The first two chapters might be little slow and in lower quality in comparison to the rest, but please bear with me until it gets really interesting.

Also all the comments are really appreciated !!

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Hanging on Bones

Chapter 1 Rag, Pipe and a bone.

*bip* *bip* *bip**bip*

…

*crash*

Stupid alarm clock. Why the hell did I put it sooo far away from my bed…

Well whatever. Since I’m already on the floor, I’d better get up.

The usual toiletries and then up the stairs I go. Delicious smells of fresh baked bread served together with crunchy bacon and eggs make me droll. Grabbing the cup of long expired yogurt I slam the fridge doors with a passion. The high class restaurant next door is driving me crazy again. Should have known that cheap flats come at additional price. I can understand the coldness and mold. It’s an basement after all. But the torture of high class restaurant as a neighbor while living on crumbs really hits the spot…

Better to not dwell on this, It’s time to go to work.

Same street corners as always. Same slow walk to low paying work. It’s getting a bit chilly already so I guess I will have to swipe some scarf or something from one of the customers.

“Hey you!”

I look around and sure enough there is some old hag in dirty rags, wobbling and stumbling at a steady speed towards me. Hell… the rags she’s wearing are so worn that I’m surprised they don’t fall off of her. The wrinkles and loose skin on her face make her look as if she’s more than ninety years old. Seems like she doesn't have any teeth, since when her mouth closed, her lower lip went up to her nose in disgusting fashion.

She must have stepped out of that garbage strewn alleyway I just passed.

… Ah my rotten luck again. But at least she seems harmless enough.

“What do you want from me, old one?” I say while coming to a stop.

She wobbles little closer panting heavily and slows down. The piece of short stick taken out from the massive amount of things that due to tears and holes only approximate clothes, is instantly making me more wary of her. Leaning on her cane, she smiles up at me.

*kher* *kher* “So you’re here after all…” *kher* She says this with no apparent hurry, grunting, wheezing and spitting from time to time. She then pauses and starts to make this strange motions with her mouth, as if she was chewing. Problem is she doesn’t have teeth and it looks grotesque. Damn so disgusting. She must be some kind of lunatic since it’s the first time I see her in these parts.

“I have no idea what you’re getting at but if you are here to beg, then as you must have noticed by now, there’s no way I have any money to spare for you. Good bye” I say and start to turn.

She then suddenly grabs my coat and closes the gap between us, Our bodies are touching. I freeze staring at her in amazement.

*kher**kher* “Here, here now… it’s the opposite… you should be the one begging me kid”*kher* She says this between her grunts while sneering at me with spit hanging from the corner of her lip. The mad glint in her eyes makes me shiver.

I jerk away from her in shock freeing myself and take several quick steps back.

“You’re mad old hag …”

No way in hell I will get more involved in this then I already am. Better to have some professionals deal with her.

Before she has chance to do anything else I start jogging in the opposite direction. Seeing that she’s not following I simply make wide semicircle and go on my way. Tsk. Another shitty day. I simply cannot believe how many mad people are there in these parts of town. I’ve seen plenty of nut cases but she is up there with the best of them.

After opening some distance between us I take out my cell phone to dial for some help. I feel bad about ratting someone out to those pieces of shit that call themselves ‘cops’ in this neighborhood, but at least they will have the means, to either put her in asylum, or on some medication. Maybe she will at least curse one of them to death or something. That would be fun.

The ingrained social standards make me stop when the lights changes to red. Since it is still early morning there’s not much traffic. Just one black car is idling on empty road, waiting with me for the lights to change. As I stand there nervously, the phone starts making connection.

“The number you have dialled cannot accept this call, please try again later” … what the hell…?

I look down at the phone. It seems in my haste I accidently pressed wrong speed dial button. Huh. I was sure it was this one. After typing it in manually, I rise the phone to my ear and straighten.

My eyes open wide as I see the moment black sports car is rammed into by truck. The driver must have fallen asleep or something since I didn’t hear the sounds of braking. The speed was so high that both of the cars toppled over. Wholly sh**t…

“… Police, what’s your emergency? “ I’ve missed part of what was said but at least I’m connected…

“I’ve just s….”

I started to say but without a warning it was as if my mouth was filled with water. I couldn’t speak… What the hell? …I looked down… the f**k…? …there is this white round object… sticking out of my chest… … looking up I see the truck filled to the brim with these white objects… the thing on my chest… red fluid is gushing out of one end of this … what… pipe?

…

…

‘Who the hell makes white pipes?’ I think as I topple to the side and vomit blood.

…

Laying on the ground I hear the clatter and noises from the cellphone that fallen next to me.

…

The last thing I see is the old hag looking at me from behind of some trash pile in the distance.

…

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…

…

…

I wake up in the dark.

Stretching little bit, like always, does not make me shake off the desire for further oblivion.

Huh that was hell of a dream. I understand having occasional nightmare from time to time but that was waaay over the top. The vividness and brutality of it makes me shiver a little bit even now. Though I bet in the morning I will forget all about, it like I usually do.

It’s still dark so let me rest a bit more.

…

Huh it’s little bit to dark … Maybe someone closed the heavy metal shutters that are on ground level above my merger window… Sleep sleep…

…

1 Sheep… 2 Sheeps… 3 Sheeps… 4 Sheeps…

…ZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZzzz…

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…

And again I wake up in the dark.

The hell? Why is it so dark? The shutters huh… Or maybe I overslept and it’s night again… I’m sleepy head and I sometimes managed to lie there for hours on end until it got dark again…but due to the money problems and day to day duties forced on me, I don’t have that luxury anymore. I have to choice but to get up and check what time is it.

Trying to get up results in hitting my head on something. Damn it. I grab my head in reflex and lie down again. Somehow something feels wrong… The pain is quite dull and it’s like… My scalp is waaaaay to smooth… where the hell is all my hair!?

Trying to feel out edge of my bed I find the wall. On both sides. What the f**k!? Moving my hands upwards I shortly reach the ceiling I hit my head on. It’s so close that I cannot even stand up!! …. !? Is it coffin or something!? Moving little bit upwards and downwards the bed I reach the same solid obstacle… Coffin… F**king coffin…

I start Screaming with all my might, only to realize the voice is not coming out. I grab for my throat… but there are only bones under my fingers… the spine… I grabbed my own spine…

I start trashing around in utter panic.

The moments of pure terror lasted a while… but how long can someone stay hysteric? After a while you just adapt, and so did I.

Touching here and there I found out I’m definitely dead. Totally and unquestionably dead. There are only bones and some clothes, inside the coffin. Coffin … dead…. In coffin…

…

Damn… calm down… calm down…

….

Alright. My grandma told me to always try find something positive about any given situation. Since I’m dead then I don’t need air. Huuraaay I have plenty of time. I once watched a movie where terrorists buried some unlucky bastard in a coffin. It was constant fight for time. From beginning to the end of movie he was in this stupid coffin with only cellphone… wait! Cellphone! Maybe I have something with me!!

I pat myself down more thoughtfully this time. Some rags of clothes in soo bad state even with light it would be hard to discern what they are … Nothing of worth on them or in the remnants of pockets I found… Seems one of my ribs is broken through…f**k… for now I will put off the checking if something is inside the rib cage… I get shivers thinking about it… to frigging scary for now… hell how did I get shivers again? Aren’t I skeleton or something? … I guess phantom feelings apply even after death huh…

Time for checking the… bottom part … thinking of it as an bed creeps me out but it seems that in the end it’s the most proper description. Even through my flesh is gone, and clothes degraded to unrecognizable state, the pillow and some kind of thick fabric padding are still there. Checking the corners and all around me I found two things. First one is piece of bone. Seems that it’s little curved… so after a closer examination and trying this and that… i figured out it’s the missing part of my broken rib. Well who’s bones would there be here but mine? HaHa. Sigh…

The second thing that I found out is that contrary to my previous fears this coffin is not sealed perfectly. All the goo of my decaying flesh and brain matter must have gone somewhere right? Three of the bottom corners have small cracks in them and are quite clean, while the forth had my rib bone stuck in it and thin layer of dry slime.

Seems like there is nothing of use here except for my own bones and the pillow. And yeah pillow is important. Hmm I guess it’s time to panic again. Wholly f**ck.

Alright, alright, easy, easy, calm down me!

Well I guess I’m dead so I don’t have anything else to loose huh. That has it’s own merits. Not worrying about food expenses for example. But who knows? Maybe I have to eat flesh like the zombies do? Ugh gross…

Hey wait. I remember watching some horror movies where there were undead like me… And they always were super strong weren’t they… Besides… how does zombie or skeleton rise from the grave huh? It digs itself out!! Ha! That is the way! I see the light!! Well not really but almost.

‘Kay then. First comes first. The lid.

Just touching it around proves that it’s quite sturdy and doesn’t have any holes or cracks like the corners had. Bracing myself I try to push on it. No use, it does not budge. Trying several more times gives same results. Damn… Then maybe… Punching! There’s not much space to get an swing but karate like strike with a twist might work right?… punching it few times in different places …proves of no use either…

What now… damn it… Will I stay buried till I go insane or something? No.. no… easy calm down… think of something….

Think…

Ah! The clean corners!! My body must have been disintegrated by bugs and bacteria. Some of it would definitely seep out by the holes but even so … there still should have been a lot left!! If the corners are so clean then the water must have sipped in to the coffin from somewhere up above! Then there must be some crack on the upper lid I haven’t noticed before!!!

Re-examining the lid with very high attention for details, proves I’m right! There is very small crack in the lid near my knees! Damn, it will be hard to punch there…

It’s way too narrow for me to turn around… But it seems like lack of flesh gives me bit more space when pulling my legs in close to the body, making me quite compact little fellow… squeezing myself quite tightly in the bottom part of the coffin I have the crack in easy reach…

The punches I used before seem enormous and heavy in comparison, as I’ve completely lost the swinging space. Pushing also gets me nowhere.

Damn it… where the hell is all that strength the undead are supposed to have!? And how the hell do they get out of their stupid graves!?

With lack of better things to do I start playing with the crack. It’s not wide or brittle and my finger bones simply skittle over it. Seems like they are too big and round huh. Wait… the rib bone! Broken rib bone had jagged edges, didn’t it!

Quick search and the rib bone is in my hand.

I started scratching away at crack and making it wider bit by bit. It’s quite the slow process but I have plenty of time.

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