“Wow, our daughter has the weirdest imagination,” my wife said, getting into bed next to me, laughing.

“What do you mean?” I asked, wanting in on the joke.

Allie was a very young child and still figuring out the world. Her questions were often very perplexing and sometimes hilarious.

“She asked if we could use the toenail clippers to trim our teeth!”

“Well, that’s a horrifying mental image,” I replied. “What did you tell her?”

“I said that would be dangerous and she shouldn’t try. But that it probably wouldn’t work. Honestly I wasn’t really sure.”

“Wow, that’s one for the record books. It’s almost as bad as last week when she asked where hell was and when she could go back there.”

“Yeah, that freaked me out. I’ve had nightmares ever since,” my wife said, laying down in bed. “Alright, that’s enough of this creepy talk. I’ve gotta be up early tomorrow.”

She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Soon after I followed suit.

The next morning I woke up to screams.

My wife was screeching from beside me and my daughter was standing in the doorway of our bedroom holding hands with her little brother.

“It worked, mommy!” She was yelling. “It really, really worked!”

Her teeth had been CUT by the toenail clippers in her hand (who knew it was possible?) And now they were little triangle-shaped piranha teeth, not the teeth of a little girl.

Her brother’s looked the same. Their demon grins smiled wider at the sight of our horrified faces.

“Don’t our teeth look fancy now, mommy? See, I knew this was a good idea!”

“No! This was a terrible idea! Why would you do this to yourself and your brother!?” My wife screamed.

My daughter didn’t seem even remotely remorseful.

“I thought it would make us look more like daddy!”

“What do you mean, sweetie?” I asked. “My teeth don’t look like that.”

“Not you, silly,” she said, giggling. “Our real daddy! Hell Daddy!”

Her eyes flashed red for a second and she flashed a wide grin with her pointed needle teeth.

“Wanna meet him?”