The Unholy Trinity: Three (True) Ghostly Tales

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Three (true) Ghostly Drabbles

Edith gasped. Outside, through the glass front that looked onto the garden was a shimmery figure. A man. Watching her, staring. It was night-time. She was alone, elderly, defenceless.

What could he want? Rob her? Hurt her?

She phoned the police. Then, footsteps on the stairs. Creaking, thumping.

The man was gone outside. Now, surely in her home, hiding perhaps, waiting.

The police arrived. They checked everywhere but found no-one.

Then; “Whose are those muddy footprints?”

She looked, shrieked. The prints were in her living room, leading upstairs.

He hadn’t been outside but beside her, observing quietly, his reflection deceiving.

###

Mike awoke, startled. A crash in the kitchen. Again. For several nights now the same ritual; late at night, crashing and banging in the kitchen, broken plates, glasses. He lived alone with his cat in an old house. The previous owner had died suddenly only months before leaving behind all the old furniture, including strange relics from far-away countries. Dolls, hideous books with strange texts.

The damn cat. New house, investigating, playing, but it wasn’t funny anymore.

He rose, annoyed, and stormed downstairs to scold the cat.

“Puss?” he shouted.

A meowing. From outside. It had been outside. Which meant…?

###

Chris screamed. A face watched him from the large closet in his bedroom. His parents rushed to his room, checked everything, saw no one. He was having nightmares, they said.

It had been occurring for days; noises in his room at night, downstairs in the kitchen. Whispering, rustling in the closet. Yet his parents didn’t believe him.

Until.

He awoke the next night. Saw a ghostly shadow standing over him, grinning.

He screamed.

This time, when his father checked, he heard the door open downstairs. Someone fled into the night.

No ghost, but a homeless man living in the closet.