I have been lurking between the cracks. Occupying the narrow crevices of your psyche. I live in the dark corners of your mind; with rent and house prices being what they are now.

It started as a jump-scare of pleasure and then she was hooked. She became so addicted to fear she sought it obsessively. Terror after terror until she was almost numb and afraid that she’d never be scared again.

He had this creeping, creepy feeling. And so, he crept up to them. And he passed it on.

Deeper and deeper into the forest I go, searching for comfort in nature. I have left civilisation behind but now the trees start to resemble the shapes of people. And I get that feeling you get when you are simultaneously all alone and lost in a crowd.

When the end finally came, it wasn’t to take our souls, or vanquish our voices; it didn’t seem to come with the intention of destroying everything. It came to feed the ever-greedy void of approval, and satisfy the conceited self, as the Ego Must.

I make promises to my future ghost. I will not take kindness for granted. I will not be cowed by shame. I will make peace with myself before I die. I will not be haunted by regret.

If I stare for long enough in the mirror, what do I see? It’s not just my face. It’s not just my eyes glaring back at me. Someone else is there. I wonder what they want, but I know it’s best not to ask.

He’s my half-moon werewolf, and he’s my tender, toothless vampire. He’s my ever-sleeping zombie and my haunted ghost. He’s all the harmless horrors that scare me, and that I love.

Now that you’re dead your whispers are louder than your screams. Every night I wake to your haunted mutterings. And ever since I tried to silence you, you’ve been saying the quiet part loud.

Our inner demons fell in love. Two tainted hearts tormenting each other in turn. Clamped together in the wicked behaviour of our vices. We walked through the darkness hand-in-hand.

What are the creepiest words, I asked the voice that came from the crack in the wall. The creepiest words, the voice replied, are the last words you will ever hear – they are these words…

You had unrealistic expectations of him dying quietly. You should have known how prone to screaming he was. You should have known not to try to kill a one-man-band by pushing him down the stairs into a coffin. A poor plan. You should have known it would end in such cacophony.

I call out to the ghost in the dark. Slipping from my sight like an afterimage fading between blinks. I call out every night from my window, more desperately each time. I call out until I am the one being called for.

All your wounding words, every injuring thing you said to me, I will sharpen them in the shadows; I will fashion new weapons from your insults and turn them upon myself with more vigour and satisfaction than you could ever master.

The scary drawings I’d made on the walls pulled themselves into my reality to ask me why I’d drawn them like that. So, I told them about the real world, and they ran frightened back to the walls.

A creaking noise close behind me. I turn around to face it, but every time I turn it is behind me yet again. A creaking that feels like claws reaching into the back of my head. The sound of my skull being pulled apart.

It isn’t the house that is haunted, it’s the ‘for sale’ sign. The estate agent had slipped and impaled himself on the pointed end of the post, and now he can only watch on from the spirit world as the houses sell without him.

I waited on his every need. He would snap his fingers if he wanted something. He would say “snap, snap” and I would do it. Now that I have snapped his neck, he doesn’t want anything at all. And my waiting is over.

He goes walking into the wild night again. He takes his spade and a light with him. Disappears for hours. What is he seeking out there in the darkness? Somewhere to bury me.

Their kindness died and became a ghost. A ghost that now occupies everything that they do. And yet they don’t seem to be at all haunted by any need to help others.