Blood runs cold

At three past midnight, Myra woke with a start. Her throat was very dry, so she sat up groggily and considered her options. First, she could get up, brave the trip down stairs, and get a glass of water. Or, she could just go back to sleep and get water in the morning.

Myra coughed, and her throat throbbed angrily in protest. She made her choice, and slipped out of bed. The floor was cold, but Myra simply stepped into her slippers and grabbed a flashlight from her night stand. Her room was chilly, but she neglected to grab her bathrobe from where it hung beside her door. After all, she'd be back in no more than five minutes.

The door clicked shut behind her as she surveyed the area with her flashlight. Sure enough, she'd left a toy bunny out. She moved the toy out of the way, and moved up to the edge of the stairs. As soon as her foot hit the first stair, the smell hit her.

An odor like rotten meat and putrid grass made her eyes water. Immediately, she forgot about her water, and about her thirst. All she wanted was to get away from the vile smell. But that wasn't in the cards for her, as when she turned around, her slippers betrayed her and she tumbled down the stairs.

She landed hard, and hissed in pain as she slid up against the wall. The smell was even stronger than before now, so much so that she was practically choking on it. Her eyes darted around, searching for the source of the odor, and when they found it, they stretched as wide as dinner plates.

Before Myra, stood a skeleton. Pale moonlight leaked through a kitchen window, and illuminated the gleaming figure. Bloodshot and yellowed eyes stared back at Myra with unblinking intensity. Small chunks of meat clung to its deceased body for dear life, and a long tongue hung down through its jaw, fully visible, even with its mouth closed.

Myra could not scream, her throat was too dry. The rotting skeleton took a step closer, and Myra soon realized exactly what the monster was coated in. Blood. It extended a wet boned hand towards her. She hissed and tried to scoot away from the monster, but it was too fast. By the time she'd even begun to move, its hand found her shoulder and held fast, no matter her attempts to shake it off.

The skeleton's hand was obviously wet, but what she did not expect was for it to be warm. She stared up into its eyes, nothing but terror keeping her concious.

"Little one… why are you out of bed at such an hour?" The creature spoke, but its jaw did not move. Instead, she heard its voice, a gravelly and awful sound in her mind. For a few seconds, she was too stunned and confused to speak, but after it (she was pretty sure it was actually a he, thanks to the voice) repeated the question, she spoke up.

"I-I was t-thirsty… just came to get some w-water." She said, stuttering on a few words. She unconsciously stepped back from the monster, an action which did not go unnoticed, even if she had failed to go anywhere.

"I meAn you no hARM… to be tHirsty is not a siN…" His speech pattern was uneven, with extra emphasis on seemingly random segments of a word. She hadn't noticed it the first time he'd spoken, but it was clear to her now.

"Who… what are you?" She asked in a small voice, her body beginning to tense and lock up more and more with each passing second, as if someone had jammed a wind key into her spine and was twisting it, winding her up in time with her building dread.

"jUsT an old Set of BLOODY BONES… noTHing morE." The Bloody Bones wheezed and hacked rapidly, Myra couldn't quite figure out if he was coughing or laughing, the sheer possibility of the latter of which unnerved her even more.

"Why are you here?" Myra's voice was stronger this time. The monster had seemingly told her the truth, it had made no move to hurt her, and his grip on her shoulder had loosened significantly, now more like a firm pat than the originally restraining hold.

"To pUNish bad cHildren… You do NoT quaLIFy as that. Go and TakE yOur dRInK. PleaSe go tO bed afteRWArds. HaVe a gOod NiGht noW, and slEEp tight." His hand left her shoulder and dropped to his side. Within the blink of an eye, he vanished, seemingly to the other side of the staircase, as she was certain she could see the top of his head glistening from under the banister.

Myra immediately bolted into the kitchen and grabbed a cup from the cabinet. She filled it and drank. As she placed the cup on the counter and turned to leave, she began to consider the monster's words and became puzzled. The only other child in the house was her big sister. But she had never seen her get in trouble before.

Confused, she decided to drop those troublesome thoughts for now. The greater meaning of them eluded her, after all, she was only nine years old. Myra scurried up the stairs. The stench remained, but the rotten skeleton had disappeared, leaving no physical traces behind, even the blood having vanished from the stairs and her clothes. Choosing best not to worry, and perhaps chalk this up to being a bad dream, Myra returned to her bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Myra awoke to a wave of nausea. Her room smelled of rotten flesh and stale blood, though there was none present. Confusion gave way to terrible realization when an ear piercing shriek ripped throughout the house, jolting the little girl to action. She burst out of her room and rushed to the mouth of the staircase. She stopped. Another wave of nausea hit her. It overwhelmed her, and she emptied the contents of her stomach on the ground, adding the smell of bile, water and stomach acid to the cocktail of stench.

The walls were stained crimson. The stairs, coated with congealed red and brown liquid. Blood. Fragments of flesh stuck to the banister, the walls, the stairs and the floor. At the lower mouth of the stairs, lay the source of all this carnage. Myra's older sister lay in a heap, literally. No limb or appendage of her body were connected to one another. The girl's head was missing, clearly taken by her killer, which Myra knew could only be that skeleton. Her mother stood over her, frozen in shock, her mouth stretched wide. She had been the one to scream, but she didn't move from that spot. How could she have been a "bad child"? She had been practically an adult, her eighteenth birthday being only a mere three days away.

Myra walked over to her sister's room, and twisted the knob on the door. It was locked. All the rooms locked from the inside, so how could it be locked and she be out there? Unless… she'd not been in her room to begin with. She must have snuck out.

"That's what it was here for…" Myra muttered as she returned to the mouth of the stairs, stepping around the pool of vomit and beginning the climb down, stepping around the pools of blood as best she could, but to no avail. By the time she reached her mother, her feet were stained with her sister's blood. Her mother was muttering now, in a barely audible tone.

"Laura… my Laura… who?..." She repeated herself over and over again. Myra reached for her mother's hand, but her mother immediately slapped her hand away. Myra recoiled, and held her hand. A bruise began to form on the back of her hand. She stood there in silence, stunned by the sudden violence. Her mother stopped muttering and looked down at her younger daughter. Myra looked up at her mother. Her expression was one of shocked disappointment. The look in her eyes told Myra one thing, and one thing only. A single question.

"Why wasn't it you?"