Jzt Stories

There was a neem tree at the edge of the village where a widow had once been stoned to death, accused of witchcraft. After her death, monkeys gathered there in strange numbers. At first, the villagers thought nothing of it. Then the attacks began. Children playing nearby returned with claw marks, their eyes wide with terror. Goats tethered near the tree were found ripped apart, their entrails hanging from the branches. At night, the monkeys shrieked, not like animals, but like women weeping. One evening, a drunken man challenged the curse. He stumbled to the tree, shouting that no witch could scare him. At dawn, they found him hanging upside down from the branches, his throat torn out, his face smeared with neem leaves. The monkeys sat around him, silent, like mourners at a funeral. The villagers avoid the neem tree now. They say the widow never left. She only found new bodies to wear, and new mouths to scream through.

It was almost midnight when the courthouse finally emptied. The janitor, old Mensah, was finishing his rounds—mopping the marble floors, locking each courtroom one by one. But Courtroom 3 still had its lights on. He pushed the heavy door open and froze. The courtroom was empty, yet the judge’s bench whispered softly—like someone muttering under their breath. “Guilty… guilty… guilty…” Mensah blinked. The air was still, yet the words slithered from the wooden bench itself. He laughed nervously, thinking it was just exhaustion. He turned off the lights and began to leave.  Then came the sound of the gavel. It echoed through the dark halls. Mensah turned, heart pounding, and peered back inside. The judge’s chair was no longer empty.  Someone was sitting there. It was the late Justice Ofori—the judge who’d died years ago after wrongly sentencing a man to death. His pale hand gripped the gavel, eyes sunken and black. “Court is still in session,” The ghost rasped.  Mensah stumbl...

In a small village outside Banyuwangi, a man named Darto worked as a night watchman at the old sugar mill. Every year, the villagers held a ritual, sesajen malam merah. Where offerings were left near the forest to keep the spirits of the mill workers appeased. Darto never believed in such things. One night, during his shift, he found the offering bowl tipped over. Flowers scattered, and blood-stained rice soaked into the earth. He muttered, “Superstitions,” And kicked the bowl aside.  Not long after, the lights in the mill flickered. The air grew thick with the smell of iron. From the shadows between the old machinery, he heard wet footsteps. Darto swung his flashlight toward the sound. For a moment, he saw nothing until something dripped onto his arm. Warm. Sticky. Blood.  He looked up. A man or what used to be one. Hung from the ceiling by his jaw, skin peeled back, eyes wide open and weeping black liquid. The body twitched and then fell, landing with a dull, wet crack. ...

At a very early age, Bo had a passion for music. He loved how songs could charm the very soul. He promised himself he would become a great musician one day. Although passionate and determined, Bo lacked the raw talent to play any instrument, let alone sing. But he refused to let that stop him. By twenty-one, Bo had tried every talent show and audition in the city of Lin, but all ended in failure. With his dreams shattered, he left the city to start anew. For months, no one heard from him. Then, suddenly, Bo returned with several caravans and a full music crew. He was a changed man. His talent was beyond anything the city had ever witnessed. Bo came back with a well organized production team and several recorded songs of his own. His skill in singing, songwriting, and guitar playing stunned everyone. Soon, he became a sensation. The same shows that had once rejected him now hosted him as a special guest. Exactly one year from the day he left, Bo and his crew departed the city again, tak...

When the rain first started, no one thought much of it. It was just another storm in the small town of Linton, where thunder rolled lazily over the hills and the streets always smelled faintly of wet earth. But then, people started noticing them—the children who only appeared when it rained. They weren’t ghosts, not exactly. They looked like real children, laughing and running through the puddles, their clothes shimmering like liquid glass. They never spoke, only played, splashing and twirling beneath the downpour. And when the skies cleared, they were gone leaving behind small puddles shaped like footprints. Old Mrs. Harrow was the first to remember. She said they’d been there before—years ago, after the flood that swept through the lower town and took twelve children with it. “They come back,” She whispered, “every time the clouds remember them.” One afternoon, a boy named Caleb followed their laughter down to the old bridge. The rain children were there again, dancing on the rive...

We took a group of Year 8 students on a weekend trip near an old mining site. It was uneventful. Hiking, campfire, early bed. The next morning, a few of the kids thanked us for  “the night lesson.” We asked what they meant.  They said my co-teacher and I had woken them after midnight, taken them down a trail, and told stories about miners buried near the creek. Apparently, we’d let them each touch one of the old grave markers  “To feel the history.” We hadn’t left our tents. Neither of us.  When we checked the trail later, there were footprints—two sets of adult prints leading away from camp, with twelve smaller ones following.  They ended at a row of crooked stones none of us had seen before. That night, one of the students woke up screaming.  He said he heard someone outside his tent whisper, “It’s time for another lesson.”

The Saint Verena Gallery was known for its realism, but nothing compared to The Mourning Canvas. A massive oil painting that arrived without a return address. It depicted a dimly lit room with a wooden chair, open window, and something half-seen in the shadows. The curator hung it in the east wing. The first night, the security guard radioed in, swearing he’d seen the curtains in the painting move. The next morning, they found him asleep on the floor, eyes open, whispering. “It exhaled.” The gallery’s CCTV footage showed something worse. Faint mist rolling from the painting, like breath against cold air.  Over the following week, visitors began reporting nausea, dizziness, even hallucinations. Some said they heard muffled sobs coming from the painting; others said they saw hands pressing from the inside of the canvas, warping the oil surface. The curator finally ordered the piece removed, but when they tried to take it down, the frame wouldn’t budge. The wall behind it pulsed ...

It was the summer the wells went salty. That was the first sign, though we didn’t know it then. Old Man Hemlock’s prize collie was the second. We found it in the dawn light, drained of blood, its body crisscrossed with strange, surgical-looking scratches. The sheriff blamed wild dogs but we knew better. My little brother, Leo, saw it first. He had a habit of sleeping on the screened porch, claiming the desert air helped him breathe. He woke me, his small hand cold and damp on my arm, his eyes wide as full moons. “Mateo,” He whispered. “There’s a thing in the goat pen.” I grabbed my rifle, more for the weight of it in my hands than any real belief it would help. From the porch, we could see the pen, bathed in the weak silver of a half-moon. The goats were silent, a bad sign. They were huddled in the farthest corner, a single, trembling mass of fear. And then we saw it. It was smaller than the stories said, no bigger than a large dog, but built all wrong. Its spine was a grotesque ridge ...

Skyline Tower in Malad was a typical Mumbai apartment complex—high walls, high rents, and higher gossip. Every resident was in the same WhatsApp group called  “ Skyline Society Family  ” , a noisy space full of forwarded quotes, arguments about parking, and daily “Good Morning ☀️” messages. Asha Menon, 34, a content writer working from home, muted the group every week, but she still scrolled through it sometimes for laughs. That’s how she noticed it one Tuesday night. A new number had joined Flat 904. She frowned. Flat 904 had been empty for years. Everyone in the building knew it. The previous tenant, an old man named Deshpande, had died there alone during the lockdown. His family never returned for his things. “Welcome whoever is moving into 904!” Typed Mrs. Patel, the overenthusiastic group admin. No response. Later that night, a message appeared. A blurry photo. It showed the building’s corridor—Asha’s corridor. The time stamp read 1:13 a.m. She wasn’t awake then, but the ...