Ghosts Next Door

Ghosts Next Door
by Lopaka Kapanui

Dec 21, 2021

Home

The pillows sank beneath his weight, receiving him like an old friend. His college days were long gone, and the memories of them were like yellowed pages in an old novel sitting in a box of other books at the back of his closet. So what else was there to do except sit and write?

Oct 31, 2021

6 Years, 600 Ghost Stories

Aloha family, friends, and fans,

Technically, I've written seven hundred and forty-four ghost stories in the past six years. With three technical years left, that would give us a thousand some odd ghost stories.

Oct 30, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #1

 2 Months Later


"Neil David molested Tabby when she was six years old. I cannot pretend to know how that affects someone into their adult years.

Oct 29, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #2

  "I wasn't certain myself," Boy said while holding the office door open for Rita, Tiny, and Ivan. Everyone took their seats and prepared for the briefing. Just then, Tabby walked in and took a seat at the table.

"So, the spirit of Jack The Ripper? Here? In this day and age in Hawai'i?" Tabby asked. "What are the chances? We've kept vampires away, as well as all kinds of other things? But Jack The Ripper? That's insidious."

Oct 28, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #3

 It was a vast plain absent of trees. Mosquitos filled the air, and spiders roamed about without pretense of sudden erratic movements.

Oct 27, 2021

Oct 26, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #5

 As they say, if you're perceptive enough and if you have a portfolio of life experience, you can see disaster approaching from a mile away.

Oct 25, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #6

 Charles Litman, who identified himself as hapa, part caucasian, part Japanese shared a fascinating story regarding the kind of work he does.

Oct 23, 2021

Oct 19, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #12

 Most late-night food places around Honolulu are crowded, and there are usually long lines going straight out the door.

Oct 16, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #15

 My hands no longer have the dexterity they once did when weaving a lei of different flowers and ferns was as effortless as breathing.

Oct 15, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #16

The Future


Sure there were houses on the street, but mostly the elderly lived in those domiciles. They hardly came out, and if they did, it was merely to go somewhere and come right back.

Oct 13, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #18

 The dream I've been having has begun to push out other dreams from my subconscious until it became the only dream I would have every time I closed my eyes. It's an old downtown church and standing in the doorway, several ali'i dressed in regalia and finery have no trace of hope on their faces. Something feels terribly wrong. In real life, the old church is leveled as complaints from the neighborhood come to the attention of the police. Homeless drug addicts were squatting there and made things dangerous for the community. They were rousted from the old house of worship, and the church itself was leveled and destroyed after. Nearly a year later, when a developer bought the property and built a small strip mall, the construction crew uncovered several burials. Among the bones were found feather helmets and capes. Cultural practitioners were called to perform protocol and ceremony where they apologized for the disrespect of un-earthing such sacred bones. They then asked for the high-ranking spirits of those remains to send them a sign as to how they should protect the remains until they could find a proper place for them to be re-interred. A slight rain fell for a few minutes, and then the uncharacteristic appearance of the sun shone through the rain, causing a rainbow to arch over the deep Kalihi valley mountains. It was there that a proper place was found for the remains to be at rest. On the way out of the valley, we removed all markers and signs of any consequence that could give someone a clue s to where the bones might be. I wonder how many ancient Hawaiian remains are sitting under the foundation of old churches around the islands?



Oct 12, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #19

 In 1969 a six-year-old girl living in Nānākuli fell into a cesspool in her backyard and was not seen for several days.

Oct 11, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #20

 There's a spot I was called to because the people who worked there couldn't get the job done because of the spirits that were actively making everyone's life miserable.

Oct 10, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #21

 I needed peace, quiet, and stillness. I needed all the sound to go away so I could think clearly. I needed the kind of silence that is so unnerving that you can't be within it. Where I found it would completely surprise you. It's in the middle of downtown Honolulu at the lower part of Fort Street Mall, facing walker park. It's that bit of concrete sitting area just outside of the architect school. The hour is four in the morning when the night is at its deepest and darkest. It feels as if darkness is an eternity that will never see the first light of day. At that precise hour, all elements, dark and light, male and female, past and present, intersect and become one. I witnessed Hawaiians from ancient times moving about their day for an ever brief moment while smatterings of cars languished along Ala Moana boulevard simultaneously. Finally, they saw me and began to approach. I stood and made my way to leave but what I witnessed was disconcerting. It was a downtown Honolulu that did not yet exist. 

Fort Street mall was a two-way street. A shortcut left turn on Beretania brought you right up and down the middle of everything. Stores and outlets were converted to apartments or studios. The homeless were gone, and the area was like a new Waikiki, devoid of all the Vegas-style lighting and gaudiness. Then it was gone in a flash, and the deathly silence returned. I could not have left any sooner than I did. What I witnessed stayed with me, and even while I slept on my own bed, I could not shake this overwhelming feeling of wanting to scream bloody murder. It boiled just beneath my chest as something separate from my own conscious thoughts, waiting, fighting, to get out. Am I possessed? Or is my body reacting from being in differing time slips happening all at once? Wish me luck. I'm going back to find out for myself.



Oct 9, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #22

 They were the typical tourists looking for adventure in a place that they'd never been to before. They were filled with wide-eyed enthusiasm but had no real plan or direction for what they would do. When they told me they would go wherever the wind took them, I felt a tinge of concern. Normally, I would have laughed in their faces and walked away. That mindset pretty much tells me that no matter how much wisdom I try to impart to them, they will disregard it and do whatever they want. "Here," I handed the talker of the group my business card. "If you hit a snag, or run into any difficulty, call me."

"I'm sure we won't have to," the talker laughed. "But, we'll keep it if we need to find a good lūʻau!"

With that, the talker, the goof, and the muscle head disappeared into the further depths of Kapiolani park, carrying everything they owned in their backpacks.  A few days later, an article surfaces in the papers, social media, and the news. Three hikers are found wedged into a crevice in the further recesses of Palolo Valley. When the three are finally pulled out by emergency crews, they are dead. Some of my contacts called me because they found my business card in the pocket of one of the deceased. He said the three had frozen expressions on their faces as if they had each died of fright. He showed me the photographs in confidence. It was the talker, the goof, and the muscle head. No one knows why they were trying to inch their way into a crevice in the side of Palolo valley until their bodies were removed. It turns out that it wasn't a crevice but an entrance to a burial cave. It was storming suddenly, and the three were looking for a place to get in out of the rain. The question is, what did they see that literally frightened them to death? My guess is that only the 'iwi kupuna could tell us, but that's something we will never know anytime soon.


photo credit: The Grunge.

Oct 8, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #23

 Sixty people were on the LIVESTREAM watching Kaulana Manheim show everyone how to make a simple flower lei using plumeria or pua melia. It was an evening program, and as Kaulana was going through the steps, someone on the live stream noticed something off-camera to the left and commented about it. “There are people behind you, like walking right past you.”

Kaulana turned around to catch of fleeting glance of Hawaiian warriors walking through her bedroom. One of them suddenly grabbed Kaulana and threw her up against a wall while the other ghostly warriors stopped and made time to stab Kaulana to death by using their eight-tipped spears. Flesh and marrow came away as each warrior stabbed the girl, pulled their spears out, and stabbed again. The LIVE audience of six was horrified while everyone else called 911 and others tried to figure out Kaulanaʻs address. Only one person commented, “I donʻt know if this makes sense at all, but if those are night marchers, Kaulana is not Hawaiian. Does that count?”




Oct 7, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #24

Waiting was the most difficult because they were older now, and all the cushions on their butts didnʻt pad them the way they used to. That gave them no option but to lay on the grass and wait, they were fully clothed but who the hell lays on the green grass in a cemetery? They did, they had to. There was no choice. It was nearly three in the morning and the green-colored akua lele didnʻt show up the way that their contacts in the area said it would. Theyʻd exhausted all their hot cocoa, sandwiches, musubi, and drinks of various sizes. Now, they were passing gas and burping and a few were snoring. So much for the “experts” from the Ghost ʻOhana Social Media page. Their first investigation was a bust. The admin of the group called it a minute after three in the morning. Everyone sighed and heaved as they packed up the coolers, the beach chairs, and the paranormal equipment. “Next time,” everyone waved as they all walked to their cars neatly parked in a line right outside the cemetery. The vehicles started almost at the same time when the buzzing streak of green flames came out of nowhere over the cemetery. With its long green flaming tail at the end, it went straight for the line of cars and decimated every single one, causing a deafening explosion on impact. “Works every time,” the admin of the Ghost ʻOhana Social Media page chuckled. “Every time.”



Oct 6, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #25


The relationship was doomed from the beginning. It was Dougʻs fault really for being so friendly during a not-so-good time in his life. Patricia took it all the wrong way, he was merely paying her a compliment but Doug might as well have told her that he loved her. She became a constant presence, whether he liked it or not. Inserting herself, here and there, subtly letting everyone know that Doug was hers. Cats in the neighborhood were found mangled to death, then it moved on to people. The killings all took place within proximity of Dougʻs residence, but it would be too late by the time the authorities figured it out. Patricia showed up at very random hours which would leave Doug very unprepared to receive her as a guest because she would show up when he had company over or was online in a very important meeting. Or if he were entertaining a female guest. Thatʻs when Patricia would become unhinged and lose her mind. The killings of the neighborhood animals and people continued simultaneously.  After a big blowout, Patricia would feel bad and would show up at Dougʻs place with a plate of pasta or lasagna. Tonight, it was her special Tsukemono even though it was off-season. She knew that this dish would win Dougʻs heart and things would be good again until the next big blow up. When she arrived, she let herself in, just in time to see Doug completely naked and morphing into a dog-like creature. Patricia joined the ranks of slaughtered animals and disemboweled persons in the neighborhood.

image credit: ancient origins


Oct 5, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #26

                                                                                        

The wooded trail which Robert John often took as a shortcut to get to school with his classmate and neighbor Freddy Cordeiro, was fun and exciting because of the hills and drops.

Oct 4, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #27

27

Hamilton library was unexpectedly quiet, and not at all haunted in the way that everybody claimed.

Oct 3, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #28

28

 The Venus flytrap lulls you into a false sense of security with its beauty until it's too late, and by the time you realize you've been had, you're screwed.

Oct 2, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #29

29 


With a great deal of hesitancy, she answered the phone, only to hear the same voice on the other side, which did not seem to hear hers.

Sep 30, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #31

31

The list of clientele was short today. So Ivan and Tiny left early. Ivan attended a meeting of his veteran's group while Tiny went to Ko'olau Farmers for a few medicinal plants he'd intended to cultivate. That left aunty Rita, who decided to stay behind and spruce up the office before she called it a day. Boy sat at his desk, finishing up his paperwork. "Where's Tabby and the Rizal Brothers, Aunty?" Boy asked.

"They're deep undercover," Rita said while wiping down the leather chairs with special oil. "We won't hear anything until they surface."

"All right," Boy replied while focusing on a few ledgers. "Are you going to vacuum? If so, I can just do this at home."

"No vacuum today," Aunty Rita sighed.

"What's that for?" Boy paused and looked up at his aunty. 

"What?"

"That sigh," Boy pointed his pen at her. "That usually means you have something you want to say in regards to a subject that I don't want to discuss."

"Hanson, it's time you found someone and got married and had a family of your own," Rita paused in the middle of her cleaning. "Your uncles and I can still run the office, and we can mentor Tabby and the Rizals. You wouldn't have to worry about anything." Her reply from her nephew was a heavy sigh and silence. It's what she expected but did not question. Not yet. She moved over to the big picture window, which overlooked South King street and the new student dormitory across the way. Pizza shops, chicken places, and still another coffee house. Rita found it all to be exasperating. "I understand a lot of what is the essence of you is in this office, that won't go away," she said as she pulled and walked one mighty curtain to part to the right, and then the other one to the left. Rita climbed onto the inner ledge, began spraying Windex on the end of the dry cloth, and swathed the thick pane of glass from right to left and then up and down. "And you'll still be the boss, but it's also a good time to start grooming Tabby. I know she's young and rash, and she has her own mind, but.."

It only took Boy a second to look up and see the glint of light make a brief sparkle through the picture window and on the sleeve of aunty Rita's coat. He shot up from his desk while simultaneously throwing his office chair toward Rita. "Iho I lalo!!!" he screamed. Rita dropped to the floor just as the hollow point bullet pierced the thick glass and tore the material on Rita's suit right at the shoulder. Boy's office chair made it just in time to block the second hollow point, obliterating the leg and the arm support. Boy gorilla crawled across the floor in an attempt to get at Rita, but she was already on her feet. "Kanakapapiki!" (son-of-a-bitch!)  Her arms shot out, and red flaming orbs blasted forward toward the intended target. Boy grabbed her by the back of her coat and pulled her to the floor. "Stay down!" 

"No!" she screamed. "That bastard tore up my good coat! You know how much this thing cost me?!"

Kealoha had already torn the office door from the frame and used it to cover Boy and Rita. As the three made their way down the back steps, a man in fatigues with a paintball mask was already waiting. He fired off armor-piercing rounds at the impenetrable portal. Expending his ammo, the assassin paused to re-load. Kealoha took advantage of the lull and threw the door in a direct line toward the gunman and crushed his sternum, and well as nearly taking off his head. "The car boss!" Kealoha pointed. Covering Boy and Rita, Kealoha got the two into the back seat and shot the Chrysler out of the garage and onto South King. "Let me off at the Jiffy Lube," Boy said. "Take aunty Rita home and stay there until I call you!"




~


The assassin burst into the first-floor dormitory room and dispatched the occupants with a chop to the neck, cutting off the blood supply to the heads. The room faced directly at Boy's office, and the perfect opportunity presented itself. He didn't have to wait. The big picture windows were wide open. The swordsman they sent who promised that he'd get the job done was found choked to death in his high-rise condo unit. His brother would finish the job. The woman named Rita stood in plain view. He'd take that shot first. She dropped suddenly, and his first shot missed the mark. The second followed right after, but a chair appeared out of nowhere and blocked it. The older Hawaiian woman stood up and sent a flame of fire in his direction. He barely got out of the way, but not without getting singed. Time was of the essence, he'd been made, and he had to leave as quickly as he entered. He just made it to street level on University and was now headed to the corner of Kuilei when he bumped into someone he hadn't seen initially. It was his main target, Boy. The assassin had no time to react. With blinding speed and precision, Boy punched the assassin's esophagus straight up into his sternum. With a second punch, Boy struck the man's heart, causing it to stop, thereby killing him instantly. 


~

"You didn't ask who or why?" Rita wanted to know while Kealoha already fitted the frame for a new office door. 

"The who or why doesn't matter," Boy said. "It's the message that I send back that's important."

"Every few years, some new disgruntled group pops up that we don't know of, and somehow their agenda is to try and kill us," Rita shrugged her shoulders. "I don't get it."

"In answer to your earlier question, aunty," Boy looked at her thoughtfully. "What happened here today is why I haven't tried to find someone and get married."










Sep 28, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #33

33

"I'm old," Deena De Lores began. "I can't walk far which is why I use this electric wheelchair to get around.

Sep 26, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #35

35

If not for the incident that would bind us to the location where everything happened, I wouldn't have bothered giving these two people the time of day.

Sep 22, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #39

 39

It's the fourth time this week and the umpteenth time this month that I've received Ken Perez's mail in my mailbox.

Sep 20, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #41

41

"Maile," the female voice seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere when it called her name suddenly.

Sep 18, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #43

 43


1995

The day was here. The day that had been pre-arranged, pre-planned, and nervously worried over, was here. The bachelor and bachelorette parties were had the night before.

Sep 16, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #45

 45

No one could explain the overwhelming sadness and grief in a store whose inventory consisted of quirky items meant to elicit giggles and laughter.

Sep 15, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #46

 46

The security guards who worked at the pier at aloha tower complained about having the tiny hairs on the sides of the head yanked and jerked very hard. The pain was so sudden and so intense that it made them cry. Other times, they would feel fingertips in the middle of their back, and without warning, something they couldnʻt see shoved them to the floor very hard. They couldnʻt quit because they needed the job. But, they were out of options as to what they should do? Blessings or a cleansing did not work. The only thing I could tell them was that a portion of that pier used to be where the Pakaka heiau once stood. A temple of human sacrifice.



Sep 14, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #47

47

I was so intrigued to receive my first box from the dark web that I was stunned when I read the large wide sticker from the cover down to the bottom of the box. 

Sep 12, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #49

49

The late '80s and early '90s were all about the VHS and then the DVD rentals. I worked in such a place that was the best and the worst kind of job to have toward the end.

Sep 11, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #50

 50


My wife called me to make sure that I had set out the juice bottles and PB&J sandwiches for the kids before they came home.

Sep 10, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #51

51


This very last Capitol ghost story comes from another former security guard who shared his experience while working there during the '80s.

Sep 9, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #52

52

This is another one from the state capitol, which I thought was funny, but also kind of sad and scary.

Sep 8, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #53

 53

Itʻs a famous story of a state senator who worked at the state capitol, waiting for her daughter to return from the bathroom, so they could leave and go home.

Sep 7, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #54

54


When my boss hired me here at the Mahalo Mart, he first told me that the mart was haunted but that I shouldn't let it bother me.

Sep 5, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #56

 56

"This is my anthropology class," Palekoa Lamela began. "I thought doing an early evening session at the abandoned mansion would be fun.

Sep 4, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #57

 57

The blue-lit discs of the floor and on the ceiling directly above fluttered for a second before the full image of Ka'onohi Lamela appeared before her son, who sat on the microbe-filled couch that independently chose its configuration according to the body type of the person who sat on it.

Sep 3, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #58

 58

The dogs shit on the carpet. Not the kind of shit where you can pick up with some toilet paper, but the half solid, half liquidy kind.

Sep 2, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #59

 59


1

It started as what the authorities said was a prank. First, street signs were disappearing, and then the signs for street names not too long after.

Sep 1, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #60

60


My brother was the one who got all the attention from my parents growing up because he was always in trouble.

Aug 31, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #61

 61


Our rottweiler puppy, Hanuman, was a gamble from the day we bought him home. His rambunctious behavior was cute because he was so small and chubby and extremely cuddly.

Aug 29, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #63

63 


I have to stop eating these small packets of Milky Way bars, otherwise, I'm going to have to find a bathroom, and there are none available at this location.

Aug 28, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #64

 64


....Conclusion


There was no evidence of any physical or internal trauma that made Gale fall into a coma. The doctor at Kaiser said that if he didn't know any better, he would say that the coma was self-induced.

Aug 27, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #65

65


Continued from yesterday's story.....


Sherwyn Watanabe was mercilessly teased in school, at karate class, and by his cousins because of his name. People called him 'Cher' and would constantly shout the lyrics to 'I Got You Babe' at him every time they saw him.

Aug 26, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #66

 66


Did you ever have one of those friends that you've known for a while, but every now and again, they do things that make you question your friendship?

Aug 25, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #67

 67


"Any Other Night"

by

Tanya Kapanui


Abby heard a slight rustle through her veil of sleep and thought she’d left the window open.

Aug 24, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #68

 68


This is what I imagined it to be. It wasn't hospice. It was my own home with high ceilings and oversized doors like giant blinds than portals

Aug 23, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #69

 69


There used to be a Filipino restaurant next to the 31 flavors near the intersection of South King Street and Punahou.

Aug 22, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #70

 70



I didn’t have any more dreams after my last encounter with Nancy. As for Avarice, who knows where she could be or even how she figured out where to find me?

Aug 21, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #71

 71


"I had Avarice when I was very young," Nancy regretted. "The sound of the name sang right on my tongue, but when I saw that one of the definitions was cupidity, I thought, well then there you have it. Cupidity is like little cupid shooting arrows of love.

Aug 20, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #72

 72


I regarded the elder woman for a second, scoffed, and walked away. I caught a brief glance of the foot and vehicle traffic on Kalākaua before I took a left turn at the lobby. Halfway past the concierge desk, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Aug 19, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #73

 73


In the dream, I'm walking along the beach at Waikīkī. Itʻs the late afternoon, and itʻs a bit overcast. Itʻs not overrun with tourists, cabana boys, and surf instructors.

Aug 18, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #74

 74


I've done this a thousand times more than I can count. The reports, the tags, and all the admin crap are like rote. I have it down to a science.

Aug 17, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #75

 75


The evil spirits he'd been called to banish from a house in Kuli'ou'ou valley didn't wait for his arrival. They manifested at his front door.

Aug 16, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #76

 76


As you've already read, growing up on 6th avenue in Kaimuki during the mid to late '80s and early '90s was very interesting.

Aug 15, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #77

 77


1


6th avenue extends from the intersection of 7th and Brokaw, where it then becomes Alohea street. It ends just past the Wai'alae dental center at Keanu and Palolo.

Aug 14, 2021

Why I Don't Sage or Smudge

The other night after our Ghosts of Old Honolulu walking tour, when most of my guests were leaving, a young woman came running back to talk to me. She mentioned that she sensed a lot of grief in one of the places we visited and asked if I ever saged the space and ended her question with a millennial “just so you know” comment at the end. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #78

 78


1


In the late '80s and early '90s, Mrs. Mendiola herself was well into her dotage. Yet, everyone on our block loved her because she grew her own fruits and vegetables and generously shared her stock with everyone.

Aug 13, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #79

 79


The two-story apartment building toward the end of Pupukahi street was fresh and brand new even for the early 70s'. It's where I lived when Kikaida first made his appearance.

Aug 11, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #81

 81


Three times a day, I had to feed my grandfather Kon-gee or what my mother called Jook. I hated it because it took away from my Xbox time, where I could play and talk to my online friends while battling the hordes.

Aug 10, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #82

 82


The sun rising from the east blankets its early morning hue over the capital district. Street sweepers kick up dust and leaves leftover from the shower trees along south king.

Aug 9, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #83

 83


The homeless man was a blight on the Capitol district that the authorities could do nothing about. He had been previously arrested for harassment, terroristic threatening, indecent exposure, and vandalism.

Aug 8, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #84

84


 Yesterday 8:03 a.m.

Whatever it is it presses down on the bed between my feet and places what feels like a hand on my ankle. It doesn't do anything else.

Aug 7, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #85

 85


The old warrior’s mind was like an enclosed fishpond surrounded by a protective wall of silence and long hard stares into nothing.

Aug 6, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #86

 86


At the very top of this section of this cemetery is the unmarked grave of an infant child abandoned by its teenage mother in 1994.

Aug 5, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #87

 87


Two local boys got wind of a story associated with a neighborhood Hongwanji Temple being haunted. So, on a balmy summer night in June, they rode their bicycles down the old dusty pathway that lead to the humble grounds where the temple stood.

Aug 4, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #88

 88


There's a lot of things you end up losing as you get older. Your hair, your dignity, your family and friends who eventually die before you do.

Aug 3, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #89

 89


The owners at the condo complex in lower Liliha complained to the maintenance manager about the smell coming from the unit on the third floor.

Aug 2, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #90

 90


1

I sit in the library for most of the day because I'm pathetic. It's hopeless. So, I sit for most of the day, either getting lost in a good book or logging in online and just surfing the internet.

Aug 1, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #91

 91


1


My job wasn't all about contracts all the time. It comes as a relief when I don't have to off someone by gun, poison, or usual means. A pūʻolo.

Jul 31, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #92

92


 1


I'm a city boy, so I don't know anything about toiling in the dirt or farming of any kind. I can buy a couple of plants from Home Depot and water them and give them sun as per the instructions on the label but in a nursery or an arboretum?

Jul 30, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #93

 93


Manesh Tahk stood in the food line at Pu'uhuluhulu, patiently waiting his turn to fill his plate. The buzz of conversations in Hawaiian stirred something in him even though he was Hindu.

Jul 29, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #94

 94



I'm not a people person by any means. The people I work with have all connected through some social media platform, which is why I opened an account just to shut them up so they'd leave me alone. I don't go out to meet them at bars or eateries outside of regular business hours. That just blurs the line between work and personal shit.

Jul 28, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021. #95

95

 

Shannon Lindsey was your typical older brother who loved making his younger sister’s life miserable. Gwen Lindsey couldn’t wait until high school was over.

Jul 27, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #96

 96


If the television blaring from the playroom featuring the morning news hadn't announced the time or date, I would not have had a single idea about time in and of itself.

Jul 26, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #97

 97


Snyder Hanover hi-jacked me for a quarter every day. I had more than that on me, but a quarter was all he wanted. If he was wiser, he could have taken my lunch money.

Jul 25, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #98

 98


Old discarded beer and wine bottles lined the beach just at the airport's outskirts, with the tops haphazardly sticking out of the sand. When the wind skimmed over the ocean and touched the opiate mouths of the bottles, it sounded like a clarion of conch shells announcing the arrival of someone of great importance or the beginning of a solemn ceremony.

Jul 24, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #99

 99


The construction crew stood around the freshly dug pit with hands on their hips, some wiping the sweat from their forehead while others shook their heads.  What lay at the bottom of that pit under the morning sun was going to be the deciding factor as to whether they went home or kept working. The bosses discussed their options.

Jul 23, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 # 100

 100


In the 1970's it was not so strange that wives stayed home to care for the household and the children while the husband worked a good day, providing for his family, who often thrived in a humble two-bedroom home. Such was the case for Maitland Kamaka and his ohana.

Jul 15, 2021

Coming Soon! Beginning Friday, July 23! 100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021!

 Kenzoku


It was the morning of April 1, 1946. Kenzoku Ueshima and his wife, Janet Ueshima, just survived a night of bitter arguing, which started in their small matchbox of a house. However, not wanting to make shame with their neighbors because the walls were paper-thin, they decided to take their argument elsewhere and ended up down at the peninsula at Laupāhoehoe.

Jan 2, 2021

Keep On Keeping On

I was on the way to the beach house in Mokuleia, traffic was monstrous. While coming over the rise past Red hill, I could see the line of vehicles heading west; it had no end.