The Elf on the Shelf nosleep

I work for the company that makes The Elf on the Shelf. If you don't know what the Elves are, let me give a little explanation.

The Elves come from a children's Christmas book, in which Santa's "spy elves" hide in houses and watch the children, seeing if they're naughty or nice. With the sucess of the book, they were made into real dolls to be sold with the book. Parents of young children move the elves around to different spots every night, so they can watch over the children. You're not supposed to touch them, or else they lose their magic.

Recently, we've been trying to work on a prototype that can move it self; a sort of sentient AI. Think along the lines of a Rumba, but more sophisticated. It's supposed to find and differentiate between spots it has been in and spots it hasn't. This adds to the whimsy of the product, even the parent doesn't know where the Elf will land every morning.

On the 30th (of November, obviously), the head designer of the dolls came up to me, toting a doll in his hand.

"Hi Steven. I'm going to make this brief, I have to get back to work. I know you have kids around the target area of the dolls, and I was wondering if you could test out the new prototype. All you have to do is leave it somewhere in the open tonight, and it's internal clock will realize it's the 1st of December at midnight. It'll find it's way around." He placed the doll on my desk and scurried away. I didn't think much of it, I was sort of the test dummy for a lot of the dolls. I brought it home, and I was sort of excited to see what the kids would think of it. Maybe it would be more creative than I would be.

The first few days went normally, on the first it was on the refrigerator, the second on top of the cabinet, the shoe cubby, the kid's dresser, the family computer. But last night...something...happened.

We have a dog, a yappy little chihuahua, and it's been with us since our kids (Sam, she's 6, and David, he's 9) were born. The kids adore it. Last night, I tucked the kids into bed, and I was lurking on Reddit until the wee hours of the morning. As soon as the clock hit 12, I heard a little ping and scuttling. The doll. I heard it's little hands and feet maneuvering the hardwood floor, but it stopped suddenly. I heard the dog growling in the other room, but then it winced, and started whining. I ran into the room to see what had happened, and I almost fainted.

The blood was starting to stain my socks, I barged into the room too quickly. I looked over to the dog's bed and...there it was. It had somehow pried my dog's mouth open and tore it's way through the dog's throat. About half way through it's stomach it tore out and I could see it's head was peeking through the intestines, the fucker's shit-eating grin. The dog was still breathing, the blood was pouring out of it's mouth. I could still hear it wincing.

I tried to pick up the dog and move it outside, so I could try to figure out what to do with it, but when I touched the dog the elf jumped out of the dog's stomach and started climbing onto me, it's soft ping getting louder and louder. I threw the thing off of me, and ran out of the room as fast as I could. I slammed the door a little too loud, and my wife came out to see what had happened.

"Steve, what's going on?" she asked, looking down at my socks. "Is that blood?"

"No, Kara. It spilled some Hawaiian Punch trying to get the dog to settle down and go to sleep. Go back to bed." Still half asleep, she mumbled something, and shuffled back into our bedroom.

So here I sit, halfway through today, and the kids are asking where the elf is. I have the door where the dog is locked, and I have no clue what to do. Where will it go tomorrow night? God help me.

Submitted December 07, 2015 at 01:51AM by Expellionas http://ift.tt/1R3fuzi nosleep