Terrible Skeleton

By Michael Veal

Dominic Rook is looking after his parents’ house when a skeleton bursts from the ground. The intruder chases the young man indoors and accuses his parents of murder. And so begins a frightening adventure, above and below ground.

Be careful when you visit the Dead, they might not be pleased to meet you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Veal
• Release date: Apr 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311986160

Michael Veal

Dear ReaderWay back in middle school I recall a class in which our teacher played us 'Mars, the Bringer of War' by Gustav Holst. She then instructed her pupils to draw a scene inspired by the famous piece of music. I must have recently seen the '7th Voyage of Sinbad' because I remember drawing several giant Cyclops, climbing a mountain in order to eat some poor cowering soul.Although my enjoyment of school swiftly dissipated in the years that followed my love of monsters persists to this day and greatly influences my work.I currently live in England, in the county of Essex where I work as a forklift driver. Numerous warehouses and warehouse workers also feature in my books. Take it from me, warehouses rarely quicken the pulse, but when describing fantastic beasts and events I believe it's best to ground tall tales firmly within the mundane. Fragments of drab reality can help muster belief in far out fiction.I've been writing since I was a child, I'm now in my early forties. I've entered numerous short story competitions over the years, including the Bridport Prize. I've submitted manuscripts to publishers also but unfortunately I have remained unpublished. These facts, although disappointing have not dampened my enthusiasm for conjuring my own worlds and characters from the page.Put simply I don't merely adore writing, for me it's a compulsion.Now having discovered the joys of Kindle I finally have the opportunity to invade your mind, if you will permit me. I promise to take you on many peculiar journeys, hopefully I'll make you laugh a bit on the way.Other writers I admire include Sir Terry Pratchett who has a real gift for comedy and modern day insight. Wilbur Smith's adventure epics are legendary and beautifully crafted. The entertainment value of Chris Ryan's thrillers cannot be doubted. The ex SAS soldier's tales are gripping, authentic and very accessible.Regarding my own material I more than welcome feedback, positive or negative, it all helps. During the coming months I hope to publish more humorous weirdness on Kindle, and I can't wait to see what you think of it.Many thanks for showing an interest in my books.Michael

Book preview

TERRIBLE SKELETON

Michael Veal

© copyright Michael Veal 2016

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons either living or dead is completely unintentional

Published by Michael Veal at Smashwords

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Part One

Early Afternoon

Late Afternoon & Early Evening

Night

Morning

Part Two

The Rest of Thursday

Down Time

Introducing the Dead

Menace in the Alcove

The Furious Surge

The Last Gasp

Part One

Early Afternoon

Dominic Rook sat in his parents’ back garden, numbed by whisky and Coke. He turned the page of his dad’s favourite book, Build HMS Victory In Eighty-Three Stages. Two metres away, a patch of ground shifted. His parents’ back lawn rose to a short peak, the turf split, falling away either side of a growing protrusion.

The thirty-year-old didn’t move. Booze dulled the surprise and intensified his bemusement. Dom wondered how he could be watching something appear from the ground.

A second later the something had emerged completely. A human skeleton, it stepped forwards, streams of chocolate coloured soil leaked from its ribcage. Dom’s half empty glass tipped and fell from his left hand. Rising from the chair, Build HMS Victory slipped off Dominic’s straightening knees.

He turned and ran.

Gasping air down his throat, Dominic pumped his legs and arms. In the distance, at the top of the lawn, the open back door of his parents’ home, the Rookery, encouraged him on.

Behind, Dominic heard quick thumps on the grass, each impact accompanied by a rattle.

Arriving at the back door, Dom vaulted the back step like a steeple-chasing racehorse. Landing on the doormat, inertia sent him scooting across the floor on it. Flapping his arms for balance, Dom stumbled ungracefully to the side.

A sharp CLACK marked the arrival of a barer pair of feet on the floor.

Not daring to check over his shoulder, Dom headed into the kitchen.

The knife he’d used to cut his Jarisberg earlier lay out, on one of the worktops. Snatching the knife, Dom spun around. He withdrew, until the seat of his shorts pushed flush against the door of his mum’s fridge-freezer.

The skeleton had stopped, it waited in the kitchen doorway.

Raising the blade of the cheese knife, Dominic held it out, defensively.

‘Stay there.’ Dom’s request came high-pitched. ‘W-what are you?’ he jabbered.

‘Is your name Dominic?’ Lifting its right arm, the human frame used one phalange to point across the kitchen. A flurry of grit dropped from the unexpected guest’s radius and ulna.

Dominic blinked hard, he attempted to steady his breathing. What stood in his parents’ kitchen doorway was impossible.

‘You’re impossible,’ said Dom.

‘No,’ returned the skeleton. ‘I’m Jorge.’ Apart from encrusted earth, nothing complimented the bones. The skinless intruder stood intact without tendons, cartilage, muscles. Magically, it talked with no tongue.

‘Put down the knife.’ The skeleton’s orbital sockets fixed on the blade Dom held out in his shaking hand. ‘You can’t harm me with it.’

Stunned into obedience, Dom put the knife back where he’d found it.

What stood there giving him orders, couldn’t exist, he reasoned. Which meant it was a hallucination. The disturbing penalty for too much sun and alcohol.

‘I’m real.’ The skeleton sounded enlightened to Dom’s thoughts. ‘I’m here.’

Dipping a hand into the pocket of his shorts, Dom brought out his Samsung smartphone. He swiped the screen awake and touched the green Phone icon.

‘You can’t call the police.’ Dom’s intruder crossed its skinless arms.

Dominic thumbed 9, 9 again.

‘What are you going to tell the operator?’ The skeleton idly inspected a phalange, flicked a crumb of dirt from the tip of it.

‘I’ll say there’s an intruder.’ Dom held his thumb ready, for the third 9. ‘That I’m in danger. They’ll send a police car straight up here.’

‘I’ll hide when they arrive,’ countered Jorge. ‘You’ll be dismissed as a foolish drunk, and lectured for wasting police time.

‘Mentioning drink.’ The skeleton reached up to stroke a throat it didn’t have. ‘What was that in your hand, before I disturbed you?’

‘Whisky and Coke.’ Dominic placed his smartphone on standby. His panic lessened, his head became clearer. The ghoulish vision was right. He couldn’t call the emergency services. Not until he had something sensible to tell them.

‘I’ll have what you were having then.’ The skeleton walked its hand like a spider, up the kitchen door frame.

‘Yeah, OK.’ Dominic considered ways of escape. With the intruder blocking access to the back door, the front door was his sole option.

‘I’m afraid we’ve only got blended whisky, Grant’s…’ Dom checked the Sovereign of the Seas key rack. His dad’s creation was attached to the wall, left of where the skeleton stood. Dom’s house and car keys hung from the Sovereign’s sixth cannon, on the ship’s mid gun-deck.

‘Grant’s will do,’ answered the skeleton. ‘In fact,’ it continued, ‘if you took a single malt and drowned it in a mixer, I’d think even less of you.’

‘My parents keep their booze in there.’ Dom pointed to the side, into the dining room. Breaking from his frightened rigor, he went right, and out of the kitchen. ‘Back in a second.’

The Rookery’s dining room led on to its living room, which opened into the hall, where the front door was. Dom stared at the living room doorway. It was open and enticing.

How quickly could he get to the front door?

Would his visitor be fast enough to catch him?

A voice called from the kitchen. ‘Is everything OK in there?’

‘Yes, it’s fine.’ Dominic proceeded to the drinks cabinet, which doubled as his parents’ telephone table. Stooping, Dom opened the cabinet door and reclaimed the bottle of Grant’s he’d been draining since 11:30 that morning.

Returning to the threshold of the kitchen, Dominic leant around the door frame.

Still occupying the other doorway, the skeleton tossed an object, with one hand.

Dominic’s keys, the skeleton threw and caught the bunch, without observation, every time.

‘Decided not to run for it?’ Dom’s visitor caught his keys then caged them in a bony fist.

‘Run?’ Dom acted baffled. Walking to the kitchen worktop he saw an unopened can of cola waiting on it. Bubbles of condensation patterned the sides of the tin. It had just been taken from the fridge.

‘I wasn’t planning to run.’ Dom set down the whisky bottle and reached up to one of the kitchen cupboards, he fetched out a glass.

‘Good.’ The skeleton left the doorway, entered the kitchen. ‘Running would be pointless. I’m faster than you, and I never tire.’

Somehow Dominic managed not to freak out. The morbid vision kept coming, until it stood intimately close. Dom’s guest carried a pungent aroma. Earth, mixed with ripe food waste.

Holding the cola can to the worktop Dom pulled its ring pull. The can’s sides felt icy cold, biting into his fingertips. Once he’d bottomed out the glass with Grant’s, Dominic poured the cola, which fizzed and foamed.

Dom’s heart nearly stopped when the skeleton reached across to take the glass.

Raising its drink, the visitor’s jaw bone lowered. Whisky and Coke was poured into a hollow mouth.

Dominic watched the contents of the tilted glass drain out, nothing fell down through the skeleton’s ribcage. No liquid splashed on the kitchen floor.

Jorge set the empty glass down on the kitchen worktop and wiped lips he didn’t have.

‘Alcohol affects the body in various ways.’ The skeleton unfurled the phalanges and metacarpals of its left hand, showing Dom his keys. ‘It doesn’t cause hallucinations. That’s a fallacy.’

Without thought or strategy, Dominic snatched out. The skeleton lifted the bunch of keys clear, snared the young man’s wrist with its other hand, in a single swift movement.

Dominic whimpered as his live flesh was squeezed by exhumed bone.

‘What do you want?’ begged Dom, his captor’s appearance scared the fight from him.

‘I want revenge,’ replied the skeleton. ‘Your mother and father murdered me… And buried my corpse in their back garden.’

Dom closed his eyes, willing what harassed him back to the world of nightmares.

His wish was granted.

The pressure on Dominic’s hand vanished, his arm fell limply to his side. Cautiously, Dom opened his eyes.

Leaving the kitchen, the extraordinary intruder went left, to the back door, and disappeared from sight.

Outside, the warmth of the day persisted. Dom pelted along the gravel driveway. Twice he checked for evidence of pursuit. Fear put a sickening tickle in his gut. If he wasn’t being chased, instinct inferred he was about to be.

Two wooden gates marked the limits of the Rookery. A wide gate provided access for cars, the narrow side gate beside it was dedicated to pedestrians.

Arriving at the side gate, Dom fought with the locking mechanism. A simple procedure, made difficult by his shaken nerves. The latch flipped off its hook after the third try. Pushing his way out, Dominic continued to the edge of the lane.

He remembered something, he turned back to the house.

A black cat waited by his parents’ front doorstep. The animal held itself perfectly still. From a distance, it resembled an ornament.

Dom’s racing heart sank.

The sole reason he was staying at his mum and dad’s. Razzmatazz. The Most Unsociable Pet in Great Britain.

‘Hey Razz, come over here.’ Holding his hand close to the ground, Dom rubbed his finger against his thumb, in a beckoning gesture. He attempted to make cat friendly kissing sounds with dry lips.

Razzmatazz showed no response. Dominic returned to the open side gate. Passing through, his feet itched. A reminder that every step he took was a dangerous one.

He checked the opposite end of the driveway. There, at the garage, paths led along the rear of the house and into the back garden.

For the time being, Dom verified he was alone. He turned his attention back to the cat. Razzmatazz swivelled an ear.

According to Dom’s mother, the cat basket lived upstairs, somewhere in the guest bedroom.

Did he dare return indoors to find it?

Inside the house there were many doorways and corners. Dom envisioned his visitor, waiting behind a junction, ready for him to pass by.

Dom tried reasoning with the cat. ‘Listen, Razz, we can’t stay here, not with that–’

Dominic talked to an empty patch of ground. Glancing to the side, he saw a black tail flick past the corner of the house.

Hollow End undulated through the countryside, like a snake, for three miles. The lane’s blind bends and narrow straights were walled by tall hedgerows, these bordered fields of potato crops. Although the residences along Hollow End were mostly detached, they were situated in sociable pairs and threesomes.

The Rookery sat on the apex of a bend. Left of Dom’s parental home, a banker’s mansion with its own stables and tennis courts. To the right of the Rooks, a modest abode, with coffee-hued walls. Unlike the mansion, this beige insignificance, known as Fearne Villas was typically occupied during the day. It was also closer. Dom hurried along the road towards the property. His neck ached from twisting.

Nothing gave chase.

All around, life prevailed. Cheery birdsong, buzzing insects. Overhead, a distant airliner grumbled across the sky. This evident normality made Dom wonder if he’d fantasised his encounter. An aching wrist quashed that theory. Dom couldn’t ignore the physical evidence, the result of his visitor’s squeeze.

He rubbed at the injury, its dull pain refused to go away. Fetching his smartphone out of his pocket, Dom speed-dialled the first number on his Contacts list.

Dominic held the Samsung to his ear, while it rang Kirsten Mobile. The call was answered after five rings.

‘Yes?’ A nonplussed female voice. ‘What is it?’

From her tone, Dominic imagined his girlfriend had glared at his name and number, when they appeared on the screen of her phone. He saw her watching the device vibrate around her desk, while she debated whether to answer the call.

‘Er...’ Dom stopped, in the middle of the road. Hearing the voice that often organised his world encouraged sense and reason. He studied the empty tarmac behind him.

‘I-I might be going a bit crazy,’ the young man admitted.

‘What?’ Kirsten sounded strained, impatient. ‘What do you mean you’re going crazy?’

‘Going crazy in that I’m seeing things.’ Dom wondered if the visitor had the capability to pursue him.

Did Jorge operate like a traditional haunting? Striking fear exclusively in the house, on the land where he’d died?

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘That’s a fallacy.’

‘What is?’ Kirsten snapped.

‘It’s a fallacy that alcohol makes you hallucinate.’

There was a brief pause.

A sigh.

‘Look,’ dictated Dom’s girlfriend. ‘Could you get to the point? Unlike some people I don’t have the whole week off. I’m busy. What do you want from me, exactly?’

‘You’re still angry aren’t you?’ Dom asked the question dejectedly, knowing the answer.

‘Yeah, fairly, I guess.’ Kirsten’s voice lightened, sounded like it might mellow.

Then it didn’t.

‘No, actually, forget us. One of the warehouse amoebas has just wobbled in and handed me three vital stock items he can’t find. And I’ve got like… half an hour to sort it out.’ Kirsten upped the volume of her voice, over enunciated, as if tailoring her speech for the unintelligent or hard of hearing. ‘PLEASE – TELL – ME – WHAT – YOU – WANT.’

‘Your help,’ Dominic decided.

There was a pause, the phone line crackled.

‘You sound strange,’ admitted Kirsten. ‘Do you want me to drive