short scary stories

32. The ribbon

  A man marries his beloved: a beautiful young woman who always wears a black, velvet ribbon around her neck. On their wedding night, he asks why she never takes the ribbon off. "If I do, you'll be sorry," she says, and goes to sleep. Night after night, he keeps asking, but she always gives him the same reply. He begins to go mad with curiosity. Finally, one night, while she's sleeping, he steals the scissors from her sewing box and cuts through the ribbon himself. The black ribbon falls away... and her head rolls right off her neck and falls to the floor with a sickening thud.