Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

A song of nine couplets cautions the reader not to “laugh” at the sight of a hearse, “for you may be the next to die” (39). The song describes the reader’s burial in a winding sheet and coffin, noting that “[a]ll goes well for about a week, / Then your coffin begins to leak” (39). Worse, worms crawl in and out of your body, play “pinochle” on your snout, eat the “jelly” between your toes, etc. Meanwhile, your body oozes white quantities of pus-like “whipping cream,” which, the song claims, dead people like yourself must eat served on bread.

At a party attended by youngsters, a boy tells the other children never to stand on a grave after dark because “‘the person inside will grab you. He’ll pull you under’” (41). When a girl scoffs, calling it superstition, the boy offers to pay her a dollar if she goes through with it and leaves a knife stuck in the grave as proof. That night, the girl goes to the graveyard, nervous in spite of herself, and picks a grave. After driving the knife into the soil, she tries to leave but feels herself pulled back, repeatedly, toward the grave.