12-Foot Skeleton

They don’t tell you how bad those things smell.

I’ve never posted fiction on AWKSD, mostly because it’s not really what my readers come here for. It’s jarring, like hearing a fiction NPR. But I’m in Chicago this weekend for a friend’s wedding and everything is just so Halloween-y here, so I thought I’d share this short story that I wrote earlier this month. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the brain capacity to write any sort of fiction, and this month I challenged myself to carve out something scary. I’m proud of it, and proud of knowing that I still “got it.”

The story is called “12-Foot Skeleton”, which is very much inspired by my own experience with finally getting one this year (best purchase I ever made tbh).

The story’s only about 1000 words—a quick 4-minute read. I hope you enjoy. Happy Halloween.

12-Foot Skeleton

They don’t tell you how bad those 12-foot skeletons smell. 

The box wouldn’t fit in the car. A guy who didn’t speak English even tried to help, but the bulk was just too much for our multinational effort. We ended up opening the box right there in the Home Depot parking lot, freeing those large, plastic bones. It smelled like a curse. We gave our non-English-speaking friend five dollars for his help and he backed away, staring at the box, eyes wide. We loaded the bones into the car and drove away, leaving the empty box just sitting there in the parking lot. 

On our way home, the SUV in front of us tried to change lanes and collided with a Tesla truck hiding in its blindspot. They both flipped, rolled. I hit the breaks and the bones in the back of our car knocked together, a sound like laughter. I swerved, avoided the wreckage and kept driving. We didn’t believe in God, but when luck feels divine, best not to push it. 

It only took an hour to set up the big guy. All the while, we couldn’t place the smell. Was it chemical? Earthy? Both? 

The skull was packaged in a separate box and I did my best Brad Pitt. “What’s in the box?” When I took it out, I held it out at eye level and  the LED eyes flashed briefly. We set it atop the spine and felt like how God must’ve felt when He invented 12-foot skeletons. 

You don’t realize how tall twelve feet is until you’re staring at your very own 12-foot skeleton. 

We looked up at its grandeur and felt both awe and revulsion in our stomachs. “Or maybe that’s because we’ve just been sniffing it for too long,” I said. 

We sat outside on the porch, drinking wine and looking up into our 12-foot skeleton’s face. Sometimes the eyes would move down and it felt like it was trying to tell us something. The neighbor we don’t like came by and asked how much our skeleton was, and when we told him, he scoffed. “Almost as much as a real skeleton,” he said, which is a truly weird thing to say and one of the reasons we don’t like him. Always saying weird things. 

That night, I had a dream that the 12-foot skeleton was crouched under our bedroom window, peeking in at us. Since we live in a single-story house, I couldn’t imagine where the rest of its body was. Folded up beneath the windowsill? Or was it just the head? These deliberations are what shook me out of the dream, and I felt around to make sure it was just sweat soaking the sheets. 

We poured coffee and walked outside to say good morning to our 12-foot skeleton, but it was gone. “Stolen!” I said. I knew I should’ve put a lock on it. Then we turned our heads and saw that the neighbor we didn’t like now had a 12-foot skeleton in his yard. 

We pounded on his door. He was quick to open it, as if he was expecting us. We pointed to his skeleton, demanding answers. 

“After seeing yours, I got to thinking,” he said. “Those skeletons are pretty cool, so I went out and bought one.” We asked to see the receipt. “Sorry, threw it out.” We asked which Home Depot he bought it. His car was much smaller than ours—how had he brought it home?

At that point he started becoming angry. A little too angry, I thought, as if he was overcompensating for his crime. I went over and gave his skeleton a big whiff. “Smells like ours,” I said. 

“You need to leave before I call the cops.” 

We decided it wasn’t worth it. We weren’t hurting for money, and maybe this—this gift of a 12-foot skeleton—could finally smooth over the tension with the neighbor we didn’t like. We drove back to Home Depot and bought another skeleton. Again, we opened the box in the parking lot and piled the bones in. Nobody had yet collected the first box, so we set the second box next to it. 

The smell of new skeleton bones filled the car. As we turned into our neighborhood, a squirrel ran out into the street and we rolled over it. Its blood squirted at least 12 feet. 

We set up the new skeleton. Was it bigger? I didn’t have a tape measure, but I swear this one was at least 13 feet tall. It stared down at us, and we stared back. 

That night I had a dream where both skeletons were peeking into our bedroom. 

I woke up shivering, my senses askew. I ran outside to check on the skeleton and, again, it was gone. Instinctually, I looked to our neighbor’s house and beheld not one, but two 12-foot skeletons. Anger rose in me as if I was a cartoon character filling with red. 

We chugged scalding coffee, debating what to do. I didn’t even realize how hot the coffee was until I looked in the mirror and saw my mouth covered in blisters. The sunlight was distracting, so we pulled the curtains closed, shrouding our house in darkness. It helped us concentrate. Should we call the cops? Should we write a letter to the HOA? Should we invest in a doorbell camera, so when we buy another 12-foot skeleton, we could catch him in the act? 

Every now and then, we’d smell the skeleton.

Before we knew it, the sun had gone down and at some point we had both carved our neighbor’s name into our forearms. 

We emerged from our house, crossed the property line. Flames danced in both skeletons’ LED eyes, as if yearning to come home. We pounded on the neighbor’s door, kept pounding until he opened up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. 

“You know what fucking time it is?” he asked. I looked down at my smart watch, and noticed it was full of concerned notifications from the day, reminding me to move my body. 

“You stole our skeleton,” I said. “Skeletons,” I corrected. 

“I bought that second one last night,” he said, sounding very pissed. 

“Let us see the receipt.” 

“Fuck off.” He tried to close the door, but we forced our way in. We emptied his trash, pulled his drawers out, tore open his closets. We saw him go for his phone, but I got to it first and threw it in the toilet. 

“We just want proof,” I said, and he looked very scared. It was then that I realized my hand was around his throat. Horrified, I almost let go. But then I smelled it. I moved close and breathed in our neighbor’s scent. It was familiar, so familiar. 

The next morning, we got up, made coffee, and sat on our porch to admire our two skeletons, back where they belonged. They reminded us of us. Just a happy couple. Between them, a baby skeleton, six-feet tall, fresh and wet, newly born.