Skylene Wentroth was about to tuck into her birthday cake, when a loud thud interrupted the proceedings. Her hand, holding a slice of the triple Belgian chocolate treat, paused in its journey to her mouth as she glanced towards the door.

Framed in the doorway was the shape of a man. He wore dirty overalls with dark splashes of what might have been blood, and his face and head were completely covered by a white, featureless mask with black holes for eyes and a mess of brown hair. What interested her most and caused the greatest alarm, however, was the butcher's knife he held aloft in a threatening manner.

'AAHHHHHHH, FUCKING GOD, NOOOO! AAAAAH!' Skylene screamed as she scrambled out of her chair and tumbled to the floor. Somehow regaining her feet (and stopping for only the briefest of moments to grab a bag of Mini Cheddars from the table), she stumbled from the room and began to run up the stairs as fast as she could.

On the landing she threw a terrified glance over her shoulder and saw that the figure was now at the bottom of the stairs.

'Look, just take the cake!' Skylene shouted. 'It's on the table, go back and look! I don't even want it!'

The shape began to ascend towards her.

'THE CAKE!' Skylene bellowed at her pursuer. 'GO GET THE CAKE IF YOU WANT IT! My birthday was in May...'

Deliberately, irrevocably, the man in the white mask continued his slow climb up the stairs. A little whimper escaped Skylene's lips but she stood her ground. The sudden and inexplicable need to explain, to try and reason with this person, had overcome her.

'OK, my birthday is in May, but that's when I like to go trick or treating, so I celebrate my birthday on Halloween. Can you understand that, mister?'

He gained the top, and the woman was so surprised that she dropped the bag of crisps. She whipped around and dashed inside the nearest room, which happened to be her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her. She needed to find somewhere to hide, quickly. Her wardrobe looked like a pretty safe bet. She started to walk over to it, and then spotted the jumble of clothes on her unmade bed. An idea struck her.

The doorknob rattled fiercely, and then something landed against the door with a terrible bang. It was him, hitting it, trying to break in.

Skylene put away the last of the clothes she had just hastily folded and then ran over to the wardrobe.

Another bang. The door visibly trembled with the force.

With some difficulty Skylene managed to open the wardrobe and jumped inside it. She tried to close it but the zip got caught in the lining; she yanked it hard and the zip ripped off, causing the entire canvas structure to collapse on her. She groaned inwardly, as a final bang and the sound of the door slamming against the wall told her that the man had entered the room. Skylene raised her hands into the corners of the wardrobe, pushing it upwards into something resembling its proper shape. Then she clamped her lips shut and tried to breathe as thinly as possible.

The figure was walking slowly around the room. She heard the sound of his ragged breath through the mask, and the low, feline footsteps on the carpet.

She could also see him, she realised in pure black terror. There was a great, hanging gap in the wardrobe where the zip had previously held it closed. If she could see him, then it was only a matter of time before he spotted her!

Abandoning the wardrobe corners, she seized the sides of the opening and pulled them together. As she did this, she heard a soft rustle and looking up, saw the corners sag inwards. She pushed them out again with both her hands and the opening opened and she could see him and oh god he was about to turn and look at her and so she grabbed the sides of the opening again and pulled them together.

The corners drooped again. Skylene managed to hold both of the opening's sides closed with one hand, and with the other she spent a few seconds waving back and forth, trying to keep both corners up. This got tiring very quickly so she swapped hands and proceeded to do the same. When that got tiring, she pulled the sides of the opening towards her, leaned forwards slightly, and gripped them together with her teeth. This allowed her to return her hands to their former job of holding up the wardrobe's structure.

She could still hear the thing breathing through its horrible mask. He must have been barely three or four feet away from her, with just a thin wall of material separating the two of them. Maybe he knew she was there and was just waiting. This thought scared her more than she was comfortable with.

Skylene adjusted her head slightly in order to look down and check that she was still safe, when she saw that the flap was hanging open near the bottom. She pulled more material into her mouth with a chewing motion, but that only served to widen the gap; so she hunched down a bit (forcing her to stretch her arms up into the corners), and slammed her knees together on the insides of the opening. It worked, and so long as she remained in this extremely uncomfortable and ridiculous posture, she hoped she would remain undiscovered.

Indeed, realising the absurdity of the position in which she found herself, Skylene temporarily forgot all about the context of why she was there in the first place, and actually sang out loud, around the material wedged in her mouth: 'Haggy gerggay goo gee...'

Abruptly the canvas was torn apart in front of her. The shape stood there holding up the knife and fixing her with the cold, empty stare of those depthless eyes.

Skylene closed her eyes, and as she did, she heard a distant siren. Oh good, she thought sarcastically, they've come for my body.

But she continued to be alive as the siren grew louder, so she opened her eyes.

She was alone. The man had simply gone.

A few minutes later Skylene finished making her statement to the police, and followed them downstairs. In the doorway to the dining room, however, she stopped and stared at the table in numb disbelief.

The china plate was empty, save for a few crumbs and a smudge of chocolate.

She looked up at the officer to whom she had given her statement. 'He ate the cake...'

The officer somberly replied, 'As a matter of fact, he did.'

THE END...?