Jeremiah Hankins #13
October 25, 1997
The Granite Headstone
On a windy November 12th a boy named Ricky went into the Veteran’s cemetery to play leap frog over some headstones. All the headstones were small and lined up in a row. They were a chalky white except for one in the back. It was made of a rough granite and looked like it had been there for ages. He leaped over all the headstones. When he got to the granite one, he fell backwards. A tall skinny skeleton jumped up and yelled, “Don’t jump over this headstone!”
Ricky got up and snapped, “Why shouldn’t I?”
“A tough guy, hey! I’ll have to send you to Jack.” Everything got real fuzzy, and then Ricky found himself in a dark room. A spot light turned on and Ricky saw a another skeleton.
It started to sing:
There once was a skeleton and his name was Jack.
And his bones went a ricky ticky, ricky ticky tack.
So when you walk around the corner,
Don’t be a mourner,
‘Cause Jack is no foreigner
To the underground world.
He’ll take you down,
Under the ground,
Put you in a trance,
Make you do a dance
With a ricky-ticky, ricky-ticky, ricky-ticky tack!
Without thinking Ricky got up and started to tap dance. And the beat was a ricky-ticky, ricky-ticky, ricky-ticky tack. He danced all the way into another room, fell down, and was knocked unconscious.
When he woke up, he was in a fiery red room much bigger than the one he’d been in earlier. Red demons were standing around him singing an ancient chant. When they stopped, a tall man wearing a cape entered the room.
“So you are the one who jumped over the granite headstone. You should have apologized to the grave keeper. Nevertheless you are sentenced to thirty years in the bottomless pit.”
Then the demons picked him up off the floor and threw him into a circular hole! He screamed, “NOOOOOOOO!” as he fell.
Thirty years later on November 12, they found Ricky’s body leaning on the granite headstone!
The End