Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: All References And What They Looked Like In The Books
3. Aaron Kelly's Bones & What Do You Come For
This one is a reference that would have been missed by even avid fans of the book, but it's thanks to Guillermo Del Toro's behind the scenes and interviews that fans get to know about it.
As mentioned previously, the story Me Tie Dough-ty Walker only presented a severed head, but the version in the film went further with a dismembered body collectively known as the Jangly Man.
It's actually the image of Aaron Kelly in the eponymous short story that inspires the creature, his parts falling off as he "jangles" and dances that acted as one of the main references for the Jangly Man's anatomy. Another possible reference (though not directly stated) is the short story What Do You Come For, where, like in Me Tie Dough-ty Walker, body parts fall out of a chimney, though in this one, it's a full body that falls in individual pieces, much like the film's Jangly Man is a series of parts that come together.
Both images pretty effectively strike the fear intended on their own, but it makes sense that, both stories being comedic, they come together to form a much more frightening figure.