Bag of Bones

by Stephen King

By the way, what’s going on with Ki’s fridgeafator people? Are they writing any new stuff?” “That is the weirdest thing,” she said. “They’re gone.” “The fridgeafator people?” “I don’t know about them, but the magnetic letters you gave her sure are. When I asked Ki what she did with them, she started crying and said Allamagoosalum took them. She said he ate them in the middle of the night, while everyone was sleeping, for a snack.” “Allama-who-salum?” “Allamagoosalum,” Mattie said, sounding wearily amused. “Another little legacy from her grandfather. It’s a corruption of the Micmac word for ‘boogeyman’ or ‘demon’—I looked it up at the library. Kyra had a good many nightmares about demons and wendigos and the allamagoosalum late last winter and this spring.” “What a sweet old grandpa he was,” I said sentimentally. “Right, a real pip. She was miserable over losing the letters; I barely got her calmed down before her ride to V.B.S. came. Ki wants to know if you’ll come to Final Exercises on Friday afternoon, by the way. She and her friend Billy Turgeon are going to flannel-board the story of baby Moses.” “I wouldn’t miss it,” I said . . . but of course I did. We all did.