Chapter 6
"Zac," Isaac complained as they made their way through the secret passage. "I think (sniff sniff) we should (Aacchhhooo!) go back. (sniff sniff)" Isaac was very allergic to dust but hadn't thought of that when he entered the dusty hallway.
"No!" Zac answered in reply. "We gotta see where this leads. Hey look a clearing!" Zac pointed to a place where the narrow passage got wide. "Let's see what that is." Zac ran ahead, leaving Isaac coughing and sneezing behind him, in a cloud of dust.
It turned out to be a way out of the secret passage.
"Should we get out here?" Zac asked brushing a dangling spider out of his way.
"Yes!" Isaac ran as fast as he could over to the exit and started pushing. The door was kind of stuck and probably hadn't been used in years but after a little while the door flung open, much to the surprise of Zac and Isaac, who landed flat on their chests.
"We're outside!" Ike protested. "We can't be outside! We went through all that just to end up right where we started! This is totally unfair this is supposed to be a secret little room filled with gold and silver and the $300,000 that got us into this mess in the first place!"
"Hey!" Zac scampered up. "What's that?"
"What?" Isaac tried and see what was so interesting.
"Is that a box? Zac shone his flashlight on a little cement square.
"No!" Isaac answered grumpily.
Zac helped Isaac get up then started his way over to whatever it was he saw.Isaac stood by the door, waiting for his brother to come back.
"It's a grave stone!" Zac yelled back to Isaac, who by now was soaking from the rain and very grumpy.
"What's it say?"Isaac asked when he met up with Zac.
"'Here lies Henry Brooks' and then it has the date of his birth but his death is kind of faded."
"Henry Brooks!" Isaac exclaimed. "Isn't that the guy grandma was telling us about?." Zac gave Isaac a worried look.
The boys' grandmother, much like Isaac, liked to tell stories. She told them all about the things she did when she was young and the people she knew. One of the latest stories was one her older sister had told to her, about a boy named Henry Brooks. He was a nice boy, like most of them were back then, and he had grown up in Tulsa all of his life. His family all lived in Tulsa and were very nice and so on and so forth, she also talked a lot. Anyway Henry went out to play with his friend one day but never made it to his friends house and never came back. They declared him dead seven years later but they never found a body.
"Well I guess we know what happened to him." Zac said remembering the story. "I guess Mason just has a thing with butchering young children, Henry, Kalien, Sandy, I really hope he gets caught and pays for what he's done."
"AAAAaaaggghhhh!" Sandy's throat was beginning to get a little dry from all the screaming. He turned to run then found himself being attacked from behind.
"Zac what are you doing here!" A girl's voice yelled as another one grabbed onto his arm.
Sandy turned around to see two of Isaac's friends standing in front of him. The elder one was holding a flashlight and was gasping for air.
Sandy and Zac had met Isaac's friends several times and knew all of them very well. The older one was Chantel, she was the same age as Isaac and was really nice. She had always been a kind of and on and off tomboy but that was mostly because she grew up with boys most of her life. The other one who had grabbed on to Sandy's arm was Joanne, Chantel's 12 year old sister. She was best friends with Isaac's younger sister Jessica who was the same age as her and the twins. Their mother was half Hispanic and so both Joanne and her sister had slightly tanned skin and long black hair.
"Are you trying to kill me!" Chantel snapped still trying to catch her breath. "I thought you we're a murderer or something. Then when we think you're gone you pop up out of nowhere!"
"Did Isaac and Sandy come with you?" Joanne asked still holding on Sandy's arm. She was the boy crazed one of the family. There were five kids, three of them were girls, and she was the only one who turned out like that. It kind of made Sandy uncomfortable around her because you could never quite tell what she was thinking.
"Umm . . ." Sandy thought of a response, he was still trying to catch his breath from the scare. "Yeah they came with me." Sandy thought it would be better to tell them the bad news later when their lives weren't in danger. "I'm Sandy by the way." He corrected them.
"Oh sorry." Chantel apologized. "Where are the guys?"
"Ummm...." Sandy thought quickly. "We.....a.....got.....umm..."
"Separated?" Chantel interrupted. Sandy nodded. "Yeah, Taylor got separated from us too. We just turned around and he was gone. I think maybe Mason got him." Joanne started crying but Chantel just stood there little uncomfortably. Sandy was just about to remove his arm from Joanne's clutch but now that she was crying he was trapped. He didn't want to seem unsympathetic.
Taylor was Isaac's half brother and Chantel's best friend. He had light blond hair and blue eyes he was kind of what people from other countries thought all Caucasian American teenaged boys looked like.
Chantel had started pacing from one side of the hall to the other and it was making Sandy feel a little dizzy.
"So, are you guys trying to get out of here too?" Sandy hoped. With the three of them it would be a lot easier.
"No," Joanne answered finally letting go of Sandy's arm. "We're trying to get the money."
"Money? Oh the $300,000!" Sandy remembered. "But don't you think that it's a little dangerous?"
"Yeah!" Chantel answered turning around to leave. "But Taylor would have wanted us to get it. So we'll do it for him. You guys coming?" So the three of them went off once again in search of the money.
This is just what I need. Sandy complained. If I get out of this house alive. I'll be happy to see it get torn down tomorrow. I just hope all my hair won't be grey by then.