Hi, my name's Jack and, well, at first I didn’t believe in myths, fairytales, or even the paranormal. But what happened to me changed my way of thinking about the world; it made me believe there are things out there that we just don’t know about…yet. So where should I begin? I guess it all started December 22nd. It was the middle of winter and I lived in Maryland at the time. My wife and I had a divorce because I had cheated on her a few years ago, so it was just me by myself.
A few weeks after the divorce she had a child, his name was Tyler and, even though I never got to see him, not even on my birthday, my wife made an exception to let him come out to see me this once, only because Tyler kept asking her to let him see me that Christmas. Along with the fact his birthday was the 25th she couldn’t say no; score one for Tyler. On December 23rd, 3:00 am, I met him for the first time at the airport. I came to tears, to see my son for the first time in person just was one of those moments to where I couldn’t help myself. He had yellowish-brown curvy short hair, his eyes were dark brown, and he was breaking out with a few pimples on his face.
He must have already hit the puberty stage obviously, he wore a dark blue no-sleeve jacket over a black t-shirt, and he also wore ripped jeans with Timberlake boots. He then came over to me and gave me a hug that lasted for a minute. We then went to get his luggage and then went back to my home. As soon as we got inside I just gave him a tour of the place. His room was a little roomy with a couch, television, and a twin bed. The closet was small, but still big enough to walk in. it was more like a box big enough to walk in. he seemed satisfied with his room because as soon as I showed it to him he quickly laid down on the bed with a grin on his face.
“I'll just let you settle in and I’ll be in the living room if you need me,” I told him.
I went downstairs, sat on the sofa, and picked up the remote to watch television. I turned to the History Channel because it always had something interesting to watch, this time it talked mostly about sirens and mermaids. For two hours, I sat there watching it then I went to go check on Tyler. I opened the door and entered his room. To my surprise, he was already asleep, still wearing his clothes, lying on top of the covers. I then heard music playing outside; I look out the window next to the TV in Tyler’s room. It was just my loud neighbors again. This had been going on ever since they moved to the area a year ago.
Every time near the holidays they would always have their music playing at night and then show off some new decorations on their house the next morning. They were only two teenagers, one boy, one girl, they seemed 17 years of age and while, yes, they looked like teens, they didn’t act like teens, I would only see them once or twice out of the day and that’s it. The next morning, my son and I were out at the store getting new decorations for my house. We picked out some yellow lights to go around the house then picked out a Christmas tree to go in the living room; I plan on going all out for Tyler’s birthday.
“Hey Dad, do you mind if I go pick out one last thing before we go?” he asked. I told him yes, within a matter of 10 minutes he came back holding an envelope. We went to the check-out to buy all the decorations and other stuff that did cost me a fortune, but I would do anything for my son. I drove us back home and on my way up to the porch with the bags, I saw the two strange teens putting up their decorations.
Everything was just plain white with red spots or stripes on them; the decorations also looked like they were all carved by hand. It must have taken hours to make all the decorations, maybe even days, because they came outside with snowflakes, reindeer, and one white and red Santa’s sleigh. They really upped their game this year. “Nice decorations!” I yelled to them. The two teens stopped what they were doing and looked up at me for a few minutes, then looked at my son, who was getting the rest of the stuff out of the car. They had a blank stare on their faces, not even a smile, and then went back to decorating.
My son and I went inside to put up the Christmas tree in the living room, “Here, you start putting the decorations on the tree and I’ll go make us some eggnog,” I told him, giving him the decorations.
“What’s eggnog? Sounds gross,” he said.
I just laughed and said, “It’s not gross at all; I think you’ll actually like it.”
Six hours went by full of laughing and decorating, then there was a knock at the door. I go to the door and open it only to see an envelope on the ground; I closed the door and opened it. It read: “Dear Jack,
My husband and I are having a Christmas party at 10:00 tonight and we wanted to invite you to all the fun, the whole neighborhood will be there. There will be snacks, drinks, and a few party games. Hope you can make it.
Yours truly, Mrs. and Mr. Brightstr.”
I then went to the table to put the letter down for a minute, then Tyler came over to me with a different envelope, “Here Dad, I know it’s a little early but I couldn’t wait till Christmas to give it to you,” he said. I then opened it and pulled out a necklace and a card. The necklace had a little cross with a ring going over the cross. The whole necklace was silver plated. Then I looked at the card and it read: 'Best Dad in the World.' As corny as the card was, I gave my son a hug that lasted for two minutes. I then told him about the party and asked if he wanted to go.
“Sounds like fun,” he said.
“Alright I'll drop you off up there but I want you back by 10:30, okay? I can’t go with you because I have some stuff I need to take care of. Can I trust you to go there and come back by 10:30?” I asked.
“Yes, you can,” he said confidently.
Five hours passed and Tyler was at the door ready to go to the party. I got my keys and we made our way to the car; that’s when out the corner of my eye I noticed a small dog running across the street from something two houses down, then a giant monstrosity pounced on the dog out of nowhere. The poor dog let out a loud shriek and the monster...That thing opens its mouth to a full 180 degree angle showing millions of rows of horrifying dagger like teeth. Then it took a giant chomp out of half of the dog’s body, blood being gushed out on the face of the monster.
The dog let out three loud shrieks of pain and then was silenced do to the loss of blood, and I looked as the monstrosity chewed the dogs lower body in its mouth and it was like nothing I’d ever seen. Its mouth was extremely wide and when it chewed; the whole mouth swooshed down reaching a full three-feet and then going back up again. Then I looked at its entire body: it was snake-like and it must have been at least 12-feet. Then I looked at its long skinny arms; for the body of a serpent like monster I would expect the arms to be bigger. Then the hands were as long as half a skateboard. Its eyes were completely black with a white spot in the center of them both. Then it stopped eating and let out a loud monstrous yell and stood up almost taller than me and, while it was standing, the rest of its body slithered on the ground making the whole monster move out of sight.
I was so disgusted by what I had just witnessed; I quickly grabbed my son’s wrist and pulled him inside and told him, “Son, I need you to shut and lock every door and window in the house... Right now.” He went upstairs to do so while I do the same downstairs.
A few minutes pass and my son comes downstairs, “Dad, what happened?”
I couldn’t tell him what I saw so I thought fast and said, “Well, I figured since it was first time I’ve ever seen my own flesh and blood and is most likely going to be the last that we could spend some time together. You know, play a board game or just try to get to know each other.”
He gave me a blank stare for a minute and said, “Okay… I think I saw a monopoly board game upstairs somewhere, I’ll go get it.”
I give Tyler a small grin as he went back up the stairs. When he was gone, I looked out through the blinds on the window to make sure that horrific thing was gone, but all I saw were lights from the party Mr. and Mrs. Brightstr were having. My son comes back downstairs, phone in his hand and an excited expression on his face.
“Dad, take a look at this; it was so cool I caught it on my phone!” Tyler said.
He gave me his cellphone to look at the video, and then rambled on and on about his findings. He said that two giant serpent-like monsters were going back and forth from our neighbor’s house over to the Brightstr’s house where the party was being held. He also said that each time they would slither over the fence of the Brightstr’s house empty-handed, then come back out with two motionless people being held in their arms going back to our neighbor’s backyard where the two strange teens were living in. He also said that this happened three times while he was upstairs for the whole two minutes; the fourth time the two serpents stopped at the fence of the Brightstr’s house and looked directly at him…as if they were looking into his very soul; they then turn their heads to a full 180 degrees without their bodies moving the same way.
Then both of them gave my son a giant smile that was just about bigger than their face, and their eyes glowed bright red. After their little display of horror they jump the fence to go back to what they were doing before. I looked at the video my son, Tyler, had caught on his phone, and what I saw made me shiver just by looking at it. Everything the phone showed me was everything my son just told me. Also knowing that there are two of these things in the neighborhood… and just seeing the way they looked at my son… I just didn’t know what to think. To think those things could come after my son it just… it just… No, I can’t even imagine such a thing. I would rather die than let those things take my son away from me. I needed some time to think about what I was going to do; I told Tyler to watch some TV or something, and to keep the phone with me for a while.
He didn’t seem to mind that at all. Hours had gone by with me watching the video over and over again. In my mind I was asking to myself: why were those things here, where did they come from, and what are their plans? These questions were spinning around my head like a tornado. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t call the cops; they would just laugh right in my face if I told them that there were two serpent monsters in the area. I definitely couldn’t tell my ex because that's just one headache I don’t feel like having right now. I guess all I could do was keep this on the down low until the whole thing blows over. December 24th Christmas was just one day away and the gifts for my son were already under the Christmas tree. Tyler was still asleep in bed, so I decided to go ahead and make a good breakfast for him to wake up to. I pulled out a good cook book that was passed on to me by my mom; I came from a family of good cooks.
All of our family recipes were kept in this very book. I flipped though a couple of pages until I found: “Lumber Chunk in Breakfast,” it said on the page this recipe was made by my great grandmother but the year was smudged so I didn’t know when it was made. It looked like a good idea so I grabbed some eggs out of the fridge, pulled out the pancake mix, and pulled out some OJ from the fridge as well. Then I pulled out two pans and started cooking. I guess the sound of sizzling eggs woke up Tyler because I saw him come downstairs wearing nothing but some jeans and a no sleeve t-shirt, while rubbing his eyes. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then he asked, “What's for breakfast?”
“Pancakes, sausage, eggs, with bacon and OJ,” I told him. He then sat down on the couch and picked up the remote to watch TV. After a few minutes of cooking I have breakfast all set on the table. “The food is done. Come and get it,” I said. Within one second Tyler was at the table gobbling down all the food on his plate. I don’t even think I saw him chew his food first. Suddenly there was a knock at the door; I went over from the table to open the door. It was Mrs. Brightstr and she had tears running down her cheeks while giving me a look of sorrow, and in her hand she held a CD.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Jack,” she said.
“My loss... What are you talking about?” I said. She just looked down and handed me the CD.
I thought she was joking so I started to chuckle, “Oh I get it… A joke, ha-ha nice try Mrs. Brightstr,” I said playfully.
She then lifted her face back up at me still with the same expression on her face and said, “I found this in my mailbox this morning and when I went to play it… it showed… it showed me your son being brutally tortured by these two horrible creatures… I’m so sorry.”
I quickly smiled then laughed out loud again and turned around to show her my son was at the table eating breakfast but when I did no one was there. All I saw was the food I made still on the table, still intact and still hot. As if it had never been touched. The TV was off and the remote was still on the couch, just the way I left it last night. It was as if the last two hours I spent with my son this morning never even happened. The smile quickly turned into a frown, and then I looked back at Mrs. Brightstr and snatched the CD from her hand.
Then I went back into the house to look for my son. I yelled his name from downstairs, no answer. Next, I said that if he didn’t come downstairs I would whoop him with my leather belt. Nothing, not even a thump of his foot stepping on the floor, so I quickly ran upstairs to his room. He was still sleeping in bed with the pillow covering his head, but just seeing him sleeping in bed wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted to make sure he was breathing; I needed to know he was still on this Earth; I had to know.
I then took the pillow from over his head and threw it to the floor…then what I saw… was my son... but his eyes were popped out of their sockets and there was a big cut in his throat, dry blood was all over his face. I then noticed a small folded piece of paper in his neck where the cut was. I grabbed the bloody folded paper then opened it. It read: “Look under the bed.” And when I did what the note instructed I found a small gift box wrapped with blue and green wrapping paper with a little bow on top of the box. I took the box from under the bed and ripped all the wrapping paper off, and then opened the box. There was a little note that said: “Merry Christmas” and next to it one eyeball.