Tiny Ghost Stories Contest 2022

Tiny Ghost Stories was the Review’s first-ever ghost story contest: students were invited to submit up to 199 words in any genre about ghosts. Reflective, sweet, silly, and sad, the submissions we’ve curated represent the many interactions we all have with the unknown.

Winners

Contest Winner: “even a dog”

You wake up at the kitchen table.

“Pie’s almost ready,” Mom says, dabbing glitter on her eyelids. She’s going to a company event tonight. You’re not allowed to come. She slides you a glass of milk.

You wake up at the kitchen table.
“Pie’s almost ready,” Mom says around a mouthful of pie. The dishes in the sink are rotting. Mom’s holding her fork upside-down. The oven is full of tennis balls.

You wake up at the kitchen table.

“I’m almost ready,” your aunt says, dabbing white powder at the corners of her puffy eyes. The house is cold and sterile. The sink is empty. You have to get into the car soon, but you don’t want to, so you-
Wake up.

Mom‘s in the kitchen, pouring pie filling down the trash. Mom’s in the living room, fluffing the pillows. Mom’s in the garage, getting ready for the party.

You’re not allowed to come. You asked. You begged, raw-skinned and bleeding, but all she’d say was:

“I’m going now.”

You wake up alone. There’s a flash of something shiny through the window, a bruise of glitter in the dark. A dead star crawls across the sky.

Someone’s here.

— Liya Chang

Runner-Up

The music went up, and it went down. It twisted, turned, struggled, flew, watched, carried, and moved, but never did it tire - defying the laws of a living thing. It did all the things a symphony was supposed to do, and that's why people liked it. A girl in the violin section has one eye on the conductor, one on her music, and one on the audience. A gray-white figure gazes back. There are moments in life when time moves vertically rather than horizontally and when the girl saw that stare she moved with it, rising from her seat, instrument in hand. The orchestra did not stop. Time rose, the girl rose, and through her wide eyes, the figure also rose. The ghost smiled, its happy, proud, wonderful gaze landed on the stage. The ghost floated onto the stage and out the side door, settling finally in an open violin case backstage. The lid snapped shut, the girl and the orchestra kept playing forever.

— Tabitha Parker-Thiess

Honorable Mentions

“The Nothing Ghost”

Have you heard about the ghost which resides over your head? It screams, it cries, it haunts, yet you don’t realize. You don’t see how desperately it begs for you. Your attention.

Who is? What is this ghost? An old friend forgotten? Your favorite blanket abandoned? A smell unreplicable? I can’t tell you. No one can tell you because you’ll never know who the nothing ghost is. Though you just may feel their presence sometimes, you won’t identify it. The subtle, fleeting sensation will never be placed. And your deja vu, never satiated. You’ll just forget you felt the nothing ghost at all.

Isn’t this awful? Isn’t this pitiful? Isn’t this more terrifying than any other specter or eerie phenomenon? Someone has ceased to exist. Yet their will is too strong to be erased. They try in vain to make you recognize them.
That’s the thing, these ghosts won’t ever forget the past but you forgot them. And no matter how impossible it may seem right now, one day those you know and care for, might leave you. They might forget you were ever there. And if they don’t remember you… well then you're just a nothing ghost too.

— Ryan Rowe

“Short Ghost Story”

She lived in the ceiling fan. When I was little I would lie on my back and stare up at it, talking to her. At least, that's what my mother tells me.

She had curly red hair. I didn't know how I knew, I just did. Curly red hair and a freckled face, kind of how I always pictured Ginny Weasley to look when I read Harry Potter. And she was perpetually young. As I grew older she remained the same, stuck.

I wish I remembered more about her. I couldn't tell you what our conversations were about, only that we had them. I do, however, recall the sound of her voice. Though I heard it only occasionally, as I imagine it took too much energy to speak, I couldn’t ever forget the faint, scratchy whisper that echoed from seemingly empty spots in the room.
Like her presence, I heard her less often as I aged. She seldom crosses my mind now, appearing only rarely in dreams. I could almost convince myself I imagined her, if only my friend hadn't just come running out of my room to ask me who that little girl with curly red hair is.

— Lauren Badinger

“Paranormal Toaster”

It was the last minute of October. Ben, who tip-toed downstairs for a midnight snack, found himself face to face with a piece of charred toast. That is, the toast had a face, and it stared at him unblinkingly.

Just a spooky coincidence, reasoned Ben after a few initial seconds of shock, recalling the viral toast patterns online that resembled Abraham Lincoln. He loaded a fresh piece in a different slot.

Two minutes later, the toast emerged leering at him.

Ben’s blood turned to ice. There was no doubt in his mind that the toaster was haunted. Just maybe, it could be reasoned with.

“Who are you?” Ben loaded another piece of bread and waited.

DOUG DUPAIN written in crude burnt marks.

“How did you die?” he croaked.

Two minutes later, he recognized the year 1929 above a fork. Electrocution, Ben thought with a shiver.

“W-What do you want?”

The final message was chilling. RELEASE ME, BEN. I CAN BAKE THINGS VERY HARD FOR YOU.

Ben winced. A second later, he brought the toaster down hard on the linoleum floor.

Upstairs, Ben’s brother who had spent the day meticulously buttering intricate patterns was jolted awake by a loud crash.

— Denny Tan

“The Sacred”

Whenever I ask you anything-ANYTHING-all you do is make fun of me. I’m sick of it. I really am.

You’re being emotional.

…If you don’t want to fix it, just say so. Stop acting like you care.

I promise I do, but you’re–

I don’t want to hear it.

Don’t grab that. NO–stop–WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Oh, I thought I was the emotional one–

This is all my fault. I should’ve seen the signs–

BE QUIET. All your rationalizing and for what? WHAT. We both know how you like to deal with things. And your way hasn’t worked.

You know you can’t resurrect–

You accepted it so easily, rolled on your back. Well, I’m sorry I can’t be like you.

Do you know how crazy you sound? I know you’ve been struggling but it’s not your fault–

WILL. YOU. SHUT. UP.?

…

Look at what you’ve done. And why?

…I brought Him back…. I FOUND HIM. I CAN FEEL HIM.

Calm down. Drop that–what…are…you…

I brought Him back, I did.

But all he saw was a woman cradling communion wafers and stolen swaddling clothes.

—Corinne Lafont