The Ghosts in the Grove Horror Story

“The Ghosts in the Grove” horror story takes place in the near future, where the wealthy can live on as vivid holograms in carefully planted memory forests. An elderly homeless woman has quietly made one of these sanctuaries her home. For ten years, she survives on the edge of the living and the dead, drinking from fountains, eating offerings left by grieving families, and talking with the luminous ghosts of strangers who no longer have visitors.

As she moves among the trees, gently waking projections that were never meant for her, she becomes a silent witness to lives preserved in light. At the same time, her own existence slips away from every record. In the quiet of the forest, something delicate and unspoken starts to change, caught between what is remembered and what is completely forgotten.

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After ten years living in one of the Forests of Memory, A-294, Sunny Carballo had learned two things. First, almost all friends, children, and lovers visit in the first year, maybe the second, to talk with the holographic remains of their loved ones, but rarely return after that.

Second, Asian families could always be counted on to leave fruit, buns, and alcohol at the graves, even though it was against the rules. Sunny always waited until the funeral party had moved away before eating the oranges and drinking the wine.

The world was harsh for seventy-year-old women without homes. The Forest at least offered food, a bathroom, a concrete shelter, and some safety. A fence was put up, and a groundskeeper was assigned after the carbon-sequestration tract became a Forest of Memory.

The groundskeeper had seen Sunny once or twice from a distance during the day, but she was careful. Nothing in her clothes or behavior set her apart from the other mourners walking among the trees.

Her companions in the Forest were just the kind of company she preferred: occasional, appearing only when she wanted. Today, she tapped lightly on the brass plaque on a beech tree that read Alfonse Remi, 1954 to 2031. A glittering cone and web of light shone from the projector in the plaque. Sunny stepped back, and Alfonse appeared.

At the time of recording, he was a handsome man with kind eyes and a gold chain around his neck. The real chain was wrapped around the plaque, weighed down by a small gold cross.

His family had been fortunate; a slow illness gave them enough time to record him in detail, making his image so real and vivid that Sunny wanted to touch the wrinkles at the corner of his eye. Families of teenagers lost in accidents or middle-aged workers who died suddenly had to settle for still images and grainy family videos.

These rituals belonged to the wealthy. Jane Does, and the poor were buried in unmarked, unmapped plots in commercial orchards.

“How has your day been, Alfonse?” she asked.

“The best day of my life, I was walking to the market in Bolinao. This was before the seas rose—it’s not there any more. Isn’t it tragic, how places wash away? Ana was still asleep. I was going to surprise her with breakfast. The fruits in the market glowed brighter than anything, and I laughed with joy. Something about the sunlight. I bought a great big armful of mangos. Later Ana and I rode bicycles along the edge of the sea.”

“I’m doing well too, thanks for asking,” Sunny said. “Drank from the drinking fountain, used the bathroom, ate that peach I was saving. Now here I am. It’s nice having someone to talk to, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” Alfonse said. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Oh, the company you hired was the real deal, wasn’t it. Usually that message is just an error window. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tire you out. Goodness knows you’ve earned your rest. Just tell me this: when was the last time your grandchildren visited you? Because I’ve been here ten years, and I’ve never seen anyone else swing by.”

“My family is the love of my life,” Alfonse said, hands moving like birds. They cast no shadow on the mossy earth. “Julia, Nellie, Christophe, Sebastian—I have messages for all of you. If you step up and let the plaque scan your eye.”

“That’s very personal,” Sunny said, giggling. “We only met last week.”

He blinked at her, uncomprehending. Sunny whisked her skirts in a shallow curtsey.

“Good talking to you,” she said.

Two trees away was Gilda, twenty, with bold makeup, and rashy. She squinted at Sunny, as if the light was too brilliant to bear, though what filtered through the canopy was soft and emerald.

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“Ay, hija,” Sunny said, “What happened to you?”

“If you ask me,” Gilda said, “it’s really a gift. Not the tumors—I’d blast them with a flamethrower if I could. But the sense of shortened time, the intensity of living—not a day wasted. I can’t afford to waste a day.”

“You should have grown old,” Sunny said. “Gotten married. Divorced. Fought a custody battle. It’s what we all do.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Gilda said. “Don’t give Marcus a hard time. Not everyone can—I mean, he couldn’t. Bear it, I mean. And that’s okay. Tell him I said so. I hope he finds—I hope he’s happy.”

Sunny clicked her tongue. “He wasn’t good enough for you.”

Feeling bold, she woke three more holograms. With the caretaker away for the day, she could be less careful. She could talk to all the dead if she wished.

“But that’s enough,” she said, feeling the ache in her feet. The forest floor was uneven, covered with roots, even though a layer of the dead lay beneath.

Her wandering brought her to a quiet part of the woods, near the tall chain-link fence that separated the Forest of Memory from a logging area. She sat under a wide elm and took off her shoes. Over the years, her soles had grown tough. She wiggled her toes and pressed her heels into the moss.

She noticed that the bottom of the fence had come loose in one spot, bulging inward as if someone had lifted the links with a crowbar. Sooner or later, the groundskeeper would see it and fix it.

A caramel-colored mushroom grew through the soil by her hand. She picked it and smelled its earthy scent.

A drone flew low and loud, passing over the fence and between the trees. Sunny remembered her niece’s daughter playing with a drone like that, running along the beach and filming until it crashed into the sea. No amount of drying or tears could save the ruined toy.

Even after the drone disappeared, Sunny could still hear its buzzing sound. After a minute, it came back, flying over the fence and into the short fir trees.

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A young man came out of the logging area, holding a crowbar in one hand and a garbage bag in the other. He crawled through the loose opening in the chain-link fence, then hurried past Sunny toward the memory trees.

Sunny pulled her bare feet close and tried to make herself as unnoticeable as possible, hoping to blend in with the moss.

All around the Forest, she heard sudden bursts of confused noise as ghosts appeared, spoke, and then fell silent.

When the man returned, his bag was full, and clinking, and a gold cross on a chain hung from his wrist. As he walked past Sunny, who felt a wave of relief, he pushed the bag under the fence.

Then he turned and looked at Sunny Carballo.

“No,” she said, “please,” but his eyes narrowed, his gaze unfocused.

The crowbar swung through the air. A dull light moved along the metal.

Sunny was frail. It happened quickly. There was little blood.

When they found her, after checking the stolen plaques, lenses, projectors, and chips, and the cuts in the memory trees, the family members who could be found through DNA reluctantly gathered enough money to bury Sunny in A-294. Nothing was sent for a hologram, not even a photo.

As backup copies of other memories were restored throughout the forest and the chain-link fence was replaced with cement and iron spikes, Sunny disappeared beneath the thick green moss, and no one remembered her.