Checkmate
A short horror story about long-distance chess.
Elisa remembered the early letters. The joy that filled her mother’s face when one arrived.
She remembered shouting. Jumping down from her bowl of porridge to pick up the envelope, stained with their address.
“Mom,” she would yell. “It’s here! Another move!”
Her mom would sweep into the room, smiling, tear the envelope, and unfold something that made no sense to Elisa but meant everything to the woman who had raised her.
They were transformative, those letters. Powerful. They turned smiles into strategy. Propelled a quiet mom into a living room, to a little table with a chair pulled tight to its edge, and a game of chess.
“Doesn’t it get boring?” Elisa had asked once, as a teenager, dipping bread into warm tomato soup.
“What?”
“The waiting. Sometimes it takes a week before you get his next move, and then a week before he gets yours. It takes literally months, even a year, to finish a game. Can’t you just e-mail it? Why does it have to be letters?”
Her mom had shrugged, taking a slow sip. “I like it. Everything’s so fast these days. Busy. It gives me something to savour. Something to look forward to and really think about, like I used to.”
“And the guy you play with.”
“Ian.”
“Ian,” Elisa had echoed. “You know him?”
“I know how he plays,” her mom had said. “I’ll let you decide if that’s answer enough.”
Over the years, their games continued. Elisa knew because she asked, and because she had seen Ian’s letters pile up next to the board, growing as a game meandered through spring into summer, March into July until it was over, and the pile was replaced with a new envelope, torn to reveal a fresh first move.
When Elisa graduated, they played. When she broke her wrist, they played. When she met her husband, escaping the quiet town she called home only to divorce him five years later, Ian and her mom played. It was, perhaps, one of the most constant things about her.
Constant, until the neighbour, Gina, found Elisa’s mom dead, slumped over her chess board, mouth open like she’d seen a ghost. The doctors called it a heart attack but Elisa preferred to call it what it was: awful.
The day that defined the rest of her life.
The front door groaned as it opened, and the scent of floral soap and old soup drowned her.
“Hey, mom!”
Elisa shouted into the empty house, hanging at the entrance in case a voice would answer back. When it didn’t, and she had closed the bite of winter behind her, Elisa moved into a cold, familiar hallway.
Her mom’s shoes sat beside the entrance mat. Her coat hung on the hook, pockets full of tissue and receipts. On the console table, apples had started to rot.
The living room glared at Elisa like an open mouth. It was where her mom had died so where, she presumed, she would still be slumped, somewhere in its maw, grey hair hanging over the little table, jaw slack on the board’s black and white pattern.
But she wasn’t.
The room was empty.
Dead.
Quiet, until a shout startled Elisa so much she screamed.
“My God, Gina,” Elisa breathed, clutching her chest as she turned to see the frail figure of her mom’s neighbour shuffling into the room. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“I’m sorry, love,” she said, waving a lazy hand. “I saw your car in the drive. Thought I’d come over and tell you how sorry I am.”
“Thanks. I’ll be staying here for a bit. Sorting through some stuff.”
“That’s good, love. That’s good…She looked peaceful, you know. Your mom. When I found her. She looked like she was at ease.”
All Elisa could do was nod. Nod and wonder why Gina was lying as she tried to force the threat of tears back down her throat.
“Thanks for doing that,” Elisa whispered.
“Doing what?”
“Resetting mom’s board,” she said, pointing at the chess set on the table, its pieces sat in their squares, ready to play. “She would have liked that.”
“Oh, I didn’t do that,” Gina said.
“What?”
“I didn’t touch anything. It must have been those nice people. The ones who came to pick her up. Take her away.”
“Right,” Elisa whispered. “Of course. The ones who took her away.”
Fear trickled into the bottom of Elisa’s spine. Despite the sunlight that stained old carpet, a chill spread across her back, down her fingers, igniting every hair across her neck.
She saw it as soon as she walked in.
That something was different.
Altered.
A pawn had moved on the board.
She hurried out of the living room, returning to the kitchen where she had just made coffee. She shook as she sifted through papers. Scrambled through a pile of old calendars on the counter, looking for the phonebook she knew her mom kept there.
When she found it, she struggled with the cover, fighting to steady her breath as she parted pages stuck together with years of cooking.
She dialled.
Waited.
Waited.
“Hello?”
“Gina?”
“Elisa? What’s wrong, love? Is everything alright?”
“Have you been by the house this morning?”
“No, no. I’m barely out of bed. I was up late last night watching my shows. What’s the matter? Elisa? Elisa, what’s wrong?”
Elisa pressed cold fingers into clammy palms. She was scared. Terrified of saying what she wanted to say out loud.
“Alright, mom,” she whispered. “If this is really you. If you really want a game, you need to play nice, alright? No funny business.”
Not wanting to sit where her mom had sat all those years, Elisa had pulled a chair from the kitchen into the living room. She had, like her mom, tucked it tight under the table, facing the spot where her mother had died.
Passion for the game wasn’t something they shared, but Elisa knew the rules. Had watched, and played, enough to know how to offer some healthy competition.
With the house quiet around her, and nothing but a clock’s ticking to fill the gaps, Elisa breathed. Closed her eyes. Placed her fingers on one of her pawns, wondering if this was really happening or the weight of grief had altered her mind.
When she moved it forward, sliding it into its new square, she didn’t wait to see if the board would answer. She left. Got up. Cast it out of her mind. Did whatever she needed to do so she didn’t have to fixate on the way the house may or may not have creaked around her for the rest of the day.
It wasn’t until the next morning, dressed in pyjamas she had found the night before, that Elisa felt that cold fear trickle into her spine again, because there had been another change.
A pawn on the other side of the board had moved.
Elisa didn’t tell Gina.
She didn’t tell a soul that she had spent the last four months playing chess with her mom’s ghost.
At first, the phantom moves had been sporadic. Unpredictable. Sometimes, Elisa would wake up to change. Sometimes, she had to wait a week for a new move.
In that time, pawns made way for bishops. Rooks swept forward. Knights danced. Push became pull in what was, by all accounts, a good game of chess. The more it happened, and the longer it went on, the easier the unanswerable was to digest.
Every shuffle of movement Elisa heard in the house had an answer.
The footsteps at night, outside her bedroom, had a home.
The creak of floorboards had become a comfort.
At one point she thought she heard breathing—a throat that had a voice—but no voice came, and she didn’t feel scared as she called out.
“I can’t quite believe I’m saying this,” Elisa said to the room, looking at the remaining pieces, standing stoic on the board. “But I think I might beat you, mom. For the first time, I might just win.” The clock’s ticking filled the silence. She paused as something moved in the house. “I hope you weren’t going easy on me. You know I don’t like that.”
Elisa smiled a weak smile. Felt tears in her eyes. Wondered if finishing the game would close the veil and she’d never be able to connect with her mom again.
With a shaking hand, Elisa grabbed her queen.
Slid it across the board.
Was about to mutter the word ‘checkmate’ when she sensed the weight of something in the room with her, heard the rasp of old lungs, and felt cold hands close around her neck.
The phone filled the living room with a long, persistent ring.
The answering machine clicked.
“Elisa? Elisa, are you there? It’s Gina. Maybe you’re still asleep. I’ve been doing some asking around about that Ian your mom played with and I just had to tell you what Ada said.
Did you know he never beat her? All those years they played, and not once did he win. Not a single damn checkmate.
Huh. All that losing. It’s enough to drive a man mad.
Anyway, she said he’s not home at the moment. Apparently he’s disappeared. Been out of town. No one’s seen him in weeks.
Call me when you get this, won’t you? I’m making shepherds pie tonight and I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one. Why don’t you join us? It’ll be ready around five. We’ll see you. Bye, love. Bye.”
Before you go
My latest book, The Flowers at Flood House, is out now. It’s a horror novella about memories, grief, and lots of flowers. Feel free to check out reviews on Goodreads or click the button below to grab a copy.
Want to read more free short stories?
Below are a few to get you started but you can check out all the fiction I’ve shared on Substack here.
Lightbulb 💡 - A short horror story about a haunted lamp.
A Gentle Rain 🌧️ – A short horror story about loss.
Cold House 🏚️ – A short horror story about a lonely ghost.
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/ JJW
Oh gosh this was incredible. Beautifully written in a real way. Then intriguing and then legitimately scary. Well done!
That plot twist was insane😱 I loved every bit of it!