The Midnight Cutthroat - An english horror story

The Birthday

It was a Friday afternoon. Mr. Syfax, a retired detective, had organised a birthday party at his

house. He was turning 50 years old, and he wanted to celebrate that with his relatives. Mr. White,

his former assistant, and some old friends, Mr. Fring, Mr. Pinkman, Mr. Saul, Mr. Shrader and Mrs.

Skyler. The weather was really bad, the wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and

splashing against the windows. But the party was going pretty well until midnight. Everybody was

partying, when all of a sudden, the lights went out. Everyone was confused and trying to understand

what had happened.

Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, a wild scream could be heard from the bathroom.

Everyone at the party started to become pretty scared, but right after this, the lights came back.

People at the party were still confused and had goosebumps because of this scream. They all ran to

the bathroom, where the scream came from. “Oh my god!”, shouted Mrs. Skyler, petrified. She had

seen the lifeless body of Mr. Shrader on the ground, covered in blood. All the people were horrorstricken, stunned. Terror could be seen on their faces. “Who could have done such a horrible

thing?”, they were all thinking.

They rushed to call the police but the line had been cut, the doors and windows were also locked, so

they couldn’t even escape! Everyone felt an ominous presence, and they were all frightened. The

atmosphere became eerie and oppressing. But Mr. Syfax kept his cool and started to investigate the

crime scene. He used his magnifying glass but he didn’t find any fingerprints or footprints. However,

he immediately noticed something odd. Indeed, Mr. Shrader had his throat slit, yet they couldn’t

find the weapon which had been used to kill him.

His assistant also found something, a long hair, while he was searching for clues around the crime

scene. Immediately, everybody started to have suspicions against Mrs. Skyler, who was the only

woman here. Therefore, she may have committed the murder. She denied it but no one could be

trusted, since the murderer was among them, and an accomplice might have even helped him.

Everybody felt threatened and they were all becoming paranoid. For their safety, they locked up

Mrs. Skyler in the bedroom, in case that she was really the murderer.

“I want to know what was everyone doing when the lights went out.”, asked Mr. Syfax. “I was

dancing in the living room with Mr. Saul, so it couldn’t have been any of us.”, answered Mr.

Pinkman. Mr. Syfax then turned to Mr. Fring : ”And what about you?” Mr. White then said that he

was in the kitchen drinking wine with him. “This means that everybody was doing something

together when the murder was committed? Mmmmh, that’s really strange, but maybe it could have

been...” Mr. Syfax didn’t even finish his sentence when the lights turned off again unexpectedly.

Everybody was panicking and they hurried to restore the power. Out of the blue, a voice singing:

“Happy birthday to you...” could be

...