Ghouls and Ghost Stories

Valerie stood in front of the old shop. The large door had chipped and peeling red paint. Valerie stared up at the brass knocker. In the form of a crouching gargoyle, it leered down at her. A shiver went down Valerie’s spine. She did not like the way the brass knocker appeared to be looking at her. She didn’t like the feeling she got about the old shop at all.

The Other Children had warned her about this place when they gathered to play in the park. They weren’t friends with her yet. They were still the Other Children. Valerie had just moved to the small town. Making friends wasn’t easy for her, and the Other Children were wary. To them, she was a stranger—an outsider. She wasn’t one of them. Not yet. Maybe never. But she wanted to be.

Their voices were in hushed, frightened whispers as the Other Children told her the town’s dark ghost story. The old shop was haunted, they said. Haunted by the ghosts of children—just like them. But that wasn’t the worst of it—no. The worst of it was the terrifying ghoul that lurked in the old shop.

Ghosts and ghouls aren’t real, Valerie told them. They didn’t really exist. They were real in stories, true, but that was the end of it.

Not for this one, the Other Children whispered with wide and fearful eyes. This ghoul was real. They had seen it once when they dared look with hands cupped around eyes and faces pressed to the dusty, dirtied window panes.

The ghoul shuffled slowly throughout the shop like an undying sentinel. Its clothes hung off it in tattered rags. Its flesh was mottled and yellowed. Its nose was large and crooked. It sniffed the air, and its gaunt face snapped over to the window panes—to the children outside the shop. The ghoul looked right at them. Its burning eyes pierced them and they couldn’t move. Then the ghoul started lumbering for the door.

That was when they ran. They bolted down the street, terrified. If the ghoul had caught them, they said, it would have dragged them inside—never to be seen by anyone ever again. They’d join the ghosts of children, just like them, consigned to haunt the old shop for all time. Gobbled up by a ghoul was no way to go, they all agreed.

The Other Children no longer walked that way. They no longer played on that street. They avoided it and the old shop haunted by ghosts of children eaten by a ghoul. Because they knew. If anyone dared enter that shop—they’d never leave again.

That is ridiculous, scoffed Valerie. She didn’t want to believe they were telling the truth. Surely adults went into the shop and came back out again.

They shook their heads. That was just it. The adults all said the shop had been abandoned for years and years.

That gave Valerie pause. And yet, there had to be a logical explanation for the things they had heard and seen. There always was. Ghosts and ghouls existed in stories. They didn’t exist in real life. She told them as much. I’m not scared, she added bravely, defiantly.

Go on then, if you’re so brave, the Other Children challenged her. Go inside for all we care! They were angry that she had dismissed their fears so easily. They heard that enough from their parents and other adults. They didn’t need to hear it from someone their own age.

Well, maybe I will, Valerie shot back, equally upset with the Other Children. Then she stomped off, muttering that she’d prove them all wrong. There were no such things as ghosts or ghouls. The very idea of it was simply childish.

I’m not scared. Valerie had said that with the bravery that came from being in the park, several streets away. That was before she was standing in front of the old shop. Now, she was rooted in place, unable to take that first step forward to open the door.

Valerie felt afraid. Very afraid. Because the rational, logical part of her knew—ghosts and ghouls weren’t real. They only existed in stories.

Stories told in hushed whispers late at night around the flickering embers of a campfire. Stories told to a captive audience of wide-eyed children. Stories read in books with flashlights under the bed covers late at night where every creak and sound from outside the safety of the blankets would be terrifying.

Ghost stories were supposed to scare children. And Valerie knew—if you got too scared, you could just cover your ears or close the book, and you’d be safe. The ghosts and ghouls would be trapped in the pages between the covers of the book. They couldn’t hurt you.

Valerie knew that to be true. But there was another, smaller part of her that wondered—what if they weren’t just in stories? What if they were real? What if someone had once left that book open, and the ghosts and ghouls had all escaped? What if they now lived in this old shop? What if this really was a world where gargoyle brass knockers leered at people standing on the doorstep, ghosts haunted old shops, and ghouls lurked, waiting to devour unsuspecting and unwary victims who opened the door and stepped inside? What if she was wrong?

And for that, Valerie remained rooted on the doorstep. She looked around. The street was deserted. No one was in sight. The Other Children hadn’t dared follow her—not even to see if she’d do as she promised. No one would see if she did or not. She could say she had gone inside, and no one would be the wiser.

But Valerie would know. And she wanted—needed—to know the truth. Were the Other Children telling her the truth? Or were they just making it all up—a way to prank the new girl in town and then make fun of her for believing them? Valerie needed to know.

She gathered her resolve and stepped forward. She pushed hesitantly on the door—it was unlocked. It swung inward, creaking and moaning as it did so. Sunlight leaked into the old shop’s doorway. It fell inside the shop, perhaps for the first time in decades.

Valerie tensed—ready to run—but inside the shop, nothing moved.

Well, of course not, she told herself. You haven’t crossed the threshold yet. Valerie knew. In stories, thresholds were barriers. They kept things at bay—trapped within the confines of a room or kept out of it. As long as she didn’t cross the threshold, she’d be safe. But she said she’d go inside.

Taking a deep breath, Valerie stepped over the threshold and into the old shop.

The shelves were bare. Well, that wasn’t true. Cobwebs and dust covered them. The paper on the walls was cracked and yellowed and peeling. Parts of the paper looked like claws had been raked down it—strips missing and torn out. The air in the room stank of fetid rot.

Valerie thought she heard voices whispering in the room, but there was no one there. Run. The soft whispers seemed to moan to her. Run away. Valerie didn’t. The whispers fell silent. Valerie kept looking around the old, dusty shop.

Chunks of the floor were missing in the middle of the shop, a gapping and jagged hole of pitch-black darkness that swallowed up the light. It devoured it.

It felt utterly and inexpressibly wrong. All of it. And Valerie knew—it had been foolish to come here. She wanted to flee in terror, yet Valerie felt drawn to that gaping hole. She had the urge to walk forward and peer into its shadowy depths. Struggling, she held herself back.

With growing horror, in the quietness of the shop, Valerie realized she could hear faint, ragged breathing. It was not her own. It was coming from the hole in the floor. Pale and yellowed bony fingers suddenly curled around the edge of the hole. A ghastly creature peered out from the depths with insidious and gleaming eyes. It grinned a terrible grin at Valerie.

Foolish child. You shouldn’t have come inside. You should have listened to the ghosts. You smell delicious. And I’m oh-so hungry. The ghoul’s voice was like shards of broken glass being crushed underfoot.

Valerie screamed. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

The ghoul pulled itself up from the hole in the floor and lunged at Valerie.

She turned and made a mad dash for the door. She felt the ghoul’s cold and pallid fingers brush against the back of her neck, but it was too late. She leaped across the threshold and fell to the ground outside. Safe.

Breathing heavily, heart pounding, Valerie winced and clambered to her feet. Her palms stung dully; her knee bled from falling on the concrete. She turned back to face the ghoul, defiant. She was safe from the ghoul on the other side of the threshold. And yet that safety felt fleeting as she stood there.

The ghoul prowled just beyond the doorstep—the threshold seemed such a small and insignificant barrier for a creature with such burning and reckless hate and ravenous hunger.

Valerie hadn’t seen it clearly in the darkness of the shop and the terror of the moment. In the daylight, she saw it now. Its form was gruesome to behold. It was just as the Other Children had said. Its clothes were tattered rags; they hung off the creature’s spindly and hunched frame. Then, the ghoul paused. It straightened its hunched form. For a moment, Valerie saw its appearance change. It looked less monstrous—more like an elderly and harmless person. Good child. Sweet child. The ghoul’s voice was in a pleading whisper. Won’t you come inside?

Valerie didn’t give the ghoul an answer. She didn’t want to risk a second more in its presence. She turned and fled. The ghoul’s howls of frustration and hunger and fury followed her.

Valerie didn’t look back. She didn’t stop running until she made it back to the park where the Other Children were playing. Tears streamed down her face as she stopped running, bent over with her hands on her knees.

The Other Children gathered silently around her. When Valerie looked up, they met her haunted eyes. She nodded once, unable to speak. They didn’t say anything, and neither did she. Valerie now knew what they knew as well. One of the girls stepped forward to squeeze her hand and then hugged her.

From that day on, Valerie was One of Them. She played with the Other Children, but she didn’t call them that anymore. They were Her Friends.

And with Her Friends, Valerie avoided the street where the old, dusty shop sat. The shop with the red door and the brass knocker in the form of a crouching gargoyle. The shop haunted by ghosts of children just like them. The shop where a ghoul lurked, waiting to devour unsuspecting and unwary victims who opened the door and stepped inside.

They avoided it because they knew. The story was true. It was all true.

Sometimes, stories scare us. We know they’re not true, and yet they scare us all the same. But sometimes, the stories that scare us are meant to scare us because they’re a warning. Because they’re true.

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