Very Scary Stories

1. THE ORNAMENTS

“Looks good,” said Dan, standing back to admire the Christmas tree his wife and teenage daughter, Audrey had helped decorate. His wife, Carol put an arm around him.

“Did you and Audrey make sure that there were no bare spots on the tree?” she asked.

“Yes. Definitely.”

Audrey asked what the big deal was. Dan and Carol exchanged dark looks. Then, they went into the hallway and whispered.

After a while they came back into the living room.

“Honey, I think you’re old enough to know now,” said Carol.

Audrey could sense that something was up. “What is it?”

Dan took a deep breath and explained that if you left part of the tree without ornaments, evil creatures could watch you from those branches. At night, they’d sneak into your room and hide, waiting for you to be alone.

“The minute you’re asleep, they’ll either inflict disaster or strip every bit of flesh from your bones. We don’t put the ornaments on the tree for fun, we do it so they don’t see us,” explained Dan.

“Dad, that story is so stupid. Who would believe that?” Audrey stomped upstairs to her room and slammed the door.

That night, while Audrey’s parents were sleeping, she snuck downstairs and removed two ornaments from the tree.

“Tomorrow morning, they’ll wake up and see how ridiculous this story actually is,” Audrey said to herself.

Then, she tiptoed back to her bedroom and crawled into bed, thinking about how everything was going to be fine the next morning and her parents would confess that they made that story up to scare her.

With that, Audrey fell asleep.

She was awoken a short while later by an overwhelming feeling of dread. She didn’t know why, but she knew something horrible would happen.

A child’s mischievous laughter echoed through the house. Wanting to believe it was her parents playing a prank, Audrey shouted for them to stop. No answer.

“Guys, this is not funny!” Still, no answer. Terrified, Audrey looked into her parents room, but it was empty. She checked every room upstairs, calling out for her parents, but no response came.

Heart pounding, she ran downstairs into the living room, where a small figure in a red suit and pointy hat stood.

It’s black eyes boar into Audrey’s. “Wh-what do you want?” she stammered. The thing snarled at her, displaying rows upon rows of broken, yellow teeth. Audrey looked around frantically for something to defend herself with.

She then noticed a knife in the kitchen sink. She grabbed it and yelled at the creature, threatening to kill it if it moved.

Almost instantly, it leapt on top of Audrey and tore into her flesh, leaving nothing but a pool of blood on the living room floor.