Category: Haunted Passages

Haunted Passages: Three Hypnophobia Poems by Ellie White

Hypnophobia[1] #17 In the basement of the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, there is a carousel. Or at least, there used to be. As I descend into the first room, the music starts, and it is that music, only darker. The cheery notes all flattened out and squeaking, a mouse under a cat’s paw. It is…
The Future: “Anything Can Be a Weapon,” a collaborative short story by Dana Diehl & Melissa Goodrich (from The Classroom)

When the zombies overtook the Lakeshore School District, the Dads were the first to go. They were crossword Dads. Whiskery and near-sighted. They were dads with novelty bowties. Some say the zombies took the Dads first because they were the strongest, because the zombies were building an army and needed strong soldiers. But we know…
“He Came into the House,” a short story for Haunted Passages by Fraylie Nord

When the trap door swung down, the girl received it with her entire body. I saw it happen before I disappeared. It wasn’t intentional, and I knew I was in trouble. The door wasn’t engineered to hurt people. It was meant to hinge downward, hold the weight of a terrifying girl, and then swing back…
Poetry: Three EVP Recording Sessions by Lauren Brazeal Garza

EVP Recording Session #1: The Original Poltergeist Recalls “I moseyed to the lifeless party late, buried my shock under my skirts just like a garter. —Wait. I never moved or carried anything. No clothing in the great beyond. It’s tailored: each unpleasant underworldly task. Our assignment was forgetting all that’s physical. No body danced, I…
Haunted Passages: Three Visual Poems by Ana

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Seed Luminous Marrow Bestia Ana is a Zurich-based legal professional. She serves as art director with Pidgeonholes Magazine and recently published work in Obra/Artifact, Storm Cellar, and Hayden’s Ferry Review.
Zach VandeZande Fiction: “Imperative”

It is night and the feeling is coming on again. You know the one. There are rules for dealing with this, a blunt methodology we have devised over time. Stay awake. Don’t stop thinking. Don’t let it wash over you the way it does. Find something to do. The knight Wallace makes his way up…
Haunted Passages: “Sticking the Cow,” a lyrical prose piece by Stina French

My mother called penises “tallywackers.” That’s a name meant to scare a girl off ‘em. I wonder if that word came to mind when she was eighteen, when her uncle raped her. I didn’t understand, as someone who had never been raped, how it can make a woman run from her body forever, force her…
“The Arm,” a short story for Haunted Passages by Henry Giardina

I made my choice, and I don’t have no regrets so far. That’s a lot better than some folks in town can say. It’s been about, oh, four years now since they took the arm. Actually took it, I mean. I made the choice for it to go much earlier—I guess I must have been…
Sara Lautman Illustration: “overcast”

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Sara Lautman is a cartoonist, illustrator and editor in Brooklyn. Her drawings have been published with Tablet, Jezebel, The Pitchfork Review, The Believer Logger, and are forthcoming in The New Yorker. Her next collection, The Ultimate Laugh, was published by Tinto Press in winter 2016. She is…