It was a dark, stormy night; exactly the kind on which a horrid thing might happen. Perhaps a haunting, a robbery, a kidnapping- or a... murder. Thunder rolled, then a pair of jagged, white tongs peirced the sky. Just a typical storm, right?However, one flash seemed particularly suspicious, as it had a reddish light to it... but then again, nature is a wonderful and mysterious thing...

On B-2-C Ave., in the quiet mountain town of Parsnip, there was a scattering of quaint little houses. You'd think that nothing bad could happen there, even on a night like this one. But tragedy would strike; Fate had arranged it that way. Horrors would happen... in house number 67/8.

The house was dark, and everyone was asleep... everyone, that is, except Papa Tam. He, being of a rather portly constitution, was rummaging through the cupboard, looking for leftover peanut cake. Finding his snack, Papa Tam begins to munch on a large peice, unware that someone- or something- is behind him. It sneaks across the kitchen floor, slithering over a battered chair, sliding around the icebox. Suddenly, our object in question stops directly behind Papa Tam, and jumps!, silently latching itself onto his nightshirt. Papa Tam feels the slight movement, and looks up, crumbs scattered on his beard. The thing does not waste a second. It jumps! again, and seems to separate in midair, half of it taping itself firmly on poor Papa's mouth, the other half winding itself about his neck, slowly, inexorably... choking him. Papa Tam struggles, clutching at the murderous object, not being able to scream before slumping to the ground, a half-eaten lump of cake left on the counter. The thing unwinds itself, continues it's journey across the kitchen, slides into the living room, and finds little Sue Poker's sneakers, that she carefully unlaces every night to dry (Parsnip being a very muddy town). It cautiously winds itself into the lace-holes... waiting for dawn...

Next day, when the lifeless body of Papa Tam is found in the kitchen, the authorites are called. Detectives are set on the case, police search the surrounding forest, messages and alerts are sent to other villages... but the murderer is nowhere to be found. Even more tragically, the Poker family suffers another sad loss when little Sue, having found her new shoelaces much prettier than the old ones, dissappears on the way home from school one day... perchance turned into killer laces herself; for the next time an unknown murder occurred, the watchful yet silent eyes of the storm observed two slithering objects, and predicted more to come. Victims fell as Fate cackled in triumph, or weeped in silence.

Please review! [dancing with impatience] :D