Cemetery Soup

Cemetery Soup is a story from More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It is meant to be comedic and tells the story of a woman who finds herself being haunted after making soup with a bone.



The Story
On her way home from the market, the woman took a short cut through the cemetery. There, sticking up out of the ground, she saw a big bone. She picked it up and looked it over carefully.

"This will make a very good soup bone," she said. "I think I'll take it home. It's perfect weather for hot soup." When she got home, the first thing she did was start the soup. Into the big soup pot went water, carrots, green beans, corn, barley, onions, potatoes, a snitch of beef, some salt and pepper, and--the bone. She brought it all to a boil, then brought it down to a simmer.

"Yum!" she said, sniffing it and tasting it. "I can hardly wait till supper." Suddenly she heard a small voice. "Please give me back my bone." The woman paid no attention. Soon she heard the voice again. "May I have back my bone, please?" The woman was reading the newspaper, and again she didn't take any notice. In a little while, the voice spoke up once more. It was beginning to sound angry. "Give me back my bone!" The woman kept on reading the paper. "Some people are too impatient," she muttered. Once more the voice spoke. Now it sounded very angry, and it was so loud that the whole house shook.

"I WANT MY BONE BACK!"

The woman reached into the pot, grabbed the bone, and threw it out the window. In a voice just as loud, she shouted,

"TAKE IT!"

There was an eerie silence. Then the woman heard footsteps scurrying away from the house down the road toward the cemetery. And she got up and served herself some soup.