The Dead Letter Office: Ghost Story

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Lydia had worked at the Riverton Post Office for nearly twenty years, and the routine had become a comforting lull in her life. Each morning, she would arrive at 6 a.m., the post office bathed in the faint light of dawn, its silence broken only by the hum of fluorescent lights overhead. The scent of old paper and ink seemed to seep into her skin as she organized the daily mail.

Riverton was a sleepy town, tucked away in the hills where news traveled slow, and life was predictable. Until the day the letters started arriving.

It was a dreary Wednesday when she noticed the first one. A plain envelope with no return address, its edges yellowed as if aged before it ever reached her desk. The name on the front read Margaret Holloway, but something immediately struck her as wrong—there was no Margaret Holloway in Riverton, at least not anymore. Lydia distinctly remembered the old woman who lived on Elm Street. She had passed away nearly three years ago.

Frowning, Lydia set the letter aside, deciding it must be some clerical error or miscommunication. After all, the dead couldn’t receive mail. She would return it to the sender, or perhaps place it in the dead letter bin—something her office rarely used.

But then the next day, another letter arrived. This one was addressed to Benjamin Tate, a man Lydia had never heard of in her entire life. Riverton was small, she knew nearly everyone by name or at least by sight, but Benjamin wasn’t one of them. The letter, too, bore no return address, and it was sealed tight as though the person sending it had gone to great lengths to ensure it wouldn’t be tampered with.

Lydia’s unease grew as she placed it beside the one addressed to Margaret. She was used to sorting and handling mail, not reading it. But curiosity gnawed at her, the questions piling up in her mind like stacks of unsorted letters.

On Friday, a third letter arrived. This one bore the name Richard Hale. Richard had been a fixture in Riverton until a tragic accident had claimed his life the previous year. The similarity between his letter and Margaret’s was too much to ignore. Lydia’s fingers trembled as she turned the envelope over in her hands. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she felt an inexplicable chill seep through her.

The letters were addressed to the dead.

Her mind whirred with possibilities, none of them pleasant. These couldn’t be ordinary letters. She shouldn’t open them—yet something deep inside urged her to tear the seal, to know what was inside. Maybe it was her own morbid curiosity, but by the time the clock struck noon and the usual foot traffic in the post office had slowed to a trickle, Lydia made up her mind.

She reached for the letter addressed to Margaret Holloway and opened it.

The letter was handwritten in neat, flowing cursive, the ink strangely fresh.

Dear Margaret,

I regret to inform you that your time is short. Tomorrow night, as you lie in bed, you will hear a knock at the door. Do not answer. If you do, he will take you. He always takes the ones who answer.

Lydia’s hands shook as she read the words, her stomach twisting into knots. Margaret had been dead for three years, yet the letter read like a warning. But who was “he”? And who wrote this?

A sickening dread filled her as she opened the second letter, the one for Benjamin Tate. It, too, was written in the same haunting script.

Dear Benjamin,

You will not survive the night. I see you, standing by the window, staring into the darkness. He sees you too. At midnight, the glass will shatter, and he will be inside before you can react.

Lydia’s breath caught in her throat. What was this? Were these warnings meant for people who had already died? She moved on to the last letter, the one meant for Richard.

Dear Richard,

You should never have walked alone that night. But it was always going to happen, wasn’t it? He was waiting for you by the tree, just where you didn’t expect him to be. I wish you had stayed home.

Lydia dropped the letter, her heart hammering in her chest. Each letter described deaths—deaths that had already occurred in Riverton. Richard had been found beneath an old oak tree on the edge of town, an apparent victim of a hit-and-run. Margaret had died in her sleep, with no explanation. Benjamin Tate, though unknown to Lydia, must have been a victim too.

The phone rang, jarring her out of her thoughts. It was Chief Malone from the Riverton Police Department.

“Lydia, something strange happened. A man named Benjamin Tate was found dead at his house this morning. Do you know anything about it?”

She froze. Benjamin Tate. The name from the letter. He had died today—the very day his letter arrived.

“I… I think I have something here, Chief,” Lydia stammered. “I’ll bring it to you.”

That night, after she’d handed over the letters to Chief Malone, Lydia returned home, shaken. The events were too eerie, too connected to the strange letters. She couldn’t sleep, her mind playing over the names, the deaths, and the warnings.

Two days passed before another letter appeared. This one, however, was addressed to Lydia Thompson.

Her hands trembled as she held the envelope, cold sweat forming on her brow. The address was correct, but no one ever sent her letters. Slowly, she tore it open, her pulse quickening with every second.

Dear Lydia,

You must stop. If you continue, you’ll only make it worse. He’s watching you now. You think you can avoid it, but fate has a way of catching up. He’s already decided. He’ll be there, at your window, tomorrow night. When you see him, run. But you won’t get far.

Lydia dropped the letter as if it had burned her. She felt the room closing in around her, the walls pressing tight, her breathing shallow and erratic. Who was writing these? And how did they know her every move? She ran to the window, yanked the curtains aside, and stared out into the street. Nothing. Only the pale streetlights casting long shadows.

But she felt it—the sensation of being watched.

Panic began to claw at her. The warnings had all come true for the others. Was she next? She tried to think of a way out, to avoid whatever gruesome fate had been written for her. Maybe if she stayed somewhere else, locked herself in, nothing could happen.

That night, Lydia bolted every door and window, every nerve on edge. The house was silent, but there was a pressure in the air, something dark and heavy.

At 11:59 p.m., a knock echoed from the front door.

Her blood ran cold. She stood in the middle of her living room, unable to move, her heart pounding in her ears.

The knock came again.

Do not answer. If you do, he will take you.

She thought of Margaret’s letter. If only she hadn’t opened the door. Lydia stayed frozen, clenching her fists at her sides, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t.

The knock sounded a third time, louder, more insistent.

And then, the window behind her shattered.

Lydia screamed, spinning around just in time to see a dark figure slip into the room, its form shadowy and impossible to define, but its presence was undeniable.

She ran.

Tearing down the hallway, she flung open the back door and darted into the cold night air, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might explode. She didn’t look back, but she could feel him—right behind her. Closer. Closer.

She stumbled through the yard, her legs burning, her lungs aching, but the shadow was gaining. There was no escape. No way to outrun fate.

Just as she reached the edge of her property, she felt a hand grip her shoulder, cold and sharp as death itself. She screamed, falling forward, but before she hit the ground, the world shifted—warped.

She was back in her living room.

Breathing heavily, Lydia looked around, her hands shaking. The room was intact. The window was whole. There had been no knock, no shattered glass. It was as if nothing had happened.

She stood frozen, trying to make sense of it. Then she saw it—the letter still sitting on her table, its contents now different.

You cannot stop what’s coming. I should know. Because I’m you.

The ink on the page seemed to pulse, and with horror, Lydia realized the handwriting matched her own.