THE GOBBLING
It was a normal Thanksgiving meal like any other, until I heard the gobbling from the kitchen, where my mother was checking on a pie. The sound refused to cease. One by one my family members stood up from the table and went to investigate while the rest of us ate with bemused expressions on our faces and gravy on a few of our chins.
Gobble-gobble-gobble. I presumed that high pitched chortling was just some goofy turkey day sound effect, like the phony screams that plastic door knockers make on Halloween. But when only my brother and I remained, eating alone at the table, we decided something was awry.
Together, we shrugged and decided to go to the kitchen as a pair — since the gobbling noises had continued unabated and we were now as curious about dessert as we were the source of the sound and the strange absence of our family. But when my brother pushed open the door and was pulled inside by a human arm, mud gray and riddled with worms, I fled and raced up the stairs, toward my parent’s bedroom, where my dad kept his shotgun.
I had seen plenty of horror movies in my day, but nothing could have prepared me for that horrible sound that zombies make when their dead throats cry out for seconds.
– Posted to Facebook, Thanksgiving morning 2016
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If you enjoy holiday horror, put an early pre-order in for Collected Christmas Horror Shorts, which includes my new story, “All Naughty, No Nice,” this weekend!