Skin And Bone

Ah, you're all HACK in my CASTLE OF CREEPINESS, Kiddies ha-ha.  Welcome to EDITION 52 OF CREEPS CASTLE ha-ha-ha.  Well, sit down in those OLD ELECTRIC CHAIRS and prepare for SCARES and TERRORS aha-ha-ha-ha.  This tale is rather THINNED-OUT and really CHILLS YOU TO THE BONE.  A yarn I call...

A cool-wind blew across the fields of New York, back in the Winter of 1883, as a fancy mansion stood in the snow.  Inside, an elderly woman smoked a cigarette, as she looked out one of the parlor-windows.  The front door opened and shut.  A young man came into the parlor.  "It is a nippy one out there today, Mother" he said to the elderly woman.  "It looks quite cold out Samuel" she replied.  Samuel poured a glass of wine from a bottle on the coffee-table and drank it down.  Just then, the butler walked into the room.  "Excuse me Mrs. Kotter, dinner is ready" he said to Samuel's mother.  "Splendid, Prescott, thank you!" Mrs. Kotter answered him.  "My pleasure ma'am!" Prescott The Butler said.  Mrs. Kotter and Samuel followed him out to the dining-room and took seats around the table.  Prescott also took a seat and the three of them passed around rolls, butter, chicken and mashed-potatoes and gravy to each other.  As they ate and drank glasses of wine, Mrs. Kotter said to Samuel: "your Father is out hunting my dear."  "Ah, well, he is missing a great dinner" he replied.  Prescott The Butler carved an apple pie and ate a slice of it.  "Ah, this is my personal favorite app;e pie given to me by a foreign gentleman each week!" he inforned Mrs. Kotter and Samuel.

Later, the moon moved in the night-sky.  Samuel heard the front door open.  He ran to the doorway, looking out and saw a skeletal-form walking down the trail from the mansion.  The figure's bones gleamed in the moonlight and it was dressed in a red vest and white bow-tie.  The zombie turned and glared back at Samuel.  It was Prescott The Butler.  The corpse grinned at Samuel with an eerie, dacayed-grinning-face.  Samuel screamed in terror.  The zombie turned and Samuel slammed the door shut and latched it.  A few moments later, Samuel heard somebody going upstairs and walked out of the parlor.  He looked and it was Prescott.  He looked normal again.  Samuel looked surprised and confused at him.  Mrs. Kotter came into the hall.  "Samuel, what is wrong, Son?" she inquired of him.  "Nothing Mother!" he responded.  Samuel watched Prescott come downstairs and the butler said to him, "ah, good evening, Mr. Kotter sir".  "Good evening Prescott" he responded, nervously.  Prescott smiled at Samuel and went into a room.  Within fifteen minutes, Samuel was in a bed downstairs and stirred in his sleep.  A skeletal-hand gently caressed his arm, and Samuel awoke. It was the skeleton of Prescott and the zombie gazed down at Samuel as his eyes slowly widened.  "Ah, good evening, Mr. Kotter.  It is indeed I, Prescott.   Because of the apple pie I consume each week, I become a living-dead zombie.  Becoming skin and bone, then just a skeleton.  The foreign gentleman who gives me his apple pies each week, is a magician of sorts who is very powerful indeed.  I being quite a plump gentleman, get to experience how it feels to be skin and bone, then a skeleton finally each night for a solid week after consuming the magical pie" the zombie of Prescott's explanation was to Samuel.  Samuel screamed in terror at the zombie and lept out of bed.  The skeleton of Prescott wandered slowly out of the room and downstairs.

The following night, Samuel kissed his mother on her cheek and said to her as they both stood outside the mansion: "goodbye Mother, please tell Father I said hello.  I keep having nightmares of Prescott being more than skin and bone.  A mere skeleton, wandering around as a zombie!".  "Oh my, that is some dream my Son.  I shall tell your Father you said hello.  I love you" Mrs. Kotter said to him.  As a coachman rode away in a carriage with Samuel behind him, Samuel noticed Prescott The Butler standing up, on the balcony.  He was once again a zombie.  Samuel's eyes grew wide in terror as he gasped.  The skeleton waved at him with his skeletal-hand.

Well, Samuel wasn't dreaming but he was SCREAMING hee-hee-hee!  Prescott The Butler enjoyed taking a STROLL IN THE MOONFRIGHT eh?  He will tell you that it is SKELETONS OF FUN heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!