When my wife said I should tell this story, I told her she must be crazy. In the past, I have only told this tale to a small number of people, and none of them believed me. In fact, it took my wife twenty years to decide if she, herself, even wanted to believe it.

She smiled and looked at me the way a mother looks at a stubborn child. “I meant you should write it,” she said. “If you finish it and decide to send it out into the world, great. If not, lock it in a drawer and forget about it. Either way, it might help you put it to rest once and for all.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic. She knows how much this has weighed on me for most of my life, and I really do want to put it to rest. So here I sit in front of my computer, ready to put to word the story that has been a hindrance to me most of my life.

It’s really funny actually, how sometimes such a small meaningless act can affect a person permanently. For me, it was getting a simple glass of water in the middle of the night, but that’s actually not where this story really begins.

I was thirteen when we moved out of the house in town, and into the house in the country. The old house had just become too small and cramped, and my parents had always dreamed of living in the country. The new house was a good deal larger and had several acres with it.

I was excited because I would have a bigger room, more space outside to do whatever, and the awesome den my dad planned to turn into a rec room, sweetened the deal even more. Mom and Dad both had their reasons to be excited, but it was the aspect of putting in a garden, that had my mom ecstatic. She had gardened with her grandmother as a child, and it gave her many great memories. Now the thought of finally having her own brought everything full circle. Dad was just glad to be out of the “Damn City” as he referred to it, even though our town was far from large enough to be classified as such. Regardless of our various reasons, we all felt like it was a great opportunity.

That spring, my mom began work on her garden. Dad and I helped when we could, but it was hers, and she wanted to do most of the work herself. By the beginning of summer, the garden was planted with everything from squash, okra, green beans, tomatoes, and peppers.

“It’s only a matter of time before we have fresh veggies,” she excitedly told my dad and I at breakfast one morning. “I can’t wait.” Dad looked at me with a grin on his face. It had become a morning ritual for mom to go out to the garden as soon as she got out of bed. There, she checked the progress of every plant, making notes as to when the optimum time and date to pick would be. Then in the evening, she would turn around and do the same thing all over again. She was taking gardening to a whole new level, and my dad and I couldn’t help but see the humor in it.

It went that way for the next couple of weeks, then one morning, Mom came in from the garden in a fluster. “Something ate all of my squash,” she said. “They would have been ready this morning, but when I went out to pick them, they were all gone. Every damn one of them.” Dad laid down his newspaper. “Maybe rabbits,” he told her. “We live far enough out of town. It could even be deer.” Mom stared at him with a look that could melt steel. “I don’t care what kind of animal it is,” she told Dad. “I just want them out of my garden.” Dad and I looked at one another. I could tell there was a trip to the hardware store coming up in the near future.

About two hours later, Dad and I had returned and were finishing up installing a plastic wildlife fence around Mom’s garden. As we worked, Mom sat on the back patio drinking a glass of iced tea. “Let’s see the bastards get through that,” she said to no one in particular at one point. Dad looked at me with a look that said “hope this works.”

For the next week, the fence did work. Dad and I both felt relieved by its success. He had even assured Mom that the problem had been solved, but one morning, I was awakened by my mom’s upset voice coming from the kitchen. I got out of bed and cautiously and went to see what had happened.

As I entered the kitchen, I saw mom sitting at the table, trying to be calm, but it was obviously not working. She stared at me as I walked in. “They ate my tomatoes,” she said with ice in her voice. “They just broke right through the damn fence.” I didn’t say anything. Instead, I went out the backdoor to the garden.

I walked around the fence and finally found where the mystery critter had broken in. I just stood there staring. It didn’t make any sense. The fence didn’t look like it had been busted through at all; it looked cut. I pulled the two sides back together. It was definitely cut, and it ran up about three feet from the ground to just under the top of the five-foot-tall fence.

I decided to keep this discovery to myself. Mom was already pretty upset, and I sure didn’t want to stir the pot even more. Needless to say, Dad and I went back to the hardware store once he got home from work that afternoon. This time we returned with a roll of six-foot-tall, heavy-duty poultry fencing, and steel t-posts.

As Dad and I put up the new fence, Mom looked on in silence. We hoped like hell this fence worked because it was obvious this was becoming an obsession with her.

After two weeks with no incident, Dad and I had decided that maybe the storm was finally over, but to our misfortune, it was only beginning.

It was a Sunday and we sat at the table. Mom was cooking omelets for breakfast. “I bet there are some nice juicy bell peppers ready in the garden,” she said excitedly. “I’ll be right back.” She ran out the back door. Dad sat the paper down and we looked at each other. Before either of us could think much less speak, there was a frustrated scream from the garden. “Oh shit,” Dad said getting up from the table. “Come on son. Let’s go see what happened.”

We joined Mom by the garden. “Hun, you okay?” Dad asked her. She didn’t speak but only pointed. The fence was still intact, but there were vegetables missing all over the garden. “You still think it’s a rabbit?” Mom asked Dad with unveiled contempt. Before he could answer, she turned and left.

We went back to the hardware store. On the way there, Dad talked about how he had been wrong about the rabbits, that maybe it was raccoons instead. They had been known to climb fences. It didn’t matter what was getting into the garden. I just knew I wanted to stop it so that Mom could relax again.

We were back home a little while later with an electric fence charger and wire to put at the top of the fence. We both hoped the third time was the charm.

That night after dinner, I was in my room reading a book. I could hear Mom and Dad talking in their bedroom. Actually, they were arguing. Mom was telling Dad that she didn’t think he wasn’t taking the issues with the garden seriously, and Dad was telling her that he thought he was taking it pretty damn seriously considering he had been to the hardware store several times to buy more stuff. After listening to them for a while, I decided that I would take matters in my own hands. I would wake up before either of them in the morning and check the garden. Maybe I would be able to either catch the culprit or at least put things back in order before Mom could see it. I set my alarm for 5:30 AM. That should give me plenty of time to fix anything amiss.

When the alarm went off the next morning, I grabbed my flashlight and quietly went out the back door. At first, there was nothing out of the ordinary, but when I got to the backside of the garden, I found something even more confusing than when the fence was cut. A furrow had been dug out under the fence. This in itself wasn’t anything strange, but what was strange was the forked stick that had been wedged under the fence to hold it up, and give the intruder enough room to crawl under. No animal I knew of could have done this, but the opening wasn’t even close to large enough for a person to fit through. I crouched down and pulled the stick out of the hole. The fence dropped right back into place with minimal damage.

I gave the stick a closer inspection and realized it had been carved into its current shape. “What the hell?” I asked myself. I shined the flashlight on the freshly dug earth, hoping to find any prints or other traces of the offender. There were none. Whatever had done this, had been smart enough to erase any tracks it could have left in the dirt, but yet it hadn’t put the fence back into place. Maybe I had interrupted it before it could.

I filled in the hole, checked the fence one more time, and turned to head back to the house. As I was passing the fence charger, I had an Idea. I unplugged it and went into the tool shed. I cut a length of wire, then I connected the hot wire to the rest of the fence. Once finished, I plugged the charger back in. “Try messing with it now asshole,” I said to myself. I went inside and crawled back in bed.

Later on, when I got up, I found Mom in the kitchen reading a magazine. She seemed to be in a decent mood, and never mentioned anything about the garden, and I wasn’t about to bring it up. The rest of the day went by uneventfully, but there was still a good bit of tension between her and Dad.

After they went to bed, I stayed up to watch a movie in the living room but ended up falling asleep on the couch.

I’m not sure what time it was when I woke up, but I had slept long enough for the movie to be over. I decided I better go to bed, but first I wanted a glass of water.

I walked to the kitchen, got a glass from the cabinet, and filled it at the sink. I was just about to take a drink when I heard a loud pop, followed but a strange yelp. I went to the backdoor and looked out at the garden. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Standing by the garden fence was a little man. He was an ugly little creature with warty, olive-colored skin, and he stood about two feet tall. His patchwork clothes looked like they were made from the fur of squirrels, skunks, and other small animals.

The little man held one of his hands to his chest and was speaking furiously in a language I couldn’t understand, but I could make a pretty good guess as to what it was. He’d touched the fence and received a pretty good shock, and now he was cursing in pain.

I watched unnoticed as the creature circled the fence, looking for any vulnerable place to get through it. Every so often he would touch the fence again and receive another shock. With each failed attempt to gain entry, the little man became angrier and watching him, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of evil surrounding him.

After about five minutes, the little man came around the corner of the garden and stopped. He was looking toward the back door where I stood watching. I took a step back, trying to conceal myself better, but I could tell from the look on his face that he could see me.

I wasn’t sure if it was because he had been seen, or because of his anger over not gaining entry into Mom’s garden, but regardless, he stared at me with a look of extreme hatred. The creature pointed in my direction and began coming towards me. He stopping about halfway between the house and the garden, then he said something in his language. Once again I didn’t understand him, but the intention was clear. He was threatening me. When he finished speaking, the creature turned and ran back towards the woods.

I stood there for a moment trying to process what had just happened. This was unbelievable. It had never been an animal stealing things from Mom’s garden at all. It was this creature, but what was it? I didn’t know, but I hoped it would stay away now that it had been discovered. I placed my glass on the counter and went up to bed.

That night my sleep was restless. I kept dreaming of the creature. In some of them, he was pointing and hurling his curses at me. In another one, he stood over my sleeping body, holding a small dagger to my throat. Upon waking from each dream, the more the feeling of dread surrounding the little man grew.

For days after that, I thought of telling my dad about the creature, but in the end, I decided not to. I knew he wouldn’t believe me. I would have to get down to the bottom of this on my own.

One day, I rode my bike into town. Maybe I could find something out about the creature at the public library. I searched the stacks for about an hour before I came across a huge book about folklore. I checked it out and went back home.

That night, I sat on my bed and paged through the book, looking for any information about what the creature was and how to stop it. I was just about to give up for the night when I found something.

According to the book, the creature was a gnome. I couldn’t help but think of the little statues, with their bright clothing and pointed hats, that decorated peoples’ yards. The thought of the little creep dressed like a lawn gnome made me laugh. I continued reading.

The lore about gnomes was much darker. They were trouble makers and thieves but could be extremely vengeful when crossed.

Well, I had definitely crossed the thing. I had cut off its access to an easy food source and caused it to be zapped by electricity.

The book went on to say, the only way to get rid of a problem gnome was to kill it. “How am supposed to do that?” I asked myself.

I spent the next few days trying to come up with some sort of a plan, but after a week with no problems, I decided, maybe it wouldn’t be necessary.

That week turned into two, then three, and so on. Mom was finally able to enjoy her garden, and all the tension between her and my dad disappeared. I was hopeful the thing had given up and moved on, but in the back of my mind, I felt that this was just a calm before the storm.

By the time fall arrived and school started, I finally succeeded in putting the creature out of my mind.

With the gardening season over and fall in full swing, Mom’s new mission was to decorate the house. One afternoon she went out to the barn where her crafting supplies had been stored since the move, but in just a few minutes, she came through the backdoor like a thunderstorm.

“Well it looks like we have rats in the barn,” she said flustered. Apparently, the rodents had laid waste to the good majority of her craft supplies. “What hasn’t been chewed up, is covered in urine,” she finished aggravated. For the first time since summer ended, I thought about the creature. I hoped it wasn’t the culprit.

That evening during dinner, Mom told Dad about the rats. “It’s not uncommon to have a rat or two in an old barn like that,” he told us. “But with the weather getting colder, there’ll be more of them looking for a nice warm place to nest. I’ll stop by and get some traps on my way home from work tomorrow, then we’ll put them out. Maybe that’ll put an end to it.” Mom looked at Dad skeptically.

Her skepticism only grew the next afternoon when Dad arrived home with a pet carrier, instead of rat traps.

“I had planned to get the traps, but when I mentioned our rat problem to one of my coworkers, they suggested this instead.” He told us.

He sat the carrier down and opened the door. A black and white cat came cautiously out of the box. It approached and sniffed each of us, before finally rubbing on Mom’s ankles.

“You know how I feel about cats,” she said to Dad. “That doesn’t seem to bother him,” Dad replied grinning. “His name is Cosmo, and not only is he an expert rat catcher, but he’s also good at keeping snakes away.” Mom looked down at the cat. “I’ll give him a chance,” she said with defeat. “But the first rat I see that isn’t dead, Cosmo will be finding a new home.”

Pretty soon it was obvious the cat was here to stay. Cosmo was exactly what Dad had promised. If he wasn’t seen coming out of the barn with a fresh kill, he was in the field looking for prey there. The surprising thing, was even though Mom typically hated cats, she began to warm up to Cosmo quickly.

When his hunting was over for the day, he never went far from her side when she was outside, and if Mom was sitting on the back porch, he sat right at her feet.

Like I said, that late summer and early fall was pretty good, but things were about to change.

One Friday night, I had gone to a friend’s house to watch a movie. By the time I rode my bike into my driveway, it was after midnight. I wheeled the bike over to the side of the house and leaned it against the wall.

Dad usually left the back door unlocked for me if I came home late, so I started around to that side of the house.

I had just rounded the corner when I saw something lying on the back porch steps. I didn’t have a flashlight, but the moon was bright enough that I could make out what it was as I got closer.

It was Cosmo, or what was left of him. His head was missing and the rest of him was covered in blood. As I stared down at his corpse, something landed on the ground next to me. I looked at the object for a moment before I realized it was the cat’s head.

I was still staring down at it when I heard a sound behind me. I turned around to find the gnome behind me.

He stood about five feet away and held a small, blood-smeared dagger. He pointed the weapon at me, speaking an obvious threat, then he started coming towards me. I had to think fast.

I pulled my backpack off and threw it at him. I knew it was a longshot, but I hoped it would buy me enough time to get into the house. Unfortunately, in my haste, I forgot an important detail, and as I turned to run up the steps, I stumbled over the dead cat’s body and ended up sprawled on the porch.

I tried to get back to my feet, but before I could, the gnome was right there.

He lunged at me while slashing with his knife. I had just enough time to raise my leg and kick the creepy, little bastard, sending him flying. At the same time, I felt a searing pain on my leg. He must have cut me during the scuffle.

I got to my feet and looked around for the little troll. My kick had knocked him about ten feet out into the yard, but he was getting back up already.

He spat a curse at me as he made another slashing motion with the knife. It was only a matter of time before he resumed his attack, so I needed something to use as a weapon. I looked around the porch and saw the antique iron my mom used as a doorstop. I picked it up and hurled it at the gnome. The iron hit him square in the chest, and he dropped the knife as he fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Before the gnome could get up, I ran for the knife. I snatched it up on the run and jumped on the evil creature. He thrashed under me like a madman while spitting curses at me. I wasted no time and buried the little knife in his chest. After a moment he quit moving, and I was certain the gnome was dead.

I took his body to the edge of the woods and threw him in as far as I could. Hopefully, something would eat the little creep. I turned, walked back to the house, picked my bag up, and went in.

I walked into the bathroom to look at the wound on my leg. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it was bleeding like crazy. I doctored it with alcohol and wrapped it with a bandage, then I quietly went down the hall to my room. My parents didn’t even stir as I walked by their door. I couldn’t believe they’d slept through all the commotion.

I got out of my clothes and slipped into bed. I felt so bad about Cosmo. Mom had really started to like him, and now he was dead, but at least Cosmo’s death hadn’t been in vain.

As I came into the kitchen the next morning, I found Dad and Mom sitting at the table. I could tell from the way they acted that they must have found Cosmo. I sat down. “Is everything ok?” I asked playing dumb.

Dad looked at me with a frown. “Something killed Cosmo last night,” he said. “Did you see him when you came home?”

I thought quickly. “I didn’t see Cosmo, but there was a coyote in the yard,” I said. “It was sniffing around, and when I tried to scare it away, it got mad instead, and scratched me.” I showed them my bandaged leg. “I thought it was going to attack me again, so then I threw the doorstop at it. After that, it left, but I guess it must have come back.” I said with sadness.

Mom walked over and hugged me. “It’s ok son,” she said drearily. “I know you tried your best, but next time you see a wild animal, come get me or your dad,” I promised I would, while mentally sighing with relief. I hated lying to them, but as I’ve said, they would’ve never believed me about the gnome.

As I sit looking at the words in front of me, I am relieved to say my wife was right. With this story told, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

Some of you reading this will think this sounds too crazy to be true, but I assure you it happened, and I’ll give you a word of advice. Never piss off a garden gnome.