WELCOME TO THE GHOST MODERNIST. This is serialized horror fiction podcast, with every episode building upon the one before. Each season is novel length, broken into chapters, and a self contained story. If you are new here, welcome! Interested in a story about a couple navigating both the state of Georgia and their new haunted house, then please start with Chapter One of Season One (the House Unsettling) If the high seas are more your speed, and want to follow the souls trapped aboard a...

Chapter Twenty-One: "The lido deck was filling up again, with once eager vacationers milling around the deck. Coming down from the bridge, Chad Stafford thought, without the torn and bloodied clothing, without the limping, the scene looked just as it had when they’d set sail. They all had their own experiences abound the Baroness, just as Chad and Table Nine had, their own special and individualized horror and stumbled like broken refugees, survivors of some awful disaster, wandering around t...

Chapter Twenty: "But now, hearing his shoes splashing across the Lido deck of the Baroness, and the footsteps of those pursuing him, Chad felt the weight of knowing how out of options he was. He’d ducked in, around and behind, weaving through the rain and the many drink kiosks and activity stands the baroness once offered, getting closer and closer to the bow of the ship, and finally he was at the peak of the triangle. The elevated knife’s edge that was once slicing through the Atlantic. But ...

Chapter Nineteen: "Wives had poisoned husbands, husbands smothering or strangling their wives. Drunken friends got into fist fights, breaking noses and necks. Knives were slipped into handbags and the pockets of sport coats to be used in the middle of the night. There had been crucifixions. It was exactly the sort of controlled chaos he craved. The type of hatred, manipulation and violence that could rouse him from his eternal slumber. This is what an ancient god expected.”Remember, there are...

Chapter Eighteen: "On the lido deck, the knuckles on Donnie’s Fredericks left hand were stark white as he throttled the railing. He clutched the radio in his opposite hand with the same strength. Once, twice, he depressed the talk button, but let go without saying a word. Instead, he yowled, his voice dampened by the dense rain, and threw the radio overboard.”Remember, there are two types of people in this world.The Haunters and the Haunted.Which one are you?Follow me for updates!@theghostmod...

Chapter Seventeen: "Teresa watched her husband pull the pistol out from his waistband, and hover it above Austin’s face. Marie’s attention shifted, and Teresa knew Chad wasn’t trying to scare her, rather giving her a not so subtle hint that their group had regained some measure of control. Marie’s hand was suddenly on Teresa’s knee.”Remember, there are two types of people in this world.The Haunters and the Haunted.Which one are you?Follow me for updates!@theghostmodernistTheme song and music ...

Chapter Sixteen: "Marie heard it as she stood up. A tapping. Soft, rhythmic, like morse code. Something intentional. The woman clutched the cart’s handle and searched her immediate vicinity, expecting to find one of Donnie’s lunatic followers crouched behind her, a sinister grin and a gleaming butcher knife drumming against the metal of the prep table to get her attention before striking. She pictured him licking his lips.”Remember, there are two types of people in this world.The Haunters and...

Chapter Fifteen: "When the intercom cut out, the only sound was heavy rain pattering the waves and the soft whistle of wind through the sliding glass door. The blessed crispness of the ocean breeze was combatting the scent of raw construction materials and stale air inside the barren stateroom. Caroline could feel her own heartbeat. The rhythm pulsed in her ears. She could feel Greg’s hand, clammy and rigid in her own. The carpet less floor was hard beneath her and the half light of the ship’...

Chapter Fourteen: "None of the group had said a word until they were safely behind the long glass counter. Teresa eased herself down to the carpet, wincing, groaning, the rush of their hurried escape catching up with her. Her husband crept around the rectangular area, opening drawers and cabinets, picking up staplers, rulers, ink pens, then tossing them back down, hunting for some sort of weapon. Marie slid down next to Teresa, put an arm around her. She didn’t know what to say, or even if sh...

Chapter Thirteen: "When they had reached the waterfall, they heard gunshots. The first sounded like a firecracker, then two more. Screams. Glass breaking. The whole situation was foreign, like Greg was watching someone else’s life. Someone braver. The fourth shot was louder, closer, and Caroline began sucking in huge breaths. She was going to hyperventilate. Greg pulled the woman under, then through the water, and they put their backs against the faux stone wall. He felt something dig into hi...

Chapter Twelve: "Just under a foot tall, the stone sculpture was washed in a sickly green shade like oxidized copper. The passage of time, of being submerged in seawater, or buried in the sand, of changing hands, had eroded the sharp points of the wings, snapped off small pieces of the many searching tentacles, softened the once precise definition of the sculptor, but just to be in its presence was humbling.”Remember, there are two types of people in this world.The Haunters and the Haunted.Wh...

Chapter Eleven: "Oh, I’m just fooling about,” Donnie said. “Forgive me, I don’t want to take up much of your time, but alas, this needs to be said. Many of you have come to me or to one of my many underlings with wild accusations or totally misguided complaints. Seems many of you have fallen under some sort of mass hysteria. Like we, representatives of Celebration Vacations, are keeping something from you. Missing luggage or spouses. Inappropriate behavior. The list goes on and on. And honest...

Chapter Ten: "In that moment, Chad realized how profoundly little he knew about his and his wife’s safety aboard the ship. How little most people probably knew. And on the converse, how much trust they were putting into complete strangers. They were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, sealed within a gigantic metal coffin, with a cross section of humanity’s best, and worst, impossibly floating above god knows what lurked beneath the churning waves, and they didn’t even know how or who to cal...

Chapter Nine: "The State of Wisconsin, especially in brutal winter months, felt like living on the moon. Not known for its mountain ranges, the area which many of his friends from other parts of the US called “lower Canada,” was redundant, one blank, snow covered field after another. This isn’t to say that Wisconsin doesn’t have its fair share of beauty, but when Austin Holt chanced a look at the barren farms from his upstairs bedroom window in January or February, his seasonal depression and...

Chapter Eight: "During his many years of civilian medicine, especially in the emergency room, he saw the aftermath of car accidents and the slow devastation of long terminal illness. He’d seen the drunken naivety of trying to assert dominance over the explosive insistence of fireworks, and the sheer absurdity of what human beings choose to put in every one of their orifices, without a much needed plan of evacuation. Including his own, he’d been present for the birth of countless children. He’...

Chapter Seven: "The Baroness had begun her journey.They were underway.Maybe it was this subtle rumble that woke her, pinioning from beam to girder, traveling up pipes and conduit, through kitchens and staterooms and supply closets, vibrating the bottles in the duty free liquor store and the poker chips languishing in their rounded wooden troughs. Or maybe it was the sound of the Baroness churning the water, its incredible tonnage beating down and stabbing through the waves.It didn’t matter. S...

Chapter Six: "After the rush died down, and most of the cordoned off tables had been populated, a woman came hurrying through the main entry doors, looking a bit flustered, and it took Greg only a second to register her face. The Librarian. He watched her walk up to the hostess and move her lips. The hostess looked down, then pointed vaguely in Greg’s direction. He quickly looked around, searching for openings at other tables, but they were all full. She was coming toward his table, Table Nin...

Chapter Five: "While Austin felt stuck, imprisoned by the secret conversation, yet his body was moving. Like muscle memory, or a subconscious need to flee, he was wriggling he of the tight space between plastic chair and the video game’s glass top. His joints clicked and popped, even from being seated for a short period of time, and Austin waited, listening for the whispers to continue on, unaware of his presence. They did."Remember, there are two types of people in this world.The Haunte...

Chapter Four: "The idea of a curse is nothing new. The covered bridge or the condemned barn, doors falling from the hinges, on the outskirts of your home town. The patch of woods where, supposedly, a witches coven met their violent end, or group of teenage satanists practiced gruesome ceremonies they thought might bring them power, or knowledge. Now, nothing grows, and the animals stay far, far away. Do we find cursed places, or do they find us?"Remember, there are two types of people i...

Chapter Three: "This wasn’t the couple’s first cruise, and they were passed the point of being awed by the sheer enormity of the floating city, but the hallways on the stateroom floors were something Chad had never gotten used to. His door, number 220, was right about midship, and the corridor outside stretched on, it seemed, forever, in both directions."Remember, there are two types of people in this world.The Haunters and the Haunted.Which one are you?Follow me for updates!@theghostmodernis...