I wrote this
The Skeleton Child
I work with kids after school. It's a small house with a yard at the back—play equipment, face paint, the whole deal. Stressful sometimes, but usually fun.
This past Halloween, we set up the center like always. Kids came in for games, cookies, pumpkin decorating. Normal night.
Until I noticed him.
A kid in a skeleton costume. But not the cute kind with the bones printed on pajamas. This was one of those full-body suits with a mask that covered his entire face—just two black eyeholes staring out. He sat alone in the corner while every other kid was running around screaming.
I walked over and knelt down. "Hey, buddy. You okay? Want to go play with the others?"
He just looked at me. Didn't speak.
I offered him a cookie. He didn't move. Didn't even glance at it. Just those black holes where his eyes should be, fixed on my face.
I stood up and asked the other parents, "Is this anyone's child?" Our rule is strict—kids under ten can't be left alone. This boy looked eight at most. Everyone said no. So I crouched back down and asked him, "Where are your parents?"
He lifted one small, gloved hand and pointed through the window toward the parking lot. A woman stood by a car. I breathed a little easier. Maybe she just didn't know the rules.
I sent another staff member out to tell her she couldn't leave her child unattended. She came back two minutes later, looking pale.
"She said that's not her kid."
I turned around. The boy was still staring at me. Slowly, he raised his hand again and pointed toward the bathroom.
I walked him over. He went inside. I waited outside the door.
Five minutes passed. Ten. Twenty. We were getting close to closing time, and other kids needed to use the bathroom. I knocked. No answer. I pushed the door open.
The stall was empty.
The window above the toilet was wide open—cranked all the way, just barely big enough for a small child to squeeze through. Outside, nothing but darkness and the wet grass of the backyard.
I panicked. I told my staff to start locking up. Then I called the police.
They arrived within fifteen minutes. I explained everything—the costume, the silence, the woman in the parking lot, the bathroom window. They took security footage from our cameras. But the costume covered his entire face. No facial recognition possible. They said they'd send out a public notice and left.
I stayed behind to help clean up. Most families had already gone home. I was exhausted and shaken, just wanting to lock the door and leave.
That's when I spotted it.
A small blue jacket crumpled on a chair near the door. I picked it up. Sewn into the collar was a name: Liam.
"Great," I muttered. One more thing to deal with.
I walked over to the front desk and opened the sign-in book. Every parent had to leave their child's name, their own name, and a phone number. I flipped through the pages, looking for "Liam" under the kids' names.
That's when I saw it.
Near the bottom of the last page, in handwriting that was definitely not an adult's—shaky, looping, the way a child writes when they're still learning to hold a pencil—was a single letter under "Parent/Guardian Name":
U.
No last name. No kid's name. Just U. And next to it, a phone number written in the same childish scrawl.
I stared at it. That wasn't Liam's entry. That wasn't anyone's entry I recognized.
I looked back at the desk. The sign-in book had been left unattended all night. With everything going on—the games, the cookies, the chaos, and then that strange boy—nobody had been watching the book. Anyone could have walked up and written anything.
Or anything.
I called the number right there.
An old man's voice answered. Groggy. Confused.
"Did your child come to our Halloween event tonight?"
"I don't have children," he said. "I'm seventy-three."
"Grandchild, maybe?"
"No. My family lives in another state. It's just me and my wife here."
I hung up. Then I called the police back.
They said they'd add it to the report. But I could hear in their voice—there wasn't much else they could do.
I didn't sleep that night. Kept seeing those black eyeholes staring at me from the corner.
At nearly midnight, my phone rang. It was my friend Sarah. She also works with kids—different center, different part of town.
"Sorry to call so late," she whispered. "But something happened tonight. We did a Halloween thing too. And there was a kid. Skeleton costume. Full mask. Sat alone."
My blood went cold.
"I was walking over to him," she said, "but he ran out before I reached him. By the time I got outside, he was gone. I didn't think much of it until later, when I found a stuffed animal someone left behind. I opened our sign-in book to find the parent's number—and that's when I saw it. Our book was left unattended all night too. Someone had written N. Just that letter. A kid's handwriting. And a phone number. When I called it, a man answered. Said he didn't have any kids. Didn't know any child."
We both went quiet.
Then she said, "He's doing this on purpose. Walking in when no one's watching the book. Leaving a letter. Leaving a stranger's number. Then leaving through a window."
I asked her how the kid could even know which numbers to write. Phone numbers that belonged to real people—people who had nothing to do with him.
She didn't have an answer.
Neither did I.
The next afternoon, while I was making lunch, someone knocked on my door. Two police officers. They looked tired.
"We tracked the kid on security cameras," one of them said. "He didn't just hit your center and your friend's. He went to over a dozen Halloween events that day. Walked in. Sat alone. Left through windows, back doors, even fire exits. Nobody noticed him except you and your friend—because you actually went over and talked to him."
I asked what he wrote in their sign-in books.
The officer flipped open a notebook.
"We recovered seven of them. The ones that hadn't been thrown away." He read the letters aloud. F. O. R. G. E. T. And at the last event, before he ran into the woods, he wrote M. E.
FORGET ME.
Everywhere else. But at my center and my friend's? U and N.
U N — You and.
You and forget me? That didn't make sense.
Then I realized.
He wasn't telling everyone else to forget him.
He was telling us—the only two people who asked if he was okay—the opposite.
UNFORGET ME.
I haven't slept right since.
A few weeks ago, I heard from another friend in a neighboring town. She runs a daycare. She said a kid in a skeleton costume showed up at their fall festival. Sat in the corner. Stared.
She said she almost went over to talk to him.
But then she remembered my story.
She looked away for one second to find a coworker.
When she looked back, he was gone.
The only thing left on his chair was a single cookie.
Uneaten.
And on the sign-in book, in that same shaky handwriting, a new message had appeared:
DON'T.
Don't what? Don't forget? Don't remember? Don't look for me?
I don't know.
But sometimes, late at night, I hear breathing outside my window.
And a child's whisper:
Unforget me.