Category: Haunted Passages

Haunted Passages Short Story: “Boys Taste Better” by E Ce Miller

When Luke Cole goes missing, everyone blames his father. Classic case, folks mouth around town, in line for their lattes, their postage stamps, imagining how an estranged ex-husband might abscond with his own son to torment the kid’s mom. Most figure Luke will turn up in a week or two, sheepishly clutching a body-warmed Big…
Haunted Passages Poetry: “Aubade to the Weight of a Soul in the Morning Air” by Jenny Maaketo

I packedso high in the lightI practice for whatuntil what is an objectTo cast becomes invisible To cradle light spindle refracts rays switchgrass the grass switch my wrist with you and to hold notuntil as lightly as I find I among the mountains air I will to be you here the cast touch is caught…
Original Haunted Passages Short Story: “The Late Mrs. Cole” by Salvatore Difalco

Mrs. Cole lived down the street from us. People said she was a witch. They’d seen her flying around on a broom. And she had been spotted in Eastwood Park picking poisonous mushrooms by the back fence. She was also said to walk around the neighborhood with a shopping bag full of frogs. But most…
Short Fiction for Haunted Passages: “Splitting a Pig” by Austin Goodmanson

The machines in my daughter’s bedroom kept their rhythm for weeks. Beep. Beep. Nothing changed that I could prove. Then last week I sat beside her bed, rambling about whatever came to mind. Regrets from her childhood. When I said I was sorry, her cheek was wet. One tear. I thought it was a fluke.…
Haunted Passages Original Fiction: “Bupropion Hydrochloride, or, Pills for Vanquishing” by K. Degala-Paraíso

– 0-mg – Your sister has been evicted from her apartment—again. You count this to be her eleventh eviction. This time, instead of paying her landlord rent for the last three months, your sister bought: You’re not sure where she got the money for all of it, as your sister has never held down a…
New Haunted Passages Short Fiction: “Sleepwalking Too Close to the Fire” by Danila Botha

I stood on the ship’s balcony, my head hanging over the railing, thick clusters of orange vomit merging with the darkening sea like Postmodern art. Agreeing to this was like stepping into a floating dream that mixed toxic positivity with aggressive self improvement through gurus and pickleball, astrology, and Pilates. I could hear the judgement…
James Pate: Three Poems for Haunted Passages

Messiah of Evil (1973) We sit in the sun and wait. We sleep. And we dream. Each of us dying slowly in the prison of our minds. —Arletty, Messiah of Evil I’ve often thought of the human head as a meat radio. And cat heads too. And those of small, quivering birds flying too close…
Haunted Passages Short Story: “Galaxy” by Diane Zinna

My mom once told me, “You’re not pretty—you know that, right?” When I asked her through stinging tears why she would say that, she said, “Well, you have a horse face.” I was twelve. She also taught me the names of all the constellations. On the nights my stepfather filled the house with liquor and…
Two Poems for Haunted Passages: Emma Galloway Stephens

The Devil Beats His Wife When the devil beats his wife,rain and sunshine fall together. Hell’s housewife knows her husband’s daysare few—the rain falls rain on sun on rain. The devil’s a mobster, a debt collector—his wife waxes hell’s nine floors, washes its sooty windows.It’s a house of slamming doors. But slowly she learns not…