Terrifying Short Horror Stories For Sleepovers

The fluorescent hum of the library had always been a quiet comfort, a dull drone that drowned out the louder hum inside my head. But tonight, even the books seemed to whisper, their pages rustling with the ghosts of stories I couldn't escape. It had been ten years since James was taken, five since Carmen vanished, and the silence in my small apartment, miles from that cursed house, was a far louder torment than any scream.

I was twenty-eight now, a ghost of the boy who once argued over Game Boys and race cars. My mother, bless her broken heart, was gone. My father, a shadow of the man he once was, lived in a different kind of prison. And I? I just existed, perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the Wall to find me, even here.

The chill started subtle, a prickle on the back of my neck. Then the air grew heavy, thick with something rotten and sweet, like forgotten fruit. My eyes darted to the window, usually a comforting rectangle of city lights. Tonight, it was a gaping black maw, a deeper, hungrier darkness than the night sky should hold. And then, I saw it. A dark, jagged tear, no bigger than my thumb, appeared on the wall by my couch.

My breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. It couldn't be. Not here. Not now. But the smell intensified, and a faint, rhythmic thumping, like a slow, deliberate heartbeat, resonated from within the plaster. The Wall had found me.