Short Horror Stories For Compotitions

Books are Books

Emma was 26 when her husband died and was forced to live alone with nobody to talk to. She lived in an old country house, painted black and blue (her favourite colours). Usuals she would just go online and look for some books to read but today was different. She didn't know how, but it was different.

***

The doorbell rang just as she sat down to eat her dinner, which led Emma to giving a soft sigh before putting the food down and answering the door.
"Hello, a Miss Harmon?" He gave an odd look. She just nodded and and waited for the signing sheet.
"Your the family with that curse aren't you? The Harmon curse?"
"What curse?" She asked curiously.
"It is said that one hundred years ago there was a man who played around with some dark kind of magic that came from a book. It was said that he killed so many people the the curse will haunt his family until the last living female is killed by the curse, paying for his crimes."
Emma took the sheet slowly and signed the papers to accept the books, then took then inside, slamming the door behind her. She took them to her library which now consisted of one thousand books and one hundred films. After unpacking them and organising her new books with places, she went back to eating her food. After she finished she did what she loved the most, reading. She was reading 'Hide and Seek'. Some extremely superstitious people say it is a curse if you have that book in your home, the rare few (including Emma) believe otherwise.
"Books are just books and people are just people. No curses and no fairy god mother's." She said stroking the spine of the book as if it were a sleeping baby.

Ten chapters later she was hooked. Stopping seemed impossible to her now, but she knew that she had to. Eleven PM was not a good time to go to bed everyday, especially with an early start on a morning. The book had been placed on the table next to her seat and went upstairs to get ready for bed. She turned the bathroom light on and as she did, it turned of. She shrugged and went to brush her teeth without giving it any thought. It then flickered. Again and again. She began to worry as the hall light was doing the same. Emma ran to her bedroom when all the lights had stopped flickering and it was just one in the hall.

Slowly she moved toward the flickering light and as she reached it the light at the bottom of the stairs started. One by one she slowly took the steps down to the light, her legs ready to buckle at any moment. Her heart was slamming into her ribcage and her lips dry. As she reached the light switch she realised that it was turned off and her heart had stopped slamming. And this is why you don't stay up late you stupid girl. She yelled inwardly at herself, running back up the stairs and climbing into her bed.

The next day consisted of finishing that book and the next one in the series. Then that was when she started having problems again. She forced herself away from the book at eight this time. Being close to Christmas, the nights were drawing in faster and faster. Again, she turned off all the lights. Again they started to flicker. She knew that she wasn't alone and knew it was telling her something.

She reached the fist light and stopped it from flickering as the next one lit up. This time she reached the bottom of the stairs and carried on. Afraid of the unknown, she cautiously creeped down the flashing hallway, flinching at every creek and groan the house made as she moved. It led her into the kitchen, to her back cupboard and finally to the fridge. She stared to read each word magnet on the fridge to look for a message but a hand slammed against it before she had chance to find anything.
"Hello dear wife." A voice came from behind her. She slowly turned, staying close to the fridge behind her. A tall man stood behind her and traced her face with his deep brown eyes.

"Sorry for the disturbance dear, my wife was trying to cause me some trouble." He reached through the fridge door and pulled out a transparent woman. She was about 5"5 and had the most pale skin that Emma had ever seen. She screeched hard and Shoved the man backward. Confused, Emma sun back to the fridge and whatcha in horror as the words moved around. You are the last of the Harmon's. The curse is true, you are in danger. RUN.

At that point a young girl jumped out of the fridge. She pushed Emma away, Emma nodded and ran as fast as she could. 'hide in plain sight' she thought. She ran into her library and saw that all of her books had been thrown into a pile. She ran at them and buried her self in the books. There was an odd smell about them as she settled, she then noticed that they were wet. Suddenly she scrambled out of the books and ran into a random room. The only thoughts going though her head were, why would someone cover books in petrol?

Emma had never been in this room. She had always spent her time with her book in the library, or in the kitchen cooking and eating food. Mannequins stood around the room dressed in different types of clothing. She his amongst a random group and then stiffened as hard as she could, waiting.

Minutes passed before she heard movement in the room. She lowered the sound of her breath and stood there still, quiet and scared. She knew she had to be strong, had to be brave, to survive. It was too late though, she screamed as its hands wrapped around her through and tossed her to the floor.

The white hands were all age could see with her darkening vision. Though it was trying to speed up, her heart rate was dropping. She couldn't breath. Death was imminent. The day flashed before her eyes and then she raised that Mrs Harmon and the other girl, were only trying to warn her. There was dangerous and Emma didn't see it. She sucked in her last breath and waited for death. Her hands stopped shaking asking with her heart as it finally stopped beating.