Too Many Bones by Mike Rader

The human body has too many bones. I discovered this after murdering my teacher. 

Cutting up his body with a battery-powered reciprocating saw was extremely difficult; the blade kept jamming on bones and the batteries took at least two hours to recharge. 

My parents were away for a fortnight so I had time to deal with Mr. Holmes. After ambushing him on his nightly walk, I carried his body home in our wheely bin. What surprised me was how muscular his body had been for a gray-haired history teacher in his fifties. Thanks to him, I failed my final year. 

Eventually I’d neatly butchered Mr. Holmes into chunks of meat in my father’s workshop and washed away his blood. Night after night, I dumped his flesh in the local creek for the fish and rats to consume. 

But his bones were another matter entirely. 

I sat and watched the summer repeats on television, a tray of bones on my knees, meticulously polishing them, ensuring no traces of tell-tale flesh remained. 

One by one, I placed the bones in a silver trunk. When I was finished, I buried it in the churchyard at midnight. To the best of my knowledge, it is still there.

James Aitchison is an Australian author and poet.  As Mike Rader, he writes horror and noir fiction and poetry.  His work has twice appeared in Black Poppy Review, as well as Horror Tree (Trembling with Fear), Thriller, Akashic Books (Mondays are Murder) and many other magazines and anthologies.