H for Horror...

Ginny noticed a sound. The candle had burnt almost all of the way down. The fire, banked hours before, was only embers now. A single spark floated up the chimney.

The sound gnawed at the edge of her consciousness. Was it there before? Had she ignored it? Was it a rat? No, that was definitely a footfall, a definite step. She was sure she was alone, alone in the big house. The family were watching Gone With the Wind, at the cinema. She couldn’t give a damn about Clark Gable.

Whatwasthat?Thatwas definite. A footfall on the snow outside, or inside.

Much too late for carol singers, what could it be?

The twins had dragged her to too many H for horror films, she watched through her fingers Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. She had to remind herself this was not a movie.

The lightning strike had meant using hurricane lamps after dark, it reminded her of the blitz, the black-out curtains were still in place but there was no hope of a siren declaring an all-clear now.

The family were not due to return for several hours, Atlanta would burn, popcorn had to be consumed, before they came home.

She was alone, or was she? The sound again? No more than an over-active imagination caused by Orson Wells reading War of the Worlds on the radio, too much horror pulp fiction, and waiting for her fiancé to be finally demobbed. She didn’t have enough to do, that was the problem. Knitting was out of the question, her efforts ended up looking like a ball of wool after the cat had played with it.

Her father declared she could burn water. So here she was, a veteran of a hundred H for Horror films, quaking in her best secondhand snake skin shoes.

How did her film hero deal with the monster he dreaded – he usually died in reel two. She imagined sinking into her armchair as ghostly fingers settled round her throat. Stay or go? The choice was obvious. Easier to relax and ignore the sounds, they were from her imagination, she was sure.

That was a thump upstairs. Ginny rummaged in the sideboard lighting one of the emergency candles … well if this wasn’t an emergency she didn’t know what was.

She crept to the foot of the stairs. A door banged, must have been the wind, the windows were all firmly shut, same as the bolted front and back doors. Ginny reached the bottom step, she tried to step up but her foot wasn’t having any of it.

Cool? No, not cool. She felt the icy finger of fear descend from the hairs at the back of her neck, twisting round her spine turning her guts round and round.

Somehow her foot moved. Somehow she was climbing, somehow she was standing on the landing, the candle bringing shadow, not bringing anything into illumination. It was in the room breathing deeply, so close she could almost feel it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cross the landing with the embers of her courage failing, her hand gripped the door knob. She turned the handle, why was she trying to be quiet, this was her house. It groaned the way she imagined the portals of hell would.

Something was watching, something was waiting. In the darkness Ginny shut her eyes.

There was a piercing scream, a shriek Paramount Pictures had invented on a wet Sunday.

It struck her, it landed on her. She recovered herself just enough to avoid tumbling down the staircase. ‘Oh Timmy, it’s you!’ Grabbing the cat by the scruff of the neck she was about to put it outside. She relented and gave it a saucer of milk. The shadow loomed behind her.