Lulu was somewhat relieved when the spirits began to thin out. It seemed to Lulu that they were losing interest.
Just as she thought what a nice night it was becoming, her night vision so clarified and lit by the jeweled crown, she heard a rattling sound and the last spirits who'd been hanging around dissipated like puffs of smoke. She scanned the area and it took only an instant to see what the concern was. Sugar skeletons. A mob of them was running toward Lulu and Reggie, looking exactly like Day of the Dead skeletons with brightly decorated skulls. It was a terrifying sight. They arrived in front of Lulu in seconds and came to a stop. There were at least a dozen of them. One who was dressed as a ballerina with a pink tutu stood directly in front of Lulu.
Zora stood beside Lulu growling, hackles standing like a ridge on her back.
“What do you two think you're doing here?” the ballerina asked, tossing her curly red mane with a mean girl flourish.
“We're on a quest and it's none of your business,” Lulu replied.
“I figured you might say something like that.” she turned to the mariachi skeleton behind her. “I'm thinking these two would make lovely sugar skeletons.”
“Yes, I believe they would be rather fetching as immortal remains,” the mariachi skeleton said.
“The other one is all slimy,” the ballerina skeleton reached out her bone hand and touched Lulu's arm and she felt as if she had chilled gelatin for innards. She imagined her interior as a cherry gelatin mold with weird fruits and various gross gut parts suspended in the wiggly translucent glop. Lulu recoiled, but so did the skeleton girl.
“She's wearing an adamantine tiara!” The ballerina sounded quite upset.
“She can't be,” said a lady in a red dress with a black veil cascading behind her. “Let me give her a shot.” The skeleton lady reached out and the result was the same.
“Erg.” The lady pulled back her hand.
“We'll let you pass if you answer our questions,” the ballerina skeleton said to Lulu.
“Yeah. I don't think there's really anything you can do, so the answer is 'no'--to whatever question you might have. Now bounce, skeletons. We're on a quest for the Wicked Witch of West Texas, and she's our aunt.”
The sugar skeletons stood for a moment, exchanging looks with their candy eyeballs.
“What's in your portmanteau and why is it glowing?”
“No.”
“Tell me your name.”
“No.”
“She's right,” the mariachi skeleton stated, “we really don't have anything else we can do to her, but the boy doesn't appear to be wearing a crown of any sort.”
“I don't want to touch him. He's covered with glittery slime.”
Zora barked her agreement.
“Fine,” the ballerina stomped a bone foot. “We can't do anything to you, and he's too gross.” With that she turned and the rest of the group did too and they all ambled away in the direction of a stand of cypress trees.
When they got to the wall, it towered above them and Lulu could see no gate or opening of any kind nearby. She sat down to think about how they were going to get into what she had concluded must be Kubla Khan’s kingdom. As she thought, she realized she could hear the bleating of a herd of goats. There must have been a lot of them.
Zora was still at her side. She emitted a whine before she perked her ears toward the east and took off at a gallop.
Lulu called her name, but she was gone.
She was listening to the peaceful sounds of bleating goats and wondering what to do, when suddenly a horrible scream rose from behind the wall, and the bleats became panicked. After the scream a loud noise began that she could only describe as ‘sucking’ and the witch’s warning about Chupacapbras aka “goat suckers” replayed in Lulu’s brain.
She looked at the Chupacabra repellent in her hand and hoped it would work. “I'd better have another look through the Expedition Kit,” she thought, opening the case up after ordering Reggie to set it on the ground.
That’s when she noticed the doorknob lying on the ground and a thought occurred to her. She picked up the doorknob and held up to the wall. As soon as it touched the wall, it became part of a door that hadn’t been there until the doorknob was applied.
“Pick up the case and follow me Reggie, and don’t fall behind because I’m pretty sure there’s a Chupacabra on the other side.”
Glittering Reggie did as he was told.
Happily, the sucking noise had subsided.
The forest was so dense that even on such a bright day it was as dark as twilight among the trees. Birds called back and forth between one another and eyes glowed in the high-up branches. There was no telling what horrid creatures were staring down at them. Would they leap down and devour Lulu and Reggie as soon as they entered the wood? It was a scary place, but Lulu had to push on. They might as well get eaten as to be turned into sugar statues. She could turn back and look for the Snipe. But then, maybe the Snipe was yet ahead of them. The fact was, they didn't really have time to go back and look for anything.
She gripped the Chupacabra repellent in her hand and stepped into the wilderness.
The scent of incense enfolded her and she noticed that part of the gloom in the forest was sweet-smelling smoke. Lulu had been in many forests before near her home in Walla Walla, but she'd never been in one that smelled so wonderful. Each tree emitted a smoke from all over its bark, which was the cause of the gloom in the forest. It was a good sign that they were indeed in the correct place.
A shriek shattered the gloom.
The creature was the most hideous thing Lulu had ever seen. Kind of. She’d seen some pretty bad stuff since being kidnapped. She glanced at Reggie, expecting him to register shock and terror, but he merely stared ahead. Of course, she remembered, he was oblivious.
The creature looked like it was half gorilla and half bear and half shark. It was huge and hairy with long arms that dragged the ground and powerful legs. Its claws were long and looked horribly sharp, and its fangs dripped pools of foul smelling green saliva. Overall, the stench that rose from the thing was of something rotting, which was probably why the clouds of flies surrounded it. Even the sweet smoke of the incense-bearing trees couldn't mask the foulness of the odor.
When it shrieked again, she knew instantly what it was. The Chupacabra. It bared nasty fangs and crouched in preparation to spring, but Lulu acted quickly and brandished the Chupacabra Repellent.
She sprayed it, noting that it smelled like air freshener, and the thing froze. It sniffed the air for a moment and then it let out another shriek and turned around and fled. Apparently, it was put off by the refreshing scent of citrus.
Lulu was relieved by its departure, but not greatly. She was afraid she’d never see the Magical Mountains of Washington again. At least Reggie, in his oblivious condition, wouldn’t feel anything when the Chupacabras attacked. She almost started to imagine what the Chupacabras would do to them again, but managed to stop herself. It's much more fun to imagine horrible things happening when they aren't so likely to happen.
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