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[READ: October 30, 2025] “Unseen—Unfeared”
It has been six years since Ghost Box III came out….
After years of demand, the Ghost Box is back! Patton Oswalt’s much-beloved spooky-story anthology returns for a fourth edition, with the same trademark production details—magnetized box lid, anyone?—that Ghost Box fans have come to expect.
As always, working with Patton on Ghost Box IV was a dream, and we can’t wait to show you the nightmares that he’s wrangled and stuffed into the box this time around.
Francis Stevens is the pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett who I know nothing about. I assume this story is set in Philadelphia (South Street and Franklin Hall), but that’s not really important.
The story opens with the narrator talking to a detective over dinner. The detective mentions a case in which a doctor is accused of murdering someone. The detective doesn’t believe the doctor did it, but he doesn’t want to reveal too many details.
As the detective leaves, he gives the narrator a very fine cigar and heads out. The narrator waits a few minutes and then heads out as well. It’s here that I had to wonder about the intolerance of the author. Because the narrator is walking down the street casting aspersions on everyone he sees–all races and colors are scrutinized harshly–especially a group of young Italian men who give the narrator the stink eye like he’d never seen.
He’s freaking out about how much he hates everyone and everything and decides he needs to rest for a minute. Then he sees a sign over a shop that says See The Great Unseen!
Thinking this is a museum of some sort, a place where he can sit and relax, he goes inside.
The owner of the place is a strange man with dark eyes and white hair. He starts talking about photography and the process of generating color prints. It’s either very technical or complete nonsense, but it hardly matters because the man is about to show the narrator a new technique he has achieved through the use of a membrane that he said is from South America.
When the man places the membrane over his equipment, the narrator suddenly sees…. what the host describes as all of the evils in the world that have been unleashed by humanity–included the narrator himself.
Given how disgusted he was by everyone outside, he starts to realize that he is the reason for all of the evil around him.
This story was really creepy and I really enjoyed the way it was told. With the final chapter bringing at leas two wholly unexpected conclusions. And I’m thinking maybe the author wasn’t such a curmudgeon after all.
I Just Read About That... 