Stop Eating

Stop eating is a scary story for children about an old woman whose grandson stuffs his face with food. It is based on a tale from Russia.

There was a young boy named Peter who lived with his mother in a run-down apartment building. His father had deserted the family shortly after he was born. His mother was a drug addict and she didn’t take care of Peter properly. The young boy often had to root around in rubbish bins to find something to eat.

One day, Peter came home to find his mother lying on the kitchen floor. She had died of a drug overdose. Nobody knew how to contact the boy’s father, so he was sent to live with his grandmother.

Peter’s grandmother loved him very much, but she was a poor woman and could barely afford to feed herself. She had a small kiosk near the train station where she sold cigarettes to passers-by and earned a meagre living.

Whenever she had some money, she would buy groceries and stock the fridge, but before she knew it Peter would eat everything in sight. Peter was like a starving animal. He couldn’t stop eating and stuffed his face with food until his cheeks looked like they were about to burst. It drove his grandmother to distraction.

“Peter!” she would shout. “You must stop eating! If you keep this up, you’re going to eat us out of house and home.”

But Peter couldn’t stop. Every day, while his grandmother was at work, he would clean out the fridge, then go hunting through the kitchen cupboards, searching for leftover food.

“Peter!” cried the grandmother. “I am a poor woman! If you don’t stop this, we will both starve to death!”

When Peter still didn’t listen to her warnings, the frustrated woman began to beat him. She didn’t want to hurt the boy, but she had to stop his binge eating. She was three months behind in the rent and there wasn’t a morsel of food in the apartment.

Peter became afraid of his grandmother and dreaded the beatings every time she came home. He began making plans to run away from home.

One day, Peter disappeared. His grandmother went around to all the neighbors, asking if they had seen him. She searched the neighborhood, knocking on doors and peeking in windows, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. Eventually, she went down to the police station and filed a missing persons report, but the police could not find the boy either.

A month passed, and suddenly, Peter returned. One morning, the grandmother heard a faint knock on the door of her apartment. She opened the door and saw her grandson standing there. His face was pale, his cheeks were sunken and his clothes were ragged. The old woman embraced him and hugged him tightly.

All Peter said to her was, “Grandma, I want to eat.”

The grandmother immediately opened the fridge and pulled out everything that was there – soup, salad, sausage. As the old woman boiled the soup, her grandson sat down at the table and began to eat. Peter stuffed his face with food, cramming it into his mouth until his cheeks were swollen. His grandmother was so glad to have him back, she didn’t say anything.

Just then, the old woman noticed something strange. Every time Peter opened his mouth, something fell out. She looked down at the table and saw a bunch of wriggling maggots. The old woman stared at him in horror.

“Where have you been, Peter?” she asked.

“You know, Grandmother,” he replied. “You know and I know where I have been.”

With these words, he rose from the table. The grandmother just sat there with her mouth open, staring at him. Peter staggered down the corridor and as he neared the front door, he collapsed and fell to the floor.

The grandmother ran over and gathered the boy in her arms, but he wasn’t moving. His skin was grey and he looked like death. The old woman was frightened and placed her grandson on the sofa. Then, she called the doctor.

While she waited for help to arrive, she dashed from corner to corner, grabbing the boy by the hand checking his pulse, but Peter showed no signs of life.

Finally, the doctor arrived. He bent over the boy to take a closer look at him, then suddenly straightened up.

“Old Woman!” he exclaimed in horror. “This boy has been dead for weeks! Look, he’s already begun to rot. His mouth full of maggots!”

The grandmother burst into tears and said that only half an hour ago, she had fed her grandson sausage, salad and a bowl of soup.

The doctor made a call. The young boy’s corpse was taken away, and his grandmother was taken to the police station. After an investigation, they decided that she had killed her grandson over a month ago, hitting him over the head with something heavy. The court found her insane and the old woman was sent to a psychiatric hospital to live out the remainder of her life…