Ten cities have each received a small package from the Gifter. Inside is a fingertip bone wrapped in pink ribbon, with the same neat message: A GIFT OF BONE. When the call reaches the one retired investigator who lived through the first case, he knows the pattern before the caller can explain it.

Thirty years earlier, the packages began with the tiny bones of the ear and went to congressmen, police, firemen, federal workers, and soldiers. There were no prints, no fibers, no useful handwriting, and no way to warn the public without exposing a sealed investigation. The Gifter mailed human anatomy across the country by schedule, leaving investigators to build the body one package at a time.

Now the sequence has started again. The old investigator refuses to consult, but the case is still in his house, in his head, and in the details he kept out of the file.

A crime horror short story by Kristopher Mallory, first published on r/nosleep in 2012.

A Gift Of Bone

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