where I become a pumpkinhead and we read in the dark

If pumpkins were full of snot instead of seeds, that is.

Today, a blackout, but in the middle of the afternoon, so we had classes by the light of the sun. There were some girls in my class that got nervous, wanted me to lock the door, as if a shooter had clipped the power, a trick to stalk us in the dark, ignoring the soft winter light seeping in through blinds and the emergency lights flickering on in the halls.

I've been here at night though, when no one else is in the building, just me and my father, feeling our way in the dark, through various fire doors slammed shut, the halls ready to produce eerie little twins or maybe the walls will start bleeding. It's this kind of thing, the ghosts and ghoulies, that creep me out. Not the real stuff, like burglers; no, instead, when I walk up the stairs and to the landing in our house built in 1890, I think of the ghost I saw in my half-sleep, or the darting fright of Signs.

What are you afraid of the most?