This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/StrangeWartOnMyD on 2024-11-29 02:51:25+00:00.
it started with the smell.
Our Thanksgiving this year was a modest one, just my mom, dad, my younger sister Emily, and me. The turkey wasn’t huge, but it was plenty for four. Mom, as always, had gone all out with the sides—mashed potatoes, stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce—the works. The kind of spread that would make you slip into a food coma just looking at it.
We ate ourselves into oblivion, groaned about our full stomachs, and piled the leftovers into containers for the next few days.
But by the next morning, the kitchen smelled… off.
At first, I thought it was just the trash. Turkey bones, greasy scraps, and congealed gravy—that’s bound to stink, right? But Dad had already taken the trash out. Still, the smell lingered, thick and cloying. It wasn’t just food rot; it was sharp, metallic, and wet, like a mix of old pennies and mildew.
“Maybe something spilled under the fridge,” Mom suggested, spraying lemon-scented cleaner everywhere. We moved the fridge, cleaned under it—nothing. But the smell grew worse.
By Saturday morning, the smell had seeped into the rest of the house. No amount of candles, Febreze, or scrubbing could mask it. Worse, Emily swore she’d heard something moving in the walls the night before.
“Probably a raccoon or something,” Dad said, grabbing a flashlight. He stomped around the attic and checked the crawlspace, but there was no sign of anything alive—or dead.
That night, I woke to a strange sound. It wasn’t the skittering Emily had mentioned but a soft, wet noise, like something… chewing.
I froze in bed, every hair on my body standing on end.
The noise came from downstairs, from the kitchen.
I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight. Quietly, I crept out of bed and down the stairs. The smell hit me first, so strong it made my eyes water.
The leftovers.
They were sitting on the counter, lids off, the food inside rotting and blackened as if it had been sitting out for weeks, not two days. Maggots writhed in the cranberry sauce, and the turkey looked bloated, its skin mottled green and purple.
The chewing noise came from behind me.
I turned slowly, heart pounding.
Something hunched in the corner of the kitchen. Its back was to me, but I could see the sharp angles of its spine pressing against its pale, mottled skin. It was thin—too thin—with long, bony limbs that ended in claw-like fingers.
And it was eating.
Its hands moved mechanically, shoving handfuls of rotten turkey and stuffing into a mouth that stretched too wide, full of teeth too sharp.
I let out a small gasp, and it froze.
For a moment, the world went silent. Then it turned its head toward me, slow and deliberate.
Its face was… wrong. The features were human but distorted, stretched in ways that made my stomach churn. Its eyes were black pits, leaking something dark and viscous down its cheeks.
It smiled, bits of rancid food stuck between its teeth.
“Still hungry,” it rasped, its voice low and wet.
I stumbled back, nearly tripping over the chair.
It stood, unfolding itself to an impossible height, and took a step toward me.
I ran.
I don’t remember making it back to my room, but I must have because I woke up the next morning in bed, drenched in sweat. The smell was gone, and so were the leftovers.
I told my parents everything, but they didn’t believe me. Said I must have had a nightmare.
But last night, Emily went to grab a late-night snack and never came back.
We found her this morning, slumped over the kitchen table, her face frozen in an expression of pure terror. Her hands clutched her stomach, which was grotesquely swollen, the skin stretched and mottled.
The coroner said it looked like she’d been eating… but there was nothing in her stomach except for blackened turkey and maggots.
The leftovers are gone now, but the smell is back.
And I swear, last night, I heard something moving in the walls.