Grief
Horror stories about loss: the son wished back from the grave, the landline that will not let you cancel it, the casserole that arrives a year early. Often the saddest stories on the site, and some of the most frightening.
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The Tide Tables
My grandfather left me his cottage, his boat, and forty years of tide tables written in his own hand. They are accurate to the minute. They also have a third column.
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The Monkey's Paw Classic
A visiting soldier brings the White family a dried monkey's paw from India, a charm that will grant three wishes to anyone foolish enough to use them.
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Please Stay on the Line
After my father died, I spent a week in his house closing his accounts. The last one was the landline he'd had since 1974. The phone company's automated system said it could only cancel service with the account holder.
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Stay Until I Fall Asleep
On the night shift at a small county hospital, the call light in Room 4 comes on most nights around two. There is an old woman in the bed who only wants someone to sit with her. There is one rule about it.
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Ligeia Classic
A grieving widower remarries, but his first wife's iron will may not have accepted death.
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The Wind in the Rose-Bush Classic
A schoolteacher arrives in a small New England town to take in her orphaned niece, but her stepmother-in-law seems strangely reluctant to call the girl down.
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The Boarded Window Classic
Why did the old hermit of the Ohio woods board up the only window of his cabin? The answer begins with his wife.
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Gate B0
Stranded overnight in an airport after a cancellation, I heard the boarding call at 3 a.m. for a flight to my hometown that my father took in 1999. It was boarding at Gate B0. The B gates start at 1.
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Inside Pocket
I bought a gray wool overcoat at a consignment shop in Minneapolis for forty dollars. Every morning there is a fresh slip of paper in the inside pocket with an address on it. I have been to six of them.
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The Striding Place Classic
A guest at a Yorkshire shooting party goes searching the moors for his missing friend near a narrow and treacherous stretch of river.
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Covered Dish
Every September at the Grange hall harvest supper, there is one casserole on the long table that nobody brought, with a family's name on masking tape on the lid. I've been Grange secretary for twenty-two years. It's my job to deliver it.
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Overflow Lot
The outlet mall off the interstate puts holiday shoppers in an overflow lot across the frontage road. I parked in Row K. When I came back out in the fog, the rows went past Z.
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Phenology
For thirty years I have kept a record of my backyard's seasons, the first crocus, the first robin, the first frost. This spring there is a circle of lawn under the old apple tree where it is still last October.
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John Charrington's Wedding Classic
John Charrington swears to the girl he loves that he will come to their wedding, dead or alive.
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Telling the Bees
My grandmother kept bees in the Willamette Valley and taught me the old rule: when someone in the family dies, you have to go and tell them. She also taught me what the bees do if nobody tells them.