Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Bump in the Night

by Bill West

Footsteps on the staircase woke Timmy. Light flickered under his bedroom door and the 'clonk' of something heavy that bumped against each step grew louder.

Wide-eyed, Timmy sat up in bed, clutched his teddy bear tight, and whimpered. By the dim glow of his snowman lamp he could see the door handle turn and the door swing wide. An arm holding a lantern extended into the room.

Icicles dripped from Santa's nose. His beard and bushy eyebrows glinted in the lantern light.

Timmy saw the meat cleaver tucked into the broad belt. Rolled up sleeves revealed matted hairy arms and Santa's fist held a big red sack which bulged with the dismembered bodies of all of the naughty children.

Well, nearly all of them.

__________


Bill West always wanted to be a mortuary technician but when he failed the interview he took a job in IT instead. He's met a lot of odd people working in IT.Bill lives in a remote part of rural Shropshire, UK. He likes to explore ancient ruins, which is where he found his wife. He has two sons who tell him they are a) a Rock Star and b) an Avant-garde Film Maker. He suspects they may be either confused or exagerating as he has never heard of them.Over the past five years Bill's Flash Fictions have been published in a wide variety of print and on-line e-zines and been included in a number of anthologies. See further details of his work at his website, http://writewords.org.uk/bill_west/

12 comments:

Michael Stone said...

A seasonal nasty! Thanks, Bill!

And Merry Christmas to all the regular Fifty-Two Stitches crew, but most of all to Aaron, without whom, blah blah blah...

Cate Gardner said...

No Santa, no!!!!

Rachel Green said...

Oops!

An Excellent tale!

Jodi Lee (Morrighan) said...

Bill, that is the most amazing Christmas story I've ever read. Bless you!

I'm going to tell my kids this one on Thursday...mwahahaha!

Alan W. Davidson said...

Timmy was obviously so bad that he was waaay past the lump of coal! Great Job, Bill.

Dawn Allison said...

Reads like a Christmas episode of Tales from the Crypt. Great stuff!

Anonymous said...

Classic last line. Really enjoyed that.

jonathan pinnock said...

Hehe. Nice piece of Christmas cheer, there :)

Fox Lee said...

Ho ho ho! : )

Unknown said...

Brilliant, and memorable. You can't get much nastier than this.

Anonymous said...

Thank you all very much for reading and for your kind comments.
Santa says that he will see you all right - but I'm not sure what he meant.
Merry Christmas.

Bill West

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