Horror

All that remained were ashes, charred furnishings; a ruined shell. But she had her memories of the accelerant, the lighter; her joy at their screams.

On a cold, dark night in the run down farmhouse he felt something warm nuzzle his hand and he instinctively reached out to stroke it. The rabid dog took two of his fingers before he was fully awake.

Everyone thought he’d gone because he said, “See you later,” and they watched him leave. But every night he’d creep from his basement hideaway to watch them whilst they slept.

He had often wondered what it would be like to ride the night bus all the way to its terminus and finally found out the night he fell asleep and missed his stop. As the bus came to a stop he awoke to a panorama straight from the bowels of hell: dim lighting; rusty chains; meat hooks; a grinning man in a bloody apron waving a gore-smeared cleaver.

Being afraid of clowns seems like something of a trendy phobia these days. I’m afraid of them because I once saw an appallingly skinny man dressed as an evil clown throw his head back and swallow a live mouse.

“We can’t go back down, the wolves are waiting there!” she cried. “Well that other thing is waiting up there!” he spat back.

They had been hearing sounds outside the caravan for over an hour: whispers; muffled footsteps; a snort; metallic scraping; and now the door handle was moving. “Why the hell did I let you talk me into stopping here,” she hissed, “I told you that Free Overnight Parking sign looked dodgy.”

He shook free from the clutches of a hellish dream - suffocation, confined in the darkness of a slime-soaked tunnel. Reality was worse - the silken walls of a coffin and six feet of moist, stony soil.

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.