Ghosts Next Door

Ghosts Next Door
by Lopaka Kapanui

Oct 31, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #1

KALA

WAHI: MAUNAWILI


She'd done everything for me; some of it served me well, most of it crippled me in the way that I grew up not knowing how to do the common everyday basic things for myself. She did teach me about the value of prayer and faith. As a child, when I was close to death on many occasions, she was a constant presence at my bedside. Her prayers never ceased until I was better. It would have a long-reaching effect well into my adult years. Overall, I survived.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #2

KAIAULU


WAHI: MAILI

It was 1972 that much I remember.  We were living in Waimalu, and it was Halloween. A bunch of us gathered in front of Robbie Ralston's house, all dressed in our costumes. Armed with paper bags, rice sacks, and plastic fishing buckets, we excitedly trick or treated as many houses as we could for as much candy that we could get.

Oct 30, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #3

LUA KŪPAPAʻU KOʻIKOʻI

WAHI: KAUPE'A


It was precisely where she said it would be, and I prayed the whole way over that she was wrong, but she wasnʻt. The body was buried in a hole dug six feet in depth and facing due east.

Oct 29, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #4

HUHUHUNE

WAHI: LANAKILA



No one liked Uncle Theodore, not even my father, and they were brothers. However, he had all the money. The rest of the adults did not.

Oct 28, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #5

NALOWALE

WAHI: KAPOLEI

(FICTION)


The empty parking lot at what used to be the K-Mart in Kapolei was the pick-up spot. That's where the big yellow school bus gathered up the fifty-five people who paid for their spooky bus ride to a haunted house in the area.

Oct 27, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #6

KULU WAI/HINA MOE

WAHI: MAUNA LANI UKA

A single drop of water in a deeply carved bowl holding the same liquid leaves a sound of such bottomless reverence that the immediate silence which follows moves one to bow their head in deference to the awe of nature.

Oct 26, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #7

KAUA 'EKOLU

WAHI: MAILI

MAKAHIKI: 1971

'EONO MAHINA MA MUA


Randy hiked to the back of Makha valley in search of somewhere to sit and forget the war. However, it wasn't as easy as he had hoped.

Oct 25, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #8

KAUA 'ELUA

WAHI: MAILI, WAI'ANAE

MAKAHIKI: 1971


"Wake up, gook," I opened my eyes from a dead sleep and saw Randy's face right in front of me.

Oct 24, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #9

KAUA 

WAHI: MAILI, WAI'ANAE

MAKAHIKI: 1971


This is about that time in my life when my oldest brother Randy came back from Vietnam after a four-year tour.

Oct 23, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #10



WAHI: WAIPAHŪ MA PUPUKAHI


The woman appeared every night outside my bedroom window. Only I could see her, but that was no one elseʻs fault.

Oct 22, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #11

MAMINA


WAHI: WAIʻALAE


Iʻd been busy for most of the month, mostly with work, and then running back and forth to the community center where I volunteered.

Oct 21, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #12

KA MEA

WAHI: KE ALA NUI 'O PUNCHBOWL


People like me have a healthy life, or we try to, even though we have the thing. Other people like me have the thing and make millions of dollars off of it, or at least they claim they do; have the thing that is.

Oct 20, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #13

I KE KAKAHIAKA 'ELUA

WAHI: KAIMUKI


3



My head felt as if my brain were going to throb right out of my skull. Everything ached my joints, my back, and my soul. Something was wrong, it wasn't something a doctor could fix because it felt off-kilter. I willed myself to sit up on the side of the bed but slowly, not in one swift motion.

Oct 19, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #14

I KE KAKAHIAKA


WAHI: I KE ALA NUI HOKELE


1


As a kid, I used to ride past here with my father. Even back then, it seemed seedy and antiquated as if all the dirty parts of its past cluttered itself in this one part of town.

Oct 18, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #15

PAEPAE PUKA


WAHI: MŌʻILIʻILI


Iʻm, the only person that lives in this cramped studio right off of Date street. No one else but me, a few roaches now and again but mainly myself in this confined space.

Oct 17, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #16

ʻANO

WAHI: AIHUALMA

I used to think that color had everything to do with it. Wait, I mean, the color of the clothes you wore, like that. I felt that color had an effect on a person's mood on their overall state of being.  

Oct 16, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #17

HE MEA 'EKOLU 'O LIKEKE


WAHI: KĀNEʻOHE

 The wailing and screaming nearly drowned out the sound of the torrential rains as it flooded the green grass and the red earth of the Hawaiian Memorial Cemetery. The large canopy was supposed to shield Jodi Kalilikāne and her family from the deluge while the pastor gave his last rites.

Oct 15, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #18

KŪLANA


For a man my age, it seems funny to have a first name like "Kerry" but yes, thatʻs my name. Iʻm a Hanlan; weʻre Hawaiian on my motherʻs side and Caucasian-Vietnamese on my fatherʻs side.

Oct 14, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #19

MAKAHIAPO

WAHI: WAILUPE


Makahiapo could not fight back the tears at the sight of the almost ethereal beauty of Summer as she nervously checked herself time and time again while she stood in front of the full-sized mirror in the adjacent room of the old Wailupe mansion.

Oct 13, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #20

NOHO'ANA

WAHI: KALIHI

They couldn't wait, they were overcome by the moment, and it was still another 45-minute drive home. The couple took the North King street exit and took the first right turn that made sense; it happened to be Gulick.

Oct 12, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #21

KAHU PUKE

WAHI: Waialua

Remy is one of the younger librarians, if not the youngest. She doesn't see the need for the shelves and shelves of tomes that have been handled by homeless ne'er do wells and those stricken with mental illness.

Oct 11, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #22

PALAPALA ʻAELIKE

WAHI: MĀNOA


At the end of a cul, de sac is a two-level five-bedroom home nestled up against a lush forest at the very back of Mānoa Valley. The wind of legend, Kahaukani regularly lends its light breeze to the branches of the trees which hover above the home, making the leaves above sound as if it were a light, gentle rainfall.

Oct 10, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #23

'AI

There are those randy moments that strike you even when you're crusty eyed, and you haven't brushed your teeth yet. Your hair is a clump of a mess, all bunched up on one side of your head, and your eyes are puffy.

Oct 9, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #24

LUA


NICOLE KAHO‘OHULI WAS MURDERED one night, while on her way to attend a class at the University of Hawai‘i.  Her assailants, Gary Catao, Fowler McGuire, and Jermel Evans, took her by surprise as she was exiting her car in the parking structure above Cooke Field. 

Oct 8, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #25

I LAILA

I was iffy about my son's relationship with his girlfriend. Lucas is my only child, so any parent can understand me being overprotective. Lucas was a kid who led with his heart, and he decided things based on that. Sometimes it worked for him, sometimes it didn't, but that's what happens when you're a being who lives a life based on love.

Oct 7, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #26

HELE HO'OKAHI


I never assume anything. Like, I never expect that people can read my mind or that they can anticipate my actions or needs. Doing things for myself in the way I want things done is more manageable and less stressful. This is why past relationships have complicated situations, and that's why I don't get involved anymore.

Oct 6, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #27

KAHE


My father and I spent long Sunday mornings hiking along the river behind our home in Kalihi valley. He'd bring water in his work thermos along with some sandwiches, and we'd walk until we got high enough to where the river started from a large waterfall.

Oct 5, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #28

KE KOHO

Kehau was surprised to see just how many young girls there were at the clinic, some as young as thirteen. Many of them were accompanied by their mothers and grandmothers, other girls had no one, like herself. They were all like her by the fact that each girl was afraid. 

Oct 4, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #29

'IKE


Your body clock just knows when it has run its course, and it either lets you know just a little at a time until you get the hint, or it just gives up on you whether you like it or not. My body was trying to be kind to me, but once I felt it in the most unthinkable area of my lower regions, I knew.

Oct 3, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #30

KĪKANU



Being up there in age, and by that, I mean in our mid-to-late fifties, we start our walks right at sunset. We used to walk the breadth of the mall in Kahala, but after a while, it gets monotonous, and you feel like a rat in a cage.

Oct 2, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #31




The police questioned me the second I was well enough to be interrogated. I told the officers everything; my story matched what they found on Gwenʻs phone as far as the time she called me and right on down to the texts she sent to her boyfriend Frank, even though she promised not to text him while in my car. You know, out of respect?

Oct 1, 2019

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2019 #32

E ALA


It was such a long night at work. I didn't get home until 3:30 in the morning, so you can imagine my resistance when my wife kept nudging me to get up and go make her a cup of coffee. I finally stumbled out of bed and saw that the clock read 7:30 am.  My face felt swollen and ugly, and my joints ached.