31 Short Horror Stories for Halloween

My Family's Secret

Every family has its dark secrets; the uncle who hits women, the aunt who drowned her baby, the cousins in the asylum. The normal stuff. Mine was different, different in that we were incredibly boring.

We had migrated from Germany two generations ago. I'd been born and raised here with literally no German influence on my upbringing. All I knew was that we were German and we had fled the country. I assumed that meant we were Jewish but I'd never had a bar mitzvah, and we'd never observed the Sabbath. I figured religion wasn't big in my family and I was okay with that.

I never dug too deeply and my German descent only came up when people complimented my striking good looks. I was routinely told I could be a model. It wasn't until I discovered my great-grandpa's war chest that I realized we hadn't fled because we were Jewish. We had fled Germany to escape judgement for our war crimes; we were Nazis.

For the first time, my family's history intrigued me. It intrigued me so much that I decided to break open the lock on gramp's war chest and look at what might be inside. The swastika on the chest was dull and rusted, and the lock broke almost too easily. Inside were photos, medals, badges, pins, and one very curious looking cloth bag. I took it out thinking perhaps there was jewelry in it, stolen from Jews no doubt. It was certainly heavy. Carefully I opened it. Something big and oddly shaped was inside it. 

I held it up in the light; it was a skull. A human skull with a hole in it. The shock at suddenly finding myself holding human remains made me drop it and wouldn't you know, the skull shattered.

My dad came running up to the attic and when he saw what I'd done, he got angry. I've never seen him that angry before.

'What have you done to the Fuhrer?'