How easy is it to write something that's scary?  That was the question I asked myself this morning as I was driving to work.  In the spirit of Halloween, let's find out!

A faint, electrical thrum sounded in the driveway as a shadow lurched against the wall.  The figure tripped the motion-sensitive light affixed to the wall near the garage door, which spread a crisp, yellow light upon the darkened pavement.  A few moments later, the light clicked back off, once again plunging the surrounding area into an inky darkness.  The scraping sound of several dry leaves rose up above the sighing of the brisk wind as the dead vegetation circled in place near an empty flower box.  All else was quiet in a gloom not even helped by moonlight, as the sky was covered by thick, grey clouds.

Inside his bedroom not far off from the garage, Seth opened his eyes.  He was only partially aware that he was awake.  It was so dark in the room that he wasn't even sure he had his eyes open.  He blinked a few times before sitting up in bed, his head craning to the left to peer at his alarm clock.  He only saw more darkness.  The power was out.

Cursing under his breath, he swept the covers off his body and slid out of bed, his bare feet hitting the soft carpet. Looking down, he was given the illusion of walking over an abyss, and the dark blue floor covering was invisible to him.  It was then he realized that there was actually SOME light filtering through his window, and he peered outside to see that one of the streetlamps near his neighbor's house was still shining.  Peering around at the few houses near him, he noticed that they all appeared to have power.  He frowned.

Navigating by memory and stubbing his toe at least twice, he made his way to his bedroom door and swung it open, walking through the small hallways towards the kitchen.  There was a flashlight in one of the drawers there, though he had no idea if he had any batteries for it.  Finding some was going to be a joy.  With his hands out in front of him like a blind man, which he very nearly was at this point with how dark it was in the house, he found the edge of the wall and stepped into the kitchen.  Here, the light was a little better as his kitchen faced his neighbor's house.  The streetlamp provided the faintest of illumination for him to at least make out the familiar shapes of his kitchen furnishings.

He stopped short as one shape did not look so familiar.

On the other side of the kitchen table between the sink and refrigerator, he saw a strange figure.  It looked like a person.  Seth blinked and rubbed his eyes, figuring he must be seeing things and blaming it on the fact that he'd just been woken up in the dead of night.  He looked again, and the figure moved.  It turned towards him.  And with the faintest amount of icy light coming through the window above the kitchen sink, Seth saw a white, distorted face now looking at him from across the room.