100 Numerous Ghost Stories 2025.

 2026 will mark 10 years of this blog, which we named GhostsNextDoor.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #100. Keala.

 I felt sorry for him.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #99. George's Mixtape.

 He'd been in a coma for a while now.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #98. Kindness.

 She, as I knew her, would never have given me or anyone else the time of day.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #97. Kalei.

 I lay on my side, the finely manicured grass my comfort, while I watch him discover the wonder of everything around him.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #96. Cave Diary 6.

 The tourists weren't at all impressed with the cave when they saw it from across the street in the dirt parking lot.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #95. Cave Diary 5.

The Army, in a show of community support, went into Kaneana cave and sprayed black paint over all of the graffiti that festooned the walls of the sacred cave. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #92. Cave Diary 2.

We were drunk and stupid, and we needed to piss really badly.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #94 Cave Diary 4.

We parked in the dirt lot across the street from the cave.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #93. Cave Diary 3.

The argument started in our car from Hawai'i Kai and concluded inside Kaneana cave, not by choice, mind you. It happened to be where we stopped and where we ended up. The dirt parking lot was crowded with so many vehicles, but we thought nothing of it. Except when we entered the cave, no one was there. Not that we could see right away. Once our eyes adjusted to the dark, we saw them. As grey as the dirt and the rock walls, there they were strewn about, lying in different awkward positions, but dead. Very dead. As we ran out of the cave, fighting back our horrific screams, we looked back for a second, and we just caught a glimpse of a woman, climbing up to the top of the cave on all fours. We screamed then for sure. The argument was a minimal cog in the wheel of our marriage. Driving home, we cried and professed our love for one another. Priorities.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #91. Cave Diary 1.

 One day, I took a random drive out to the Wai'anae coast for no real purpose, just because I felt I should go there. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #90. Color Co-ordinated.

 I always remeber what I was wearing when something significant happened in my life.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #89.

 "How long do we have to wait?" My brother asked.

"As long as it takes," I said. "Stop asking the same question all the time!"

"We've been waiting so long, it's all," he sighed.

"Just be patient, they'll be here soon," I droned because he was getting on my nerves.

Sure enough, there they came. Driving up into the driveway, and when that got too crowded they parked on the street. It was a horde of people this time. All kinds of people. All sorts of people made it more fun.

"Don't get carried away this time, alright?" I warned him.

"I don't get carried away," he said defensively. He gets that way, when he knows he's wrong. 

"You broke up somebodies marriage the last time," I reminded him. "And the time before that, a bunch of people tried to kill each other."

"I was curious that's all," he deadpanned.

"Just stick to the plan, you keep changing the plan and the plan is going to change you," I don't know how many times I'm supposed to tell him.

As soon as the mob was festooned around the front driveway, I began counting down. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two..aaand one!"

This time, I didn't wait for him to get on cue because there was always the chance that he was going to do something stupid. So I shoved him out the window. He went crashing through the thick pane of glass and did three unintentionally planned somersaults until he hit the ground neck first and died in a very gruesome spectacle. As usual, the crowd lost its mind and ran screaming from our house, with some people falling on the ground and being trampled over. 

This time, my brother didn't reanimate. He was dead for real. I told him not to keep changing the plan, the destiny. Now look, it changed him.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #88. Strange Space.

 Screaming violins permeated the room, leaving no corner untouched by their high, shrill crescendo.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #87. Water Bar.

 "I built this place from nothing," he said as he slid the glass of water across the bar in front of me. "My whole life became this place, and now retirement is coming, and I've got no one to take it over. It will die with me."

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #86. Times Like These.

 The sheets become cool in that hour between the blackest dark and the sunrise.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #85. Elana.

 The intensity of her emotions nearly burned a hole in her heart.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #84. Cherish Keeps Holding On.

 Devon didn't marry the girl he asked to the prom.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #83. Nure Onago.

 Our karate sensei, Mr. Miyaji, once told us a ghost story, which he emphasized was true. As a young man growing up in Japan, he and his friends traveled to Shimonseki, the southernmost point of Honshū, to visit the site of the famous sea battle of Dan-No-Ura, which took place in 1185. The general Minamoto no Yoshitsune, along with his clan, defeated the Taira clan, where all members perished, including the boy emperor, Antoku.

He and his friends walked as close as they could to the waters where the famous sea battle took place. Soon, it was time to leave, but Mr. Miyaji mentioned that they noticed one of their friends, whom he referred to as Jiro, had a female companion with him. He and his friends thought it was proper to give Jiro and his new female companion their space, and so they walked ahead of them, and by the end of the day, they'd taken the train home separately. 

Sensei said that after that, every time they saw Jiro and his girlfriend, he did not look happy. Despite her beauty, she carried a horrible odor about her. Then, one day, Jiro was gone. In fact, as the sensei told us, Jiro wouldn't be seen for the rest of the year. The following school year, Jiro was sitting in class with everyone else, not looking unhappy or helpless at all. When sensei and his friends asked Jiro about where he'd been, he said he'd been in a monastery for the whole year, mired in prayer and meditation. When asked why this happened, Jiro said it was because of his girlfriend. That day on their jaunt to Shimonoseki, at Dan-No-Ura, he saw her standing there and noticed how beautiful she was. She smiled at him.

"My mistake," Jiro told Sensei and the rest of his friends, "was that I smiled back. She was a Nure Onago, a spirit. A spirit who mourns the death of her husband lost in battle, particularly sailors lost at sea or who drown at sea during a battle. If you smile at a spirit like this, she becomes attached to you, and she won't ever let you go. I had to go to a monastery for a year and do nothing but pray and meditate. The only way to get rid of an Nure Onago is to ignore it. It took a year, but I finally got rid of her."

"Dan-No-Ura," Sensei said. "The famous battle, where the Taira clan drowned. That spirit must have been one of the grieving widows."

"Even today," Sensei told us. "When I think about that time with my friend Jiro, I get creepy goosebumps. It could have happened to any of us, but it happened to Jiro, and guess what? Jiro's last name was Taira."

credit @matthewmeyer. @yokai.com

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2023. #82. Purpose.

 Let me worry about the things that are in this house. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #81. 'Olu'olu Li'ili'i.

 The peaceful chill life in Hawai'i is what visitors become enamored by when they first arrive in the islands.

100 Ghosr Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #80. Samples.

 Today was the day for food samples being offered at Costco Hawaii Kai. I don't bother with food samples because it's just not my thing.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #79. In Jail.

 Daniel didn't like visiting his mother in jail.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #78. The Demon's Achilles.

 The evil in the house was already there.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #77. Regreta.

 "Pain killers," I suggested to my client's wife. "You should take painkillers."

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #76. The Line. #2

Winning a million dollars proved to be no small feat for Calvin, who had sacrificed his mental and physical health to achieve his goal.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #75. The Line.

 The concept of standing in line patiently waiting for your turn, for whatever reason, is ingrained in us as an everyday task, almost as natural as breathing. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #74. Sam's Darkness.

 How could there be darkness in paradise? 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #73. House On East Hind.

 The bed covers were slowly pulled off the mattress toward the left corner.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #72. John Left.

 The overseer of the left and right game misunderstood what he saw on the four internal cameras in the vehicle.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #71. Right On Time.

 Good job.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #70. Left.

 By now, the energy between you and the other passengers in the vehicle should be synchronized.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #69. Right.

 If you're organized by this point and have assembled the people you will be traveling with, because you can't do this alone, don't get too close to them.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #68. Left

 If you want to get lost in a portal.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloweeen 2025. #67. Substation.

 The residents of the 1950s two-story, six-unit apartment needed a blessing.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #66. Rid of the ghost. Rid of you.

 The mistake the team made was when they publicly announced on social media that they were going to rid a well-known establishment of a ghost.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #65. Grace Fukuda and The William Hardy Problem.

 It came with the advent of immigration to Hawai'i during the sugar plantation era.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #64. Fry.

 The backyard made the biggest impression on me as a child.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #63. Koamalu.

 The local eatery, located off Beretania near the old Times Supermarket, is where you'll find hardcore customers who still come for the chicken katsu and roast pork.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #62. Encounter Time.

 The thing about being a spirit attached to a house that you died in a hundred years ago is that you have infinite amounts of time on your hands.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #61. Call Lissandra.

Lissandra Cabico met Elvio one day at a concert for the homeless at Kapiolani Park.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #60. Definitely Not My Anito.

 Dead centipedes everywhere.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #59. Tuesday. Martes'

 ....Conclusion

I wasn't waiting around to see who or what else was going to manifest itself as a person or in the guise of a phantom house in one of the most ritzy neighborhoods on Oahu.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #58. Tuesday. Mardi.

 The house was just as I had seen it in William's body cam footage.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #57. Tuesday's Gone.

 What the fuck? I saw William get in his car and pull out of the Zippy's parking lot and cross three lanes on North Vineyard only to quietly bump into the median that divides both roads.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #56. Tuesday Marshand.

 There's this particular level of Buddhist-like comfort you achieve when you've fallen asleep.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #55. Nohea Magic.

The galloping vamp on the ukulele and guitar played in perfect time while Nohea danced her kaholo without effort on her right and left.

100 Ghost Stores Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #54. He.

 He was no better than the other killers, that is, if everyone knew he was a killer.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #53. The Old Home Owner.

 The murmur of a child's voice called out from within the confines of a garage in a Kaimuki house.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #52. Asshole At Work.

 It was difficult sitting in the cubicle next to him, knowing that he was a complete piece of shit.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #51. Kalaninuiokamawaelualani.

 Kaholo forward, right, left, right, left.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #50. Love Letters.

Cleaning the dirt from under my fingernails took a bit of effort as I'd been working in the yard for most of the afternoon.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #49. Hawaiian Lands/Hawaiian Hands.

 Wilson Kamanā sat on the roof of his homestead house in Kewalo.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #48. Mixed Plate Society.

 Some of the family members we contacted supported what we wanted to do as far as the blessing was concerned.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2023. #47. Less Than Zero Paranormal.

 Less Than Zero's research revealed that Metcalfe's Senior Care Home was a former hospice that housed Chinese and Filipino elders in their advanced stages of life.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #46. < 0 Paranormal.

Vera and Polly busied themselves in the kitchen preparing what they promised was a champagne breakfast. Essentially, it was every iteration of a breakfast you could think of, except for no orange or guava juice. Just champagne. Derek and I asked if there was anything we could do to help, but Vera and Polly told us not to worry; they said we should just sit and enjoy the breakfast. Just then, Dusty appeared outside the back door of the kitchen, giving us greetings and presenting Vera and Polly a strawberry pie from Ann Miller's. 

"No need to bring anything, we said!" Vera scolded Dusty, but in a very motherly way.

"You just bring yourself," Polly added. "We'll make breakfast! But, we do love strawberry pie!"

Dusty came over and sat with us while we all talked back and forth. She owned a niche bookstore that was open only from midnight to sunrise. "I've actually been looking forward to this! It reminds me of my own home growing up. We used to have big breakfasts all the time, and I miss it."

"Your parents don't have those kinds of get-togethers anymore?" Vera asked.

"No," Dusty said. "After my mother died, everything stopped. She was the one who held it all together. Now, we're just our own separate people."

"I know that one," Derek said. "My family, we're all like office workers. We have specific hours when we have to be a family, and when we punch off the clock, family time is over."

"It's just me," I added. "No story to tell, my parents died after I graduated high school. What about you guys, Vera?"

"Polly's late husband and my late husband bowled in the same bowling league at Kapiolani Bowl. They died in a car accident on the way back from a Tuesday night game. Vera and I were devastated, and after the services, we were both drowning in our grief in the chapel, and it happened."

"It happened in the chapel of all places," Vera laughed. "We weren't even sure about what we were doing, but we did it. We've been together ever since."

"What about your families?" Derek asked.

"Our adult kids don't talk to us anymore," Vera began. "And they won't let us see our grandkids, mine and Polly's, on both sides. That's why we have breakfasts like this."

Vera put the plates in front of us, and Polly served the food and the champagne. We had a sumptuous morning meal; however, even though we tried, Vera and Polly chased us away when we tried to help wash the dishes. A short time later, we're having orange slices, strawberry pie, and champagne.

"Our first assignment, and it's a big one," I said. "Metcalfe Senior Care home. Doctors and staff report finding patients in their beds, but the beds are on the lawn, in the parking lot, and at the back entrance, where all the dumpsters are. They want both a blessing and an investigation to figure out what's going on. So, spirits talk to me, but it's nothing to brag about because sometimes I don't like it. After all, some of these spirits don't know boundaries. What about you, Derek?"

"Me?" He was surprised to be asked. "Um, I touch certain things and I can see who touched it last and what they're all about."

"Dusty? What about you?" I pointed.

"My parents said it was possession, but I know it's clairvoyance," she shrugged.

"Ladies?" I smiled in their direction.

"Wonder twins," they said. "We're stronger when we're together."

"I don't think we're 3MBH," I said. "We're five people with different levels of psychic abilities that we're not comfortable with, and our families have less than zero presence in our lives. Why do we need a name? All we need is a symbol. <0 Paranormal."

Everyone laughed, but in a good way. We agreed, we're a symbol, not a name. We then had to conduct research, and once that was complete, we needed to determine a strategy going forward.

...to be continued

credit @ericbaranda

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #45. 3MHB Paranormal.

 We were a brand new team of investigators. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #43. Hula For Me.

 I dusted off the old hula implements.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #42. Kaleiopapa Building.

The state developed the Kaleiopapa Building in the 1990s as a temporary space for government operations while the Capitol was renovated.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #41. Eden Sweet Death.

 She was rubenesque in her appearance, and I caught her robbing my house.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #40. Sacrifices.

 Don't be fooled by what you see in those movies; handling a dead body, carrying it, and dragging it to its final destination is no cake walk.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #39. Marjie.

 What's scary is when you've known someone for years, and then when adversity arises within your family or circle of close friends, and that person - that person who you've known since school, whose birthing of their children you've attended, birthday parties, weddings, funerals for family members, heartbreaks, divorces, and health-threatening sicknesses, is suddenly your enemy over a non-sensical issue. You realize after the fact and much too late that they were never your family or friends to begin with.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #38. Aunty Rosalia.

 Aunty Rosalia was the one who held the family together, so much so that she hardly had time for herself.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #37. Alishia.

 The radio I had in 1978 was bought for me on my 16th birthday.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #36. Tuahine.

 As a child growing up, I initially had a fear of old people due to their appearance and the odor they often emitted.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #35. Olita Kala'imainu'u.

 The way the therapist looks makes me question her credentials. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #34. Dora Pungsulan.

The woman who moved in down the street is working in her yard, carefully pruning the hedges and gently removing the mock orange blossoms, which she collects in a basket hanging from her arm. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #33. Trade The Day.

I went from being a more than well-to-do day trader to delivering pizza. It's a long story, but let's say that a lawsuit and deferred jail time were the result of the whole fiasco.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #32. Bellows 1973.

It was an Impala station wagon that drove us all the way from Wai'anae, through the Likelike tunnel to the beaches at Bellows.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #31. Hotel Street Bar.

This worn, cracked piece of wood has seen years of service.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #30. Kaleikaumaka.

The culmination of an all-out war had been brewing for months. Kaleikaumaka knew that thousands of able-bodied men of all ages would be needed.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #29. Pete and The Layer of Dirt.

My brother brought home his girlfriend, Rachel. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #29. The Kiawe Acreage.

In my days as a child, when the green in the grass held a much richer hue of its own color than it had before, there was something about it that made me want to get on my knees and run my fingers through the blades until I could pull up a clump just for myself.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #28. Rain Tuahine.

4 in the morning, and the beach is already overcrowded with people gathering for the sunrise.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #27. Ben and Kaliko.

16-218 Gulick Avenue.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #26. Myles and The Manapua Truck.

What does it take to operate a Manapua truck?

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #25. Young Hiram.

In a swank neighborhood in Hahaione, bedecked with sprawling mansions with swimming pools and working gyms inside and beautiful women sunbathing on the outside, it's a feast for the hungry eyes of people who wish they could afford such a lifestyle.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #24. Throwback Thursday.

Periodically, my business brings me to Waikiki.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #23. Renaldo's Contract. Part. 2.

The four women realized that what Renaldo offered them was not beneficial.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #22. Renaldo's Contract. Part 1.

Estralita Guimao, Fredlyn Abayon, Dolores Lontayao, and Lorna Pansacala stood in line together at the general store, bitterly complaining about the fact that the horn that goes off at the sugar mill, to signify the end of the day, should also signify to their husbands that it's time to come home from work and spend time with the family.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #21. Contrasting Syncronicity.

 Between 1985 and 1986, five women were kidnapped, raped, and murdered.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #20. Hojo.

Huaka'i Street in Waipahu was where I grew up until my parents died.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #19. Luana.

This story is fictional, but it could have happened.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #18. Waikiki Ali'i Hotel.

Waikiki is a perfect location for its purpose, which is tourism. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #17. Consequences.

If you hadn't known it was Waipahu Depot Road, you would swear that you walked into a bar from the days of your father's father.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #16. Priscilla.

 This story was told to me by the person who used to work in this office.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #15. Pele.

I had to think in the moment.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #14. Trent.

Even from the vantage point on Queen Emma Street, near Kamāmalu Park, with tall glass towers muting the sunset, I can still see the last dying glow of the sun before it retires beyond the island of Kaua'i.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #13. Ke'alaloa'opi'ilani.

It’s 1967. In the heights of Ka’ulula’au street, a 29-year-old Hawaiian girl sits among her kupuna strumming her late grandfather’s prized possession. It's his ukulele made from Koa, or acacia. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #12. Alika.

When I sought the solace and silence of one of our native forests, it didn’t last long because of the propensity of tourists who inundated my once quiet spot.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #11. Horace.

One night, out playing football late at Pu'iwa park, Horace and his friends played tackle past the park's closing hour.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #10. Back Seat Edmond.

In the parking lot at Pu'iwa Park sits Edmond De Costa, waiting patiently for Sheryl's car to roll up.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #9. Hippie Food.

If there is a location left to us with winds so correctly tempered, cool that it lulls you into a deep slumber, that would be the parking lot at Pu’iwa Park.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #8. 'Īnea.

Near my old house was a stream that was always available for cooling our feet on a hot summer day.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #7. Nalu Nui.

A soothing breeze created an unfurling kapa of rain, lending its fine droplets to the population of Pālolo valley, but only momentarily. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #6. Iman Extreme.

Iman had two extremes and no middle ground. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #5 The Klausen.

 The Waikiki hotel is unassuming and very nondescript. 

100 Ghost Stories Coutning Down To Halloween 2025. #4. Lei Popoahi.

When another culture is allowed to invade your culture and strip away its beliefs, lifestyle, and language, that is complete indoctrination. 

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #3. Slow Mark.

I needed the job because I couldn't live off of tips in the honey jar.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #2 Violet Candy.

Violet candy brought back memories of high school, when the popular girls who let me hang out with them would place a Violet candy on their tongues to mask the odor of Thunderbird sparkling wine.

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #1. Rin.

I never looked forward to my mother's quarterly trek to Japan.