Stuff of Nightmares: A Collection of Short Horror Stories

The Night the Boundaries Fall

Halloween was our favourite time of the year. Every year as midnight drew near, the veil between the other world and ours became thin until the end of Halloween day. Every kid worth their salt would be out. Whoever had the scariest story about the veil by the end of the day became king, the coolest kid in the world. And whoever fled crying back home would be the laughing stock of the year.

My mum never let me out until I turned sixteen. She said it's not safe on Halloween day to be out. There were too many scary things out there and it could be dangerous. But at sixteen, she also accepted she couldn't tell me what to do any more. And the more she warned me against it, the more enticing the prospects seemed. What could go wrong?

So when midnight struck, she waved me away, shaking her head as I met up with Josh and Ben, my best friends. We were going out on a scare fest. We would definitely get the scariest story this year.

We'd heard all the stories and knew the best places to go. Graveyards always attracted  the shrieking ghouls, but they just ventured near, waving their lanterns about, and then they would flee, screaming. They were good for beginners, but not us. Old houses, allegedly haunted, had more violent ones and a better chance of cooler stories. The shy creatures would probably also scream and run, but the angrier ones would jump out, waving weapons. Probably had some unresolved anger or vengeance from the other side. Sam from next door said he got clubbed once, blood oozing from a gash on his scalp when he went home. Adam from down the road said he almost got impaled, chased by a mob of screaming ghouls, lanterns waving and hellbent on killing him -- not that they could actually kill. He was hailed like a king after that. Nobody ever knew if any of the stories were true, but the wilder they were, the more we ate them up.

Josh, Ben, and I were convinced we could top those stories. We weren't going to pussyfoot in some shoddy graveyard or mooch around in those sad haunted house.

No, we were going to a church.

Churches always had these cults running beneath all the holy stuff. Lots of deaths throughout the years guaranteed endless bloodthirsty ghouls and crazies. We made our way past all the nutters floating about in their fancy dress. We dressed casually, not bothering with anything frivolous. Real scares didn't involve tacky costumes. No, real scares came from tact. I patted my pocket; fake blood sloshed inside. Ben swung a dead cat in his hand, humming to himself, his eyes obscured behind his lenses.

Fire torches flickered outside the ominous stone-brick building, the spirals disappearing into the black sky like some demon swallowed them whole. Shadows danced around, actual movements blending with my overactive imagination. Shapes shifted about, most of them impossible to make out in the semi-darkness whether they were one of us or from beyond the veil. Some must be others like us along just for the spook, but I knew there must be genuine ghouls around. I could feel it. Goosebumps raised on my arms and there was a tingle in my spine. The veil was so thin I couldn't even see where our world ended and where the other side began -- probably just beyond the hedge we huddled behind.

"Right, boys," I said, cracking my knuckles. "Who's going first?"

"Whoever spooks last, comes last," declared Josh, squaring his shoulders. Ben rolled his eyes.

"Be my guest, Joshy-boy."

Josh didn't need telling twice. He vaulted over the hedge, almost catching his foot in the branches and toppling face-first into the grass, and dashed ahead, disappearing into the darkness. Ben and I smirked at each other before moving around, looking for a high enough place to watch the show. He spotted some vines climbing up to an open window. I grinned. The door would have been too easy an option.

We clamoured up the vines. It was higher than we expected, but the adrenaline for the show to come kept us going, up and up. Blood drummed in my ears and all I could hear was the thumping and my own gasps. My arms burned with fatigue. When at last I heaved myself over the windowsill, I regretted being so lazy during the past few months.