Halloween is just so much hokum, a trick designed to part the gullible from their money. The fansy dress industry does well. Fake blood and vampire’s fangs fly off the shelves while kids pester the neighbourhood with Trick Or Treat.

At the dead of night we are not so sure. What is that shadow which keeps pace as we walk home from that Halloween Party? That unearthly scream setting the hairs on the back of your neck astir is, surely a cat yowling for it’s mate, isn’t it? You quicken your pace just in case.

Cutting through the churchyard will knock 5 minutes off your journey. In the brightness of day you would have no hesitation so why now do you hesitate to enter? The dead after all can not hurt you, “tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil”.

You enter the churchyard resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to glance over your shoulder. Laughter in the darkest corner of the graveyard. Oh sweet Jesus why did I walk through here. Logic tells you it is merely an amourous couple who, unable to contain their desire have chosen this place to satiate their lust but, still you run blindly tripping over gravestones until at last the gate is reached. Locked! Desperately you climb, trousers rip on the gate’s spiked top, you are beyond caring. You jump down on the other side and with heart racing run the last few hundred yards to home.

Come the bright morning you laugh at yesterday’s escapades. My imagination ran riot but still, somewhere deep in your subconscious the nagging doubts remain.