Bedtime Stories - Animated Scary Story



I was tucking my daughter into bed one
night last week
normally she's a huge hassle to make go
to bed but that night she seemed
actually eager to go to sleep
i sat down in the chair beside her bed
and asked her what story she wanted me
to read
she smiled at me
but didn't say anything
smiley shark i asked
no
i can read with my eyes shut
no well
what would you like me to read
i want to tell a story tonight she
exclaimed with an enthusiasm i was
unused to
oh
you've got a story do you
okay
let's hear it then she scrambled out
from under her covers and climbed onto
my lap
it's about a man she said looking at me
with sudden intensity
every night he walks down the street he
wears a big
red coat
in his pockets he's got a paper with a
list of names on it
she lowered her voice to a whisper
briefly
it's a list of bad children they threw a
tantrum or they dumped their dinner on
the floor or they smacked their little
sister on the face and made her cry
you mean santa claus i asked no let me
finish my story okay i'm sorry
he walks down a different street every
night
he's got his list of kids and what bad
things they've done that day
sometimes he ends up walking down the
street where one of those bad kids lives
if he does
he stops at their house
he doesn't have to check his list
he just knows who's on it and if it's
their house if he comes to your house
she said
pointing at me
he'll open the front door
even if it's locked
he comes in and looks at the photos of
you on the walls
he goes into your bedroom and stands by
your bed
his hands are always in his pockets
because his fingers are really long and
scare people but when he finds you
he takes his hands out of his pockets
and covers your face with them
she demonstrated this to me by putting
her own small hands over her face
he puts his hands on your face so you
can't breathe
you can't even feel him doing it because
you're asleep
he keeps them there
until you're dead
then he takes his list out and crosses
your name of it
then he leaves
and nobody knows he was even there
she concluded the awful tale by crossing
her arms and declaring matter-of-factly
that's why you gotta be good every day
because you never know if the man in the
red coat is gonna walk down your street
that night
we sat there beside her bed in silence
for a moment
she beamed proudly while i felt like all
the blood was draining from my head
that's a scary story i finally said
only if you're a bad kid she replied
i wondered how confidently she'd have
said those words if she'd thrown one of
her usual tantrums that day
it suddenly occurred to me that she'd
been particularly well behaved all night
and wondered if this macabre story was
the key
i tucked her in with a hug and a kiss
and went to trade places with my wife
who is dealing with our daughter
a toddler who won't go to sleep unless
you snuggle her for about an hour
later with both kids down
i sat on the couch with my wife while
she watched one of her shows
and i asked her during a commercial
did katie tell you her story
no we read little house in the big woods
did you tell her a story about a man who
kills bad children
of course not
the show came back on so nothing more
was said on the subject but it nagged at
me for the rest of the night
as passionate as i am about horror i
make sure to pad any scary stories i
tell my daughter with a bit of humor
i don't want her afraid of the dark i
just want to nurture her imagination and
creativity you know
the next day
we were drawing together
she likes to have me draw cartoon
characters and then she colors them in
with her crayons
at one point she came up and held a
piece of paper over her face and yelled
blue at me while i was at my desk
she had drawn this cartoony kind of face
on her own it looked to me somewhat like
ernie from sesame street is that me i
asked no
who is that she paused for a moment as
if trying to come up with a name it's a
zombie she finally declared
ooh scary
what's that line coming out of its mouth
that's its tongue
she drew me another picture after that
i thought it was a female version of the
same face but she had added a smaller
drawing of her head beside it
i took both these drawings to work and
have them hanging up by my desk
a few nights later after we had gotten
her ready for bed she declared to me
once again that she had a story to tell
me
i set down the books i had pulled from
her shelf and sat down in the chair by
her bed
once again she crawled into my lap
set up straight
looked me right in the eyes is it about
the man in the red coat i asked
no
it's about a mummy
does she have a good little girl or a
bad little girl
she's got a good little boy
but then she died and the daddy and the
little boy moved away
that's a depressing story
she looks for him every night
i thought you said she died
she just looked at me
and i could see in her eyes that she was
not making up this story as she went
but reciting it to me
and trying to figure out the answer to
my question
she put her hand on her chin for a
moment in an almost grown up way
she's a ghost she finally declared
oh
well that makes sense she came back to
her home but her little boy was gone
so she went looking for him
did she find him
no
she's always looking
she can't drive a car
so she's got a walk and it's real far
and she doesn't even know where to go
so she just walks
she's got blood on her feet because her
feet get hurt from all the walking
if she hears a baby crying she starts
crying too sometimes she'll cry for
hours after hearing a baby cry
if she sees a child out at night she
gets confused and thinks it's her little
boy she'll run up and try to grab the
little kid right out of the parents arms
if the kid is alone she'll snatch it up
and carry it off
those ones are never found
she always comes back because she hasn't
found her boy
she might not even recognize him anymore
because he's been dead for so long
how long has she been dead i asked
a long time katie replied
shaking her head
how did she die
i don't really know why i asked that
question
she cut herself and then lost all her
blood
that was too much
i didn't like that she knew these
stories i was upset that someone had
told her these awful things
who told you that story i asked in my
most serious voice she looked away for a
moment and i thought i had frightened
her with my tone
it took me a moment to realize she was
looking at the window on the far end of
her bed outside it was dark but i could
see the trees at the edge of our
backyard being blown about by the wind
i waited then shook her slightly to
break the spell that the window seemed
to have her under
who
told you i repeated
she suddenly looked scared and upset
like she was going to cry
i'm sorry she wailed and hugged me
tightly
sorry for what i asked rubbing her back
gently to calm her her little hands
gripped my shirt and i realized she was
shaking
for
for talking to strangers please don't
get mad please don't let the man with
the red coat find me
i hugged her even tighter
you weren't bad
nothing's going to happen to you
what stranger did you talk to
the man who came to my window
he told me the stories
her words made me freeze
we live on the second floor of a duplex
i got up setting my daughter on her bed
she cried and begged me not to leave but
i hushed her
i walked across the room to the window
it was shut but the wind was howling so
fiercely you could hear it through the
two panes of glass
outside across the backyard was dense
woods
the trees seemed to shake their branches
at me menacingly
what did he look like i said
trying to sound calm
he looks like my drawing
i thought about the drawing she had made
that simple line for a tongue suddenly
seemed so snake-like to me
those eyes a little too frightening
she had drawn people before
but they had never had the same look as
these drawings
that's when i noticed the marks on the
windows glass
it looked like something sharp had been
dragged down it like the edge of a coin
or a rock
four jagged lines a fingers space apart
crisscrossing repeatedly in one spot
against the window
and at the bottom
four deep grooves
in the wooden pane

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cosmos and christina

Bedtime Stories - Animated Scary Story

"Bedtime Stories"

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