SKELETON by Ray Bradbury – The Enemy Within: Not All Murderers Are Visible | Classic Horror Fiction - Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome Weirdos. This is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories
of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained Coming up in this episode, It's Thriller Thursday,

(00:28):
and this time I bring you a strange story from
master storyteller Ray Bradbury. The story is odd in the
beginning and gets slowly darker as it progresses. Our protagonist,
mister Harris, has slowly become more and more obsessed with
his own skeleton, which he only sees as a symbol
of death. As an enemy. He sees a skeleton not

(00:50):
as a part of him, but as a separate entity
continually working against him, eventually coming to believe his skeleton
is trying to kill him. While it's obvious the man
is quite mad, it's still an interesting journey as he
plunges further down into his madness as the story moves forward.
Now bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,

(01:14):
and come with me into the Weird Darkness. It was
past time for him to see the doctor again. Mister
Harris turned palely in at the stairwell and on his

(01:35):
way up the flight, saw doctor Burley's name gilded over
a pointed arrow. Would doctor Burley sigh when he walked in?
After all, this would make the tenth trips so far
this year. But Burley shouldn't complain, he was paid for
the examinations. The nurse looked mister Harris over and smiled
a bit amusedly as she tiptoed to the glazed door,

(01:57):
opened it and put her head in. Harris thought he
heard her say, guess who's here? Doctor? And didn't the
doctor's voice reply faintly? Oh my god? Again? Harris swallowed uneasily.
When Harris walked in, Doctor Burley storted, aches in your
bones again? Uh? He scowled and adjusted his glasses. My
dear Harris, you've been curried with the finest tooth combs

(02:19):
and bacteria brushes known to science. You're just nervous. Let's
see your fingers. Too many cigarettes, let's smell your breath.
Too much protein, let's see your eyes. Not enough sleep?
My response, go to bed, stop the protein, no smoking.

(02:41):
Ten dollars please. Harris stood sulking. The doctor glanced up
from his papers. You still hear you're a hypochondriac. That's
eleven dollars now, But why should my bones ache? Asked Harris.
Doctor Burley spoke as to a child. You ever had
a sore muscle and kept irritating it, fussing with it,

(03:04):
rubbing it. It gets worse the more you bother it.
Then you leave it alone and the pain vanishes. You
realize you caused most of the soreness yourself. Wow, son,
that's swus with you. Leave yourself alone, Take a dose assaults,
get out of here and take that trip to Phoenix.
You've stowed about for months? Do you good to travel?

(03:26):
Five minutes later, mister Harris rifled through a classified phone
directory at the corner Druggists find lot of sympathy one
got from blind fools like Burley. He passed his finger
down a list of bone specialists, found one named m. Munichant.
Munichant lacked an MD or any other academic lettering behind
his name, but his office was conveniently near three blocks down,

(03:50):
one blockover. Mister Mutigant, like his office, was small and dark.
Like his office, he smelled of iodiform, iodine and other
odd things. He was a good listener, though, and listened
with eager shiny moves of his eyes, and when he
talked to Harris, his accent was such that he softly
whistled each word. Undoubtedly because of imperfect dentures, Harris told all.

(04:14):
Mister Mutegant nodded, he'd seen cases like this before. The
bones of the body. Man was not aware of his bones. Ah, yes,
the bones the skeleton. Most difficult, something concerning an imbalance,
an unsympathetic coordination between soul, flesh and skeleton. Very complicated,

(04:35):
softly whistled mister Mutigant. Harry listened, fascinated. Now here was
a doctor who understood his illness. Psychological, said mister Munichant.
He moved swiftly, delicately to a dingy wall and slashed
down a half dozen X rays to haunt the room
with their look of things found floating in an ancient tide.

(04:55):
Here hear the skeleton surprised, Here luminous portraits of the long,
the short, the large, the small bones. Mister Harris must
be aware of his position, his problem. Mister Mutigant's hand tapped, rattled, whispered,
scratched at faint nebula of flesh in which hung ghosts
of cranium spinal cord, pelvis, lime, calcium marrow. Here there

(05:18):
this that, these those and others look. Harris shuddered. The
X rays and the paintings blew in a green and
phosphorescent wind from the land peopled by the monsters of
Dolly and Fuselie. Mister Mutagant whistled quietly. Did mister Harris
wish his bones treated? That depends, said Harris. Well. M

(05:41):
Munigant could not help Harris unless Harris was in the
proper mood psychologically. One had to need help or the
doctor was useless. But shrugging, mister Mutigant would try. Harris
lay on a table with his mouth open. The lights
were switched off, the shades drawn. Mister Mutigant approached his patient.
Something touched Harris's tongue. He felt his jawbones forced out.

(06:06):
They creaked and made faint, cracking noises. One of those
skeleton charts on the dim wall seemed to quiver and jump.
A violent shudder seized Harris involuntarily. His mouth snapped shut.
M Munigan shouted his nose had almost been bitten off.
No use, no use, Now was not the time. M

(06:27):
Munichuant whispered. The shades up dreadfully disappointed. When mister Harris
felt he could cooperate psychologically, When mister Harris really needed
help and trusted m Munigan to help him, then maybe
something could be done. M Muniguin held out his little hand.
In the meantime, the fee was only two dollars. Mister
Harris must begin to think. Here was a sketch for

(06:51):
mister Harris to take home and study. It would acquaint
him with his body. He must be trembling, aware of himself,
He must be on guard. Skeletons were straight on wieldy things,
and Munigant's eyes glittered. Good day to mister Harris. Oh,
and would he care for a breadstick? Mister Mutigant proffered
a jar of long, hard, salty breadsticks to Harris, taking

(07:13):
on himself, saying that chewing breadsticks kept him in uh practice.
Good day, Good day to mister Harris. Mister Harris went home.
The next day, Sunday, mister Harris discovered innumerable fresh aches
and pains in his body. He spent the morning his
eyes fixed staring with new interest at the small, anatomically

(07:36):
perfect painting of a skeleton. M Munegant had given him.
His wife Clarice startled him at dinner when she cracked
her exquisitely thin knuckles one by one until he clapped
his hands to his ears and cried stop. The rest
of the afternoon he quarantined himself in his room. Clarice
played bridge in the parlor, laughing and chatting with three

(07:56):
other ladies, while Harris hidden away, fingered and waved at
the limbs of his body with growing curiosity. After an hour,
he suddenly rose and called Clarice. She had a way
of dancing into any room, her body, doing all sorts
of soft, agreeable things to keep her feet from ever
quite touching the nap of a rug. She excused herself

(08:17):
from her friends and came to see him. Now brightly,
she found him reseated in a far corner. As she
saw that he was staring at the anatomical sketch. Are
you still brooding? Sweet? She asked, please? Don't. She sat
upon his knees. Her beauty could not distract him. Now
in his absorption, he juggled her lightness. He touched her

(08:38):
knee cap suspiciously. It seemed to move under her pale,
glowing skin. Is it supposed to do that? He asked,
sucking in his breath. Is what's supposed to do? What?
She laughed? You mean my kneecap. Is it supposed to
run around on top of your knee that way? She experimented,
So it does, she marveled. I'm glad yours slithers too,

(09:02):
He sighed, I was beginning to worry about what. He
patted his ribs. My ribs don't go all the way down.
They stop here, And I found some confounded ones that
dangle in mid air beneath the curve of her small breasts.
Clarice clasped her hands. Of course, silly, everybody's ribs stop

(09:23):
at a given point, and those funny short ones are
floating ribs. I hope they don't float around too much.
The joke was most uneasy. Now, above all, he wished
to be alone. Further discoveries, newer and stranger archaeological diggings
lay within reach of his trembling hands, and he did
not wish to be laughed at. Thanks for coming in, dear,

(09:44):
he said, any time. She rubbed her small nose softly
against his wait here now, he put his finger to
touch his nose in hers. Did you realize the nosebone
grows down only this far from there on a lot
of gristly tissues fill out the rest. She wrinkled hers,

(10:05):
of course, darling, as she danced from the room. Now
sitting alone, he felt the perspiration rise from the pools
and hollows of his face to flow in a thin
tide down his cheeks. He licked his lips and shut
his eyes. Now now next on the agenda, what the
spinal cord? Yes here, Slowly he examined it in the

(10:30):
same way he operated the many push buttons in his office,
thrusting them to summon secretaries messengers. But now in these
pushings of his spinal column, fears and terror answered rushed
from a million doors in his mind to confront and
shake him. His spine felt horribly unfamiliar, like the brittle
shards of the fish freshly eaten, its bones, left strown

(10:53):
on a cold china platter. He seized the little rounded nobbins,
Lord Lord, His teeth began to chatter, God Almighty, he thought,
why haven't I realized it? All these years? All these
years I've gone around with a skeleton inside me. How
is it we take ourselves for granted? How is it

(11:14):
we never question our bodies and our being. A skeleton,
one of those jointed, snowy, hard things, one of those foul, dry, brittle,
gouge eyed, skull faced, shake fingered, rattling things that sway
from neck chains and abandoned webbed closets, one of those
things found on the desert, all long and scattered like dice.

(11:38):
He stood upright because he couldnot bear to remain seated
inside me. Now he grasped his stomach, his head. Inside
my head is a skull, one of those curved carapaces
which holds my brain like an electrical jelly. One are
those cracked shells with the holes in front like two
holes shot through it by a double barrel shotgun, with

(12:00):
its grottoes and caverns of bone, its revetments and placements
from my flesh, my smelling, my seeing, my hearing, my thinking.
A skull encompassing my brain, allowing it exit through its
brittle windows to see the outside world. He wanted to
dash into the bridge party upset it a fox and

(12:20):
a chicken yard, the cards fluttering all around like chicken feathers,
burst upward in clouds. He stopped himself only with a
violent trembling effort. Now, now, man, control yourself. This is
a revelation. Take it for what it's worth. Understand it,
savor it. But a skeleton screamed his subconscious. I won't

(12:42):
stand for it. It's vulgar, it's terrible, it's frightening. Skeletons
are horrors. They clink and tinkle and rattle in old castles,
hung from oaken beams, making long, indolently rustling pendulums on
the wind. Darling, will you come meet the ladies? His
wife's clear, sweet voy called from far away. Mister Harris stood.

(13:04):
His skeleton held him up. This thing inside, this invader,
this horror, was supporting his arms, legs and head. It
was like feeling someone just behind you who shouldn't be there.
With every step, he realized how dependent he was on
this other thing. Darling, I'll be with you in a moment.

(13:24):
He called weekly to himself. He said, come on, brace up.
You've got to go back to work tomorrow Friday. You
must make that trip to Phoenix. It's a long drive,
hundreds of miles. Must be in shape for that trip,
or you won't get mister Crelton to invest in your
ceramics business. Chin up now. A moment later, he stood
among the ladies being introduced to Missus Withers, Missus Applematz,

(13:47):
and miss Kirthy, all of whom had skeletons inside them,
but took it very calmly, because nature had carefully clothed
the bare nudity of clavical tibia and femur with breasts, thighs,
calves with koyfer and eyebrow, satanic with bee stung lips.
And Lord shouted, mister Harris inwardly, when they talk or
eat part of their skeletons, show their teeth. I never

(14:11):
thought of that. Excuse me, He gasped and ran from
the room, only in time to drop his lunch among
the petunias over the garden balustrade. That night, seated on
the bed as his wife undressed, he paired his toe, nails,
and fingernails scrupulously. These parts, too, were where his skeleton

(14:32):
was shoving, indignantly growing out. He must have uttered part
of this theory, because next thing he knew, his wife
in negligee was on the bed, her arms around his neck, yawning, Oh,
my darling, fingernails are not bone, They're only hardened epidermis.
He threw the scissors down. Are you certain? I hope
so I'd feel better. He looked at the curve of

(14:54):
her body, marveling, I hope all people are made the
same way. If you aren't, the learned this type of chondriac.
She held him at arm's length. Come on, what's wrong?
Tell mamma something inside me? He said, something I ate.
The next morning and all afternoon at his downtown office,
mister Harris sorted out the sizes, shapes, and construction of

(15:17):
various bones in his body with displeasure. At ten am,
he asked to feel mister Smith's elbow one moment. Mister
Smith obliged, but scowled suspiciously. And after lunch, mister Harris
asked to touch Miss Laurel's shoulder blade, and she immediately
pushed herself back against him, praying like a kitten and
shutting her eyes. Miss Laurel, he snapped, stop that alone,

(15:40):
he pondered his roses. The war was just over the
pressure of his work. The uncertainty of the future probably
had much to do with his mental outlook. He wanted
to leave the office get into business for himself. He
had more than a little talent for ceramics and sculpture.
As soon as possible, he'd head for Arizona, borrow that

(16:00):
money from mister Crelton, build a kiln and set up shop.
It was a worry, what a case he was, but
luckily he had contacted m Munigant, who seemed eager to
understand and help him. He would fight it out with himself,
not go back to either Munichant or doctor Burley unless
he was forced to. The alien feeling would pass. He sat,

(16:22):
staring into space. The alien feeling did not pass. It

(16:45):
grew on Tuesday and Wednesday had bothered him terrifically that
his epidermis, hair, and other appendages were of a high disorder,
while the intcumented skeleton of himself was a slick, clean
structure of efficient organization. Sometimes, in certain lights, with his
lips drawn morosely, down weighted with melancholy, he imagined he
saw his skull grinning at him behind the flesh. Let go,

(17:09):
he cried, Let go of me. My lungs stop. He gasped, convulsively,
as if his ribs were crushing the breath from him.
My brain stop squeezing it. And terrifying headaches burnt his
brain to a blind cinder. My insides, let them be
for God's sake, Stay away from my heart. His heart
cringed from the fanning motion of ribs like pale spiders

(17:31):
crouched and fiddling with their prey. Drenched with sweat, he
lay upon the bed one night while Clarisse was out
attending a Red Cross meeting. He tried to gather his wits,
but only grew more aware of the conflict between his
dirty exterior and this beautiful, cool, clean, calciumed thing inside.
His complexion. Wasn't it oily and lined with worry? Observed

(17:54):
the flawless, snow white perfection of the skull. His nose
wasn't it too large? Then? Observe the tiny bones of
the skull's nose before that monstrous nasal cartilage begins forming
the lopsided probosis. His body wasn't it plump? Well? Consider
the skeleton slender, spelt, economical of line and contour, exquisitely carved,

(18:18):
oriental ivery, perfect thin as a white praying mantis. His
eyes weren't they protuberant? Ordinary numb? Looking? Be so kind
as to note the eye sockets of the skull so
deep and rounded, somber, quiet pools, all knowing, eternal gaze deep,
and you never touch the bottom of their dark understanding

(18:39):
all irony, all life, all everything is there in the
cupped darkness. Compare, compare, compare. He raged for hours, and
the skeleton, ever, the frail and solemn philosopher hung quietly inside,
saying not a word. Suspended, like a delicate insect with
a chrysalis, waiting and waiting, Harris sat slowly up. Wait

(19:02):
a minute, hold on, he exclaimed, you're helpless too. I've
got you two. I can make you do anything I want.
You can't prevent it. I say, move your carpels, metacarpals
and falangies, and up they go. As I wave to someone,
he laughed. I ordered the fibula and femur to loco
mote and hon to three four two three four. We

(19:26):
walked around the block there, Harris grinned. It's a fifty
to fifty fight, even Stephen, and we'll fight it out.
We two, after all, on the part that thinks yes,
by God, yes, Even if I didn't have you, I
could still think instantly. A tiger's jaw snap shut, chewing

(19:47):
his brain in half. Harris screamed. The bones of his
skull grabbed hold and gave him nightmares. Then, slowly while
he shrieked, nuzzled it ate the nightmares one by one
until the last one was gone and the lights out.
At the end of the week, he postponed the Phoenix
trip because of his health. Weighing himself on a petty scale,

(20:09):
he saw the slow gliding red arrow point to one
hundred sixty five. He groaned, Why I've weighed one seventy
five for years, I can't have lost ten pounds. He
examined his cheeks in the fly dotted mirror. Cold primitive
fear rushed over him in odd little shivers. You you,

(20:30):
I know what you're about you. He shook his fist
at his bony face, particularly addressing his remarks to his
superior maxillary, his inferior maxillary, to his cranium, and to
his cervical vertebra. You damn thing you think you could
starve me, make me lose weight. Huh, peel the flesh off,
leave nothing but skin on bone. Trying to ditch me

(20:52):
so you can be supreme. Ha ha, No no. He
fled into a cafeteria turkey dressing creamed potatoes, four vegetables,
three desserts. He could eat none of it. He was
sick to his stomach. He forced himself. His teeth began
to ache. Bad teeth is it, he thought angrily. I'll

(21:13):
eat spite of every tooth clanging and banging and rattling.
So they've fallen my gravy. His head blazed, his breath
jerked in and out of a constricted chest, his teeth
raged with pain. But he knew one small victory. He
was about to drink milk when he stopped and poured
it into a vase of desterdiums. No calcium for you,
my boy, No calcium for you. Never again shall I

(21:35):
eat foods with calcium or other bone for defying minerals.
I'll eat for one of us, not both, my lad
one hundred and fifty pounds, he said the following week
to his wife. Do ye see how I've changed for
the better? Said Clarice. You're always a little plump for
your height, darling. She stroked his chin. I like your face.

(21:56):
It's so much nicer. The lines of it are so
firm and strong. Now they're not my lines, they're his.
Damn him. You mean to say, you like him better
than you like me. Him? Who's him? In the parlor
mirror beyond Clarice, His skull smiled back at him behind
his fleshy grimace of hatred and despair. Fuming, he popped

(22:18):
malt tablets into his mouth. This was one way of
gaining weight when you couldn't keep other foods down. Clorice
noticed the malt pellets. But Darling, really, you don't have
to regain the weight for me, she said. Oh, shut up,
he felt like saying. She made him lie with his
head in her lap. Darling, she said, I've watched you lately.
You're so badly off. You don't say anything, but you

(22:42):
look hunted. You toss in bed at night. Maybe you
should go to a psychiatrist. But I think I can
tell you everything, he would say. I've put it all
together from hints you've let escape you. I can tell
you that you and your skeleton are one and the same,
one nation indivisible with liberty and justice all united. You
stand divided, you fall If you two fellows can't get

(23:04):
along like an old married couple in the future, go
back and see doctor Burley. But first, relax, you're in
a vicious circle. The more you worry, the more your
bones stick out. The more you worry. After all, who
picked this fight, you or that anonymous entity you claim
as lurking around behind your elementary canal? He closed his eyes.

(23:27):
I did, I guess I did. Go on, Clarice, keep talking.
You rest now, she said, softly, Rest and forget. Mister
Harris felt buoyed up for half a day. Then he
began to sag. It was all very well to blame
his imagination, but this particular skeleton by God was fighting back.

(23:51):
Harris sat out for m Munichant's office late in the day,
walking for half an hour until he found the address.
He caught sight of the name M Munichant initialed in
a flaking gold on a glass plate outside the building.
Then his bones seemed to explode from their moorings, blasted
and erupted with pain. Blinded, he staggered away. When he
opened his eyes again, he had rounded a corner. M

(24:13):
Munichant's office was out of sight. The pains ceased. M
Munigant was the man to help him. If the sight
of his name would cause so titanic a reaction, of course,
m Munichant must be the man, but not today. Each
time he tried to return to that office, the terrible

(24:34):
pains took hold. Perspiring, he had to give up and
swayed into a cocktail bar. Moving across the dim lounge,
he wondered briefly if a lot of blame couldn't be
put on m. Munigant's shoulders. After all, it was Mutnagant
who had first drawn specific attention to his skeleton and
let the psychological impact of it slam home. Could m

(24:55):
Munigant be using him for some nefarious purpose? But what purpose?
Silly to suspect him, just a little doctor trying to
be helpful. Munichant and his jar breadsticks ridiculous him. Munichuant
was okay, okay. There was a sight within the cocktail

(25:17):
lounge to give him hope. A large fat man, round
as a butterball, stood drinking consecutive beers at the bar.
Now there was a successful man. Harris repressed a desire
to go up, clap the fat man's shoulder and inquire
as to how he'd gone about impounding his bones. Yes,
the fat man's skeleton was luxuriously closeted. There were pillows

(25:40):
of fat here, resilient bulges of it there with several
round chandeliers of fat under his chin. The poor skeleton
was lost. It could never fight clear of that blubber.
It might have tried once, but not now overwhelmed, not
a bony echo of the fat Man's supporter remained, Not
without envy, Harris approached fat Man as one might cut

(26:01):
across the bow of an ocean liner. Harris ordered a drink,
drank it, and then dared to address the fat man.
Glands you're talking to me, asked the fat man. Or
is there a special diet, wondered Harris. I beg your pardon,
but as you see, I'm down. Can't seem to put
on any weight. I like a stomach like that ony yours.

(26:22):
Did you grow it because you were afraid of something?
You announced? The fat man are drunk, but I like drunkards.
He ordered more drinks. Listen close, I'll tell you layer
by a layer, said the fat man. Twenty years man
and boy, I built this. He held his vast stomach

(26:42):
like a globe of the world, teaching his audiences gastronomical geography.
It was no overnight circus. The tent was not raised
before dawn on the wonders installed within. I have cultivated
my inner organs as if they were thoroughbred dogs, cats,
and other animals. My stomach is a fat, pink Persian tom, slumbering,
rousing at intervals to perr, mew, growl, and cry for

(27:06):
chocolate titbits. I feed it well, it will most sit
up for me and my dear fellow. My intestines are
the rarest pure bred Indian anacondas you ever viewed, in
the sleekest, coiled, fine and ruddy health. Keep them in prime.
I do all my pets for fear of something. Perhaps
this called for another drink for everyone gain weight. The

(27:30):
fat man savored the words on his tongue. Here's what
you do. Get yourself a quarreling bird of a wife,
a baker's dozen of relatives who can flush a covey
of troubles out from behind the veriest molehill. Add to
these a sprinkling of business associates whose prime motivation is
snatching your last lonely quid, and you are well on
your way to getting fat. How soo, in no time

(27:53):
you'll begin subconsciously building fat betwixt yourself and them. A
buffer epidermal state cellular wall. You'll find that eating is
the only fun on earth. But one needs to be
bothered by outside sources. Too many people in this world
haven't enough to worry about. Then they began picking on
themselves and they lose weight. Meet all of the vile,

(28:15):
terrible people you can possibly meet, and pretty soon you'll
be adding the good old fat. And with that advice,
the fat Man launched himself out into the dark tide
of night, swaying mightily and wheezing. That's exactly what doctor
Burley told me. Slightly changed, said Harris thoughtfully, perhaps that
trip to Phoenix. Now, at this time, a trip from

(28:40):
Los Angeles to Phoenix was a sweltering one, crossing as
it did the Mohave Desert on a broiling yellow day.
Traffic was thin and inconstant, and for long stretches there
would not be a car on the road for miles
ahead or behind. Harris twitched his fingers on the steering wheel.
Whether or not Crelton and Phoenix lent him the money
he needed to artist business, it was still a good

(29:01):
thing to get away, to put distance behind. The car
moved in the hot sluice of desert wind. The one
mister H sat inside the other mister H. Perhaps both perspired,
perhaps both were miserable. On a curve, the inside mister
H suddenly constricted the outer flesh, causing him to jerk
forward on the hot steering wheel. The car plunged off

(29:23):
the road into boiling sand and turned half over. Night
came a wind rose. The road was lonely and silent.
The few cars that passed went swiftly on their way,
their view obstructed. Mister Harris lay unconscious until very late.
He heard a wind rising out of the desert, felt
the staining of little sand needles on his cheeks, and

(29:45):
opened his eyes. Morning found him gritty eyed and wandering
in thoughtless, senseless circles. Having, in his delirium, got away
from the road. At noon, he sprawled in the poor
shade of a bush. The sun struck in with a
keen sword edge, cutting through to his bones. A vulture
circled Harris. Parched lips cracked open. So that's it, he whispered,

(30:10):
red eyed, bristle cheek One way or another. You'll walk me,
starve me, thirst me, kill me. He swallowed dry burrows
of dust. Sun cook off my flesh, so you can
peek out, vultures lunch off me, and there you'll lie grinning,
grinning with victory, like a bleached xylophone strewn and played

(30:30):
by vultures with an ear for odd music. You'd like
that freedom. He walked on through a landscape that shivered
and bubbled in the direct pour of sunlight, stumbling, falling flat,
lying to feed himself little mouths of fire. The air
was blue alcohol flame, and vultures roasted and steamed and
glittered as they gluw in glides and circles. Phoenix, the

(30:55):
road car water safety. Hey, someone called from way off
in the blue alcohol flame. Mister Harris propped himself up. Hey.
The call was repeated, a crunching of footsteps quick with
a cry of unbelievable relief. Harris rose, only to collapse

(31:17):
again into the arms of someone in a uniform with
a badge. The car tediously hauled, repaired, Phoenix reached. Harris

(31:38):
found himself in such an unholy state of mind that
the business transaction was a numb pantomime. Even when he
got the loan and held the money in his hand,
it meant nothing. This thing within him, like a hard
white sword and a scabbard tainted his business, his eating
colored his love for Clarice made it unsafe to trust
an automobile. All in all, this this thing had to

(32:00):
be put in its place. The desert incident had brushed
too close, too near the bone, one might say, with
an ironic twist of one's mouth. Harris heard himself thanking
mister Crelton dimly for the money. Then he turned his
car and motored back across the long miles, this time
cutting across the San Diego so he would miss that
desert stretch between Elcentro and Beaumont. He drove north along

(32:24):
the coast. He didn't trust that desert, but careful salt
waves boomed hissing on the beach outside Laguna. Sand Fish
and crustacea would cleanse his bones as swiftly as vultures
slow down on the curves over the surf. Damn, he
was sick. Where to turn. Clarice Burley, munigant bone specialist,

(32:51):
munigant well, Darling. Clarice kissed him. He winced at the
solidness of the teeth and jaw behind the passionate exchange. Darling,
he said, slowly, wiping his lips with his wrists trembling.
You look thinner, oh darling. The business deal it went through?

(33:13):
I guess yes it did. She kissed him again. They
ate a slow, falsely cheerful dinner, with Clarice laughing and
encouraging him. He studied the phone several times. He picked
it up indecisively, then laid it down. His wife walked in,
putting on her coat and hat. Well, sorry, but I
have to leave, she pinched him on the cheek. Come

(33:33):
on now, cheer up. I'll be back from Red Cross
in three hours. You lie around in snooze. I simply
have to go. When Clarice was gone, Harris dialed the
phone nervously, m munigant. The explosions and the sickness in
his body after he set the phone down were unbelievable.
His bones were wrecked with every kind of pain, cold

(33:55):
and hot he had ever thought of or experienced in
wildest nightmare. He swallowed all the aspern he could find
in an effort to stave off the assault, but when
the doorbell finally rang an hour later, he could not move.
He lay weak and exhausted, panting, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Come in, come in, for God's sake, m Munigant came in.

(34:17):
Thank god the door was unlocked. Oh, but mister Harris
looked terrible. M Munachant stood in the center of the
living room, small and dark. Harris nodded. The pains rushed
through him, hitting him with large iron hammers and hooks.
M Munigaant's eyes glittered as he saw Harris's protuberant bones. Ah,

(34:38):
he saw that mister Harris was now psychologically prepared for aid,
Was it not so? Harris nodded again, feebly, sobbing. M
Munagaint still whistled when he talked, something about his tongue
and the whistling. No matter through his shimmering eyes, Harris
seemed to see M. Muneagaan't shrink, get smaller, imagine a

(35:00):
of course, Harris sobbed down his story of the Phoenix trip. M.
Mune Againt sympathized this skeleton was a traitor. They would
fix him for once and for all. Mister Mutigant sighed
Harris faintly. I never noticed before your tongue round tubelanke, hollow,

(35:22):
my eyes delirious. What do I do? M Munigant whistled softly, appreciatively,
coming closer. If mister Harris would relax in his chair
and open his mouth. The lights were switched off. M
Munagant peered into Harris's dropped jaw. Wider, Please, it had
been so hard that first visit to help Harris with

(35:44):
both body and bone in revolt. Now he had cooperation
from the flesh of the man anyway, even if the
skeleton protested in the darkness. M Munigant's voice got small, small, tiny, tiny.
The whistling became hot, eye and shrill. Now relaxed, mister Harris.
Now Harris felt his jaw pressed violently in all directions,

(36:07):
his tongue depressed as with a spoon, his throat clogged.
He gasped for breath, whistle. He couldn't breathe. Something squirmed,
corkscrewed in his cheeks, out bursting his jaws like a
hot water douche. Something squirted into a sinuses. His ears clanged. Ahhhh,
shrieked Haras, gagging his head. Its carifaces riven, shattered, hung loose,

(36:30):
agony shot fire through his lungs. Harris could breathe again. Momentarily,
his watery eyes sprang wide. He shouted, his ribs like sticks,
picked up and bundled were loosened in him pain. He
fell to the floor, wheezing out his hot breath. Lights
flickered in his senseless eyeballs. He felt his limbs swiftly cast,

(36:50):
loose and free. Through streaming eyes, he saw the parlor.
The room was empty. Im Munigant in God's where are you,
m Munigant? Come help me, m Munichan was gone. Help van.
He heard it deep down in the subterranean fissures of

(37:11):
his body. The minute, unbelievable noises, little smackings and twistings,
and little dry chippings and grindings and nuzzling sounds like
a tiny hungry mouse down in the red blooded dimness,
gnawing ever so earnestly and expertly at what might have been,
but was not, a submerged timber. Clarice, walking down the sidewalk,

(37:42):
held her head high and marched straight toward her house
on Saint James's Place. She was thinking of the Red
Cross as she turned the corner and almost ran into
this little dark man who smelled of viodine. Clarice would
have ignored him if it were not for the fact
that as she passed, he took something long white and
oddly familiar from his coat, and proceeded to chew on

(38:02):
it as on a pepperminstick. Its end devoured. His extraordinary
tongue darted within the white confection, sucking out the filling,
making contented noises. He was still crunching his goody as
she proceeded up the sidewalk to her house, turned the
doorknob and walked in. Darling, she called, smiling around, darling,

(38:22):
where are you? She shut the door, walking down the
hall and into the living room, Darling. She stared at
the floor for twenty seconds, trying to understand. She screamed.
Outside in the sycamore darkness, the little man pierced a
long white stick with intermittent holes, then, softly, sighing his

(38:43):
lips puckered, played a little sad tune upon the improvised
instrument to accompany the shrill and awful singing of Clarice's
voice as she stood in the living room. Many times
as a little girl, Clarice had run on the beach sands,
stepped on a jellyfish and screamed, it was not so bad.
Finding it intact, gelatine skinned jellyfish in one's living room.

(39:06):
One could step back from it. It was when the
jellyfish called you by name. Thanks for listening. If you

(39:29):
like the show, please share it with someone you know
who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
or unsolved mysteries like you do. All stories on Thriller
Thursday episodes are works of fiction. Skeleton was written by
Ray Bradbury. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark copyright Weird Darkness.

(39:50):
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light Matthew six, first thirty four. Therefore,
do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be
anxious for itself sufficient, for the day is its own trouble.
And a final thought, we are cups constantly and quietly
being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves

(40:13):
over and let the beautiful stuff out. Ray Bradbury, I'm
Daryn Marler. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.

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SKELETON by Ray Bradbury – The Enemy Within: Not All Murderers Are Visible | Classic Horror Fiction

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}SKELETON by Ray Bradbury – The Enemy Within: Not All Murderers Are Visible | Classic Horror Fiction