Donny Marvin was more than a boy but significantly less than a man. His favorite possession was his skateboard and his favorite skateboard was one of his possessions. His favorite subject would have been skateboarding were it an offered subject at any school. He lived in the early-to-mid-nineties, and he looked a lot like any kid from the early-to-mid-nineties: He had brown feathered hair, carried a skateboard, and wore a lot of primary colors. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought he was an extra in 3 Ninjas or (better yet) 3 Ninjas Kick Back. He wasn’t, though, and he had long since accepted that fact.
Donny’s father was a traveling salesman for the Army, so his family moved around a lot. His parents were no longer active (sexually), so Donny was an only child. He had grown accustomed to being alone but still told himself, One day, I will have a friend.
Today, Donny’s father and mother were standing in the kitchen, doing nothing but standing.
“Good afternoon, dear,” said Donny’s father, eerily.
“Good afternoon to you, too, dear,” said Donny’s mother, just as eerily.
“Today I sold 10 vacuums for the Army,” said Donny’s father, eerily still.
“Of course. They make the very best vacuums,” Donny’s mother eerily replied as Donny came skateboarding into the kitchen.
“Whoa there, little guy!” exclaimed Donny’s father. “You know the rules.”
“Sorry, pop,” said Donny as he came to a halt. His mother narrowed her gaze at him.
“This isn’t our house anymore, Donny,” she told him. “We sold it today.”
“Aw, man!” Donny shouted. “Why do we stupid have to stupid move, anyway? We just got here!”
“You know darn well what we have to sacrifice for your father and his work,” Donny’s mother reminded him. His father kneeled down to eye level to give Donny a serious “here’s what’s what.”
“Son…” Donny’s father began. “If my boss, Sergeant Pizza, wants me to go sell Army-brand kitchen appliances to Nightmare, Oklahoma, then by golly, we’re going to move to Nightmare, Oklahoma so I can sell its citizens Army-brand kitchen appliances.
Donny kicked at what he wished was dirt on the floor, but it was merely a very clean kitchen floor. They had, after all, just sold their house. Donny, frustrated, skated off into the hallway as his parents gave each other knowing glances.
“You know what I’m glancing about?” asked Donny’s mother.
“Yes, wife,” replied Donny’s father. “Do you know what I’m glancing about?”
“I think so,” she told him.
The two embraced each other and gave each other wifely and husbandly kisses.
“Donny, right?” asked Donny’s mother.
“Yes.”
*************
Moving day came early that year. Normally they would move to a new town around May, because for whatever reason it is the peak season for traveling salesmen who work for the Army. This move, however, happened around early March, at special request by Sergeant Pizza.
The move went smoothly, as it always seemed to. The Marvins had gotten it down to a science by that point. Science they didn’t even believe in, because they were witches. Was that mentioned yet? Well, they were definitely witches. Of course, Donny had no idea, nor did his parents want him to know. Their plan, you see, was to eat the boy on his 18th birthday, thus returning to them the power they had lost during the “incident.” So yeah, they’re like totally witches, but they don’t have their powers anymore or something.
But Donny was none the wiser. He loved his parents very much and trusted them fully. In fact, it had become habit for Donny to every morning skate downstairs, enjoy his breakfast, and say “Thanks for not eating me, mom and dad.” He thought he was being funny. How wrong he was. How wrong was he? Very wrong, says me.
“Thanks for not eating me, mom and dad,” Donny said on his first day of school. His parents cackled, though Donny perceived it as a good-natured chuckling. He wiped his mouth and headed for the door.
“Now, Donny,” his mom began, “Be good on your first day. This town is very… different. So don’t you go around not trying to fit in.”
“I won’t, mom!” exclaimed Donny. The first day of school was always his favorite day of school, because it was the one day he had the possibility of making friends with a clean slate. His second day of school was usually his least favorite day, because he almost always pooped pants on the first day.
Donny kissed his mother and father as they each licked their lips and wrung their hands together.
“You’re going to be delicious, son,” said Donny’s father.
“Thanks, dad,” Donny replied. That’s a little thing they do. His dad says, “You’re going to be delicious, son,” and Donny responds with, “Thanks, dad.”
*************
The bus ride to school was scarier than normal, but only because of the horrible screams coming from inside the seats. No one else seemed to notice or care, so he took his mother’s advice and made it look like he didn’t notice or care, either.
Donny’s first day at school was like any other except this particular school was called Nightmare High School For The Terrifying. He assumed it was Latin for Nice High School For The Gifted, so he sat in the back and listened quietly to his lessons. There was no skateboarding class but in his Algebra class, Professor Hideous did ask a word problem that involved skateboarding (In case you’re curious, Britney bought the red skateboard on Tuesday, Toddy bought the blue skateboard on Thursday, and the Demon With A Brain For A Head didn’t buy a skateboard). Yes, it seemed like everything was coming up Donny. It wasn’t until lunch that things got a little bit gifted. Sorry, I mean “terrifying.”
The line of students moved one to the right in unison every couple seconds. Donny did not know the timing yet, so he was bumped into a bit until he reached the lunch lady, who somehow had the eyes of a cat. In front of her were several trays that boasted a wide assortment of “spooky” cookies.
“Are these all cookies?” Donny asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the Lunch Cat Lady
“Sir,” Donny corrected.
“‘Sure,’ what?” asked the confused Lunch Cat Lady. “You want some cookies or not?”
Donny sighed and pointed at the cookies. “Yeah, yes,” he said. “I’ll have two cookies, please…”
The Lunch Cat Lady happily handed him a Spider Cookie and a Bat Cookie, adding a cheerful, “Boo!” for good measure.
As a disappointed Donny began to push his tray to the cash register, the Lunch Cat Lady spoke up once more.
“Hey, kid,” she called to him.
“Yeah?”
“I’m kiddin’. It ain’t just cookies.”
Donny let out another sigh (this one was of relief) and eagerly pushed his tray back towards the Lunch Cat Lady.
“Hell, yeah,” the Lunch Cat Lady told him as she produced a large tray of cheese sticks. “It’s cheese stick day. We also got cheese sticks.”
“What’s tomorrow?” Donny asked.
“Cookie Day.”
“And the rest of the days?”
“Cookie Day.”
“Right,” sighed Donny once more (this one was of disappointment again). He paid for his food and ventured out into the nightmarish cafeteria.
*************
The Boy With The Fangs was noticed by Donny very early on in the day, and Donny had done a very admirable job of avoiding eye contact. That is, until he dropped a cheese stick at the boy with the fangs’ feet.
“You dropped something,” said The Boy With The Fangs as he picked up the cheese stick.
“Yeah, sorry, that’s my cheese sticks,” said Donny, quite nervously.
“Well, it’s mine now,” said The Boy With The Fangs.
“Oh…” muttered Donny. “Okay…”
“Hey, I’m just kiddin’,” said The Boy With The Fangs as he placed the cheese stick back on Donny’s tray and smiled, further exposing his already-exposed fangs. “You’re new here, right? Have you noticed my fangs?”
“I didn’t want to say anything,” Donny explained.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. I clearly have fangs,” said The Boy With The Fangs. ”You can sit with my friends and me if you want.” The Boy With The Fangs pointed to a nearby table where several boys with feathered hair, skateboards, and primary colors waved. They were also clearly ghosts but looked pleasant enough.
“Maybe I will,” said Donny. I need to get another cheese stick, though.”
“You can have mine,” said The Boy With The Fangs as he handed Donny his entire lunch tray. ”I’m not really hungry anymore. I get full just from meeting new people.” He shook Donny’s hand firmly, smiled again, and walked away towards the nearby lunch table.
“Welcome to Nightmare High!” shouted The Boy With The Fangs over his shoulder (He shouted over his shoulder; his fangs aren’t over his shoulder. They’re in his mouth, next to his teeth).
That wasn’t so bad, thought Donny, For a nightmare high school, that boy with the fangs was awfully nice.
*************
Later that day, Donny’s father was fired from the Army, but got a job peddling goods for the local Nightmare Militia. The Marvins were able to stay in Nightmare for quite some time, and even though Donny very much pooped pants later that first day, the next four years were pretty great. He was captain of the Ghoul Squad for two years and was voted “Most Likely To Be Hanging Out With The Boy With The Fangs.” Of course, when he turned 18, he was eaten by his parents.
The End?
Yes.
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November 21st, 2009 at 8:51 am
to be honest, this really reminds me of an actual goosebumps book, in the fact that it is very bad. I also enjoyed this much more than any goosebumps book because it was meant to be bad and I knew it. For all you people who think this isnt funny, dont read it!
There’s plenty more awesome out there on cracked, and there is no such thing as a site where everything is equally funny.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:34 am
just kidding (this is my faaaaaaaaaavorite)
November 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
This article was utterly horrifying, and not in the good-natured humorous way. I mean shit-tasticly horrible. I mean, I read the entire article looking for any good or high point. I found none. I feel like a nerd for reading the entire bad article, but honestly. I garnered no shred of entertainment from this shitfest. It was fucking horrible. Fucking. Horrible.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
lol. you’re great cody. I love these faux goosebump tales.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Man, this story reminds me of these books about Wayside School that I read as a kid. And those books were excellent. You write with a type of humor I hardly see anywhere anymore. Keep up the great work!
November 8th, 2009 at 10:44 am
lol kid with fangs ahaha i has fang but they not reals..
that ws soo funny tho! =D
November 8th, 2009 at 5:25 am
Hey man, how did you get my new manuscript?
Keep up the good work, this is hilarious (not in the obvious way that most of cracked’s crack work is).
November 8th, 2009 at 2:13 am
This is funny for the same reason that “Garth Merangies, Dark Place” was funny. It’s meant to be bad. Like, really bad. It’s literately intended to offend the cognitive abilities. It’s a lampoon if itself, as it lampoons lampooning. There aren’t any jokes. Comedy doesn’t have to be a joke. Jokes are the bottom barrel easiest style of comedy imaginable. Any joke can be derived from a basic formula of “Priest, Rabbi, Chinese guy” -Bucket full of severed penises. Put all that together then laugh.
Point being, creativity and intelligence aren’t always measured in dick jokes.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:51 am
That was hilarious! I love your horror story stuff! Don’t listen to the whiny bitches saying you suck, they just can’t handle this degree of awesome.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Hehehe, I love your writing. It’s so bad (on purpose) that it’s good. Hell yes.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Keep it up Cody!
October 21st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I love your sense of humor, keep it up. Cody is now my favorite writer for cracked. All these other assholes can suck it.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:07 am
i have to write it again:
fuck off cody!
this is all so… no, just fuck off!
October 17th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
@Supertails
What the hell?! DOB is one of the (if not the) greatest writers on Cracked. This “Cody” bastard son of a whorehouse assfuck is utter fucking shit. I tried to keep an open mind when he started writing, but I have had it with his shit. I know some people think he’s funny, but he just strikes me as trying to be abstract and “not ordinary” and ending up just pulling random horseshit out of his ass.
Fuck yourself and eat all the dicks Cody!
October 15th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
So people differ as to what they find funny. But surely if just about anything ever could be considered funny, you’d get people just laughing at fucking anything. There’d then be no such thing as ‘comedy’ since we’d all just laugh at the world around us.
Trees, Oxygen, ducks, marmalade, salad, Keanu Reeves, yellow.
Alright, so ducks are pretty funny, but the rest of that list is made of up of things, not things that are funny.
What I’m trying to say is, there is a (fairly broad, admittedly) definition of comedy. Some things are funny, some things are not.
I cannot understand why anybody would find this funny. It is not comedy, as I understand it. It is not included in my definition of comedy, and I would like someone who finds it funny to explain, clearly and succinctly why they find it acceptable for Cody to contribute to a comedy website.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:26 am
While some of Cody’s stuff is a bit shit, the good stuff (ie this) is far better than anything else on the site IMO.
October 12th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Oh. My. God.
This is one of the top few funniest things I’ve ever read before on Cracked, right after some of DOB’s ’stories.’ XDD
October 11th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
You need some pictures to go along with the story.
October 11th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Pretty funny, once you get used to the slightly different style.
October 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Laughed a lot at “The Boy With Fangs over his shoulders” part. This is funny, and people are afraid of change for some reason. They seem to want to act all high and mighty, as if they’re experts or some shit. Anyway, good stuff. Although, awfully hard to keep up with all the stuff you post, what with it being frequent and suchlike.
October 10th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Again, awesome stuff dude. Very different from the usual stuff on here. I might be the only one on this site that gets tired of the constant dong jokes. Unless they’re tastefully done. Which is next to impossible, so you see my predicament…
October 10th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Cody. I love you. Elope with me, we’ll live the rest of our days on a tropical island eating breadfruit and raising our strange and slightly off-putting children.
Seriously though, you are absolutely hilarious, and though your style of humor isn’t typical Cracked material, that’s what makes it awesome.
October 10th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I love you, Cody, have my children.
October 10th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Dude, no word of a lie, ignore all the people hating on you in here, because this that you are posting is inspired brilliance. I find everything posted here on Cracked.com funny, but I must say, nothing has ever made me laugh out loud on the internet, because I don’t want to look like a weirdo for laughing for no reason. What I’m trying to say is, I get a very strong impulse to laugh while reading your writing, man.
Is this my comment? ‘Tis, methinks.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Well, *I* quite liked it, along with the rest of his articles (although I would classify them stream-of-consciousness blogs as opposed to articles) as well. I think they’re humorous, albeit rather random. Yes, they are vastly different from the other columnist material, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:35 am
In the time it takes to make a negative comment, you could be learning a new skill. Suggestions:
1. Lanyard-making
2. Moving out of your mother’s basement.
3. Masturbating to someone other than Felicia Day.
4. Going for a run.
5. Pottery.
6. Killing yourself.
Seriously, it’s Cracked Magazine. This isn’t the New Yorker, or even The Detroiter. Lighten up, you angry, angry dweebs.
October 8th, 2009 at 2:56 am
just stop.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Does anyone check these articles before they’re published?
Or does a monkey just shove them in from a pile of papers left in its tray from various columnists.
My theory is the monkey decided to have a go at articles.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Did you hack this site dude? How the fuck did you get on here? You’re by far the worst columnist they’ve ever had post here.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
When I read the other ‘Tales’ story, I commented that I didn’t understand how it got on Cracked. Reading this one doesn’t really clarify this for me, so I suppose I don’t “get it” either. The only way I could see this being qualified as comedy is if the real joke is posting some sort of ridiculously oblique narrative and then laughing at the readers who struggle to understand it, and as such bring the comment section itself in as part if the article. If that is the real intention of your articles, Cody, then you truly are a genius who has invented a new form of situational comedy that reflects both the medium and the times.
But I really think I just made all of that up, and you’re just a douchebag.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
The truly gifted/terrifying thing in this is how many people aren’t getting it and commenting as if Cody has genuinely submitted a creative writing piece from high school days for faceless asshats of the internet to critique. By many I mean two with the possibility that it was the same guy twice and he’s stuck on repeat, but thats quite scary too.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I’ve enjoyed the comments on the last five of these articles by Cody more than the articles themselves.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Oh god please stop.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I love me some Tales to Tell ‘Round Midnight. I love your work Cody, keep it up.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:35 am
there was little humour in that article, or any of his articles, and i am currently questioning how this man became a columnist.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I give up there’s nothing in any of these
October 6th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
This is not a comment
October 6th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I thought this was going for a sort of understated form of comedy and enjoyed it until it abruptly stopped doing that a third of the way in and completely shifted gears. It’s not that it’s poorly written. It’s that it just isn’t funny. Also, it’s poorly written. This is like something a teenager would turn out in a creative writing class, stick in a drawer somewhere and promptly forget all about while they went on to write better things.
I understand that it’s a sort of dry humor and the joke is that it isn’t scary despite being billed as one in the title and containing traditional tropes of horror stories. It’s sort of like how the joke about the chicken crossing the road is funny because the punchline isn’t a surprising twist but a mundane explanation, turning the listener’s expectations and understanding of jokes themselves upside down thereby creating “lulz”. Except it doesn’t.
This smacks of something done in idleness. Scrawled in a notebook when you had nothing better to be doing. There’s a reason most artists display their highly-detailed masterwork paintings to the public and keep their half-finished doodling to themselves.
October 6th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
this is terrible
October 6th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I don’t know who you are at all but that was actually pretty funny! Also: genuinely creepy. That is to say, YOU are creepy.