Skellington

I hadn't slept for three nights. Ever since I killed Brown. Each night my rest was disturbed by a noise like sticks rattling against each other and by half glimpses of a strange, thin figure. I didn't think that this could really be Brown because, well, mostly because he was dead. I had made sure of that - cutting him open like filleting a fish. But, also, this couldn't be Brown because he was the fattest man I had ever met. Grossly, obscenely fat.

I had hated him since chance had brought us together, working in the Big House. And the feeling was mutual. But, for our separate reasons, neither of us could leave. He would lay about me with his cudgel whenever our paths crossed and, three days ago, I had hidden the big cleaver from the kitchen beneath my coat. When he sprang out and hit my back with his stick, I had slashed upwards with my cleaver and it had opened him up from belly to throat. He was massively heavy but I had dragged him out to the trees and buried him in a shallow grave.

But, today, I was maddened by the lack of sleep and I went out to the trees and uncovered him. He was still there. Despite myself I had half expected him to be gone. But, just as I was about to shovel the soil back over him, I stopped. There was something odd about his body. It seemed even more slug-like than in life. I reached out and lifted his arm. It bent and flopped horribly. I realised that the corpse was empty. It had no bones inside it. As if his skeleton had climbed out through the gaping cut that I had made...