A Collection of Short Horror Stories

6

TLDR: I promised my wife that when I return from the war, we would sit down and watch a movie.

But now she's bleeding to death on our kitchen floor, all because she wanted to make popcorn.

A heavy military truck drove down a quaint and peaceful neighbourhood. The rumbling of the truck attracted curious gazes from the residents and passers-by. Excited soldiers chatted away. Topics of their family, future plans, and friends flew around.

"Hey, Gary!" A voice shouted over the chaos.

I turned to my buddy and asked, "what?!"

"We're reaching your house soon!" Alex beamed.

"I know!" I laughed nervously.

"Don't forget to make me an uncle! I've waited 3 years for this!" Alex joked as he elbowed me in the rib.

I laughed and pushed him back.

I looked out expectantly at my nostalgic neighbourhood. My nervousness soon changed to excitement as I looked forward to my reunion with my wife.

The truck soon came to a stop and everyone paused their conversations to give me a lively send off. I thanked them as I jumped down and made promises to meet up soon. When I turned around, I was greeted with a banner hanging on the front porch with the phrase 'Welcome Home'. Heart-shaped balloons floated beside it and my beautiful wife was standing underneath it with her arms wide open.

I dropped my luggage onto the lawn and ran to my wife. I embraced her tiny figure and spun her around and around as she squealed in delight and surprise. Her laughter spun a wonderful melody in my ears and her lucious black curls tickled my nose. Even after I finally stopped spinning, we remained in each others' embrace. I took a deep breath full of her floral scent and breathed out airily, "I'm home."

She snuggled against my chest and muffled out, "welcome home, baby."

We took comfort in our three-years long reunion, until someone clicking their tongue interrupted our sweet moment. We ignored it, but the person didn't relent and started coughing violently, successfully getting our attention.

I looked up in irritation at their lack of consideration, and realised that it was our unpleasant neighbour. She seemed to make it her mission to let us know how much she didn't like us. My memories of her were always about her going out of her way to antagonise us.

I sighed heavily as I separated from my wife, then grumbled with a frown on my face, "what can I do for you?"

She stood with her hands on her hips as she complained, "you're behaving inappropriately in public. Also, you left your bag on the lawn and it's unsightly."

"You-"

Before I could begin quarrelling with her, my wife pulled on my arm and cut me off.

"Miss Candice, I'm simply hugging my husband on our front porch. There's nothing inappropriate about that. Also, Gary only left his luggage on the lawn temporarily, we'll naturally keep it in its proper place later."

Seeing that she failed to rile us up, she huffed and retreated back to her witch house.

My wife patted me on the chest to calm me down and suggested that we enter the house.

My gaze softened as I looked at my wife and agreed. I pecked her on the lips, then retrieved my abandoned luggage while she took down the banner. We spent our time leisurely side by side for the rest of the day.

After dinner, my wife piped up. "Let's have our movie night tonight!"

My heart melted at her cheerfulness and replied, "alright. I'll clean the dishes and you pick the movie."