Halloween Night

This wasn’t how Halloween was supposed to be.
Of Course, it was exactly how Halloween was meant to be. How Kate had envisaged her street when night fell was this: Reams of orange and black banners parading around the houses, blinking bat lights hanging from the roofs and, of course, a fat Jack O’ Lantern smiling flickering candle light onto each and every drive way and garden where cardboard tomb-stones and paper-Mache ghosts haunted, propped up in the grass.
Instead, the houses were eerily empty, hollowed-out husks, blinds shut against the singing wind. Instead of gaudy banners on the alcoves, a chilling emptiness hung. No bright candles lit the pathways or softened the jagged edges of darkness. Only the unnaturally dim light from a thin sliver of moon.
Brushing back ice blonde hair from her ice white skin and glancing around with ice blue eyes, if she was nervous, she didn’t show it.

Danny liked the look of this girl. Outside, she was cold. Glass. Cool. But a hot, raw fear beat within her, he knew.

It was late now; all trick-or-treaters had gone indoors or dissolved into the night, bags brimming with sweets and goodies. Anything she met now was guaranteed not to be so friendly.
She reached the safety of her own front door. Her key jammed in the lock. This was not her house. Number 11-that was next door. All the redbrick, boxy houses in the street looked the same; it was an easy mistake to make.
She tried the next house. Her key stubbornly refused to slot into the lock. She checked the number…15! House number 13 was missing. Her house was missing! Hot, raw fear began to bubble up to the surface. That wasn’t possible…was it?

Something moved. Hedges? Hedges? They hadn’t been that high last time she’d looked. There hadn’t even been hedges last time she’d looked. But now they’d walled her in.
Danny stood in-between her and reality.
Kate tossed her head back and laughed. Of course! It was all a dream! Anytime now she’d wake up in her own bed, in her own house-that hadn’t vanished at all, really-and she knew she was safe. You can’t die in dreams.
Danny advanced. A claw of terror gripped her as she realized it was all wrong. In dreams you can’t feel the clamminess of undead hands, or fingernails digging deeper in your throat. You couldn’t. You couldn’t…
Glass cracked. Hot, raw fear gushed forth. Danny relished it, the feel of it cascading down his fingers. Its stickiness and sweetness.
But you couldn’t die in dreams. You couldn’t…could you?