Shorts

Frantic knocking at 2:45am is never a good sign, thought Albert as he glanced at his bedside clock. He hustled downstairs and opened the door to a very unexpected Valentine and the last thing he saw - a young boy armed with a bow.

He was struggling to think of how he could make Valentine’s Day as special as his birthday. Perhaps he could dress as cupid and pay a late night visit to some random house, armed with the very real archery set he had received from his estranged father.

Sorry honey held up at office going 2 b late home. So who the hell just parked our car in the garage?!

Dressed as a vampire David crept through the night-clad cemetery to where his friends waited; he was going to give them one hell of a fright when he sprang from behind a headstone. But they were already dismembered and dead, victims of the mad axeman who only laughed and swung his weapon afresh when David leapt into view.

A furtive movement caught from the corner of my eye caused me to look round. Some dark, fetid thing with many tentacles disgorged from the shadows in the back of my van and muffled my mindless shrieks.

The thrill of Halloween was beginning to fade: the bayonet; the blood. He would be eleven during the week before Christmas and he had to find a way to make it very special indeed.

If it was just a dream, why are there cuts on my arms? Does this mean there really are spiders under my skin?

Running late, he took a shortcut through the alley that everyone said was the most dangerous in town. Footsteps at his back made him whirl round only to realise it was those up ahead that should have alarmed him.

You can see the Earth and Moon during the Martian night - beautiful yet painful. For ours is a one way mission.

The first thing we did when the power went out was light candles. Their flickering flames revealed horrible things creeping from corners and from under furniture; so the last thing we did was scream.