Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls Read online

  “Right.”

  “So I don’t think it has anything to do with recovering stolen property from the haunted house.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, if we’ve ruled out trespassing, and we’ve ruled out damages to the Deli Mobile, then I think they’re after Billy.”

  “Billy? Why Billy?”

  “Because he’s got El Zarape’s sack of skulls.”

  “But why would they …” She stops petting Lucy and stares at me as it sinks in.

  “First Shovel Man’s chasing El Zarape. Why? We don’t know. Then the Vampire sees Billy with El Zarape’s sack—he must’ve seen it, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So he tells Shovel Man and now they’re looking for us.” I nod. “They must be after the sack.”

  Holly’s looking a little pasty. “But … why?”

  I eye her. “I think those skulls are real.”

  She scoops Lucy into a hug. “That would be very … disturbing. Why would someone be carrying around skulls?”

  We both sit quiet for a minute, and then I say, “Whatever the reason, we need to tell Billy and Casey. It’s way too early to call or go tapping on windows, so I’m thinking we should go back to the haunted house and check out the skulls they had there—just so we can compare them to the ones Billy’s got. I mean, everyone else thought they looked the same, and I don’t want this to be another case of my imagination running wild.”

  She laughs. “Right. Because we all know how dangerous that can be.”

  I laugh, too. “At least it’ll be a place to start.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  So we make up some excuse about wanting to go for a walk, grab a couple of biscuits and bananas, and hurry downstairs before Meg or Vera starts asking questions. And we’re beelining for the front door when all of a sudden both of us stop, look at each other, and, without a word, turn around and go out the back door.

  I guess we were both still feeling a little shaky from our close encounter with the Deli-Car Duo.

  It was almost seven, so it was light out, but it’s not like the sun was blazing overhead or anything. And since the air was pretty chilly, we wound up jogging most of the way to Feere Street, just to get warm.

  The street barricades were down, and as we walked to the haunted house we noticed how what had seemed spooky and creepy in the dark was pretty unscary by daylight. But it wasn’t until we got to the haunted house that I realized how fake a haunted house it really was. The pointed roof and the whole second story—the dormer windows, the shutters, the shingles—it was all a façade that was now leaning against the porch in sections.

  Holly just blinks at it. “It’s just a regular house?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t believe they did all that for one night.”

  “You girls are up early,” a man calls from under the tree where he’s collecting the spears and skulls and putting them in a coffin. He’s got a puffy black ponytail and is wearing a tool belt, jeans, and a T-shirt. And even though it’s still nippy out, he’s sweating.

  “I can’t believe you’re tearing this down already,” I tell him.

  “Hey, yesterday was Halloween,” he says as he wipes his brow. “Today is All Saints’ Day. And I’ve got a deal with my lovely wife—she helps me indulge in my obsession with Halloween, and I make it all disappear the next day.” He snickers. “And then she drags me to church to pray for the souls of the dearly departed.”

  I give him a little squint. “You’re serious?”

  He shrugs and grins and gets back to work. “Call it a compromise of cultures. She’s from Mexico, I’m from Hollywood. We’ve been married nearly twenty years, so I guess you’d say we respect each other’s beliefs.”

  I’m still having a little trouble wrapping my head around this, so I say, “And you believe … ?”

  He laughs. “That Halloween’s the most righteous holiday ever!”

  “But not that you’re worshipping the dead or the devil or … or whatever?”

  “No! It’s just fun. It has nothing to do with worshipping anything.”

  Then Holly asks, “So … were you an actor?”

  He shakes his head. “Set builder.” He nods at the façades stacked up against the house. “Loved the work, hated the biz.”

  We watch him take down two more spears, and then I tell him, “We were here last night.”

  He grins. “I figured that.”

  “The mummy totally got me.”

  He seems to get a big kick out of that. “You’re not alone, believe me.”

  “So … are these Hollywood props? I mean, some of them are really realistic. Like those skulls? Those are great.”

  He picks one up and jostles it in his hand like he’s trying to guess its weight. “Love these babies. They’re the best money can buy.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Sure,” he says, and walks it over.

  Holly and I take turns admiring it, and when we hand it back, I tell him, “It’s really nice that you do all this. We had a great time last night. It was amazing.”

  “Why, thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “I’d worry about people stealing stuff if I were you. I mean, that’s a really cool skull. I know a lot of kids who’d want to snag it.”

  “Nah. Most kids are good.” He grins again and says, “The werewolf only had to come out twice last night, and that was for littering.” Then he goes, “Ghrrraaaaarghhhh,” and jumps at us with one hand up like a claw and the other shaking the skull.

  I back up with a laugh. “Anyway, thanks for everything!”

  “See you in church!” he calls as we head down the driveway, then snickers like it’s the silliest joke ever.

  But the instant we’re back on the street I turn to Holly and I can tell she’s thinking the same thing I am, and there’s absolutely nothing funny about it.

  We have to find Billy!

  We would have gone straight to Billy’s house but we didn’t know where he lived or even what his phone number was. Casey did, but to add to the ridiculousness of the situation, we didn’t have a cell phone or any money in our pockets to use a pay phone to call Casey and ask him.

  I did know where Casey lived, though, and although that used to be a ways out of town with his dad, it’s now in town with his mother and sister.

  A bad situation on all counts except one: We could walk there, no problem.

  And I guess because I was so intent on getting to Casey’s quick, I didn’t even think that we were going to walk past the graveyard, but suddenly there we were.

  “Want to take a shortcut?” Holly joked.

  I smirked at her. “Very funny.”

  I didn’t really want to go past it, but unless we were going to backtrack, there was no avoiding it. “They say people always return to the scene of the crime, you know.”

  “Are you talking about us?”

  I laugh. “Well, here we are!”

  And the truth is, I did feel kinda guilty. About more than sneaking into the graveyard or bending some dilapidated car’s windshield wiper.

  It was those skulls.

  I didn’t even have them, but I was still dying to get rid of them.

  Then Holly says, “Looks like someone’s getting buried today,” and nods across the street.

  Through the gate where we’d scrambled over the Deli Mobile, we can see a pickup truck parked near a big green canopy and a couple of people putting out chairs.

  Holly shivers a little. “The whole thing is awful, don’t you think?”

  “Getting buried?”

  She nods. “I’m with Marissa—I get claustrophobic just thinking about it.”

  “They used to install little bells, did you know that? So if you were buried alive, you could pull on a cord and ring a bell. Or a flag would go up. Something like that.”

  Holly shivers again, and this time it’s a big one. “Can you imagine?”

  Then I see that the people in the graveyard
are picking something off the ground.

  Planks.

  Long wooden planks.

  I find myself crossing the street to get a closer look.

  “What are you doing?” Holly asks, chasing after me.

  It comes out all breathy when I say, “Those must be the boards we ran over last night.”

  “You think?” We watch the men move the planks a few feet to each side, leaving an opening in the earth. “So we ran over …”

  She looks at me all bug-eyed, so I finish for her. “An open grave.”

  We let this sink in a minute, and finally Holly says, “What if those boards hadn’t been there?”

  “We’d have fallen in and killed ourselves?”

  “Wow,” she says, staring into the graveyard.

  I force a laugh. “Either that or Marissa would have killed us!”

  We watch as the workers put a couple of cross braces widthwise over the grave, then cover the hole with a big piece of AstroTurf.

  “Why the fake grass?” Holly asks.

  “Maybe so people don’t have to see inside the hole during the service?”

  “Yeah, I guess the less you have to think about it, the better.”

  “No kidding.” I grab her. “Let’s get out of here.”

  So we hurry away from the graveyard toward the sanity of regular neighborhoods.

  Which just goes to show you how relative things can be.

  After all, we were heading for the Acostas’ house.

  Home of Heather the Horrible.

  Now, there was no way I was going to ring the Acostas’ doorbell. Aside from not wanting to wake the Wicked Monster, I didn’t want to wake her mother.

  Candi Acosta is just like Heather, only scarier. Imagine being in a horror movie, fighting off a giant hairy arachnid mutant with all your might, not sure you’ll ever be able to land your harpoon in a place that’ll keep it from killing you. It’s closing in on you with its rancid breath and fangs dripping with blood … and then in walks another hairy arachnid mutant that’s ten times bigger than the first one.

  That’s pretty much what it feels like when Candi Acosta comes to her daughter’s defense. And since chances were two out of three that a hairy arachnid mutant would answer the door, I was not about to knock or ring the bell.

  What I did have going for me was that I’d infiltrated Heather’s house during a costume party last Halloween and knew which room was hers. I also knew that her mother’s bedroom was at the back end of the house, which left me with a pretty good hunch that Casey’s room was the first window on the right side of the walkway.

  “Ready?” Holly whispers after we’d stood on the sidewalk for a minute.

  “Let’s do it.”

  So we tippy-toe up and I do a gentle ratta-tat-tat on the window.

  Nothing happens.

  “Try again,” Holly whispers after we’ve spent a whole minute stupidly staring at the curtain.

  So I ratta-tat-tat again.

  Still nothing.

  So I ratta-tat-tat a little harder, and this time the curtain lifts.

  Trouble is, the person looking out at us is not Casey.

  It’s the vicious little arachnid mutant monster.

  I duck quick, but it’s too late. Heather sees me and instantly goes from half-asleep to full-on rage. She cusses at us through the glass, then fumbles to open her window so the whole neighborhood can hear her tirade.

  Well, I’m not about to wait around for that, so I grab Holly and ditch it over to the window that used to be Heather’s room, thinking that if Heather’s sleeping in the first room, then Casey’s got to be in Heather’s old room.

  We get around the house quick and right away I rap on the window loud and fast.

  The curtain flies up, only instead of seeing Casey, I’m face to face with Heather again!

  I jump back and cry, “Aaaah!” because it feels like there are two Heathers in there and something about that totally freaks me out.

  She wrestles the window up about six inches and hisses, “Go away! You’re trespassing! If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the cops!”

  Now, she’s not screeching like she was when she yelled at me through her window. It feels like she’s yelling, but it’s really just a whisper, so I know she’s trying to get rid of us without waking up Casey, who must be in that room still sleeping. So I just call past her, “Casey! We need your help finding Billy!”

  Slam, the window comes down and the curtain drops. And before I can pound on it or call anything through the glass, a tornado hits. I swear. The curtain twists and flops, goes up and down, twists some more. The top of a head bobs up, then drops back down. There’s more flailing at the curtain like someone’s drowning in there. And then finally the curtain goes still.

  Holly and I just stare at it, then each other, then back at the curtain.

  Nothing.

  Then all of a sudden the curtain pops open and we’re face to face with the world’s goofiest grin.

  Holly and I go, “Billy?”

  His hair’s sticking out all over the place, and he lifts the window, saying, “Sammy-keyesta and the Hollister! Tryin’ to wake the dead!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Had me a sleepover!”

  Heather’s voice is in the background yelling, “I don’t care what you say! Mom says she can’t come in! Those are the rules! If you don’t like it, leave.” There’s a short silence and then she yells, “Why would I stay out of your room when your loser girlfriend beats down the window of mine?”

  Billy looks over his shoulder, then whispers. “I’d ditch it if I were you. It took both of us to get her out of here and I think she’s coming back.”

  “Look, we don’t want to come in, but we really need to talk to you!”

  He looks over his shoulder again. “I don’t think now’s a good time.”

  “Can you and Casey meet us somewhere? Like Hudson’s?”

  “When?”

  “As soon as you can get there. It’s important.”

  “Okeydokey,” he says.

  “Oh, and bring the … bring Grim and Reaper.”

  “My buddies!”

  “Be sure to bring them, okay?”

  “Okeydokey!”

  I shake my head a little. “Are you always this cheerful in the morning?”

  “Always!” He gives me a goofy grin. “Except when I’m not!”

  “Get to Hudson’s as quick as you can, okay? And tell Casey I’m sorry. I had no idea Heather had switched rooms.”

  Then we hustle out of there before Heather can sic Candi on us.

  I never feel bad about just dropping in at Hudson’s. It’s sort of a home away from home. At least his porch is. It’s big and airy and a great place to hang out.

  But, really, it’s Hudson that makes his porch a little harbor in the storm of life. He always takes the time to listen, and he treats me like I’m a friend, not some pesky kid.

  I think Hudson’s porch is also Hudson’s favorite place to be because he spends a lot of time there with his boots kicked up on the rail. Usually he’s reading the paper or a book, but sometimes he’s just watching the world go by.

  I like that Hudson still gets a real paper. Maybe it’s the big sweep of newsprint as he switches pages. Or the fact that he can pull a section out and hand it to me. It’s very … Zen—like we’re sharing a moment of enlightenment.

  Although he usually reads the news while I snag the funnies.

  Anyway, it didn’t surprise me to find Hudson on the porch reading the paper. What did surprise me was how he was dressed.

  “Wow, Hudson. Nice boots.”

  He lowers the paper and grins at me. “My Sunday best.”

  I eye Holly, then look back at him. “But … it’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he says, putting the paper aside. “But it’s All Saints’ Day, and I’m taking your grandmother to church.”

  “You are?” I go up the steps. “W
hat is that, anyway?”

  “All Saints’ Day?”

  “Yeah. The guy who did the haunted house said his wife’s dragging him to church for All Saints’ Day, too.”

  Hudson picks up the paper again. “Are you referring to the haunted house on Feere Street? Did you go there last night?”

  “Yeah—it was awesome.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “Does your grandmother know you went all the way over there?”

  “It’s not that far.”

  He hands me the paper, and I see a big picture of the haunted house, with a fat streak of lightning Photoshopped in behind it, trying to make it look super scary. The headlines over it read:

  HALLOWEEN HORRORS

  STABBINGS, DISAPPEARANCES,

  AND BEATINGS CREATE COMMUNITY FEAR

  I start to read the article—October ended the way it began—with a mysterious disappearance—then skim through the first few paragraphs before looking up. “But none of this stuff happened at the haunted house!” I point to the Photoshopped picture. “The guy who owns it used to be a set builder in Hollywood, and he goes through all the trouble of turning his regular house into a haunted house because he thinks Halloween is fun.” I hand the paper back to Hudson. “It’s like they’re trying to create fear with this.”

  Hudson thinks a minute, then nods. “You have a point. But it doesn’t negate the fact that last night there were two stabbings, a beating, and yet another man’s gone missing.”

  Holly holds her hand out for the paper. “What do you mean, ‘yet another’ man?”

  “This is the third disappearance in a month,” Hudson says, handing the paper over as he goes inside to answer his ringing phone. “No trace of any of them.”

  “The third?” Something about this gives me a weird kind of draining feeling. Like all the blood in my body is running for cover. “Holy smokes.”

  I must’ve looked as pale as I felt, because Holly stops reading and nudges my arm. “What’s the matter?”

  “Yesterday was the third disappearance.”

  She shakes me a little. “Yeah? And … ?”

  “So before yesterday there were two people missing?”

  She just stares at me.

  “You know … two?”

  She’s still not getting it.