I always thought cartoons were meant to make you laugh. That was the whole point, right? Slapstick comedy, silly sound effects, exaggerated chases. But I was wrong. Dead wrong.
It started when I found the old VHS tape.
I was cleaning out my late uncle’s attic when I stumbled upon a dusty cardboard box labeled “Cartoons – 1986.” Most of the tapes were standard stuff—Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo—but one stood out. It was unmarked, save for the crudely drawn image of Tom and Jerry on the label. But they didn’t look right.
Tom’s eyes were wide, bloodshot, and wild. Jerry’s teeth were jagged, almost fanged. They weren’t smiling. They were grinning—the kind of grin that made your stomach turn.
I should’ve left it alone.
I got home around midnight. It had been a long day, and for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about that weird tape. Curiosity overpowered caution, and I popped it into my old VCR.
The screen flickered. The title card appeared:
“Tom and Jerry: Hide and Shriek”
No cheerful theme song. No credits. Just silence.
The episode began like any other. Tom was asleep by the fireplace in a dimly lit living room, and Jerry peeked out from his hole in the wall. But something was… off. The animation was darker, more realistic. The shadows were heavy, and the silence was thick.
Then Jerry crept out with a knife.
A real knife. Not cartoonish. Shiny. Sharp.
He snuck up behind Tom—who was now twitching in his sleep—and held the knife to his throat. At the last second, Tom’s eyes snapped open, and he screamed. Not cartoon screaming. Human screaming. Raw and terrified.
The tape glitched, and the screen went black for a few seconds.
When it came back, the house looked different. Rotten, broken floorboards. Pictures on the walls melted or defaced. Tom was hiding under the bed, breathing heavily. Jerry was walking down the hallway, dragging the knife along the wall. The sound was sharp, unbearable.
He was hunting.
I wanted to turn the tape off, but I couldn’t move. My body felt paralyzed.
The scene cut again. Now Jerry was sitting at the dinner table. In front of him was something that looked like a severed tail. Tom’s tail. Jerry was eating it.
And he was laughing.
That awful, high-pitched giggle that echoed inside my skull. I turned off the tape, shaking, but the screen stayed on.
Jerry stared directly at the screen. At me.
“You’re next,” he whispered.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing footsteps in the hallway, scratching at the door. I lived alone. Every creak of the floorboards made my heart race. I told myself it was all in my head. Just a messed-up tape. That’s all.
The next morning, I threw the VHS into the trash. Took it outside. Made sure it was gone.
But the next night, it was back. Sitting on my coffee table.
The same label. Same creepy drawing.
I didn’t put it there.
Things got worse from there.
I started hearing the theme song faintly in my house. In the middle of the night. Slowed down. Distorted.
“Tom and Jerry…” the melody whispered, dragging out into dissonant horror.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw something behind me. A flicker of gray fur. A tail disappearing around the corner.
Then came the dreams.
I was in the cartoon house, but I couldn’t move. Tom was crawling on the floor, crying, his body covered in scratches and bite marks. “Help me,” he begged. “He won’t stop.”
Jerry appeared behind him, holding a hammer. With a sickening crunch, he brought it down on Tom’s head.
The screen filled with static—and then Jerry turned to me.
His eyes were empty holes.
I tried everything.
Burned the tape. It reappeared.
Smashed my TV. The screen still turned on at night.
I moved to a new apartment. It followed me.
I called a priest. He laughed at me—until he watched the tape. I never saw him again.
Two weeks later, I woke up to find my apartment completely trashed. Scratches covered the walls. Blood smeared across the floor spelled one word:
“PLAY.”
The tape was back in the VCR. Playing by itself.
I watched, unable to stop myself.
This time, the episode was different. It wasn’t about Tom and Jerry.
It was about me.
An animated version of myself walked down a hallway—my hallway. The animated Jerry followed close behind, dragging his knife, giggling.
Then the screen went black.
A voice whispered:
“Look behind you.”
I did.
Nothing was there. At first.
But the lights flickered. My ears popped, like pressure was building in the air. Then I heard it:
Scratching. Fast. Frenzied.
From inside the walls.
My body was frozen. My breath caught.
A panel in the wall burst open—and a small, twisted figure crawled out. Mouse-like. But wrong. Its fur was missing in patches. Its eyes bulged, veins twitching. Its mouth opened unnaturally wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
Jerry.
I screamed, but no sound came out.
He leapt at me.
I woke up in a hospital.
They told me I was found unconscious in my apartment, bleeding from deep gashes across my chest and arms. The wounds looked like they came from something small. Something with claws.
I told them what happened. They said I was hallucinating. Stress. Sleep deprivation. That’s all.
They don’t believe me.
But I know what I saw.
I know what’s still out there.
Last night, I heard scratching in the hospital walls.
The lights flickered.
And on the TV mounted in the corner… the screen turned on by itself.
Tom and Jerry: Hide and Shriek.
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