Short Horror Stories

Family Dinner

Trigger warning: discussions of gun violence and murder.

"Jesus Christ, who could do such a thing?" The Sheriff was practically smothering himself with his blue paisley-patterned handkerchief. He wanted to stop his eyes from streaming from the smell of decay.

"Beats me, Sheriff," Inspector Knicks muttered back. He was practically leaning on top of the slumped body of a teenage boy, admiring the entry wound at the back of his head. The bullet had exited from the front of his face just slightly left of his deviated septum, penetrating the maple table top upon which the teenager's lifeless head was resting.

The pair were in a dining room with five corpses. A mother, a father, their two daughters and their son had been in the middle of eating Thanksgiving dinner when they were brutally slain. Their deceased turkey still lay in the table's centre, untouched and rotting, with flies flitting between it and the diners.

"There appears to be no sign of a break-in," Sheriff Anderson coughed as he swatted at the flies that were now attacking his perspiration-covered cheeks for their salty juices. "The windows were locked from the inside and the front and back doors from the outside. So whoever did this must have been invited inside and stole the keys to lock up." He shook his head incredulously, trying to surmise what the Allerys, such a well-liked family, could have done to deserve something as brutal as this.

"That sounds about right," Inspector Knicks agreed, the keys in his pocket jingling as he sat on the living room couch. It sunk under his weight. "Pretty macabre, really, when you think about it. It was their last supper." He had a front-seat view into the dining room. The two daughters were seated upright, their heads slightly to the right but still appearing very much alive from the back, given that they had been shot point blank in their foreheads.

"Any murder is macabre," Sheriff Anderson spat, not liking how the Inspector was making himself at home on the deceased's couch. "We come into this world wanting to die on our own terms at the oldest age possible, not be snuffed out by a stranger!"

Inspector Knicks sank back into the couch to the point that it practically swallowed him. His grey eyes were hungry with devilry. "Well, if any holiday supper was your last, which one would you prefer it to be?" He asked, wanting to get further under his superior's skin.

Sheriff Anderson's hooded eyes widened. He had no idea what was up with his Inspector today. He seemed to find pleasure in the greatest sin of all, murder. Sheriff Anderson hadn't wanted the words to come out of his mouth, but they did so anyways. "Christmas," he muttered back.

The left side of Inspector Knick's thin mouth rose slightly, but not enough to be noticed by the older man. "That would be my choice as well," he coldly muttered to disguise his elation at finding his next family to murder.