Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls (2 page)

Our friend Dot didn’t want anything to do with our little death brigade. She said she was going to “reprise” her bumblebee costume from last year and take her little sisters trick-or-treating instead, but I think she just didn’t want to risk another Halloween like last year.

Anyway, Holly, Marissa, Billy, Casey, and I all met at Hudson’s house and had a blast painting and spraying and plastering scars onto each other. It got uuuuuugly! And even uglier when we put in our fake rotten teeth!

“You look hideous, darling!” Billy says to Marissa in a Count Dracula accent.

“And you’re revolting!” Marissa says back with a laugh.

Then Hudson comes in with some old, worn flannels and a pair of scissors. “Seems you could use some tatters to go with those faces.”

“Are you serious?” Casey asks him.

“Rip away,” he says with a laugh.

So we put on the shirts, then we tear and tatter and, you know,
destroy
them, which really does a lot to complete our zombie look.

“Very gruesome,” Hudson says as he lets us out. “You look like you’re straight from the grave.”

Billy hunches over like Quasimodo as we go down the porch steps, then makes a horrifying sound in his throat and says, “Let’s go, my pretties!”

So off we go, racing from house to house, collecting candy in our pillowcases, and it doesn’t take long for Billy to really start hamming it up.

“Aaaaah,” he’d gurgle when someone answered the door. “I think I’m … dyyyyyyyyying!” Then he’d grab his throat and stagger around, finally collapsing onto the porch. “Caaaaaaandy!” he’d gasp, holding up his sack. “Save me!”

The person who answered the door would always
laugh, then give all of us two or three pieces instead of just one.

“You’re the master at this,” Casey tells him after about the sixth performance.

“And you, my pretty, are my slave!”

Casey laughs, “Dude, there’s no way I’m your pretty.”

“My pretty ugly, then!” Billy rasps. “But still my slave.”

So we’re all laughing and chasing after Billy as he scurries back onto the sidewalk, but we quit laughing quick when we find ourselves doing a domino-style bump-up into a
cop
.

It’s pretty shadowy right there, so it takes a second for me to realize that it’s not a real cop—it’s just a guy in costume. And
then
it hits me that this fake cop is none other than Danny Urbanski.

Now, let’s just say that Danny Urbanski doesn’t need to dress up for Halloween. Anyone with two eyes can see that he’s a snake. Trouble is, Marissa’s two eyes don’t focus where Danny’s concerned. She’s had a crush on him
forever
, and even though she knows he’s a slithering sneak, she still can’t seem to shake him.

“Dude!” Billy says to him. “A cop?”

Danny laughs. “Best way to stay out of trouble, man.” He checks us all over. “You, on the other hand, are dead meat!” Then he laughs really hard at his own joke.

I hate the way Danny laughs. It’s one of those forced, kind of hacking laughs that sounds like a lawn mower that won’t start.

Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha.

Like he needs a new spark plug.

Anyway, Danny and Casey used to be really good friends, but not anymore. And I think Danny knows that Holly and I aren’t exactly his biggest fans, so it was kinda awkward standing there in the middle of the sidewalk. Especially since Marissa was mortified to be looking so drop-dead ugly.

“Hide me!” she whimpers, then slouches behind me and Holly.

But Danny knows that Marissa and I are usually together, so he sort of leans around and says, “Marissa?”

Marissa spits her nasty yellow teeth into her hand and smiles at him. But all those white teeth flashing through warts and scars and peeling skin looks weird.

Like,
extra
creepy.

Danny laughs again. “Hey, beautiful. Wanna be my
ghoul
friend?”

Now, he says this all, you know,
suave-
like, but there’s also a hint of sarcasm to it and it’s hard to tell—is he making fun of her? Or is he actually saying, You want to hang out with me tonight?

Or maybe this is his snarky way of apologizing for sucking face with that nasty Heather Acosta and flirting with every hot girl who walks by.

With Danny you just can’t tell.

Anyway, Marissa obviously doesn’t know what to say because she just
stares
until Casey comes to the rescue, asking him, “So who you hangin’ with tonight?”

“I’m meeting up with Nick and some of the guys at the haunted house on Feere Street.” Then he kinda throws a
smirk at the rest of us and says to Casey, “I can’t believe you’re trick-or-treating, man.”

What’s totally implied in this is, I can’t believe you’re hanging out with these
babies
. See, even though we went to the same junior high, Danny and Casey are both freshmen in high school now. Billy would be, too, only he got held back a year, so he’s stuck in eighth grade with us.

And I’m sure Casey’s at least a
little
embarrassed by Danny’s comment, but he doesn’t show it. Instead he moves past Danny saying, “Hey, if I’m ever too cool for free candy, I really will be a walking dead man.”

Danny lets out another one of his stupid fake laughs, then says, “Whatever, man. I’m heading over to the haunted house,” and he takes a few steps before calling over his shoulder, “There’ll be people from
high
school there.”

So he went one way and we went the other. And even though we tried to act like Officer Urbanski had never crossed our path, he had definitely put a damper on our fun. Oh, Billy did the whole die-on-the-doorstep thing a few more times, but his performance went from great to lame pretty quick, and before you know it we were back to straight trick-or-treating.

And then we got caught in the Invasion of Little People. I don’t know if it was the neighborhood or what, but little Luke Skywalkers and ghosts and teddy bears were suddenly everywhere, scampering up and down the walkways, blasting past us or squealing at the sight of five big zombies in their way.

So finally I say what I know everyone else is thinking. “Why don’t we go check out the haunted house?”

Everyone’s quiet until Holly shrugs and says, “I’ve heard it’s pretty cool.”

Marissa nods. “Me too.”

Casey shakes his head. “Yeah, but I really
don’t
want to go, you know that?”

I grab his arm and give him a deathly smile. “Yes, you do.”

Somehow this pushes the reset on Billy’s mood. He grabs Casey’s other arm and says, “Yes, my pretty ugly, you do!”

So we duck out of that neighborhood and head for Feere Street, and pretty soon we find ourselves on the corner of Stowell and Nightingale waiting for the light to turn green.

“Perfect!” Billy says, pointing across the street. “Bonesville!”

Casey gives him a grin. “The old side, too!”

Now, the Santa Martina Cemetery is big, and is basically divided into two sections—the old and the new. And the whole thing’s separated from the rest of the world by a stone wall that’s topped with wrought-iron fencing. So it’s not like you’re actually
next
to graves as you go by, but still, there’s no ignoring that there are people buried on the other side of the wall—especially when you’re going past the old part. It’s hilly and has big gnarled trees, and there’s everything from life-sized angels on huge podiums to marble grave markers that look like tall skinny pyramids to the Sunset Crypt—a full-blown mausoleum with Roman pillars and flower urns and a shiny black threshold that says
DISTURB NOT THE SLEEP OF DEATH
.

The
new
part, on the other hand, was leveled before they started burying people and has only flat grave markers with built-in holes for flowers. Nothing sticks up so a riding mower can drive right over the graves.

When I first found out about the riding mower, it really bothered me. But now I try to think of it as a sort of gentle massage for dead people. I mean, they’re six feet under and in a box, right? So they probably barely feel the big ol’ lawn mower rumbling around above them. And if they
do
, it’s gotta be a pretty quiet, soothing vibration, right?

Anyway, when the light turns green we start to cross Stowell, but jump back quick when a silver minivan looks like it’s going to barrel right through the light. It nosedives to a halt at the last second, and as we cross in front of it Holly says, “Another idiot breaking the law.”

At first I don’t know what she’s talking about, but she’s looking at the driver, so I do, too, and what I see is a woman with ruby red hair talking on her cell phone.

“Everybody does that,” I tell her.

“Which is why there are so many crazy drivers!”

So we cross the street, and as we walk away from the traffic on Stowell Road and down the cemetery side of Nightingale Lane, we pass by a crooked old gate. It’s just a single-person gate and it’s got a chain and lock around it, but I know from experience that it’s definitely not kid-proof.

Now, I’m not about to mention this little fact, but Billy figures it out for himself. “What are we
thinking
?” he cries. “We’re zombies! We need to join our brethren!” and in a flash he’s squeezing through the gate.

“No!” Marissa cries. “I do
not
want to go into the graveyard!”

“Uh, why?” Casey asks as he follows Billy. “Are you afraid you’ll scare the ghosts?”

“I … I just don’t!”

“It’s a shortcut,” Billy singsongs. “It’ll save us at least ten minutes.”

“Will not!”

Holly steps forward, following Casey and Billy. “Come on, Marissa. It’s Halloween. It’ll be fun.” Then she adds, “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

“No, but … !” Marissa looks to me for help, and the truth is, I’m kinda torn. I mean, I’m not crazy about the idea, but it
is
Halloween, and we
are
dressed up like zombies, and something about doing it sounds fun.

In a heart-in-your-throat kind of way, but still.

“You’re kidding me!” Marissa says, watching me think. “You’re going to abandon me? What kind of friend are you? Why are you always dragging me places I don’t want to go? Do you remember the last time we took a shortcut? Do you
remember
?”

“Yeah. Through the mall. Nice cool air …”

“No! The time before that!”

“Uh, let’s see … I remember the last time we took a
long
cut.…”

“No!” she says, pointing a finger at me. “Don’t you
even
bring that up!”

“Bring what up?” Holly asks through the gate. Then she says, “Oh. That you go by—”

“No!” Marissa cries, because there’s no way in the
world she wants Casey and Billy to know that she’s so obsessed with Danny Urbanski that she takes the long way home from school, just so she can walk past his house.

And she’s so desperate to shut us up that she grabs my wrist and before you know it, we’re squeezing through the graveyard gate.

The last time I snuck into the graveyard I got busted by the groundskeeper—a small, dusty guy who hobbled around with a hoe. In my head I’d called him Dusty but his name was really Mike. And when he’d found out that I was looking for a little girl named Elyssa who kept running away, he’d been nice and very helpful. And after I figured out why Elyssa kept coming to the graveyard, I sorta promised him I wouldn’t be sneaking through his side gate anymore.

But here I am, sneaking through that same gate, and I’m telling myself that Dusty Mike will never know, but then I see his hoe leaning up against the wall.

I know it’s Dusty Mike’s, too. It’s ancient, with a graceful curve in the neck and a sharp, shiny blade. The handle is also shaped nicely—like a long hickory bat—and is stained almost black in places from being used so much.

I try to blink it away, but it just stands there like a big, wagging finger, telling me, Ah-ah-ah! Sammy, you promised. Now turn back!

I don’t turn back, though. Instead I turn away and follow the others into the graveyard.

Now, near the street there’s enough light to see where we’re going. But the deeper into the graveyard we go, the darker it gets. Plus, the old part of the graveyard is not exactly laid out in a grid. Besides being hilly, there are walkways that wind around, dead-end, or just vanish. One minute you’re going along on a strip of ancient cement, the next it’s covered in dirt, and then poof—it’s gone and you’re following some little dirt path that leads you to a big, crooked tombstone.

So it’s pretty slow going and not feeling like much of a shortcut, and everyone’s kinda quiet until Marissa says, “Why would anyone want to be buried, anyway? The whole idea’s just gross.”

“So you’d rather be cremated?” Holly asks.

“Sizzleleeeeean!” Billy says. “Bad choice, though, ’cause you couldn’t come back and bwa-ha-haunt the rest of us!”

I shake my head. “Isn’t your soul supposed to leave your body after you die? And it’s your soul that haunts, right? So it shouldn’t matter if you get buried or cremated.”

Marissa shudders. “I don’t want to bwa-ha-haunt anybody! I don’t want to di-i-ie!”

Holly snorts. “Well, good luck there.”