E/N: Though bittersweet, this is the final installment for our month of spoopy! Let’s give a huge round of applause to these amazing writers👏🏼
I hope you’ve enjoyed these few stories written by our amazing spoopy writers, and that you continue to check out their posts in future. For more spoopy posts, check out the #HORROR-SHORROR tag.
Tara has never liked Halloween.
She detested everything to do with Halloween. As a matter of fact, she thought the entire concept was ridiculous. Who even decided to dedicate an entire month towards this charade? Her dislike included even horror movies – she thought they were just too nonsensical and predictable.
She was seen as the odd one out of her family, because her entire family absolutely loved Halloween, more than any other holiday. They constantly teased and pestered her with scary stories.
On the 31 October, after being assigned the duty of handing candy to the trick or treaters for the entire day, Tara couldn’t wait to get to bed and fall asleep. She was excited to see Halloween come to an end.
That night she got ready for bed earlier than usual, put on her comfiest pyjama’s and went about doing her nightly routine. When she finished, she got into bed, eager to fall asleep and wake up the next morning.
When Tara woke up again, it was because of a sound that she heard coming from downstairs. She sat up, a bit confused; she was usually a deep sleeper. The clock on her bedside table read 01:12 a.m. She decided to go back to sleep, but when she heard the noise again – louder this time – it made her jump.
Frowning, she decided to check what the noise was. She got out of bed and slowly made her way towards the bedroom door. Cautiously, she opened the door; afraid she might make even more noise and wake everyone else up. But when she opened the door, she immediately froze.
Instead of seeing her brother’s closed bedroom door, as she was supposed to, she looked straight into a dark abyss…
Fearfully jumping, she slammed the door closed. She leaned against the door, panting. Her heart beating so fast she was scared she might go into cardiac arrest. She shut her eyes and repeated the words “this is just a dream”, and “wake up” several times. When she opened her eyes again, she let out a breath before slowly opening her bedroom door.
This time, however, instead of looking into a dark abyss, she was staring into a living room that looked to be abandoned. The furniture was dusty and covered in cobwebs. Though wanting to shut the door and just crawl back into bed, her feet carried her into the living room.
The door slammed shut behind her, giving her a shock. She ran back and pulled on the door knob, but it seemed to have locked by itself. She turned around and looked around the room. On the wall opposite her, she noticed a red handprint – walking closer to inspect it. A chill vibrated through her body and she realized that it was bloody. Slowly, the blood still dripped to the floor. She pulled at her hair and quickly backed away from the wall.Â
What was going on?
A door slammed open, making her gasp. There, by the door, were stairs leading upward. Mustering up all of her courage, Tara slowly proceeded up the stairs. With every step she took, the stairs creaked louder and her anxiety increased. There was another door at the top of the stairs, but this wasn’t what made her stop dead in her tracks.
In front of the door stood a tall figure. He was cloaked in black and it looked like his feet weren’t touching the ground. That still wasn’t the scariest part, though. The scariest part was that his huge, glowing red eyes were looking directly at her. Tara turned around, preparing to go back downstairs, but, to her surprise, the tall figure appeared at the bottom of the stairs as well.Â
She wanted to break down right then and there.
The figure approached her and she backed up, scared. He then stretched out his cloak covered hand. Seeing no other option, Tara put her hand in his. He led her towards the door further up the stairs, and she closed her eyes, afraid of what she’ll see.
The door creaked open and when she heard the screaming, her eyes snapped open. In front of her, lay a mass of soulless bodies, piled on top of one another. In sync, the corpses turned and slowly crawled towards her.
That’s when she realized that the dark figure disappeared. She frantically ran to the door and opened it but not before one of the corpses scratched her leg. Wincing, Tara leapt out of the door, only to fall into midair.Â
She closed her eyes and screamed, but then plunged onto her bed. It was just a dream, yet it felt so real – too real. She could still feel the pain in her leg from where the corpse scratched her. Observing her leg, her heart started beating faster when she saw three deep scars with blood leaking out of them.
Footsteps were then heard coming from outside her bedroom and moments later her door slammed open and the dark figure entered her room, bringing a gust of wind with him. Tara screamed so loud, she felt the ground shake.Â
“Tara!” She heard her mom shout. “Tara, wake up!” Her eyes snapped open and she saw both her parents and her brother standing in her room. She noticed the scars on her legs disappeared, but she could still vaguely feel the pain. “Are you okay?” Her mom asked, concerned. Tara nodded, and mustered up a small smile.
“Yeah, it was just a nightmare,” she assured them.
Yet, the entire time she spoke to them, she maintained eye contact with the tall, glowing-red-eyed figure standing behind her door…
Thank you so much to our writers and readers for supporting this spoopy month – I’m sure we’ll have more #HORROR-SHORROR posts in future! Now, it’s time to say goodbye to this month of spoopy, and welcome back out usual random quirkiness✨
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