A friend posed this question online yesterday.

“What is the scariest place you have ever been?”

I started to write a glib answer, but then my brain started to sputter and whir. How would I actually answer that question? Where was it? And in traditional manner, some words clattered out of the hopper onto the floor. [I didn’t post them, as I try to avoid looking like too much of a psychopath on Facebook.]

The space between lights.

That’s it.

Between street lamps, and nightlights, and the bathroom and the bedroom covers.

The dark, the Dark, the knowledge of the unknown. The light makes things obey, makes things serve the rules of this world.

The dark breaks. Breaks the rules. The skin of the world growing thin between the lights, who knows what might slip through into our world. What gibbering, sharp-toothed horror?

Happy Halloween.