Bogleech.com's 2016 Horror Write-off:

Happy Thanksgiving

Submitted by Tyler Spicknell

I Love Thanksgiving.


There's a reason why it's sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas. Halloween is the first holiday of the Holiday Season, and so it's a great warm-up for what's to come. Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year, and with it comes more stress than any van full of screaming kids could ever do (not that I'd know). They save all that for around the end of the year because six days later is when New Years comes, and we could put the old year behind us and move forward. Now the thing about Thanksgiving is if that we didn't have it then we would've just settled down completely unprepared for December. So with trying to figure out which family member is coming, trying to get everything ready for them, and of course cooking meals big enough for everyone, Thanksgiving keeps you going into the end of the year which makes things slightly easier for you.


But this Thanksgiving was special. You see, it all started when I broke up with my (then ex-boyfriend) Joey. It was at the Halloween costume party and Joey being the prankster that he always was, put absinthe in the punch bowl. An hour later everyone started going acting like Woodstock had made a comeback. We went nuts until morning where the next thing we remember we were all lying on the floor mostly naked. Honestly we weren't sure whether or not there was an orgy.


Later, using every last of strength I had to talk through the incomprehensible headache, I told Joey that he's an absolutely immature man-child and that I want nothing to do with him anymore. Joey said nothing to me, he just laid there on the ground barely moving. He did however turn his head towards me while I was talking to him and when I told him I breaking up with him. But while he remained quiet I could see he was quite upset for I could see his eyes watering up.


I must admit I was a little sad to break up with Joey, but I knew that as long as he preferred acting like an autistic weirdo than a mature adult then I knew I didn't have much of a future with him. That's what I told my Granny while I was helping her. I should probably explain, one of my Thanksgiving traditions is that I get to my Grandmother's house early, which is easy because she's only 10 miles away from my house. I get there before 9 AM so she and I can watch the Macy's Parade together, and then almost immediately after we would set up the feast for the whole family. I gotta say it's not easy cooking especially when you have to cook the meat just right.


This year she and I talked while I was tossing salad and she was working on her 30 Year State Fair winning casserole. I explained to her what happen with Joey and I and she said to me that while she didn't approve of the stuff he does she understood. We haven't even reached 40 yet and he was clearly taking advantage of that fact. She told me that when you reach an older age you won't be able to do the things you used to do. She lamented the many things she never did while she had the chance and would give anything to be young again.


Before I could ponder on that she asked me if I could go down to get the meat for her casserole, as well as the meat for the pot pie, sandwiches, and main course. I did just that and went down to the basement and then when I did I entered the door to the sub-basement. As I kept walking down the old stairs I had to watch out since some of the pipes were leaking and I didn't want to fall down again like last year. The sub-basement was the same as it ever was old, mildewy, and was the rusty as the hooks hanging from the ceiling. The only thing that was different were the new prisoners.


There was 10 pairs of chains attached to the wall and 2 of them had people handcuffed to them. The 3rd was tied up to the toilet naked. As with every time I go to Granny's they were either struggling, trying to attack me, or just gave up entirely and wept profusely. In this case the woman (having become literally skin and bones from a month of no food, at least Granny says it was a month) didn't have the strength to even stand and just looked at me begging to just let her go was the one crying. The other two was a man who Granny told she kidnapped two days ago (so he was still pretty fit) while he was trying to pick up his kid from school and another man tied to the toilet so he could poop out the food he was being forced fed. Granny had kept him down longer than the other two so he was good, fat, and ready.


I figured as long as that fit man was trying to escape I should take him out first before he actually did. I grabbed the bowie-knife from the table and headed straight towards the fit man. As I did he called me a crazy fucking bitch and then called me and my family monsters and when he gets out there he'll see to it that we would all be given a slow and painful execution. When I got close enough he started biting at me and so I had to get the right moment to strike, and I did. I pierced the knife right into his throat and I decided to take care of the fat man while he bled to death. The woman started crying harder than before.


I wiped the bowie-knife with my shirt and proceeded to try cut the fat man's throat too. But he started shaking his head left and right and I was afraid of letting that tube taped to his mouth hit me. Since I didn't have the time I just straight for his heart again and again until he stopped. While the woman was screaming I still was able to think since I'm pretty used to this sort of thing.


As I was cutting the man open and put his organs in the buckets I once again thought about Joey. Like I said before Thanksgiving was the holiday to keep you going until Christmas and like what Granny said you only have so much time that you're able to do certain things. When you're a child school prevents you from doing the things you really want to do. You know, playing games with your friends, watching TV, you know just being a kid, and when you finally graduate your job does the same thing but unlike school you can choose to go on vacation, so you have a bit more free time than you did as a kid. I guess Joey is like that, he realized that we need to grow up eventually and he doesn't want to just yet. I feel the same way sometimes.


Once I finished gutting out the fat man I untied his body then used the huge hole I made in his body to hang him up on one of the hooks. Finally, all that was left was the woman. As I stepped through the blood that going down the drain in floor I once again wiped my bowie-knife. By the time I reached the woman the fit man was already dead, hanging from the wall with his arms out like Christ. I kneeled over and grabbed the woman's head by the jaw. As I looked into her face I noticed she had stopped crying but there tears still on her cheeks. She begged me to let her go and promised me that she'll never tell anyone what happened to her. At first I wasn't going to go for it but then she told me she had a fiance and after a few seconds I spared her the agony and snapped her neck. What I could say? She was in love I was in love. Something about what she said just clicked to me.


So then came the long arduous task of Granny and me doing to the usual: cutting up the limbs, skinning the bodies, cleaning up the sub-basement and dissolving the inedible parts in bathtub. Finally dinner was finished and just in time too. By 4:30 Mom and Dad had shown up, then Aunt Laura and Uncle Tony, and then my sister Stella, her husband Derrick, and my niece and nephews Jim, Mark, and Fiona. We did the usual: Stella wouldn't stop bragging to me about he Derrick traveled and tried out how foreigners tasted, Aunt Laura, Mom, and Granny would play with the kids, and Dad and Tony would watch the game. At 7 it finally time for dinner.


This years spread was delicious (with a little help from Aunt Laura's Fried Hands). We ate and talked for about 30 minutes when the doorbell rang again. We were all looked at the door confused for several seconds until Dad asked if someone else was supposed to show up. I decided to answer the door myself. It was none other than Joey, looking like he had gone through a thresher. I was pretty stunned, actually we ALL were. Eventually Joey asked if he could come in.


He told me that after I broke up with him he did some REALLY DEEP thinking. He realized that I was right, he was immature and that it was time for him to finally grow up. But I told him that I learned that while it wouldn't hurt to start acting like a man it's alright to act childish sometimes. We have our 30's the same reason we have Thanksgiving, so we'll have more time to be ready for things wouldn't have been able to handle. For Thanksgiving it's Christmas, for our youth it's our twilight years. Joey then told me that he was going to make the first step towards growing up now, before he bent down on one knee and pulled from his pocket a small box with a ring in it. He asked me to marry him and I said yes.


The family cheered like crazy while me and Joey shared a long passionate kiss. It was the best Thanksgiving ever but the only thing that could make it better was to finally eat the main course: the decapitated heads of our former prisoners on a silver plate with the top of their heads cut off so we could dig into their brains. Thank goodness Joey's a cannibal too.


I love Thanksgiving but I also love a happy ending.