The Rag-and-Bone Man

The summer I turned nine, my parents left me with my cousin Vera in the dusty town of Calico Flats while they dealt with a family emergency up north. Vera was seventeen and thought she was too cool to babysit, but she’d agreed to it for the money. We spent most evenings on the cracked leather couch in her living room, watching reruns of old sitcoms and eating microwave popcorn. The house was a squat, brick thing on the edge of town, and behind it, the desert stretched out like a dirty beige sea. The only neighbor was an abandoned gas station a quarter mile down the road.

One night, Uncle Ray was there, which was unusual because he usually worked the night shift at the diner. He sat in his worn recliner, nursing a beer and half-watching the TV. The air conditioner wheezed in the window, struggling against the heat. Around nine, he got up, stretched, and said he was going to bed. ‘Don’t stay up too late,’ he grumbled, and disappeared down the hallway to his room.

I was curled up against Vera, my head on her shoulder, when I heard it. A soft, scraping sound from the basement door, which was at the far end of the living room. Then two distinct thuds, like something heavy being dropped. I jolted, my heart hammering. Vera felt me tense. ‘You okay?’ she asked, not looking away from the screen. I nodded, but I couldn’t stop staring at the basement door. It was ajar now, a sliver of blackness showing. I knew it had been closed before.

‘What are you looking at?’ Vera said, finally glancing at me. ‘Nothing,’ I whispered. But then the door creaked open wider, and something crawled out. It moved like a spider, all limbs and awkward angles. It was a man—or what had once been a man. He wore a long, brown leather coat that was crusted with dirt and something darker, something that might have been blood. His face was a skull, the skin stretched thin and yellow, with hollow eye sockets that seemed to stare right through me. A horrible smell wafted from him, like rotting meat and old pennies.

He crawled slowly across the worn carpet, his fingers digging into the fibers, making a dry, rasping sound. He stopped about five feet from us, his head tilting side to side as if studying me. His jaws opened and closed, but no sound came out. I couldn’t breathe. I felt a scream building in my throat, but it was stuck. Then his head began to move side to side, slowly, as if he was trying to make up his mind about something.

That’s when I lost it. I let out a shriek that tore my throat, and I scrambled up onto Vera, clinging to her like a monkey. ‘What the hell?’ she yelled, pushing me off. ‘What’s wrong?’ I pointed at the thing, my hand shaking. ‘There! Can’t you see it?’ Uncle Ray burst out of his room, his hair mussed, his eyes wide. ‘What’s going on?’ I screamed that there was a man, a skeleton man, crawling on the floor. They both looked where I pointed, but their eyes swept over the spot without stopping. Vera said, ‘There’s nothing there, sweetie. You’re spooked.’ But I could see it. It was still there, its head now tilted up at me, and I swear it was grinning.

Uncle Ray knelt down and looked me in the eye. ‘You’re just tired, kid. Let’s get you some water.’ He led me to the kitchen, and I kept looking back over my shoulder. The thing was gone. The basement door was closed again. But the smell lingered, like a dead animal in the walls.

The next morning, I told myself it was a nightmare. But I couldn’t shake the image of that skull face. When my parents came to pick me up, I told them about it, and my mom’s face went pale. She glanced at my dad, and they exchanged a look I didn’t understand. That night, I heard them talking in the other room. ‘It’s the Rag-and-Bone Man,’ my mom said. ‘He comes for children who have been left with the wrong people.’ I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew he wasn’t done with me.

A week later, back home in the city, I woke up to the sound of thuds outside my bedroom window. I looked out, and there he was, crawling on the lawn, his coat dragging in the dew. He looked up at me, and his head began to move side to side again. I screamed, and my parents came running, but by then he was gone. It’s been twenty years, and I still see him sometimes. In the corner of my eye at night, or in the reflection of a dark window. He’s always there, waiting, as if he’s still trying to make up his mind.