Bedtime Stories - Animated Scary Story

I was tucking my daughter into bed onenight last weeknormally she's a huge hassle to make goto bed but that night she seemedactually eager to go to sleepi sat down in the chair beside her bedand asked her what story she wanted meto readshe smiled at mebut didn't say anythingsmiley shark i askednoi can read with my eyes shutno wellwhat would you like me to readi want to tell a story tonight sheexclaimed with an enthusiasm i wasunused toohyou've got a story do youokaylet's hear it then she scrambled outfrom under her covers and climbed ontomy lapit's about a man she said looking at mewith sudden intensityevery night he walks down the street hewears a bigred coatin his pockets he's got a paper with alist of names on itshe lowered her voice to a whisperbrieflyit's a list of bad children they threw atantrum or they dumped their dinner onthe floor or they smacked their littlesister on the face and made her cryyou mean santa claus i asked no let mefinish my story okay i'm sorryhe walks down a different street everynighthe's got his list of kids and what badthings they've done that daysometimes he ends up walking down thestreet where one of those bad kids livesif he doeshe stops at their househe doesn't have to check his listhe just knows who's on it and if it'stheir house if he comes to your houseshe saidpointing at mehe'll open the front dooreven if it's lockedhe comes in and looks at the photos ofyou on the wallshe goes into your bedroom and stands byyour bedhis hands are always in his pocketsbecause his fingers are really long andscare people but when he finds youhe takes his hands out of his pocketsand covers your face with themshe demonstrated this to me by puttingher own small hands over her facehe puts his hands on your face so youcan't breatheyou can't even feel him doing it becauseyou're asleephe keeps them thereuntil you're deadthen he takes his list out and crossesyour name of itthen he leavesand nobody knows he was even thereshe concluded the awful tale by crossingher arms and declaring matter-of-factlythat's why you gotta be good every daybecause you never know if the man in thered coat is gonna walk down your streetthat nightwe sat there beside her bed in silencefor a momentshe beamed proudly while i felt like allthe blood was draining from my headthat's a scary story i finally saidonly if you're a bad kid she repliedi wondered how confidently she'd havesaid those words if she'd thrown one ofher usual tantrums that dayit suddenly occurred to me that she'dbeen particularly well behaved all nightand wondered if this macabre story wasthe keyi tucked her in with a hug and a kissand went to trade places with my wifewho is dealing with our daughtera toddler who won't go to sleep unlessyou snuggle her for about an hourlater with both kids downi sat on the couch with my wife whileshe watched one of her showsand i asked her during a commercialdid katie tell you her storyno we read little house in the big woodsdid you tell her a story about a man whokills bad childrenof course notthe show came back on so nothing morewas said on the subject but it nagged atme for the rest of the nightas passionate as i am about horror imake sure to pad any scary stories itell my daughter with a bit of humori don't want her afraid of the dark ijust want to nurture her imagination andcreativity you knowthe next daywe were drawing togethershe likes to have me draw cartooncharacters and then she colors them inwith her crayonsat one point she came up and held apiece of paper over her face and yelledblue at me while i was at my deskshe had drawn this cartoony kind of faceon her own it looked to me somewhat likeernie from sesame street is that me iasked nowho is that she paused for a moment asif trying to come up with a name it's azombie she finally declaredooh scarywhat's that line coming out of its mouththat's its tongueshe drew me another picture after thati thought it was a female version of thesame face but she had added a smallerdrawing of her head beside iti took both these drawings to work andhave them hanging up by my deska few nights later after we had gottenher ready for bed she declared to meonce again that she had a story to tellmei set down the books i had pulled fromher shelf and sat down in the chair byher bedonce again she crawled into my lapset up straightlooked me right in the eyes is it aboutthe man in the red coat i askednoit's about a mummydoes she have a good little girl or abad little girlshe's got a good little boybut then she died and the daddy and thelittle boy moved awaythat's a depressing storyshe looks for him every nighti thought you said she diedshe just looked at meand i could see in her eyes that she wasnot making up this story as she wentbut reciting it to meand trying to figure out the answer tomy questionshe put her hand on her chin for amoment in an almost grown up wayshe's a ghost she finally declaredohwell that makes sense she came back toher home but her little boy was goneso she went looking for himdid she find himnoshe's always lookingshe can't drive a carso she's got a walk and it's real farand she doesn't even know where to goso she just walksshe's got blood on her feet because herfeet get hurt from all the walkingif she hears a baby crying she startscrying too sometimes she'll cry forhours after hearing a baby cryif she sees a child out at night shegets confused and thinks it's her littleboy she'll run up and try to grab thelittle kid right out of the parents armsif the kid is alone she'll snatch it upand carry it offthose ones are never foundshe always comes back because she hasn'tfound her boyshe might not even recognize him anymorebecause he's been dead for so longhow long has she been dead i askeda long time katie repliedshaking her headhow did she diei don't really know why i asked thatquestionshe cut herself and then lost all herbloodthat was too muchi didn't like that she knew thesestories i was upset that someone hadtold her these awful thingswho told you that story i asked in mymost serious voice she looked away for amoment and i thought i had frightenedher with my toneit took me a moment to realize she waslooking at the window on the far end ofher bed outside it was dark but i couldsee the trees at the edge of ourbackyard being blown about by the windi waited then shook her slightly tobreak the spell that the window seemedto have her underwhotold you i repeatedshe suddenly looked scared and upsetlike she was going to cryi'm sorry she wailed and hugged metightlysorry for what i asked rubbing her backgently to calm her her little handsgripped my shirt and i realized she wasshakingforfor talking to strangers please don'tget mad please don't let the man withthe red coat find mei hugged her even tighteryou weren't badnothing's going to happen to youwhat stranger did you talk tothe man who came to my windowhe told me the storiesher words made me freezewe live on the second floor of a duplexi got up setting my daughter on her bedshe cried and begged me not to leave buti hushed heri walked across the room to the windowit was shut but the wind was howling sofiercely you could hear it through thetwo panes of glassoutside across the backyard was densewoodsthe trees seemed to shake their branchesat me menacinglywhat did he look like i saidtrying to sound calmhe looks like my drawingi thought about the drawing she had madethat simple line for a tongue suddenlyseemed so snake-like to methose eyes a little too frighteningshe had drawn people beforebut they had never had the same look asthese drawingsthat's when i noticed the marks on thewindows glassit looked like something sharp had beendragged down it like the edge of a coinor a rockfour jagged lines a fingers space apartcrisscrossing repeatedly in one spotagainst the windowand at the bottomfour deep groovesin the wooden pane
thank you to all of you who support usthrough patreon you're simply the bestand a very special thanks to the darkcosmos and christina

"Bedtime Stories"