Money Grubber

This was back when live burials were common. Bells would often be placed above a grave with a string leading into the coffin so a person could ring for help should they wake up from a deep sleep, buried. Alive. Bells were made of metal, though, and not so easy to come by—and it certainly was not cheap in those days as there were wars going on and metal was needed for bullets. John, being a stingy man, refused to pay for a bell in the case of his burial.

“I’ll be dead,” John said gruffly to the attorney helping John write his living will. “What need would I have of making music?”

“Very good, sir,” the attorney said looking oddly pleased as he jotted a note down.

With that, the two finished for the night. John’s office was all but buried in paperwork because of the time he had taken off to work on that blasted last will-and-testament. By the time he finally got out of the office the sun had set. He realized he hadn’t seen the sun all day, being cooped up in the office as he was, discussing the grim topic of his inevitable death.

John decided to walk home since the trains had stopped running for the night and he refused to pay for a carriage. He passed a hungry looking child and though his pockets were full of more coins than he could spend in a month, he didn’t give the child any money with which to buy food to eat. John simply flicked a coin in the air and caught it again. The boy’s hungry eyes followed it as John placed it back in his pocket.

John laughed and said, “Get a job, boy.” He passed closed businesses and dark houses until he heard a gathering just ahead. Just down at the bottom of a very large flight of stairs there was a party going on. Wasting coin on food and drink for rotten company and music—John scoffed. He’d never spend a penny on entertainment.

The city bells tolled to signal that it was midnight. The sound startled John. His loafers had little grip, so when he came upon a puddle just before a steep set of stairs, he slipped, distracted by the loud bells. He stumbled and tumbled and plummeted down those stairs. For so long he fell that he was met with the blackness before hitting the bottom. He was knocked out cold.

Those who saw and the doctor, too, must’ve thought John was dead, for he awoke in a small wooden box. It was too dark to see that it was wood, but he could feel it with his finger tips: the grains, the knots, the solidness of it. He’d picked the coffin out himself just the week before, so he knew it at once. It was cheap and bare.  Suddenly it set in: the realization that he had been buried alive!

Hours passed, or so it seemed. It felt like so very long with so very little to do. Every now and then, John would shout for help, but thought better of it after a few tries. No one would hear through six feet of dirt and he’d just waste his air. The only sounds John could hear were his breathing and the twiddling of his thumbs. Besides this there was only silence.

He thought the silence was the worst part—worse than the cold, worse than the hard walls that hugged his shoulders too tightly—that is until he heard the slinking of wet bodies and the nibbles of toothless mouths at the coffin walls. As time wore on, he heard more of the sounds. Wet, disgusting sounds and nibbling. Every so often John heard the loud crack of splitting wood. He feared that the earth would collapse on him at any moment.

After a particularly loud crack he heard a light, soggy slap on the coffin floor. Then another, then two more, and so on. He felt small, slimy bodies climbing up his arms and onto his chest, and then, to John’s great surprise, they spoke.

“We are the worms and we’ve come to feast on your flesh!”

“Please don’t!” John said, terrified, for he could not move in so tight a space. “I’ll give you money.”

“Money! Money! What use have we of money?” they sang in chorus.

“I’ll give you my time, then.”

“Your time?” they asked, confused. John could hear one stifle a laugh.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m a lawyer, an important man up there.” He tried to point up, but couldn’t in the tight space. “If you wish to sue someone I can lend you my ear and my advice. Time is money after all!”

“Pff!” The worms spit mouthfuls of dirt and wood on John’s face. “Money! Money! We have no use of money!”

“What, then?” John asked the worms. “What do you want?”

“We want to devote our time to your soft flesh. It’s the only thing of any value that you have left down here.”

John had saved a lot of money—never being charitable, never paying for luxury or entertainment, or even a hot meal with friends—and now it would do him no good. He hadn’t even fond memories to look back on to distract him as he was devoured. He wished he had spent the money on the coffin bell after all. At the very least.

He screamed a few times before he realized once more that no one would hear. It was then that he heard it: the bells. Tiny, muffled tings. The whole rest of the graveyard seemed to be resounding with the bells. They pealed with their calls for help. It was a lot of graves to dig up and the gravedigger wouldn’t think to unbury John with so many bells all ringing out at once. Perhaps the bells wouldn’t bring help at all. Perhaps the others had wasted money on them. Perhaps, John thought, not without a little cruel pleasure, the others were just making music to fall on deaf ears.

No, that wasn’t quite true. The worms would have music to eat to. In any case, John thought, the bells tolled for him.

 

Skeleton in the Closet

by Russell J. Dorn

It started when Felipe got an F on his report card. Rather than bring the card to his parents, he buried it under a pile of several coats in his closet. He hoped they’d never find it. This might have been the end of it, if he hadn’t come home to his father cleaning the following day.

“That’s all right, dad,” Felipe said in an attempt to keep his father out of his closet. It would be nice to have help cleaning, but he had a secret to keep. “I can do it myself.”

“Thought I’d help you clean your closet next, Sport,” his father said from behind the vacuum.

“Nonsense!” his father said. “I’m in a cleaning mood and many hands make light work. I’ll be there in a minute.”

After putting down his backpack, Felipe raced to his closet. Opening it, he jumped back, surprised. It might have been mistaken for a trick of the light or a Halloween decoration, but it wasn’t. It was a real skeleton. The skeleton sat atop the pile of coats. In its bony hand was Felipe’s report card.

“Tsk! Tsk!” the skeleton tapped the report card with the small bone of its index finger as it spoke. Even without lungs or a throat the skeleton had a heavy, breathy voice. The skeleton’s speech was as broken as its bony body. It paused where it shouldn’t have and broke the words up like the joints of its own frame—femur to tibia, mandible to cranium, ‘skeleton’ to ‘ske’le’ton.’ It was a little difficult to understand it at first. “An F in math’ma’tics? What a s’hame. Your fat’her will be an’gry.”

Felipe felt a great fear of the talking skeleton, but strangely he felt more fear of his parents knowing his grades, as well as knowing he had hidden them.

“Don’t wo’rry,” the skeleton said. “I’ll keep your se’cret for ‘a s’in.”

“My secret for a sin?”

“Yes, but you must ag’ree first.”

“All right,” Felipe said. “I agree.”

Though the skeleton had no fleshy cheeks with which to do so, it seemed to smile. It said, “Knock that vase ov’er there to the fl’oor.”

Felipe looked where the skeleton pointed. The vase was his mother’s favorite. It stood atop a narrow table in the hall so that she could see it every day. It would not go unmissed.

“You’d bet’ter hu’rry,” the skeleton said as Felipe shut the closet door on him.

The skeleton was right—Felipe didn’t have much time. Just as he was darting out of his room, his father came down the hall. “Careful now, Felipe. No running,” his father said and Felipe stopped running until his father rounded the corner; then he ran the rest of the way to the vase. Standing in front of the glass container, he wrestled with his new choice: break a vase and keep his secret, or save his mother the heartache of losing an heirloom and take his punishment for his bad grade.

His father entered Felipe’s room.

He moved to the closet door.

He raised his hand to the closet handle—Felipe could hear its familiar rattle. Slowly, his father turned the handle.

          CRASH!

The heirloom vase fell to the floor with a great shattering sound. Felipe’s father came at once to see the damage.  His face went white. The vase was in several dozen pieces.

“Sorry! I was running,” Felipe lied, “and it fell over. I couldn’t catch it.”

His father sighed and took his own head into his hands.  It seemed as if he was trying to keep his anger from escaping out of his ears. After a moment, he said, “Accidents happen. I’ll clean this up. You get to work on your closet. A fully cleaned house might help your mother be less upset when she finds out.”

Felipe did as he was told. It took him quite a while to get all of the coats and socks put away. The skeleton stood in the corner of the closet the entire time, watching. It still held the report card. As Felipe was finishing up vacuuming the closet, he heard his mother come in the front door. He could hear her weep a little after speaking to his father. It was clear she’d been told about the vase. Then Felipe heard his mother walking towards his room. His heartbeat quickened.

With the closet clean, there was nowhere left to hide the report card, not to mention a full-sized skeleton! Besides, the skeleton still held the report card in its bony hands and didn’t seem likely to give it up. The report card held power over Felipe, after all.

His mother’s footsteps resounded from the hall.

“I’ll keep your se’cret for ‘a s’in,” the skeleton said.

“All right!” Felipe said, urgently. “What is it? What would you have me do?”

“S’moke this cig’a’rette.” The skeleton held out a lit cigarette. The smell of it infiltrated the closet in an instant. There would be no hiding it like he might be able to hide the F on his report card. Reluctantly, Felipe took the cigarette in his mouth. As he did, the Skeleton withdrew into the dark corner of the closet. The door opened and Felipe looked at his mother. Her mouth was wide open. Angrily, she snatched the cigarette and threw it in the nearby sink.

“What has gotten into you?” she said and set about digging through the dresser drawers looking for more cigarettes. “Where did you get that cigarette?”

Felipe had to think fast or she’d discover the skeleton in the closet—and his report card! “From Thomas next door! It was only the one.”

She stopped digging through his sock drawer.

“We’ll just see what he has to say about that,” his mother said and walked away. She shouted from down the hall, “You’re grounded!” A few minutes later she returned with Thomas. Thomas refused to admit he’d given Felipe the cigarette. He hadn’t, after all, but Felipe had to get him to take the blame. Since their stories didn’t line up, Felipe’s mother told them to take a minute to talk it over and come to the truth. She left and Felipe brought Thomas into the closet to muffle their voices in case his mother was listening.

“You have to tell them you gave the cigarette to me,” pleaded Felipe.

“No way! No way would I do that! Just tell them the truth,” Thomas said and stormed back out of the closet.

Before Felipe could call after him or stop him, he heard the skeleton say, “I’ll keep your se’cret for ‘a s’in.”

“All right!” Felipe said, desperately. “What would you have me do?”

“Push him.”

Thomas was making his way across the bedroom towards the door to the hall when Felipe caught him. Felipe shoved him and Thomas stumbled forward. After hitting his head against the door, Thomas fell to the floor. There, he didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.

“Goodness! What happened?” Felipe’s mother demanded when she opened the door to see Thomas on the floor.

“H-h-he tripped,” Felipe lied.

“We have to call the police,” his mother said to his father. “And an ambulance!”

After Thomas was carried away on a stretcher, a police officer came in and asked Felipe’s parents some questions. Felipe would be the next one to be questioned, he knew. The cop would know he was a liar. He wanted to run—to hide! Sneaking back into the closet, he closed the door behind him to find the skeleton waiting for him.

Felipe was panicking now. He was going to go to jail!

“I’ll keep your se’cret for your skin,” the skeleton said.

“All right—” Felipe said before he realized the skeleton had said something different this time. It was too late. He had already agreed. He went to the closet door to escape, but it wouldn’t open. The skeleton was on him before he could scream. Even without muscles the skeleton was strong… Only the skeleton did have muscles now. It was Felipe who did not. The skeleton had eyes and hair and skin now, too! Felipe’s eyes and hair and skin. It was Felipe who was now the skeleton. The former skeleton finished pulling up the skin of Felipe’s legs as if it was a pair of jeans. Felipe watched with hollow eye sockets as the thief stuffed the last of his guts into a flap of belly it then sealed shut.  Then his world went dark as a coat was tossed over his skull. A few more coats were tossed on him until he was buried under a pile of coats.

Felipe then realized that he’d likely never see the sun again. He’d cry, but the skeleton from the closet had stolen his tear ducts. He knew that the freshly skinned skeleton would do anything to keep Felipe a secret. He’d probably even skin his parents, if they figured out that it wasn’t the real Felipe beneath their son’s skin. He might enjoy a different skin for each day of the week.

Suddenly, that F in math didn’t seem so terrible.