Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls Read Free Page A

pond that is surrounded by willow trees. Nobody’s in the mood to “repose” though. We’re just following Casey like he’s the graveyard’s very own Pied Piper as he goes on with his outlaw story.
    “Then one day two relatives of Elmer’s showed up saying they wanted to give their uncle a proper burial. So they paid for him and took him away, only they weren’t actually relatives. They were carnival owners.”
    Billy laughs. “They wanted the Unlucky Outlaw as a sideshow?”
    “Exactly. And for the next who-knows-how-many years, Elmer McCurdy traveled from town to town, until eventually they had to coat his body with wax to keep him from falling apart.”
    Marissa is so into this story that she’s grabbing onto tombstones to steady herself as she tries to close in on Casey. “So … he became a waxed-over corpse in a traveling freak show? For how long?”
    “For years and years and years.
Decades
. He finally wound up as part of a sideshow in an amusement park in California, but at that point people had forgotten where he’d come from—they all thought he was just a wax figure. But then a television studio rented him to use in a TV show, and while they were filming, his
arm
broke off.”
    Marissa gasps. “It just broke off?”
    “Yup. And in one whiff they knew there was a corpse inside.”
    “So … what did they do with him?” Holly asks.
    “That Wild West town in Oklahoma decided they wanted him back, and finally buried him.” Casey laughs. “Being a celebrity has its rewards, I guess. Before he was just a bumbling bandit. Now they give tours of his gravesite.”
    “Well, that’s ironic,” Holly says. “First nobody wanted him, and now total strangers go visit him.”
    “That’s another thing about graveyards,” Marissa says. “If you’re not some notorious outlaw or a celebrity or something, who visits you? When the people who knew you are gone, who comes to see you? Nobody! You’re just stuck in the ground until the end of time, alone.”
    “Wow,” I tell her, “that’s a cheerful thought.”
    “We’re in a
graveyard
! There are
dead
people all … all
under
us. What do you expect!”
    Billy leapfrogs over a headstone. “Good thing we showed up then, huh? Doing our civic duty for all the lonely bones.”
    “They’re not just lonely!” Marissa cries. “They’re
forgotten.
”
    She’s getting herself all worked up again, so I put a hand on her shoulder and say, “Hey, it’s okay, don’t freak out.”
    “I really, really hate death,” she whimpers.
    I grin at her. “So why’d you drag me in here?”
    “What?”
    Our little argument gets cut short because just then Casey stops dead in his tracks.
    “Whoa,” Billy says, pulling up right beside him.
    So the rest of us stop, too, and that’s when I see something running across graves in the new section.
    “Is that a
person
?” Holly whispers.
    Billy’s voice comes out all hoarse when he says, “That’s no person. That’s a
beast.
”
    In the clouded moonlight it
looks
like a beast, too. It has weird wings that are half-flapping at its side and, even though it’s moving fast, it’s sort of hunched over and hobbling, like one leg is longer than the other.
    Then Marissa chokes out, “Oh my God!” because the Beast has turned and there’s no doubt about it—it’s coming our way.
    “Hide!” Casey says. So we all take cover behind different tombstones.
    “I don’t want to die,” Marissa whimpers.
    “Shh!” I tell her. “You’re not gonna die.”
    “And I really, really,
really
don’t want to die in a graveyard! It would be so wrong to die in a graveyard.”
    “Shhh!”
    “I mean it!” she whispers. “It’s like showing up early for your own death!”
    I peek around the tombstone and that’s when I see that the Beast is being chased by a man.
    A
big
man.
    One who’s wearing a ball cap and carrying a shovel.
    So everyone peeks around their tombstone, watching the Beast as it runs out of the