August 1979

Rat-a-tat-tat went the door.

"Can you get that Don?" Mary shouted from upstairs.

"I've got it," said the head of the household jumping up swiftly.

"Strange, there's no one there," he muttered as he stepped onto the porch.

He surveyed the garden only to see the mutilated bloody remains of their dog, Bobby.

"Holy shit! What the...?"

He was cut off mid sentence when a small handled garden fork was thrust through his neck, spraying blood eight feet like an out of control sprinkler.
He managed a small scream which alerted his two sons before staggering around and collapsing on to the perfectly kept lawn.

"Oh my god! Dad!" cried Steve the elder of the two boys. "What's happened!? Who's done this!?"

"Mark! Mark!" He bellowed through stinging eyes.

He raced to his father's aid but he was already dead as the red liquid pumped from his jugular and turned the light green grass a deep crimson.

As his brother Mark came to answer his cries for help, they heard several strange mischievous cackles and looking out onto the lawn they were greeted by an army of gnomes.

"Duck," yelled Steve as a spade flew through the air. Mark dropped to the floor and turned his head and watched as the spade whizzed past and cut the top off his mum's head who had stepped out of the front door to see what all the commotion was about.

Her mouth gaped open but nothing came out, there was just a blank expression on her face, then she fell in a crumpled heap on the floor, her legs folded underneath her.

The boys were paralysed with shock and fear, the gnomes moved with deadly purpose.

The boys screamed, and the gnomes cackled some more as they peeled the skin from their dead mother's face, exposing the muscle and sinew and plucked her eyes out with sticks of bamboo. The eyeballs had popped when they punctured and dripped gooey mess like when you toast marshmallows on a camping trip as a kid. They danced around with them like some kind of trophy.
The sound of sawing gained the boys attention and looking back at their father they screamed at the sight of a hacksaw wielding gnome rapidly cutting off their dad's fingers.

Mark was still on the floor and his horror turned to shock as a screwdriver was slammed through his achilles heel on his right foot followed by another cracking through his left knee cap. He screamed in agony when a hunters knife stabbed him in the groin and louder still when a lump hammer bounced off his skull and splintered and shattered it. The gnomes shrieked with murderous glee as a fountain of blood cascaded into the air.

"I'm coming Mark! hang on!" Steve desperately tried to help but was fended off by three gnomes armed with pitchforks.

"Help me," pleaded Mark as he was bludgeoned in the chest and neck with wooden stakes.
His cries for help turning to a blood curdling scream as his eyes were plucked out with a pair of long noses pliers and popped under the pressure.

Steve tried in vain to reach his younger brother, a pitchfork stabbed him in the quad, another in the stomach and one in his bicep.
Steve soaked in his brother's blood retreated and panic stricken he stumbled for the garage where his father kept the ride on lawn mower.

He shot out of the shed like he was coming off the grid at the Grand Prix just as the gnomes had completely skinned his now dead sibling. He chased the evil imps around the garden, they were stumbling over each other to get out of the way. He got two in one pass and was chasing down another when something landed on his back.
The excruciating pain ripped through him as a pair of secateurs entered him between the shoulder blades.
He reached back as best as he could to grab the gnome off him, who twice more plunged the tool in scraping his bones as it did so.
A struggle ensued and he grabbed the gnome and threw it in the fish pond with a splash, gurgling and blowing bubbles as it sank down. Several laps of the garden later and each one had been left chewed up, spat out, and were strewn all over the lawn.

He exited the mower and collapsed on the grass, barely able to breath, barely able to comprehend what had just happened to him and his family.

"It's all over," he reassured himself. Tears streaming down his cheeks. The pain unbearable. He inhaled deeply and tried to regain some composure. He looked up at the clear night sky and imagined himself somewhere tranquil and safe.

Wham! A plant pot smashed over his head and grabbing a broken piece of it, the dripping wet gnome who had landed in the pond tried to slash at his throat.
Steve grasped a screwdriver and repeatedly jabbed it in the face, shattering it into tiny fragments.

"It's all over," he repeated as he sat up to look at his mutilated family.

An almighty roar brought him back to his senses, and he sharply turned to face the direction from which it came.

The two lion head busts on the pillars either side of the electronic gate at the front of the drive looked straight at him.

They roared again in unison as Cupid sat perched on the fountain in the centre of the garden cocked his bow and shot an arrow through the back of Steve's head and out of his right eye.

The silence was broken by the deep chuckling of a Buddha in the rockery and the wail of distant sirens.