ghost stories

Advent Ghosts 2021: “Presence”

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 13 Comments
The Paw Paw Tunnel is a 3,118-foot-long canal tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Allegany County, Maryland. Located near Paw Paw, West Virginia, it was built to bypass the Paw Paw Bends, a six-mile stretch of the Potomac River containing five horseshoe-shaped bends. 

Winding my way. The commonwealth for an hour, but now it’s the oldest county in the state no one seems to believe is real. I can feel the old. It looks into my windows. Trying both to outrun it and let it ride with me.

The turns. Always the turns, then blindness, then an opening. Pressing fuel but now another turn. 

Four hills, and narrow. Speed lost, though I look for it. A crumbling stone bridge suggests in silence I can’t cross.

I cross and the stones disappear behind me.

It will be soon. And all out of my hands.

###

Advent Ghosts 100 Word Storytelling is put on by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall. You can read this year’s entries there. Visit back here throughout the day for a growing crop of spooky stories from a range of writers! Loren posts them all day as we approach the darkest day of the year.

This is an exactly 100-word flash fiction piece for a tradition of writing ghost stories on Christmas Eve. We acknowledge a sinful and hopeless world, and welcome the dawn in full awareness that Christmas day brings us light.

Search tag “Advent Ghosts” to read all of my 100-word stories for this project over the years.

“Listen” — Advent Ghosts 2020

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 10 Comments

The historical society sells a gilded ornament each year. This, of John, of Jack, shows his eyes downcast. His widow chose the image for the portrait, after enduring faithlessness, blood, and grief. Her black veil burns with heat, not chill.

What is preservation if not a gathering of lost souls, their dreams, their crimes, all that they believed was buried with them? What is this present, masquerading as the past, rousing spirits and preparing the way for all who are damaged? New ghosts cling to the old white house, rewriting its fate and haunting the future.

They will be heard.

###

Advent Ghosts 100 Word Storytelling is put on by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall. You can read this year’s entries there. Visit back here throughout the day for a growing crop of spooky stories from a range of writers! Loren posts them all day today, the darkest day of the year.

This is an exactly 100-word flash fiction piece for a tradition of writing ghost stories on Christmas Eve. We acknowledge a sinful and hopeless world, and welcome the dawn in full awareness that Christmas day brings us light.

Search tag “Advent Ghosts” to read all of my 100-word stories for this project over the years.