Horror

They all thought hide-and-seek was a great game until the day they didn’t find little Davy. Lucy found him 4 months later and screamed for days.

The glowing embers of the fire led the pack straight to the feast. Once they tore through the fibrous outer wrapper the flesh, blood and marrow within were delicious.

My flat-mates and I had watched a couple of zombie movies that night so the wet, tearing sounds coming from behind the ajar door really freaked me out. What I saw when I nervously pushed the door open was much worse than what I heard.

A shadow swooped down across the night’s backdrop of many stars, stopped before him, resolved into something reptilian with ragged wings and scythe-like claws that slashed at his heart. They found him in the morning, lifeless and soulless but unmarked, claimed by death’s night-time embrace.

It was at a party that she told me how she’d played Bloody Mary hundreds of times. Though she had never seen any face in the mirror but her own.

The clock ticked as the man waited and the distant sirens grew louder. He hoped that the police would approve of the artistry with which he had arranged his family.

His sense of excitement grew the closer he got to the first house. At age 10, this was his first Halloween out collecting on his own and, trick or treat, it was thrilling to think that grandpa’s bayonet would be put to use again after so many years.

“Aye, one more for road!”, the words that destroyed my world tumble around my restless mind. You see, I recognised the face that flashed across the windscreen that bloody awful night - my own fucking son.

I’d heard about sleep paralysis and waking with the feeling that there’s a presence in the room. But no one said anything about that presence beginning to move and revealing a shape that was very far from human.

It was only after our daughter, a policewoman, was killed that I remembered the picture. A family picture in which a strange blemish had appeared on our daughter’s image, marking the exact spot the bullet entered her throat.