“Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” The old man said with a smile as he saw me coming up the walkway to his front porch. He opened the screen door and let me inside his blue and white checkered house. “Come on in, son! Come on in!”
“Thank you so much, Mr…?” I replied as we stood there at the front door.
“Call me Charlie,” he said with a wink and a gleam in his eye, “I bet it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?”
“I’m Devin,” I said and extended my hand. It was then that I realized he was staring at me like a deer in the headlights. And that’s when I felt something dribbling off my face and all over my new dark blue shirt with light blue stripes.
“Son of a…!” I said as the drool came off my lip and face. I turned towards Charlie who also had his jaw hanging open. “First names only, huh?”
“Are you alright? Here, come on in,” he said while motioning me inside with his hand. “That’s better…”
I entered his home and wiped the drool off my face with an old paper towel that was on his coffee table.
“I didn’t know they still made those,” I said jokingly, “And you’re right about me not having seen you in a long time.”
Charlie sat down on his green floral couch while I plopped down right beside him.
“So I’ve been told,” he replied and we both laughed.
“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking… what is with your garden gnome? I mean, why does it scare the bejesus out of me every time I see it?”
Charlie sat there for a moment as if he was carefully choosing his words. “Well, Devin… that gnome didn’t always look the way it does now.”
“Oh?” I replied with a raised eyebrow. And that’s when Charlie began to tell me his story…
Charlie was just a young boy of only six years old when he and his family moved into their new home in this small town in California.
All he could think about was playing with the neighborhood kids and going to school for the first time in his life. He would wake up every day at six o’clock in the morning just so that he could watch Jerry Seinfeld on “The Today Show” before having to get ready for school.
But all of that changed when Charlie and his family bought that garden gnome…
II
Charlie’s father was a welder for the railroad and he would take him to work with him sometimes. He always had stories to tell about the men and women who worked alongside him. They were like one big family in a way, his father told Charlie.
And when you’re part of a family there’s nothing you can’t do.
So, when Charlie’s father came home with the garden gnome one day and told him that he had to have it, well…
Charlie didn’t want to let his father down so he said that it was cool and that he would take care of it for him. That’s what dads are for, right? To get their kids whatever they want whenever they can. But Charlie never expected it to turn out the way that it did…
Charlie began noticing strange things happening in his house shortly after his father brought the gnome home. The stains on his carpet, which had all been there before he moved into the house, were now gone. And as a matter of fact, so was some of the carpet itself!
The power in his home would often go out without any warning. But it didn’t really bother him all that much because his family never had anything important going on at those times anyway. We’re talking about things like watching TV, playing video games or even using the microwave. It was all fine with him because he had his dad to play catch with.
After a few days of it being in the house, Charlie took matters into his own hands and told his father that he didn’t think they should have gotten the gnome after all. Afterall, there were kids at school who would tease him about it and tell him that Mr. Gnome was watching him when he would take his shirt off after coming home from playing outside all day long. He didn’t want to be thought of as some sort of baby or something so he told his father this, but…
III
Charlie’s dad took the garden gnome by its hand and took it into the backyard to show him something. When they walked outside Charlie noticed that his father had dug a deep hole in the ground near the edge of their property.
“What is this, dad?” He asked with fear growing in his eyes.
Before he answered, Mr. Gnome looked up at him and gave him a huge grin, exposing his rotting teeth and disturbing Charlie even more. “This…” he said as he picked up the gnome’s left leg and repositioned him in the hole so that he was now standing upright, “…is where you’re gonna bury Mr. Gnome.”
“But father, why?” Charlie asked with fear in his voice.
“Because he doesn’t want to be near us anymore.” Charlie’s dad replied. He then began to fill the hole with dirt and got down on his hands and knees to pat it down, like he was working in his garden or something… After it had been filled, Charlie’s father stood up…
He didn’t look so good. Maybe it was the lighting or just Charlie’s imagination, but he looked like he had aged about thirty years in only a few minutes. “This is where you’re gonna be sleeping from now on.” He said.
“But father-” Charlie began to say before his father cut him off…
IV
It didn’t take long for the nightmares to begin.
Charlie would wake up screaming and crying at all hours of the day and night, but no matter how much he begged his father to take it back… he wouldn’t listen. Instead, he just told him to “Shut up and go back to sleep.”
He began staying up late at night watching TV with the lights turned off so that he could avoid going to bed. That way the gnome wouldn’t bother him while he was trying to get some rest.
Then things got worse.
Charlie would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and find his father standing over him with a strange look on his face. He didn’t say anything at all, just stared at him with those horribly sunken eyes.
One night he came home from work and found his father sitting in the living room all alone. When Charlie entered the room, his father got up as though he were possessed by something and walked over to Mr. Gnome who was standing near a table that had a few pictures of Charlie’s mom who had died a few years ago in a car accident. Charlie watched from the doorway as his father took Mr. Gnome’s hand and put it around his mother’s neck.
He didn’t understand what was going on at first, but then his father looked up at him and that was when he saw it. His face, which used to be so full of life when he was younger, had stretched out and was now horribly disfigured.
He tried to scream for his father’s help, but no matter how much force he put behind it, nothing would come out.
Charlie ran outside and sprinted as fast as he could away from the house that night. He didn’t stop until he had gotten to the police station about three miles away. Once there, he told them everything that had happened and they promised to check on his father as soon as possible.
When they got there, the officer who took Charlie out of the house accompanied him back inside where they found his dad sitting in front of Mr. Gnome with a knife in his hand. He was smiling, but he hadn’t done it yet. They think that they stopped him just before he could do it.
The next day when Charlie got home from school, he went to go find Mr. Gnome and take him with him for good since the police had confiscated all of his dad’s knives after what he had done. Unfortunately, when he searched the house high and low for his annoying gnome… it was nowhere to be found.
He never saw Mr. Gnome again after that day. But nor did anyone else in town again either because Charlie’s dad just happened to bury him deep enough so that he couldn’t dig himself back out with his tiny little hands.
V
Mr. Gnome stayed in the ground for almost a century before he finally managed to dig himself out and begin his long walk back home, which was of course… Charlie’s house. And just like when he had left, Mr. Gnome knew exactly where it was at all times. No matter how far he walked, he never once lost track of the house in the distance.
He finally made it back home and marched up to Charlie’s bedroom window which had just recently been opened for the first time in decades by a curious little boy who had heard rumors about something strange going on in his neighborhood. He peeked through the blinds and saw Mr. Gnome staring right back at him …and he knew it was time for revenge once again…
END.
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