I knocked my knuckles against the coffin lid.
“You up?” I whispered down to the corpse. There was a feeble tapping from within. “Wrong answer!” I said, throwing the coffin open. The pale worm lay helpless in the daylight.
“You,” he gasped.
“Me,” I smiled. “Now where’s my stake?”
“No,” he moaned as I positioned the pointed tip over his heart.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll try to make this quick and painless. I’ll give you a lollipop afterwards.” He barked a profanity up at me. “Now, now, lollipops are only for the well behaved.”
I raised my mallet, and drove the stake through his heart in one blow. A shiver ran through his body, but once still, his pale flesh began to dissolve away into ash.
“Okay, I can see you’re sorry,” I said and threw a colorful sucker into the coffin before closing the lid.
Tale Told 