My Old Neighborhood Had A Weird Ritual

A few weeks ago, I moved into a really nice neighborhood on the edge of town. When I say nice, it was like your typical picturesque suburban neighborhood where everyone has a white picket fence and 2 cars parked in every driveway. That kind of thing. But little did I know there was a dark secret that few people talked about, but everyone acknowledged. You see, this obviously isn’t your typical, typical suburban neighborhood. No. This place has a strange ritual once every three months. I happened to move in on the very month it occurred. At first, everything was pretty normal. You’d get the mail every afternoon, say hi to anyone else doing the same, and that would be that. But one day when I got off work, I noticed something odd. Every single car our neighbors had was parked in the street. Mind you, everyone used their driveway because no one had more than two or three vehicles. And those that had three usually parked the third vehicle in the garage. But today, even THOSE were out on the street. I thought nothing of it at first, thinking maybe everybody just washed their cars at the same time or something. So I parked my car in the driveway as per usual and went inside. About fifteen minutes later, I heard someone knock on my front door. I opened it up and saw one of my neighbors, Mark, standing there looking kind of panicked.

“What’s up, Mark?” I asked.

“You gotta park on the street tonight. Official law.”

“That’s no law I’ve ever heard of. What’s going on?”

“It’s not a law put in by state or government jurisdiction. It’s a law of man. Just park in the street tonight, huh?” With that, he left. I should have heeded his warning.

Later that same night, I heard a loud scratching noise coming from outside. I went to a window to take a look and instantly regretted it. The scratching noise was that of my car being torn to shreds by what I can only describe as a demon-cat-human-turtle hybrid. It was tall and looked to have claws the length of a refrigerator and sharp as a razor blade. I noped the hell out of there before it saw me and ran upstairs. I thought about calling someone, but let’s be honest, who the hell could put up a fight against that thing? Not only that, I figured it’d be best to make as little noise as possible. Eventually, the scratching stopped. I waited about a half an hour before I looked out the window again. My car had all but vanished. The only thing left was a small bit of the exhaust pipe. There was no trace of the rest of it.

I went over to one of my other neighbors’ houses and asked about the creature. They said it shouldn’t be talked about, but gave me a little bit of insight. Apparently, it’s called a Grettleshim. A demonic creature that preys on metal and flesh. The reason it only takes the cars parked in driveways is because it sees them as less threatening when not in a group. Kind of strange, but it seems as though it’s very primal and not exactly evil. Just natural. Anyway, I’ve since moved out of that neighborhood to one that’s more on the scenic side. It’s right on a lake actually. Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be any weird ritual thing going on here. Although I have yet to see one person step out of any of the houses. But for now, I think the shadows in the windows will suffice to keep me company. But fair warning, if you think your neighborhood has some sort of dark secret, ask your neighbors and listen to what they have to say. It might just save you from losing a $300,000 dollar car.

  • Ray

    Short and sweet story. You should write a story about the new neighbourhood. How nobody is easily visible on the outside. Try to make it a little more longer.