From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksTrue story: I started learning English at the tender age of two-and-a-half. When I was around five, I dreamed that Irene, my English tutor, came through the ceiling, picked up our books from my desk and vanished back into the ceiling. Strangely enough, she had no legs; her lower body being djinn-like.

Startled, I woke up my parents to tell them about this. They spent much of that night explaining to me what dreams were. Only, the next morning, they discovered that Irene had died in a car accident around that time.

Creepy, right? According to Tickl’d, this is hardly the only creepy thing kids say or do. To kick off the Halloween season, here are some more creepy things that kids told their parents. Whether they’re as true as my story, matters little: I’m sharing not just for fun, but because these would make any writer worth their salt dash off to the computer, head filled with ideas! Best writing prompts ever, right?

Cross her

When she was about 3, we had a cat that had still born kittens. She asked if we could make crosses for them, which I did. As I was making them she asked:

“Aren’t those too small?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Her: “aren’t we going to nail them to them?”

Me: (after several moments silence) “we’re not going to do that”

Her: “oh”

Goodbye, dad

I was tucking in my two year old.

“Good bye dad,” he said.

I said, “No, we say good night.”

“I know. But this time it’s good bye.”

Nothing under the bed

“Go back to sleep, there isn’t anything under your bed”.

“I know. He’s behind you now.”

Just bury it

My 3 year old daughter stood next to her new born brother and looked at him for a while, then looked at me and said, “Daddy it’s a monster… we should bury it.”

Skin

I was sound asleep. At around 6am, I was woken up by my 4 year old daughter’s face inches from mine.

She looked right into my eyes and whispered, “I want to peel all your skin off.”

Hi

My toddler went through a phase where she would just constantly say ‘hi’ to things. “Hi hi hi hi hi hi.”

One day, it came out sounding more like “Die die die die die.”

So I say to her ,”What’s that you’re saying?”

And she faces me and just whispers, “Diiiieeeeeee…”

Just throw it up

My kid’s catholic school is over 100 years old. There is a basement under the gym that’s used for storage.

I was subbing once, and during recess one of the kick balls went down the stairs. A little girl was standing at the top of the stairs yelling “just throw it up to me”. I went over and asked who she was talking to.

“That big man down the stairs,” she replied.

I went down. There was nobody down there, and it was the only way in. I asked some of the other kids if they have seen the man before and they said “yes, but sister told us not to talk to him.”

I asked them to describe “sister,” and they described a nun. There haven’t been nuns at the school in 40 years.

Good night kiss

“Mommy look what I learned!”

inserts tongue into mom’s mouth during good night kiss

“I learned it from a movie! It means you love someone!”

Mom calmly gets up without saying a word and walks to her room.

From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

About Death

I was on a bus recently and we were stopped outside a walk-in clinic. A little girl in the seat in front of me turned to her dad and said, “Death is the poor man’s doctor.” And that was that.

Bad man

Our daughter wouldn’t stop crying. “Why are you crying?”

“Bad man,” she sniffles.

“What bad man?”

“There.” Points behind me at a dark corner of the room

Lamp on bookshelf next to said darkened corner falls off as soon as I turn to look.

She slept in our bed that night.

Burn, baby, burn

3 year old daughter holding her baby brother for the first time.

“So, I shouldn’t throw him in the fire?”

Labor

Yesterday morning, my 3 year old son told me “today’s [sister’s] birthday!”

I went into labor last night.

Waves of blood

My niece was sitting on the couch with a weird look on her face. Her mom asked her what she was thinking about.

“I’m imagining the waves of blood rushing over me,” she said.

Turns out they had been at a local science museum with an exhibit on the circulatory system. One of the features was a walk among some giant fake blood vessels, and she was remembering that.

Tick tock

Not to me, but to his grandmother.

He was cuddling with her, being very sweet (he was about 3 at the time). He takes her face in his hands, and brings his face close to hers, then tells her that she’s very old, and will die soon.

Then he makes a point of looking at the clock.

He’s coming

My youngest (around 5 at the time) once drew a picture of a black monster, looked up at me, and said, “He told me to draw this. He’s coming for you. You better hide.”


Not enough? Read some even creepier ones on Dose!


Musiville, my second children’s book, will be published shortly. When it does, I will only leave a sample of award-winning Runaway Smile online. If you wanted to read it in its entirety for free, you only have a few days to do so!