By Ed Staskus

   Oliver had heard about the house with the front lawn full of life-size skeletons, but had never seen the Halloween display himself. It was down Canyon Ridge Dr. on the east side of the street. The street was about a ten minute walk from where he lived. “There‘s a bunch of skeletons carrying some kind of hatchet and one really big one who’s the leader of the pack,” Tommy One Shoe said. “They’re all chained together, but they’ve been getting loose in the middle of the night the closer it gets to fright night.”

   “If they’re carrying something, it’s probably a scythe,” Oliver said.

   “What’s that?”

   “A farming thing from long ago.”

   “Oh.”

   Oliver knew which house it was, at least he knew the backyard of it. He had seen it many times looking up from Masons Landing Metropolitan Park on the Grand River where there was a bend and a stretch of bank. He could see it from the bank. It was the only house on the street with a side yard. It was the only house with a sweet gum tree. The fruit of the tree was a hard spiky ball he called a monkey ball. Nobody wanted to step barefooted on a monkey ball. He knew that from personal experience.

   “What do you mean they’ve been getting loose?” Oliver asked.

   “They get loose from their chains somehow and roam around at night waking everybody up. Their bones rub against each other clicking, clacking, and rattling.”

   “I guess that might be a nuisance,” Oliver said, “but it doesn’t sound menacing.”

   “That’s not all they do.”

   “What else do they do?” 

   “They swing their scythe things at shrubs, the mailboxes, and cats on the loose. All the shrubs look terrible, like a really bad haircut.  A bunch of mailboxes have holes in them. One cat ran up a tree and wouldn’t come down for two days.”

   “That sort of sounds like teenagers on the loose.”

   “Maybe it does, but last night a lady was walking her dog. It was late. She was looking one way, the skeleton was looking the other way, and they bumped into each other. She ran home and the dog chased the skeleton to South Ridge Rd.”

   “The skeleton ran away?”

   “That’s what she said, and she said the dog came back with a scrap of black fabric stuck in his teeth.”

   “I see,” Oliver said. “Can you sneak out tonight and meet me across the street from the skeletons?”

   “What time?” 

   “Let’s say three. My parents don’t get up at three in the morning for anything.”

    “No problemo,” Tommy said. “Mine don’t get up for anything between midnight and sunrise, unless maybe the end of the world was happening.”

   That night at three in the morning Oliver and Tommy met across the street from the front lawn of fear. Both of them were wearing jeans and dark sweatshirts. Oliver had a flashlight with him. He would have brought his sister Emma for back-up, but she was at a sleepover in Painesville. Tommy had a plastic Ninja Sword he had gotten from the Spirit Halloween store in Mentor. He whacked the bark of the pin oak tree they were hiding behind.

   “You’re going to break it,” Oliver said.

   “No, that’s some tough bark.”

   “I meant the sword, and besides, we need to be quiet.”

   “What’s the plan?”

   “The plan is to throw some light on whoever it is in that house who is pretending to be a skeleton, and why.”

   They almost fell asleep. It was nearly five in the morning when they were roused by a car coming down the street. Oliver had been wool-gathering the new ray gun he was inventing. The car pulled into the driveway of the house where they were hiding. They squeezed close together behind the pin oak tree. A man in a uniform got out of the car. He had a rolling carry-on suitcase and a flight bag full of manuals, a headset, and an iPad. He was a Southwest Airlines pilot.

   He was fumbling in his pocket for his house keys when Tommy saw a skeleton wielding a scythe crossing the street. He was heading straight for the pilot, one determined step after another. A full moon illumined him. It wasn’t a real skeleton. It was man dressed in black tights and a form-fitting long sleeve spandex t-shirt.  The bones had been stenciled on the fabric with glow-in-the-dark paint.

   Tommy poked Oliver in the ribs.

   “Hey,” Oliver grunted.

   “Look,” Tommy said.

   “I thought it was going to be something like that,” Oliver said.

   When the skeleton got close to the pilot he raised his scythe.

   “Oh, my God, put that thing down and take that stupid mask off,” the pilot said. “Who do you think you are, the Grim Reaper? I just got in from Hawaii and the last thing I need to do is fool around with you.”

   “The last thing I need is you fooling around with my wife anymore,” the skeleton said.

   “I wouldn’t be doing that if you spent more time fooling around with her.”

   “I told you to stop, but you didn’t. Now I’ve got you where I want you. Everybody on the street thinks my skeletons have been coming to life. No one dares to be out at night anymore. There aren’t going to be any witnesses and everybody will chalk it up to the supernatural.”

   “That’s crazy,” the pilot said.

   “Crazy as a fox,” the skeleton said and advanced on the pilot. He raised his scythe and swung it down at him, who raised his ballistic nylon flight bag to parry the blade. The blade cut through the bag like butter. When it did the force of the swing, its trajectory altered,  carried the scythe downwards towards the skeleton’s feet. The front point of it pierced his left tennis shoe, sinking an inch deep into the top of his  foot.

   “Youch!” the skeleton cried out, going to his knees and reaching for his foot. He tore his tennis shoe off. Blood gushed out of his foot, soaking the grass. The pilot staunched the bleeding with a spare shirt he pulled out of his carry-all.

   “Who knew skeletons could bleed,” Tommy said, dumbfounded.

   The pilot called 911 and an EMS truck showed up in five minutes, followed by a police car. After the skeleton had been put on a stretcher and driven away, a policeman asked Oliver and Tommy what they were doing there. 

   “We heard there were skeletons walking around at night,” Tommy said. “We wanted to see what was going on. We saw the skeleton come across the street and swing his scythe thing at the man in the uniform who came home, but he missed, and cut himself.”

   “What do you have to say?” the policeman asked Oliver.

   “The same thing,” Oliver said.

   “All right, go home, and stay there.”

   They started up Canyon Ridge Dr. The moon was setting. Dawn was on the horizon.

   “What was that all about?” Tommy asked. “All they talked about was fooling around, although the skeleton sounded mad, and the other man looked annoyed, and the next thing you know the skeleton was trying to slice and dice that man.”

   “I don’t know,” Oliver said. “Grown-ups confuse me. Sometimes they seem more crazy than not.”

   “I know all about that,” Tommy said. “My parents are totally crazy.”

   They were exchanging shaggy-dog stories about their parents, aunts, and uncles, and were so absorbed in their critique of grown-ups they didn’t see the Headless Horseman, who was carrying his severed head on his saddle, go past them at the crossroad of Canyon Ridge Dr. and South Ridge Rd. on his way back to the Perry Cemetery.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

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A Crying of Lot 49 Publication