Hiding In The Dark

The unknown can become the ultimate terror

Contest Prompt

"Twisted Tales Contest" Entries must be more than 300 but less than 6000 words long,.'

After midnight. Dogs won’t stop barking. Buried myself in warm blankets to hide from the cold. “All right. All right.” Got up to let the dogs out. “Maybe this will calm them down.”

Didn’t. They won’t come back in. Something is out there spooking them. “All right. Hang on.” Shrug into warmer clothing. Armed with flashlight. Cold air hits me like a fist.

“You don’t treat raccoons like this.” Maybe it’s a prowler. I walk the property perimeter finding nothing. Dogs at my heels. Barking.

“You’re going to wake the neighbors.” I’m getting mad. “Halloween is over. There aren’t any ghosts trick or treating.” That was the last barking episode just days ago,.

Rising wind moaning. Flashlight swings. “Here comes trouble.” It’s all teeth and claws. The dogs fading whining goes silent. I am pain fading into darkness so absolute it could be a tomb. I feel myself becoming nothing., The last statement of an empty life.


I don’t believe in ghosts. It didn’t matter. In life, nothing I did mattered. Becoming a ghost changed things. “I'm no matter at all. If there’s an afterlife, how do I get there?”

I’m hung up, hanging out, floating over the spot where I died. My dogs know I’m here. They come out to sit underneath the invisible me. “I don’t matter. I’m no longer any form of matter at all.”

My sister Julie is here, taking care of the dogs, selling my property, possessions, what was left of my life. “Maybe when they’re gone, I will be too. It’s not a hopeful feeling. I’m feeling nothing. Just an invisible blob of tangled thoughts, watching, waiting.

The dogs come out barking. Jumping. Snarling at the dark shape invading their space. If I had a spine, it would be shivering. “I can feel again.” What I feel is an instinctual fear of the unknown. It bleeds into sharp pain. The same kind of pain death brought me. I want to scream. The dark shape is all teeth and claws. It tears me apart. It swallows me up.


I didn’t know Ghosts could cease to exist. “What am I now?”

Self awareness reborn. “More. I’m hungry.” I am the shape of darkness filled with teeth and claws.

WC 365