The Demon Elf

Date: 5/19/2022

Friends are over, some kind of party. I am in the basement showing the turtles off to a mother and the young child in her arms when I notice something moving beneath the tanks. Something small, rounding, and so black I can't distinguish features. Maybe it's an elf. We've had elves in the basement before. I take the mother and child away quickly and see my old friend, Howard, on the stairs. He is good with animals. "I think an Elf is loose by the turtle tanks," I tell him discreetly. "Can you get it?" "Sure," he offers. He is very tall. He comes back quickly after loud noises. "That's not an elf!" He pushes past me up the stairs. "I don't know what that is!" The thing is coming out of the laundry room into the hallway to the stairs. It's jumping high, up and down in a frenzy, and growling like the Tasmanian Devil on cartoons. It has long, thin arms that rise up almost as long as its body, trying to grab at me. I step back, up the stairs as it chases me. I open the back door and it escapes. I realize that I just released it on the school children of the neighborhood, whatever it is. But what else could I do?