Two spine-tingling ghost stories for Halloween season win Landmark competition

The Last Broadcast

By Ava Pash

The crackle of static filled the room, a constant hum that made the air feel thick and oppressive. Aria sat in the dim light of her small home, the walls lined with faded photographs and rusted tools. The wind outside howled, throwing ash against the windows like the world itself was still trying to die .There was no sun anymore-just endless grey, an ashen sky that pressed down on everything like a weight too heavy to lift

On the far wall, an old, bulky radio hissed and buzzed, the only connection to the world beyond their settlement. Aria watched it with a mixture of dread and anticipation. The broadcast would come soon. It always did, at the same time every week. She never knew what the message would be, but the pattern had always been the same: cryptic, unsettling and wrapped in an authority that felt too powerful to question.

Her younger brother, Jace, fidgeted beside her, his fingers tracing the worn edge of his jacket. “You think it’s gonna be another one of those warnings?” he asked, voice barely audible over the static.

Aria didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. They both knew what was coming. The last message had told them to “stay inside, for the shadows were near.”

It was the kind of thing that made people lock their doors, clutch their children tighter, and whisper in fearful voices. The shadows - whatever they were - had been with them for years. Some said they were creatures, others said they were manifestations of humans’ greatest fears. No one really knew.

The radio crackled again, louder this time sending a rush of adrenalin through both Aria and Jace. They both silently stared at the radio. Waiting, waiting, waiting…

Then the static fell away. A voice emerged, warped and metallic, yet heavy with something unmistakably human beneath its distortion: “This is the broadcast. Citizens of the outlying settlements, heed these words. The shadows move closer. They cannot be stopped, only delayed. One must be given.”

Aria’s heart lurched. She gripped the arms of her chair until her nail dug into the worn wood. She had always known the broadcast carried warnings, orders, decrees - but never this. Never this.

Beside her, Jace froze, his face draining of colour. “They mean... a person.” His voice cracked on the word.

“Without a sacrifice, the shadows will breach the walls. Choose quickly. One life for all the rest.” The voice cut out. Silence swallowed the room whole.

A distant sound drifted in from outside — the wind no longer howling alone but carrying with it the low, guttural moan of something vast moving through the ash. The shadows were close.

Aria looked at Jace, her wide-eyed brother trembling beside her. He was only 17. Too young. Too good. He had been the one to keep her laughing, to keep her going, when everything else had collapsed. She stood, her breath shallow.

“I love you, you have to live for us now. Not only me and you but mamma and pappa and Suzie as well. Okay?”

Jace shook his head, tears stinging his eyes. “No Aria. Please don’t leave me too.”

But the radio waited. The shadows pressed on closer. And with shaking hands, Aria pressed the transmit button.

“I will be the sacrifice.” Her brother yelled.

The static swallowed his words, carrying them into the endless, ash-choked sky.

On Actors and Their Superstitions

By Dan Speir-Bush

Most theatres lay claim to a ghost of some description. It is said that the voice of Sir John Gielgud has been heard to reverberate from the circle of London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Donald Sinden once swore that he had mistaken Ralph Richardson for a stranger in a frockcoat who had sat in his dressing room. When Sinden finally realised that Richardson was already on stage he saw the man in the frockcoat dissolve into mist before his very eyes.

Don’t we all feel a little scared when the lights go out? The prospect of cold breath on the neck makes hearts beat faster; the idea of an unknown bony finger upon the shoulder makes us sweat. Fear of a ghostly or satanic menace is enough to drive sensible people quite mad.

I once knew a man who had stayed up to catch such a phantom. He went about it with bell, book and candle; in the same way that a butterfly collector goes about netting his quarry before placing it within the killing jar and carefully pinning its wings to a fragment of card.

This man was a precise and controlling type, I doubt he ever slept; such was his devotion. He had the gaze and appearance of creatures that would slither across the floor and his eyes never blinked.

In strict contrast, I was always liked. I’d drink with my friends until the wee hours and welcome fellow actors with a slap on the back and good cheer. It could be said that he and I were as chalk and cheese.  

He was a man of science and would walk with me sometimes, speaking at great length of spiritualism, the occult and witchcraft. He was a strange cove. Sometimes his language would become obscene, murderous or gruesome.

We actors are a superstitious bunch and I’d started to think of his presence as a harbinger of bad luck. I avoided him, in the same way as I would count the tiles from left to right above the dressing room door and each step that led up onto the stage.

Despite my fear, I found the man intriguing. Each night he would wait until the stage had been cleared and the doors locked and bolted before lighting his lone candle and crawling through the darkness, seeking to find those things of ghostly or demonic character.  

Night after night I watched him, skulking in toward the end of the second act; until it hit me. Was he himself a ghost?

One night he saw me, watching. He stared through those black, snake eyes in the darkness. The face was sallow. The features were dark and calculating. Had I intruded? Was he capable of violence?

As those thoughts went through my mind, I instinctively opened my mouth and asked him ‘Who is it that haunts this place?’

He didn’t answer for some time and when he did speak, he did so slowly. He looked me up and down. ‘You do.’ He whispered.