Meatloaf and Other Terrors

It started, as most suburban horrors do, with dinner.

The Hamiltons were a perfectly average family living in a two-story house with beige siding, beige carpeting, and beige dreams. Frank, the father, was an accountant with the charisma of drywall. Marjorie, the mother, taught piano but mostly just used the keyboard as a place to hide her wine glass during lessons. Lily, a sarcastic 16-year-old who wears too much eyeliner, and Timmy, an eerie ten-year-old who stopped blinking a month ago, were their two children. Tuesday was meatloaf night. It always had been. Marjorie was a proponent of "structure." Some mothers gave hugs. Marjorie gave routines and passive aggressive glances.

“I think the meatloaf is staring at me,” Lily said, poking the lumpy mound with her fork.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Marjorie said, not looking up. She was slicing green beans with all the enthusiasm of a mortician trimming toenails. “It’s the same recipe your grandmother used.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t grandma vanish during Thanksgiving ‘07?”

Marjorie responded bluntly, "She left for a better life." “Probably Florida.”

Timmy said nothing. He hadn’t spoken since the night he said “Mommy, there’s someone under my skin,” and Marjorie told him to stop being weird or he’d lose screen time.

Frank, trying to keep the peace, reached for the ketchup. The bottle made a sound like a dying raccoon and released something chunky and red that smelled like pennies and regret when he squeezed it. Frank looked at the mess and said, "Ah, just how I like it fermented," staring at it. Then, right as Marjorie offered second helpings of “this blessed loaf,” the lights went out.

From somewhere in the house maybe the walls, maybe the attic, maybe Marjorie’s smile came a long, slow moan.

Lily was the first to speak. “Okay, that’s it. Our house is haunted, the meatloafs bleeding, and I am 80% sure Timmy’s possessed by a Civil War ghost.”

Marjorie sighed. “Always with the dramatics. It’s just a little power outage.”

“There was whispering in the walls again,” Timmy said softly.

Everyone froze.

Frank turned slowly toward his son. “Did… did he just talk?”

Marjorie said, stirring her mashed potatoes as if they owed her money, "Don't encourage him." “I’ll go check the fuse box,” Frank mumbled, grabbing a flashlight he didn’t remember buying. It flickered on, dim and yellow, like the final glimmer of his will to live.

As he descended into the basement, the air thickened, heavy with mold and something older—like wet meat and broken promises. The stairs creaked with every step, groaning like they knew something he didn’t.

The basement door closed behind him.

Click.

In the kitchen, the oven began to hum.

“I didn’t turn it on,” Marjorie said calmly.

“Well maybe it turned itself on!” Lily snapped. “You ever think of that?! The appliances have opinions now!”

Marjorie pursed her lips. “You know, your sarcasm is a cry for help.”

“So is serving this meatloaf, but here we are.”

Meanwhile, in the basement, Frank found the fuse box. But instead of fuses, it had… teeth. Not metaphorically. Actual, molar-shaped, wet teeth.

A voice came from the walls.

“If a man devours his family to escape his job, does he file it under ‘dining’ or ‘deduction’?”

Frank dropped the flashlight. It didn’t land. It just… vanished. The light was swallowed by the dark like a snack.

Back upstairs, Timmy stared at his slice of meatloaf.

It blinked.

Lily stood abruptly. “Okay. Nope. This is it. I’m done. This isn’t meatloaf. This is a cursed organ with a crust.”

“Eat it,” Marjorie said with the cheerfulness of someone on the brink. “It’s full of iron.”

Lily knocked over her glass of water. It sizzled when it touched the meatloaf.

“WHAT IS THIS?!”

“An heirloom recipe.”

When Lily ran into the hallway to get away, she found that all of the framed pictures of her family had turned around. The faces were now looking at the wall, and their backs were facing her, as if they were ashamed to be associated with the current events. She looked over at Timmy. “How are you not freaking out?”

Timmy smiled. His teeth were… different now. Sharper. “Grandma says the meatloaf makes us strong.”

Frank stumbled out of the basement with a nosebleed and a thousand-yard stare. “The fuse box asked me if I wanted to switch places. I think it meant literally.”

“The freezer’s humming,” Lily said. “That thing hasn’t worked since dad tried to cryogenically preserve a lasagna in 2004.”

The family walked toward it together, like lambs to something much worse than slaughter.

Inside the freezer, under a thin sheet of frost and broken ice cube trays, was… another meatloaf.

Still warm.

It was shaped just like Timmy.

The lights flickered back on.

The original meatloaf was gone from the table. So was Colonel Bubbles, the goldfish. His bowl sat empty, filled instead with something pulsing.

Marjorie clapped her hands. “Dessert time!”

She produced a cherry pie and sliced it.

It bled.

No one reacted.

Lily began laughing. Then crying. Then both. Timmy licked his fork like it was a ritual blade.

Marjorie beamed.

“Next week, we try lasagna!”

Somewhere in the walls, Grandma chuckled.