Hamster Graveyard
mini mini horror flash fiction
Apr 23, 2026 · 3 min read
There were two play areas behind the Totty-Tots Daycare Center, plus a special area devoted to remembering our little friends. A nice little garden with petunias and small mounds decorated with colorful shells and glass beads.
Julietta carried out Looloo-Rose the hamster, wrapped in a red velvet cloth from the scrap chest. She was weeping, just like all the other children in the group - except for Roger. Molly knew that it was good for the kids to express their sadness for a while, before she got on with the task of consoling them.
Just as Julietta passed the threshold Molly started the music on her cellphone and it surged through the speakers mounted to the exterior walls over the playground.
Happy music that was also sad. Sad music that somehow expressed the hopeful rising of the sun. She led the singing and all the kids joined in - except Roger.
Goodbye to you Looloo
Goodbye goodbye Looloo
See you soon
With sun and moon
Goodbye our friend Looloo
Julietta lowered the red velvet bundle into the little hole and the kids started filling it in with their plastic shovels. The weeping had stopped and some of the kids were even smiling at the kindness they were doing for their little friend Looloo-Rose the Hamster, helping her get to her new home. The sun was breaking through and there was a special silver kind of light in the rainy air of the afternoon.
Look, everyone! said Molly. That ray of sunlight is Looloo going to hamster heaven.
Yes, the kids were smiling now. They were happy, consoled.
Except for Roger with his dark scowl that said I know about your lies.
It was just when Roger’s mommy Hubie was leading him away at home-time that he turned round to Molly and murmured Not dead. This time that scowl of his was also somehow a crooked kind of smile. Not really dead.
What? called out Molly, but Hubie and Roger were already out the front door. She could run after them and ask that the boy explain his words, but what kind of kindergarten educator goes screaming after her three-year-old pupils in the street demanding that they make themselves clear?
Besides, he’d made himself clear enough. Looloo-Rose the Hamster wasn’t dead at all.
Molly had led the children in a sick travesty of a pet funeral and had made lovely Julietta bury the creature alive. Something in her screamed, but she carried on grinning like a horrorshow doll at the kids as they marched out of the door with their mommies and daddies.
Only when the last one had walked out, when the door was safely shut behind them, did she scream for real.
The little yellow plastic shovel went up and down, up and down. Clods of earth and sprays of soil were scattered all about. Up and down, up and down, the yellow playtime spade goes up and down.
Molly saw the dirty corner of the rag of red velvet in the dirt and grabbed for it. But a tiny claw reached out and grabbed her finger. A hiss then she heard, a tiny angry exhalation of air. But not just one.
Hisses and croaks and caw-caw-caws broke out from all around her. The soil was crumbling away.
From the small mounds adorned with shells and beads all about the garden of remembrance, small claws were reaching out, beaks and yellow wings soiled with mud, white bunny ears encrusted with mold.
The little friends were all returning.
===={ MEMORIAL GARDEN // ENDS }====
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