Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls (4 page)

Casey chuckles, and then he starts singing,

And Billy chimes in louder with,

“Are you guys crazy?” Marissa says. “Do you
want
that guy with the shovel to hear you?”

“He won’t hear us,” Billy says. “He’s long gone.”

“What song was that?” I ask, because it was pretty obvious they weren’t just making it up.

Holly turns to me. “ ‘Free Fallin’,’ Tom Petty.”

Casey nods. “Also covered by both John Mayer and The Almost.”

Marissa and I give each other a never-heard-of-it shrug, but very quietly Holly says, “My mom used to sing it.”

So now Marissa and I look at each other like,
Oh, maaaaan
, because to make a long, sad story short, Holly’s real mom is dead and Holly has no idea if she’s buried, or cremated, or what happened to her because Holly and her mom were homeless and her mom was a junkie, and when Holly was, like, ten, she found her mother dead from an overdose. And since Holly was just a kid with no relatives and no money, she wound up in foster care.

Anyway, the point is, I know it really bothers Holly that
she doesn’t know what happened to her mom’s body, and all of a sudden I’m feeling awful for Holly. I mean, maybe nobody visits these graves we’re walking by anymore, but at least at one point someone cared enough to bury them and put up a grave marker, right?

Thankfully Holly seems to be thinking nice thoughts about her mother because she gives a little smile and says, “But when my mom sang it, it wasn’t ‘ghouls’ in the lyrics. It was ‘girl.’ ”

Now I’m hoping Billy won’t say anything that’s meant to be funny but winds up being hurtful because I don’t know how much he knows about Holly and her mom and their awful past. But before he can say anything at all, Marissa changes the subject: “How are we going to get out of here, anyway?”

Casey points across the new section. “I’m thinking we’ll make a break for it and climb the fence.”

Marissa looks at him, horrified. “You’re serious?”

“Sure, why not?”

Now, I knew it wasn’t the “make a break for it” part that was the problem. And I knew climbing the wall section of the fence wasn’t the problem, either. It was the wrought-iron posts on
top
of the wall section that were the problem.

Specifically the pointy spears at the tippy top of each post.

See, Marissa has a history of getting stuck on fences that
don’t
have spears, so I didn’t even want to picture what might happen on one that did.

“Trust me,” I tell Casey. “You do not want Marissa to climb the fence.”

“Is there another gate?” Holly asks. “You know, like the one we came through?”

“There’s a bigger one on Battles Road,” I tell her, “but it’s newer and you probably can’t squeeze through it. And it’s got those spears on top, too.”

“So then what was the plan?” Holly asks Billy. “I figured you knew an actual shortcut.”

Billy shrugs. “My plan was to commune with my brethren,” he says with a goofy grin.

Just then Marissa does a double take over her shoulder and points to the new section. “Is that a car?”

We stop and look, and sure enough, there’s an old sedan driving through the graveyard.

Now, another difference between the old section and the new is that the new part has skinny little asphalt roads. There’s the main one that hearses use when they come through the big gate on College Street. It winds past the cemetery office, then goes out to another drive-through gate on Battles Road. But off that main road are skinnier asphalt paths that weave in and out and all around the new section.

Maybe for drive-by visits to the dearly departed?

Don’t ask me.

Anyway, we watch as the car moves along. It seems to be in a hurry and its headlights are shining straight at the Battles Road gate.

“It’s going to go out that gate!” Marissa cries. “Come on!”

I chase after her. “Wait! What if the person driving the car is Shovel Man?”

They all look at me. “Shovel Man?”

“You know! The mad guy with the shovel!”

Billy shoots a fist into the air and goes, “Shovel Man to the rescue!”

Casey throws Billy a grin. “You will dig him, man.”

“He will unearth even the deepest plots …”

“The dirtiest deeds …”

“He will
bury … filthy … fiends
!”

They slap five on each other and laugh, and we just shake our heads. Then Holly says, “Well, if it’s Shovel Man in that car, why was he chasing El Zarape on foot? Why didn’t he drive his car?”

Marissa’s like a caged animal. “Right! And since there’s a gate about to open over
there
”—she points ahead of us—“and there’s an angry guy with a shovel and a freaked-out trick-or-treater somewhere over
there
”—she points behind us—“I say we make a break for it!”

The gate the car is heading for matches the fencing on top of the stone wall—black iron posts with pointy spears on top—but the cross braces of the gate would make it pretty easy to climb over. So I say, “How about we just wait for him to drive through and
then
climb the gate?”

Marissa blinks at me. “Like, after it’s
closed
?”

“Yeah. The cross braces are—”

“No way!” she snaps. “I would get stuck. I
always
get stuck.” She looks at me in disbelief. “You
know
I always get stuck!”

I sigh because she’s right—cross braces or not, I could just see her up on top of the gate, stuck. “Fine,” I grumble. “We’ll make a break for it.”

So we all wait and watch as the car stops in front of the gate and a thin man with kinda long black hair gets out.

“See?” Marissa whispers. “It’s a different guy!”

We hold still for a minute as the guy walks toward the gate, and when we’re sure he’s going to open it, Casey says, “Let’s go!”

And with that, we
charge
.

Casey leads the charge into the new section, with Billy behind him, then me, Holly, and Marissa. We have to dodge fake flowers and little flags sticking out of the built-in vases and also not get tripped up by the empty ones, but it’s still way easier than moving through the old section.

So we’re flying along when all of a sudden we hit some wooden planks that are just lying in the middle of our path. There are four of them side by side, and they sort of bounce and sag as I run over them, which is bad enough, but then I hear
grrrrr-ruff-ruff-ruff, grrrrr-ruff-ruff-ruff
in the distance, like a pack of dogs is after us, which makes me practically jump out of my skin.

I look over my shoulder toward the old section, but all I can see is darkness. “Hurry!” I call to Marissa ’cause she’s fallen behind. “I heard dogs!”

“Dogs?” she and Holly both gasp, then sprint to catch up.

Now, I guess we’re so busy making a break for it that we forget how we’re dressed. I mean, at that point we’re pretty much used to each other being all gnarly and ugly and shredded, but when the guy opening the gate sees us
coming at him, he panics. First he jumps back, then real fast he starts closing the gate again, with him on the outside and his car still on the inside.

“Wait!” Casey calls.

But the guy doesn’t wait. He leans into the gate like his life depends on it. And since the car is blocking our way out, and since the gate is going to be totally closed in no time, I shout, “Come on!” to the others, then jump on the car’s trunk, catapult onto the roof, slide down the windshield onto the hood, and jump to freedom.

Holly’s right behind me, then Casey, then Billy with his two sacks, and finally Marissa. Only when Marissa slides down the windshield, her clothes get stuck on a windshield wiper.

“Help!” she cries, so I race back. She’s
really
stuck, though, and I wind up bending the wiper to get her loose.

I want to tell the guy Sorry! but the look on his face is scary—somewhere between mad and
savage
. And I can’t exactly offer to pay for the damage because what would I pay with?

Candy?

Holly’s already taken off, so Casey grabs my hand and Billy grabs Marissa’s and we ditch it up the street as fast as we can.

We find Holly waiting for us behind a car about half a block away, and then we tear up to a side street together and hang a right.

Once we round the corner we slow down a little, because at this point we could scatter and escape pretty easily. But then I see that across the street from us, parked near
the corner, is that same silver van that almost ran us over when we were crossing Stowell. I know it’s the same van because right there in the driver’s seat with a phone up to her ear is the ruby-haired lady.

And there’s no doubt about it—she’s watching us.

I look back at the cemetery gate and realize that she probably saw the whole thing and that she’s most likely speed-dialing the cops.

Casey sees her, too, and knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Come on!” he calls to the others and we take off running, zigzagging blocks, going down smaller streets that are away from the main traffic routes.

“We’re okay!” I finally pant. And after we’re sure we’re not being followed, we hang out between some parked cars and a hedge for a while catching our breath.

Billy puts El Zarape’s sack inside his pillowcase and says, “I think I dented his roof.”

I nod. “And I definitely bent his windshield wiper!”

Marissa pants, “It was old and ugly to begin with. I can’t believe
anyone
would
ever
have wanted to buy a deli-mustard car!”

We were rationalizing, of course, but the car
was
ugly. It had a big, flat hood and a big, flat trunk and Marissa was right about the color. Plus it had worn, rusty spots on the hood and the trunk.

“Look,” Casey says, “I don’t know why we’re acting so guilty. It’s not like we really did anything wrong.”

Marissa drills him with a look. “Ever heard of
trespassing
?”

I sling my arm around her and raise an eyebrow at Casey. “Yeah, man. Ever heard of
trespassing
?” Then I add, “And you know ol’ Ruby Red was calling the cops on us. Why would she do that if we weren’t doing anything wrong?”

“Ruby Red?” they all say, but they know exactly who I’m talking about.

Holly shakes her head. “Why was she parked there, anyway?”

Casey eyes her. “Probably waiting for her busload of kids to come back from trick-or-treating.”

“My mom hates people who do that,” Billy says. “Once the vans start dropping off kids in our neighborhood, she just closes up shop.”

“Well, whatever,” Marissa says. “I’m just glad to be out of that stupid graveyard!” She levels an angry look at Billy. “That was the worst shortcut
ever.
”

I laugh. “And that’s saying something!”

Billy gives her his best puppy dog face—which looks totally ridiculous on a zombie. “Sorryyyyy,” he says, then adds, “At least nobody will recognize us if we run into them after tonight.”

“Well,
I’m
sure not going to forget
them,
” Holly mutters, “especially that guy at the gate.”

“I know, huh?” I say.

Billy cocks his head a little. “What do you mean?”

I look at Holly. “His skin?”

She nods. “And those
teeth.
”

Marissa looks back and forth between us. “What do
you mean? I was so freaked out from getting stuck on the wiper that I didn’t even look at him.”

“His skin was really pale,” I tell her.

Holly nods. “
Really
pale.”

“And his teeth were kind of …” I move my fingers around in front of my mouth, then look to Holly for help.

“Pointy here, and pushed in there,” she says, moving her fingers around, too.

“Pointy?” Marissa asks. “Like vampire teeth?”

Holly and I look at each other. Then we both pull a face and say, “Kind of.”

“Oh my God!” Marissa gasps. “He was a
vampire
? Oh my
God.
”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, Marissa, please. He wasn’t a vampire! There’s no such thing as vampires!”

“Oh, yeah? Then who was he? And what was he doing there?” She stares at us, her eyes all bugged out. “Seriously! Why else would he be driving around a graveyard in the middle of the night? He’s a vampire!”

Casey just shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Vampires don’t cruise through graveyards in cars. And if they did, they sure wouldn’t do it in a rust bucket.”

“That’s
exactly
what they’d cruise a graveyard in!”

I’m trying not to laugh at her, but it’s hard. “You don’t think they’d use a hearse?”

“No! A hearse would totally give them away!” She blinks at me like I’m the dumbest person on the planet. “Besides, bodies in hearses are dead, right? What good would that do him?”

“How’s that work, anyway?” Holly asks. “Isn’t blood blood? Why does it matter if the person’s alive?”

I shrug. “They like it warm?”

Holly’s still trying to make sense of it. “Well, what if the person has
just
died? It’s still warm, right?”