It was only after we’d arrived at the beach that I realised I’d forgotten to pack my son’s swimming shorts. It was such a lovely sunny morning, however, that he was happy to run, jump, build sandcastles, and paddle around in the sea in his underwear.

By the time we were ready to leave, his pants were unsurprisingly soggy and covered in sand, so before getting in the car I decided to get him into a change of clothes. It wasn’t easy keeping him still following the excitement of the beach.

After I’d wrapped a towel around him, I flung his wet pants over the top of my head, and they landed with a slap on the car bonnet. My son seemed to find this amusing, and I hoped it might help to dry the pants whilst I wrestled the slippery pigeon back into his jogging bottoms.

Loaded up and strapped in, we set off, but I’d only driven a short distance, when something slid up the windscreen and disappeared over the roof of the car. It was only then I realised I’d left my five-year-old’s pants on the bonnet.

Arriving home, I found my wife hanging out washing in the garden. She asked if we’d had a good time at the beach, and I debated whether to mention the missing pants when my jaw dropped.

She’d just pegged out a small pair of light blue pants featuring cartoon giraffes—the very pair of pants my son had been wearing on the beach that morning. The pair I’d left on the bonnet, and had flown through the air and knocked an old lady off her bike!

I told her I was hot and needed to go inside for a sit down. For the rest of the afternoon, I stared out of the window at the pants drying on the line. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for their reappearance. As much as I tried to hide from the truth, there was but one explanation—the pants were evil—and they needed to be destroyed!

That evening, I told my wife I was going for a stroll. Then, whilst she was giving our son his bath, I found the accursed pants within a pile of clean laundry. Picking them up with a pair of tongs, I placed them inside an old shoebox, and carried them away from the house.

When I got to the woods, I dug a hole, placed the box inside, doused it with cooking oil and struck a match. Once the flames had died down, I filled the hole and returned home, glad to be rid of the unholy underwear.

And that was the end of the whole strange affair.

OR SO I THOUGHT!!

A few weeks later, as I was eating breakfast, my son ran into the room wearing nothing but his pants. I nearly choked on my coco-pops. These were not just any pants—he was wearing THE PANTS! The light blue pants featuring cartoon giraffes!! The pants I’d burnt and buried in the woods had returned to haunt me—like the monkey’s paw, but in the form of novelty underwear!!!

I screamed at my son to take them off. Hearing the commotion, my wife ran into the room. I pointed towards the pants. “They’ve returned!” I yelled. “They are the Devil’s pants!!!”

She said she didn’t know what I was on about, but informed me the pants our son was wearing were a pair she’d recently ordered online — as both pairs of his favourite cartoon giraffe pants had somehow gone missing.

“Both?” I replied. “What do you mean both?”

She called me a name I don’t care to repeat, then ushered my son from the room to help him put on the rest of his clothes, trying to avert a debilitating underwear phobia in our traumatised child, terrified by my reaction to him proudly show off his new pants.

It was only after we’d arrived at the beach that I realised I’d forgotten to pack my son’s swimming shorts. It was such a lovely sunny morning, however, that he was happy to run, jump, build sandcastles, and paddle around in the sea in his underwear.

By the time we were ready to leave, his pants were unsurprisingly soggy and covered in sand, so before getting in the car I decided to get him into a change of clothes. It wasn’t easy keeping him still following the excitement of the beach.

After I’d wrapped a towel around him, I flung his wet pants over the top of my head, and they landed with a slap on the car bonnet. My son seemed to find this amusing, and I hoped it might help to dry the pants whilst I wrestled the slippery pigeon back into his jogging bottoms.

Loaded up and strapped in, we set off, but I’d only driven a short distance, when something slid up the windscreen and disappeared over the roof of the car. It was only then I realised I’d left my five-year-old’s pants on the bonnet.

My wife wasn’t going to be pleased if I lost his pants, especially his favourite pair (light blue with cartoon giraffes) but when I pulled over and looked on the roof, the pants were gone. The slug trail indicated their direction of travel.

I told my son not to move, and that I’d only be away for a few seconds. As I was looking back down the road, I noticed a bicycle lying across the pavement beside a large bush. Out of the bush emerged an elderly lady. She’d obviously taken a tumble and was pulling bits of twig from her clothing. I ran over to see if she needed assistance. She assured me that she was fine, and explained how she’d been cycling along when something smacked her in the face. Then she held the something up. It was my son’s sodden, sand-encrusted underpants.

I tried to appear appalled. Which, to be fair, I was. She eyeballed me, then asked straight out if the pants belonged to me. I made a joke about them being too small, then fibbed that I’d stopped to see if she needed help. Fortunately, she was unharmed. Unfortunately, as I returned to the car, she hurled the pants into the bush.

Photo (and mother)- writers own

Issue One

What Scares You?

THE PANTS MUST DIE!

About the author

Allan Miller

Neither Fish Nor Foul