Page 5 of 6.

We, all of us, have a host of monsters living inside our heads. We project them outside of us, and the darkness reflects them back to us. For what is darkness but uncertainty? And the imagination feeds upon uncertainty like a ravenous wolf upon a fallen deer. In the stillness of our bedrooms, it regurgitates horrors into our nightmares.

When we are young, the horrors are larger than life, but have the substance of shadow. As we grow, the horrors become gradually smaller, but more and more terrifyingly real. A vampire chills our blood when we are eight, but cannot really harm us. But when we are eighteen, a killer can sink his knife deeper than any fang. In youth, Death is a robed, scythe-wielding skeleton. In old age, Death is a grim diagnosis, and the advice to "get your final affairs in order."

And so it is for our boy hero. His closet bursts forth, spilling the contents of his own mind into the darkness of his room, as our jovial babysitter gleefully rattles off the bugbears of childhood. Now, I ask you, who is scarier: the killer clown or the bully? The zombie or the math teacher? The werewolf or the priest? Of all of these, who is the most frightening? And who has the most power to hurt?

Just one more page to go, my Grim Gourmands, and this terror tale shall be concluded. I hope the next installment is up to your refined taste.