Edgar Allan Poe, considered one of the writers who kicked off the golden age of ghost stories, penned many a terrifying tale in his time – including a short story called “The Black Cat,” in which a seemingly supernatural cat takes center stage as the narrator reels from the death of his wife. (Image courtesy of Behance)

Hauntings in mass media

With ghost stories’ golden age ending with the start of the Great War, the years afterward began the modern era. Now, ghost stories even began being gathered and published in their own periodicals such as Ghost Stories, printed between 1926 and 1932. Another giant of the modern era of ghost stories was Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” a gothic horror novel published in 1959. And if you’re of a certain age, you just can’t think of ghost stories without thinking of 1984’s “Ghostbusters,” a true classic.

Though mass media have shown us what these terrifying specters look like, stories told using the power of the spoken word have the power to terrify as well, according to the American School of Storytelling.

“In the telling of ghost stories – voice and pace – are critical tools. When are you soft or loud, slow or fast, and most importantly where are the silences that let the audience fill in the gaps and heighten their own emotional response?” according to a 2024 post on the organization’s Instagram account. “In most stories, anticipation is doing a good portion of the work. I once told a story that began, ‘She didn’t want to be a babysitter. She didn’t want to go into the basement…’ to a group of Girl Scouts who filled in the gaps between phrases with their own imagining to the point of screaming before I got to the bottom of the stairs.”

Spooks for Scouts

One author for the blog “Aaron on Scouting” fondly recalled his experience of listening to tales – both scary and otherwise – huddled around the fire on Boy Scout camping trips during his youth.

“One of my favorite memories from Boy Scout campouts was gathering around the fire and listening to the assistant Scoutmasters tell campfire stories. I loved movies and books growing up, but there was something about those live stories that was more compelling than the printed word or images on a screen,” author Bryan Wendell wrote. “(These stories) are an important part of the Boy Scouts of America.”

A great variety of very short ghost stories can be found online, ready for you to give your Halloween party or camping trip guests a little extra jump. For instance:

“Last night a friend rushed me out of the house to catch the opening act at a local bar’s music night. After a few drinks I realized my phone wasn’t in my pocket. I checked the table we were sitting at, the bar, the bathrooms, and after no luck I used my friend’s phone to call mine. After two rings someone answered, gave out a low raspy giggle, and hung up. They didn’t answer again. I eventually gave it up as a lost cause and headed home. I found my phone laying on my nightstand, right where I left it.”

And what is perhaps the world’s shortest ghost story, consisting of just two sentences and published in 1948 by Frediric Brown, will surely send a chill down your spine:

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door……’’