The Skeleton
by julien darmoni
The Skeleton crawled up to the door of the Rosenblatt’s home, where it loitered on the porch, haunting. It was a creature borne from the depths of hell. A black winter’s coat it bore, which protected it from the fiendish October cold. It looked back towards the curb, where its mother skeleton stood, checking her iphone of terror.
Ding, dong, the doorbell chimed. The Skeleton smiled. The horror which was to come was almost too sweet.
A man appeared at the door. The Rosenblatt man. He wore a robe, slippers, and a look of such delicious stupefaction upon his face that the Skeleton could not help but smirk. It was true; faced with such a monstrosity as himself, he could not blame the fool for his terror.
“Welllllll, what do we have here,” it said, with a confidence that surely belied its true despair. “We got a lil’ skeleton baby?”
“Trick or treat,” mocked the Skeleton, inciting the Hallow’s ritual.
“Uh-oh! Looks like we got a hungry lil’ skeleton!”
The skeleton laughed, for the man had no idea the depths of its deranged appetite.
“Here you go, Mr. scary-bones,” said the man, “take a baby-Snickers.” The Rosenblatt man deposited its tariff into the Skeleton’s plastic orange plunderer’s pumpkin.
“Thank you for the Snickers,” said the Skeleton, completing the evil ritual. Then it turned, mercifully, and left the man to faint, presumably, in the doorway. Its mischief was managed. He would let the pathetic creature live.
“What did you get there, wittle Gabe-skeweton?” asked The Skeleton’s terrible mother, on the curb.
“I got a Snickers.”
“Oh, la-la, a Snickers! That sounds tasty-wasty! My wittle Skeweton wuvs his wittle Swnickers.”
The skeleton chuckled, for it was true. He did love Snickers.
They moved through the cul de sac, haunting many houses. The spire of the crooked church steeple rose like a black finger beckoning evildoers ages 4-12 into the night.
Fear followed everywhere they went. Candy filled to the brim of his plastic pumpkin, overflowing with looted Reese’s and Peeps and Trolly Sour Bite Worms and Apples he would throw away later, and these disgusting life-like edible Spiders, which delighted even he, the humorless Skeleton-Soldier, who was peerless in his solemnity and madness.
Heh; yes; he was 100% without a doubt certainly the most frightening creature in this neighborhood.
They walked a final dark street, and from the shadows a silhouette appeared. Even from far away you could see the creature’s horrible orange skin, its disturbingly pouting lips. Atop its head was affixed a toupee, and it bore a red MAGA hat, the insignia which every living creature feared.
The Skeleton clenched its mother's hands tightly.
“Ma ma,” it said.
“Oh no, is my wittle Skeweton afwaid of the wittle Donald Twump?” cooed its mother.
The Skeleton looked away, whispering “ma ma” again.
The Donald Trump, accompanied by its father, Mike Pence, drew near. Tears fell from the Skeleton’s eyes as the Donald Trump came abreast, and its heart stopped dead in its glow-in-the-dark rib cage. The Donald Trump looked at The Skeleton and perceived its fear. The Skeleton looked away. Then the Donald Trump, mercifully, passed.
The Skeleton had gruesomely wet itself.
“Ma ma,” it wept.
At home, the Skeleton was moody and distant. No one spoke as He and His mother sat in the blue light of the television screen. The news anchors yelled about a feckless Supreme Court, about escalating gun violence and North Korea, and they bellowed about falling domestic education rates and rapidly encroaching Global Warming, all the while warning about collusion and unchecked Russian political influence and how the country was dying because not enough empowered civilians were doing anything to stop it.
Because she was scared, His mother put her face into her hands and began to cry.
The Skeleton wanted to be strong. It wanted to be scary, too. But at present, he only felt ashamed.
Compared to these horrors, the terrifying Skeleton Boy was nothing.