Thomas and Amani Summer Reading Club Mystery

Chapter Ten - Walk Of The Dead

"Like seriously, you two scream like a couple of little girls," said the skull, clicking its perfect teeth together. "You'd think that this was the first time you've ever seen the walking dead!"

Teyo shrieked, "It is the first time...at least we've never seen the walking dead until tonight!"

"Yeah, like the other granny zombies at least had skin on!" Thomas cried. "You have no skin! Like totally no skin, you're a bag of bones!"

The skeleton huffed as she strolled forward on her stick limbs. She flipped waist length, black hair that appeared dusty in Teyo's flashlight. Thomas thought he saw a spider crawling around in her eye socket. She clutched the stone in her boney fingers and flipped her boney hands onto her hipbones.

"Like chillax. Just because I'm a skeleton doesn't mean you have to be rude about it. Calling me a bag of bones, you meat suit," she said. She bounced the stone on the palm of her hand. "My mistress wanted me to beat you to the stone and so I have. Now what shall we do with you?"

"Like how about nothing!" Thomas said. "You can have the stone, we'll figure out another way to stop the princess and rescue Teyo's sister and my friends."

The skeleton laughed. "Oh but boys, my mistress doesn't want you to stop her. She wants to be young forever and I would like to earn some skin. It's not fun running about as a naked bone basket."

Thomas stomach rumbled. He could feel his gas building to a crescendo. The skeleton took a step forward. Thomas let his gas rip! The sound of the eruct echoed through the chamber like a tuba hitting a low, mournful note. It shook gold dust off the bricks causing a cloud of dust. Teyo swayed on his feet. The skeleton laughed.

"You must have torn your britches ripping that one out," she said, fanning the dust from her face.

"Y-y-you didn't pass out!" Thomas said, shocked.

"Of course not, dude. Skeletons don't have sinuses...that's part of the fleshy stuff that use to cover these old bones. Now the flesh is gone so I can't smell a dang thing...trust me, I sure miss it. Even my food tastes like dust...well...it tastes like nothing cause I don't have a tongue either!" she laughed some more.

"Please miss skeleton dudet," Teyo said. "I just want to save my sister Chaska, she doesn't deserve the fate that is being handed to her."

"Chaska?" the skeleton echoed. "Teyo? No, it couldn't be."

The skeleton leaped through the air, scattering the boys as they shrieked and made a run for their lives. Thomas dove into the darkest side of the wall that he could find. The skeleton grabbed, Teyo by his hair and flipped him around.

"For the moon's shake, it is wee Teyo," she said. "I haven't seen you since you were ten. You use to follow me like a lost monkey looking for its mother. I haven't see Chaska since she was a babe."

"Aunt Kachi-Kachi?" Teyo said, uncertainty emanating in his voice.

"Yes, Teyo, it's me. Don't you recognize me?" she said, fluffing her dusty dark hair. Then she giggled. "Of course you don't. I don't have the skin I use to."

She laughed some more and pulled Teyo into a hug. Once she released him, she ruffled his hair.

"You have grown so much," she said. "So how's my dad?"

"Great...well...he would be better if Chaska was home," Teyo said. "Chaska and I are all he has left. The princess took her!"

"That old witch!" Kachi-Kachi said, "She swore that my family wouldn't be touched. She promised that if I served her for the rest of my existence and beyond that she wouldn't take any more victims from my tribe. That lying, long fanged freak!"