields. The teens that always plagued the Cinemagic parking lot (and…
Honor Vincent: “Boots,” a Haunted Passages short story

It was, as it always is, the cat who first noticed that the number of ghosts squeezing themselves into the apartment was increasing. The cat shared the apartment with a man, two young cats named Mimi and Sisi, and the usual variety of things that made their crawling lives in the walls and dark corners…
Andrew Bertaina: “A Good Day’s Work,” a Haunted Passages short story

The man threaded his way down the long rows of bodies with an old wheelbarrow, careful as he rolled, to avoid an outstretched hand, a folded leg, the acrobatics of the dead. The light bore down on his back, harsh and unrelenting as he worked in the tree-less, thankless cemetery. Velvety beaked crows lined the…
“Becoming Gods,” a flash fiction for Haunted Passages by Steve Gergley

Oh, Jesus. Just try to relax. You’re okay. God. You’re okay, I’m right here with you, just like always. Just take it easy. Oh man. Okay. Yeah, that’s good. Don’t worry about getting up just yet. Just lay back and relax for a while. Okay. How are you feeling? I’m sorry, but I don’t really understand…
Haunted Passages: “Thank You for Shopping with CouchCart,” a short story by Tara Campbell

Tara Campbell (taracampbell.com) is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. She received her MFA from American University in 2019. Previous and upcoming publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and CRAFT Literary. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and two collections, Circe’s Bicycle and…
“Inked,” a Haunted Passages short story by Kara Oakleaf

My first tattoo appears the morning after Ian’s funeral. I wake up and press my hands into my eyes to keep out the reality of another day, and immediately, I recognize his work, his clean lines tracing a mountain range in the center of my palm. The skin surrounding the image is raised and red,…