É-tag Ned-log

Disclaimer: *Although briefly skittered over, if any form of horrifying suspense or violence is triggering, please, scroll to another story instead. Thank you.*

The tedious in-between of constructing a tap choreography as your means of seeing tomorrow down a gravelly slope designed for free running, followed by a careful landing into a squat, to ensure the longevity of your toes and ankles, while maintaining balance in entirety so as to be adjacent with rather than tumbling into the sea. 

As rampant ventilating slows to relieving exhales, there comes the moment where you’re asking if the gentle lull of wind chimes is imagined. 

Swooning pipes churned into melodic bedtime routines, sonic melting of defenses lending the enamored into an early afternoon snooze. 

Yet, as sleep prepared to engulf you beneath a Sun leaning to late afternoon; whispering for you to intertwine, instincts knew better, why would one sleep in an empty road, unused since- 

“Are those, jingle bells? Why are they floating?”

 “Are they, flying? Why do I see what appears to be sparks when- “

Note to self, who the hell designs homing dynamite with the appearance of holiday decorations? 

Sprinting briskly behind a redwood, thankfully engulfed near part of a cavern entrance, I paused and once again regathered myself to appear to nonchalantly make my way toward the entrance

“I thought colleagues with a shared preference of f-U X-mas vetted out the perturbing unhinged mad hatter varieties before committee meetings.

Now I’m on the run from those deranged to pursue me on foot with ornaments they’ve managed to turn alive and hostile.”

The hoho-drones made their rounds once again, scanning for movement, temperature, and additional signatures of life no twisted machination should ever have the capability of measuring. 

I was fortunate to be hidden behind vast collections of river stone and purified concrete boulders, not to mention the conveniently placed redwood’s shadow making the foreground of my temporary hideout cooler, leading the tubular bell vendetta vehicles to glide off elsewhere. 

Ten minutes I waited for the infernal internal hourglass to be at rest, each of the six-hundred longest seconds of my life I counted, perspiring as the ticking in the mind akin to a relatively refined metronome at my nightstand filled the unsettling void, back and forth. 

I had completed the remaining ordinal numbers, “one, zero;” the hourglass peeping their last tock

“Okay, here I go.”

Unrolling into a stand, I noticed the cavern containing a particularly etched portion of stone. 

“Hmm, surely there wouldn’t be a door.”

My hand reached to make contact and confirm my theory, only for a swirling gasoline-contoured light to bring me to what appeared to be the entrance toward the rainbow tunnel from the Golden Gate Bridge. 

“What the hell? 

Did I just… ? 

Ummm…

I, I, I, didn’t expect that…“

Apparently timing delighted in revealing as it did appearing to unravel my efforts, 

I saw the maniacal May Day torture-matons, along with an ornery garden elf impatiently and incoherently offing commands in a fashion unfortunately reminiscent of an alternative universe Principal Himbry. 

But what, or rather who, really stood out to me, and in all honesty, was absolutely fucking terrifying, was an all too familiar, holiday elf, dressed completely in red, a warm snow-white bonnet-like collar, band surrounded the cap to match. 

“Oh my god, Max?!”

The doll-style elf that in my four to five year old childhood, was advertised to ‘magically move around at free will in the quiet of night,’ one I thought my parents enthusiastically promoted long before they thought I comprehended the difference between biotic and robotic. 

“This, doll, is real?…”

Max in the eeriest fashion imaginable, turned their head toward me, irreverently rosy cheeks replaced with horrendous bloody gashes and gnashing teeth, and soulless crimson eyes.

“Holy shit” 

My feet lifted off the ground in fright, my arms and upper torso soon joined the marathon to the closest door I could find 

In trying to gather myself, I silently pled that this creature, far removed from my childhood and now no love lost, had no chance of getting a clear gaze of me

Instead, I was answered with an approach far worse than knowing, hungry, encroaching footsteps, it was a laugh 

A jubilant giggle, closer and closer, increasingly murderous, this was no mischief, it was madness,

A specifically customized metal began scraping on the pavement, a scythe, waiting to dice and cube and tenderize, who or what, would have the unfortunate run of luck to be standing in this monster’s path.

And as clamorous the utterly screaming laughter had become, the sound vanished.

This was the first time silence was more terrifying than certainty. 

Three knocks deftly spooked me as I tried all my might to stay still 

Are you in there

And with an unearthly roar, the door was smashed from its reinforced hinges

———————

The Next Day 

Although you’re comfortably resting within the infamous umbrella of sofas, notorious for their sinking phenomena, you could not make out any visual details of this pedigree of furniture 

Yet there was the prescriptively ‘ordinary’ golden-brown coffee table, comfortingly rectangular. Directly in front of so, faced the TV, the nebulous empty screen switching on, 

“In recent news, investigators are baffled by the ongoings of the previous afternoon, where a shattered door leading to a public restroom contained only the blood of whoever was there at the time of their demise. 

Evidence points to a disturbing ritualistic motive, containing a red elf doll, a garden gnome, and the remaining entrails of whoever met their untimely end, most disturbingly with evidence markers spelling out the following “entrails trail, who’s thirsty?!”

In other news, the Golden Gate Bridge displays chances of-

You notice the power button freshly imprinted beneath your thumb, now released from your press, a colleague from your committee ripped from their body,

“Oh my god”

The TV spritzed a grimacing pixelated noise, letters grotesquely projecting the message 

“Didn’t expect that did you”

A belligerent series of knock rapidly unloaded at your front door frame, startling you from the couch.

I heard about your committee, and I’m going to destroy it, and I am going to wear your insides as my new wreath.

“Okay, but, before you do, I should let you know something.”

Yeah,

“Can you open sesame for me?”

What?

Behind the remote’s power button contains the committee’s installed makeshift eject button, toggling the front door to explode, the agentic elf sent into smithereens with a bloodcurdling scream.

“Ever heard of a gel dummy, and then faux blood consisting of red food coloring plus homemade glucose, knowing very well who you planned attacking at the bridge,

Didn’t expect that either I presume you deluded dipshit.”