The Nightmare Collection - Creepy Stories to Haunt Your Dreams: The Nightmare Collection, #1

By Nikki Nightmare

The first volume of horror stories, by Nikki Nightmare: 

 

1. The Girl Still Lives Here - When his family moves into an old house, a boy makes a friend. But what he discovers will haunt him forever... 

 

2. The Mirror - Horror within a gilded frame. Annalise, a talented courtier, worships the romance games and frivolous beauty that fills her world. But those who feed obsession are eventually eaten by it...  

 

3. The City of Pyres - A medieval city is now a trourist destination, but the atrocities that occurred there still live within its walls. For one family, their vacation goes terribly wrong... 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nikki Nightmare
• Release date: Oct 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215140017

Book preview

Introduction

Welcome to my worst nights. Some believe that dreams are the brains way of working on problems and worries in your sleep (so please enjoy the psychoanalysis). I’m not sure why I’ve had nightmares for so long. Personally, I think I picked up a curse as a child while visiting the Egyptian pyramids, though... I suppose I could be eating sugar too soon before bed. Either way, I’ve had more nightmares than I can count, but several played through to conclusion so well I felt they ought to be written down.

You may notice that I am not fully myself in these stories. The same way one can be anyone while reading a book, sometimes I’m a child, sometimes an adult, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes experiencing it firsthand, and sometimes only watching from above with omniscience. My excessive reading may have impacted my dreams in this way.

This is volume one of my Nightmares, and here are the first three stories.

Enjoy, my friends....

1

The Girl Still Lives Here

The Victorian house had been situated within the trees of a charming old neighborhood. To my eight-year-old eyes, the house seemed like a jumble of building blocks. The purple-grey roof was shingled and triangular, steeply sloping down on all sides. The windows were an assortment of rectangles, circles, and arch-topped squares. A white porch wrapped around from the door to the left side of the house, and on the right, an octagonal turret rose three floors. This turret was topped with an upside-down cone shape, giving the house a fairytale element. 

My parents had been so excited when the house came up for sale. It happened just as my father accepted a job in a new city, and my parents were hunting for a house in the suburbs. They had been amazed at the great price being asked for it. 

I heard this house was passed down to you. Why did you decide to sell this lovely place, if you don’t mind my asking? Mom enquired when we met the sellers. It was a warm morning in the early summer of 1973. We had driven across the country the day before with our living essentials. The movers wouldn’t show up till the next day.

The sellers were an old couple, introduced to me as Mr. and Mrs. Leto. They stood with us on the sidewalk before the little white fence that ran the border of the house. Both were probably in their mid-eighties. The old woman’s hair was permed and cotton-white. It was so translucent in places that I could see the color of her scalp in the sun. Her long-sleeved shirt was spring green and made of a light material. Mrs. Leto’s husband was taller than her and very thin. He seemed like a nice old man with his quiet smile and occasional nod. His hair was silver and thinned out. I remember him wearing a brown jacket and khakis, and leaning his thin frame on a cane. 

Sam started having trouble taking the stairs years ago, and I’m no spring chicken either, the woman said with a smile. Quite a while back, we moved into a ranch-style house down the block. One floor, you know. But we didn’t want the old place to go to waste, sitting there empty for so long, so we finally decided to sell. Let a nice young couple like yourselves enjoy the house, I say. 

Ah, then I suppose we are neighbors, said Dad, and the old man nodded. 

Do any other kids live around here? I asked. 

The old woman looked down at me with surprise and something fuzzy in her expression. I didn’t know why she seemed astonished to see me. I had been introduced when we met just moments before. On the other hand, I remembered Mom telling me that the lady was very old and to be polite when I met her. Mom said she thought the lady might have something called dementia. I’d always wanted adults to like me when I was that age, so I waited patiently for her reply with my best ‘good kid’ smile. Her expression remained blank.

Oh, well... I think a few families in the neighborhood might have children around your age, Mr. Leto finally answered.

The woman continued to