book reviews
Book reviews for horror fans; weather a sleepless night with literary accounts of hauntings, possessions, zombies, vampires and beyond.
When My Sister Told Me She Was No Longer Alive
Two years ago, my sister Mariam vanished. One moment, she was walking home from college—the next, gone. No signs of struggle. No witnesses. Her phone was found near a quiet road, screen cracked, music still playing. We searched endlessly. Posters. Police. Social media campaigns. But nothing. Eventually, the world let her go. But I didn’t. Every night, I’d leave her bedroom untouched. Her books, her clothes, even the faint scent of jasmine she wore—preserved. Until last night. It was raining. I was home alone. Power flickered. Silence pressed against the walls. Then— Three knocks. Soft. Deliberate. At the front door. I opened it. There she stood. Mariam. Soaked, barefoot, shivering—but smiling. Her hair was longer. Her face paler. But it was her. I gasped. “Mariam…?” She nodded. “I came back.” I pulled her inside, wrapped her in a blanket, touched her face. She was cold. Not cold like winter—cold like stone. “Where were you?” I whispered. She looked at me. Eyes blank. Soft. Hollow. “I was in between.” “In between what?” “Life and memory.” I stared. She sat down slowly, like gravity worked differently on her. Her movements were... delayed. As if the world responded to her slower than it should. “I don’t have much time,” she said. “Time for what?” She looked toward her old room. “To say goodbye.” I followed her in. The room lit up the moment she entered. I hadn’t turned on the light. She walked to her old mirror and stared into it. But her reflection wasn’t there. I watched—trembling. She touched the mirror’s surface and said: “He let me return. Just once.” “Who?” I asked. “The one who keeps the forgotten.” I shivered. She turned to me. “I didn’t want to leave. But my soul was... misplaced. Torn from my body before its time.” She began to cry. Tears that evaporated before touching her skin. I stepped closer. “You’re here now. We can fix this. Call someone—pray—something—” She shook her head. “I’m not real anymore. Just a borrowed echo. The body you see—it’s not mine.” I wanted to believe she was lying. That this was a cruel trick. A trauma dream. But the clock had stopped ticking. The windows fogged over without a cause. And shadows bent away from her. She walked to her closet and pulled out her old diary. “I wrote things in here—before I vanished. Things I never told anyone.” She opened it. Blank pages. “All gone,” she said softly. “Even my memories are fading.” Then she looked at me—smiling that same gentle smile I had missed for years. “You were the only one who didn’t forget me.” I broke down. “I never will.” She leaned in, hugged me. It felt like fog holding fog. Then she whispered: “You’ll see me again. Just not here.” The lights blinked. She stepped back. “I have to go before the boundary seals.” “No!” I grabbed her hand. Her fingers passed through mine. “I’m already gone,” she whispered. Then she vanished. Not with a flash. Not with drama. She just… dissolved. Like steam. I fell to my knees. Sobbing. At sunrise, I found her diary on the floor—open. One line had reappeared. “I remember being loved.”
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Black Bird That Landed on My Window Every Night
It began in winter. The nights were longer than usual, and the wind carried whispers no one wanted to hear. I was staying at my grandmother’s old countryside house, a lonely wooden structure nestled between dying trees and distant hills.
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
Why My Daughter Fell in Love With a Jinn
If someone had told me years ago that my daughter would choose a jinn over a man, I would have laughed. But today, I no longer laugh at the unseen. My daughter, Alina, was always different. She was quiet, thoughtful, and drawn to silence the way others are drawn to noise. While other children played outside, she would sit by her window, whispering to herself—or to someone else. At first, I thought it was imagination. “Children have invisible friends,” I told myself. But Alina’s friend wasn’t invisible. He was unseen. One day, when she was twelve, I overheard her whispering: “You always come when I miss you.” I peeked into her room. She was sitting on the floor, smiling softly at an empty corner. “Who are you talking to?” I asked. She looked up, startled. “No one,” she said. “Just my friend.” I didn’t press. But that night, I began noticing small things. Her room stayed unnaturally cold—even in summer. Her mirror would fog up, even when no one touched it. I would hear a deep humming sound, like distant chanting, but no source. When she turned fifteen, Alina became obsessed with candles. She lit them every evening, arranged them in strange patterns. I once tried to move them, and she screamed. “He won’t come if you disturb them!” she cried. “Who?” I asked again. Her eyes welled with tears. “You don’t understand.” She began withdrawing from school, from family. Her once soft giggles turned into silent smiles. She spoke less and listened more—to nothing. Or so I thought. Then came the drawings. Her notebooks were filled with symbols I didn’t recognize—circular shapes, stars inside squares, names written in reverse Arabic, and eyes. So many eyes. I took her to a psychologist. The doctor said, “She’s bright but detached. Possibly fantasy-prone.” But this wasn’t fantasy. Because one evening, I walked into her room without knocking—and saw it. A shadow beside her. Not on the wall. Not a trick of light. A tall, dark, smoky figure, hovering behind her as she sat cross-legged, whispering. She didn’t look up. The figure faded the moment I gasped. I ran out of the room, heart pounding. I called scholars. I called ruqya experts. One came and recited Quran in her room. Alina screamed. Not in pain—but in anger. “You’re scaring him!” she shouted. “He doesn’t like strangers!” I begged her to explain. “He’s not bad,” she insisted. “He loves me. He listens when no one else does. He’s kind. He promised to never leave me.” I asked his name. She smiled. “I’m not allowed to say it.” I cried that night. I cried for the daughter I was losing—to something I couldn’t fight. As she grew older, things got worse. She began wearing black all the time. Not for fashion—but for him. She stopped eating for days, claiming, “He feeds my soul.” She no longer used mirrors. “He gets angry when I look at other reflections.” She spoke to the moon. She wrote letters and burned them. She carved his name into her desk—but it disappeared every time I tried to read it. On her twentieth birthday, she said something I will never forget: “I don’t want to marry a man, Mama. I already belong to someone.” That night, her bed was covered in roses. Black ones. No one in the house brought them. We don’t even have a garden. One night, I found her fainted on the floor. I rushed her to the hospital. The doctor said she was severely dehydrated and malnourished. But on her arm, I saw marks—not bruises, not scratches. Symbols. Perfectly symmetrical, glowing faintly under the light. She had been branded. I pleaded with scholars, traveled to spiritual healers, spent fortunes on ruqya. Some said it was too late. Others said it was a contract—one that only she could break. But she didn’t want to. She was in love. Not with a boy. Not with a human. But with a jinn. She spoke to him every night. She wore his favorite colors. She burned his favorite scents. She hummed his name in silence. And every time I prayed, I could feel him watching—jealous, angry, possessive. Now, years have passed. Alina lives in the same house. But not in this world. She walks quietly, barely speaks, and smiles at things no one else sees. She says he’s always with her. I no longer see the shadow—but the cold remains. And some nights, I hear a whisper in my ear as I sleep: “She is mine.”
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Jinn Whose Shadow Visited My Roof Every Night
It started with footsteps—soft, steady, and unmistakably human. Every night, around 2:30 a.m., I would hear them walking slowly across the roof of our house. One step at a time. Then a pause. Then another. It sounded like someone was pacing—back and forth, back and forth. At first, I thought it was a thief. I live in a small town, where homes are built close together. Most have flat rooftops and staircases leading to them. Teenagers sometimes climb up to stargaze or sneak a cigarette. But this felt different. The footsteps didn’t sound like wandering youth. They were too… heavy. Too intentional. One night, I decided to confront whoever it was. I climbed the stairs quietly and peeked out onto the rooftop—but it was empty. I even used a flashlight to scan the whole area. Nothing. The moment I stepped back inside, the footsteps resumed. I froze. That was the moment I realized—whatever it was... didn’t want me to see it. Days passed. Nights grew heavier. My younger sister started having nightmares. “There’s someone outside,” she whispered one morning. “He watches me from the ceiling.” I didn’t tell her what I had heard. I didn’t want to scare her. But her words sent a chill down my spine. I began sleeping with Quranic recitation playing on my phone. Surah Baqarah. Surah Al-Falaq. Surah An-Naas. But nothing stopped the footsteps. They continued every night—without fail. Then came the first shadow. One night, I turned off the lights and noticed a silhouette on my bedroom ceiling. It was faint, like a dark smudge—but it moved. Not like a reflection. It shifted... as if it were alive. I rushed to the window. The street was empty. The neighbors’ rooftops were dark. No one outside. But the shadow remained. My grandmother, a deeply religious woman, noticed something was wrong. One morning, she sat me down. “You’ve brought something home,” she said softly. “Was there a place you visited recently? A graveyard? A ruin?” I remembered. Two weeks before the footsteps began, I had entered an abandoned shrine with a few friends—just out of curiosity. We had laughed, taken pictures, and even joked about the spirits. That night, I felt a strange chill when leaving. But I ignored it. “Apologize,” she said. “Ask for protection.” I took her advice. That evening, I prayed like never before. I asked Allah for forgiveness. I recited every dua I could remember. The footsteps stopped. For three nights, there was silence. I thought it was over. But on the fourth night... he came closer. This time, I didn’t hear him on the roof. I heard him on the stairs. Slow. Deliberate. One step at a time. I couldn’t move. I lay in bed, clutching my blanket, paralyzed by fear. I felt something heavy in the air, like pressure on my chest. Like the room had shrunk and I was the only one who didn’t belong. I didn’t see him. But I knew—he was there. The next morning, the wall above my bed had a black handprint. Burnt into the paint. Too large to be human. Too high to be reached. I showed no one. What could I say? I didn’t want my family to panic. I decided to leave for a few days. I went to stay with a friend in another town. I didn’t hear the footsteps. I didn’t see the shadow. I finally slept in peace. When I returned home a week later, my little sister greeted me with a trembling voice. “He was angry,” she said. “He kept walking louder when you were gone.” Now I knew. It wasn’t the house. It was me. He was attached. I sought help from a respected scholar. He told me about certain jinn—those that aren’t immediately harmful, but drawn to specific people due to aura, behavior, or even a single act of disrespect. “You must change your pattern,” he said. “Pray with sincerity. Speak kindly. Stay clean. Burn lobaan. Do not sleep alone.” I followed every instruction. I cleaned my room. Removed mirrors facing my bed. Kept the Quran near my pillow. Performed wudu every night. The presence began to fade. The footsteps grew distant. The shadow blurred. Eventually, everything stopped. Years later, I sometimes still wonder: Why didn’t he harm me? What did he want? Was he protecting? Watching? Waiting? All I know is... the roof is quiet now. But I still don’t go up there after dark. Because some visitors don’t leave. They just grow silent. And silence can be louder than footsteps.
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Girl Lost in the Woods Who Was Not Human
I was 26 when I moved into my grandfather’s old cabin deep in the northern forests. It was the kind of place people forgot, surrounded by thick pine trees and silence so pure, you could hear your heartbeat. I wanted to escape the noise of the city, the suffocation of people, and just... exist.
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Night I Spent in a Graveyard—And What I Saw
I had always been drawn to the unusual—abandoned buildings, forgotten alleyways, and places people were too afraid to explore. But nothing tempted me more than the local graveyard on the outskirts of our town. A massive, crumbling patch of land, overgrown with wild bushes, broken tombstones leaning like old men, and the kind of silence that echoed in your ears. It was said to be haunted, of course. Every town has one.
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Night a Jinn's Shadow Entered My Room
It was a humid summer night in Lahore, the kind where the air feels thick and everything moves a little slower. I had just returned from my evening shift at the local bookstore and collapsed on my bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. The ceiling fan above me squeaked with every rotation, and outside, the occasional honk of a rickshaw echoed through the street. At around 2:17 a.m., I was awoken—not by a sound, but by an overwhelming sense of presence. You know when someone stares at you silently, and your instincts scream even before your eyes confirm it? That was the feeling. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. My room was as I left it—dimly lit by the yellow glow of a streetlight slipping through the curtains. I turned to face the wall and pulled the blanket over my shoulder, trying to convince myself it was just a dream. But then it came—the cold. A sudden drop in temperature that didn’t belong in a summer night. My breath turned visible. I could see the misty vapor escaping my lips. That’s when I froze. There was a shadow on the wall, standing upright. But there was no figure in front of it. I blinked hard. Maybe I was still dreaming? No. The shadow moved—slowly at first, like it was testing me. Then, as I watched in paralyzed horror, it slithered across the wall, stretching, growing taller, darker, until it reached the corner of the ceiling where two walls met. It stopped and turned its "head" toward me, though it had no face. Suddenly, the fan stopped. My phone screen flickered to life and died again. A low humming sound, almost like a whisper, filled the room. Words—guttural and ancient—crawled through the air like smoke. My ears rang, and then I heard it, loud and clear, not in the air but in my mind: “You saw me.” I wanted to scream, to move, to cry out to Allah—but my body was frozen like marble. I could feel my heart pounding so violently I thought it might burst. Then, the shadow began to descend—not walk, not fall—just float downward toward me. That’s when something deep inside me sparked. Maybe fear gave way to instinct, maybe something divine awakened, but I forced my fingers to move and clenched them into a fist. I whispered, “A’udhu billahi min ash-shaytan ir-rajim.” The moment I said it, the shadow shrank, pulling inward like a vacuum was collapsing it. The room suddenly felt lighter, warmer, like someone opened a window that had been sealed for years. The whispering stopped. The fan resumed its rotation. And just like that—it was gone. I jumped from bed and turned on every light I could reach. I called my older brother and made him stay on the phone with me until Fajr. For days, I didn’t sleep properly. My family dismissed it as sleep paralysis or stress. But I know what I saw. What I felt. Since that night, I’ve become deeply spiritual. I never sleep without reciting Surah Al-Falaq and Surah An-Naas. I don’t keep mirrors in my bedroom. And sometimes, when I forget my evening duas, I feel that same cold creep back in. They say jinns exist in a parallel realm, only crossing over when boundaries are weakened. That night, something crossed into mine. And now... I wonder if it's still watching—just waiting for me to forget. Because once you’ve seen it, you’re never truly alone again.
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
The Hollow Village . Content Warning. AI-Generated.
The Curse of Velgrad In the heart of Eastern Europe, surrounded by thick, gnarled forests and forgotten trails, lay a desolate place known only to a few as Velgrad. Time had erased its name from most maps, and the villagers who once lived there had vanished a hundred years ago without a trace.
By Jack sparrow about a year ago in Horror
I Fell in Love With a Ghost in My Dreams
🕯️ I Fell in Love With a Ghost in My Dreams Writer’s By [FarooqHashmi] They say dreams are stitched from fragments of memory — a whisper here, a touch there, things forgotten by morning light. But what happens when the dream lingers, when the memory isn't yours, and the love feels older than your own bones?
By Farooq Hashmiabout a year ago in Horror
I Spent a Night in the Forest — and Found a Device That Shouldn't Exist
We planned the trip weeks in advance — four friends, three tents, and two nights in the woods to disconnect from the chaos of life. Our destination was an old pine forest miles off the main road. No signals. No city noise. Just stars, trees, and maybe a little whiskey by the fire. It was supposed to be peaceful. We arrived just before sunset. The air was crisp, and the trees stood tall like they had secrets to keep. We pitched our tents near a small clearing, joked about bears, and laughed our way into the night. By midnight, we decided to go on a short night walk. We were all city people trying to prove we weren’t scared of the dark. Flashlights in hand, we wandered deeper into the trees, following a narrow trail. And somewhere along that trail — we lost it. 🌲 The Forest Changed What was a fun game turned tense fast. The trail was gone. The trees looked the same in every direction. And our phones? Useless. No signal, no GPS. We were officially lost. We kept walking, hoping to stumble back toward camp. But the deeper we went, the quieter it got. No wind, no insects, no animal sounds — just the crunch of leaves beneath our feet. That’s when I saw it. A faint, pulsing blue glow beneath a pile of leaves by a fallen tree. I knelt down and brushed the leaves aside. It looked like a phone — but not like any I'd seen. No buttons, no logos, just smooth black glass with a dim, shifting light inside. “Probably some lost hiker’s tech,” one of my friends joked. I wasn’t so sure. Something about it felt… wrong. 📱 The Device Speaks I picked it up. Instantly, it turned on. No passcode screen. Just a blank background, then a message appeared: > “You found it.” I froze. My friends laughed it off, thinking it was preprogrammed. I knew better. The message changed: > “Don’t take it home.” We were creeped out. One friend begged me to leave it behind, but curiosity won. I dropped it in my backpack. An hour later, we found an abandoned ranger hut — old, dusty, but dry. We stayed the night there. At 3:13 AM, the device lit up again. Incoming Call. No number. Just a flickering name: Unknown Entity. I answered. The voice on the other end wasn’t human. It wasn’t robotic either. It was something else. 👁️ The Voice From Nowhere It didn’t speak in words alone. It spoke in feelings — images — memory fragments I didn’t recognize. I saw a metal tower buried in the woods, a boy screaming into a silent sky, something dragging itself from the shadows. Then it said: > “This is not for your kind. Return it before it returns you.” The call ended. I dropped the device. My friends were all awake by now. None of us slept. 🏠 After the Forest We made it back the next morning. Tired. Silent. The forest was strangely… welcoming again. The path we couldn’t find the night before was suddenly visible. Back home, things got weirder. My laptop flickered to life at night by itself. My phone rang at 3:13 AM — the screen blank. I started hearing static before I fell asleep. And the device? It was gone. Not in my bag. Not anywhere. But I started dreaming of it — every night. One night, I found writing on my mirror: > “You brought it with you. Inside.” I hadn’t written it. No one had access to my room. And I began to believe: it wasn’t the device that held power. It was contact with it that changed me. 🔁 The Recurring Signal Even now, I sometimes wake up with strange symbols on my phone wallpaper, ones I never downloaded. Sometimes, I hear whispers coming from dead electronics. And once — just once — I got a call. > “Did you warn the others?” The line went dead. 💡 What I Learned Some things aren’t meant to be discovered. Some signals aren’t meant for human ears. We think we own the earth, the skies, the technology — but what if something older, deeper, more ancient… owns us? Curiosity didn’t kill me. But I’m not the same anymore. And I still wonder: If I hadn't picked it up, would I still be whole?
By Noman Afridiabout a year ago in Horror
