Welcome to a creepy edition of Tuesday Tales! Today’s 300-word story comes from the picture you see above. Unassuming enough, right?  Think again, and enter if you dare…

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From the front it appeared no different than any other house on the block – a well-kept two story monument standing as a proud testament to pre-1900’s architecture. Festive decorations adorned the front porch while spooky blow-up caricatures lined the steps like undead marching soldiers. Even a pumpkin graced the front lawn, hiding inside it a peeping Frankenstein. Orange and black lights blinked along the trim of the wide porch day and night without fail. Hidden in the front hedges was a motion sensor that exuded an eerie laugh each time someone passed by. Many people paused to gaze at the spectacle. Some took pictures, but nobody ever stopped. Just because it was six days after Halloween with no change in scenery didn’t mean the still-standing decorations were that unusual.

No, it just meant that the owners of the house were dead.

If the passersby were to look closely they would have noticed that the broken door jamb was real, and that the dark trail marring the bright-white boards of the steps was blood, and it led across the threshold. If they were to push open the ruined door they would notice other things out of place – a broken crystal goblet and an overturned bottle of scotch to start. The trail would continue through the house into the kitchen where a once-beautiful blonde woman lay, face up in a pool of blood that had long-since oozed from the angry gash across her throat. From there bloody footprints would lead upstairs where her husband lay sprawled on the landing, almost completely disemboweled. Intestines would be strung along the banister much like the lights out front. His eyes would still be open, staring sightlessly ahead.

But nobody would witness these gruesome sights. Nobody would stop. Nobody would care.

At least, not until Christmas.

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Chilled to the bone? Good. For a palate cleanser check out the rest of this week’s Tuesday Tales.

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