Everyone went stiff and still for one brief moment, as if the sound had turned them all to stone.

He closed his eyes and went stiff, to demonstrate what it would look like.

Her body felt soft, she had not yet gone stiff.

"Try to keep moving, to prevent the leg from going stiff."

And then he went stiff with the sense of emptiness in the house.

The black man's eyes froze, and his face went stiff.

For a moment after she'd come in her face had gone all stiff, as if she were trying not to cry.

She went stiff when his hands came down on her shoulders.

Sitting down beside Katie again, she felt the girl suddenly go stiff as a board.

The human body starts to go stiff within a few hours of death.