This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
I would highly recommend you read the first volume of this story,
Simon’s Journal Thirteen Days – The First Crusade
before you begin this novel.

The following narrative is nearly a complete work of fiction.
Any similarity to actual individuals living or dead is completely unintentional.
If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and exploring their awakening sexuality is offensive or illegal in your area, then might I suggest you go read War and Peace or something equally stimulating.

Simon's Journal

Volume II

Thirteen Nights – After the Crusade

Written by

Danny
Author of Thirteen Days

Chapter - 13

Part 4 – Friday, March 12, 2004 – Alone Together

“I-I c-can do it m-myself.” I said.

“Ah oh!” she said and for a second I thought I had said something bad but then she smiled and sang, “Guess the magic Peach Schnapps is wearing off, you are stuttering again.”

“M-magic w-what?” I asked.

“Schnapps, Schnapps, Peach Schnapps. That is what you were drinking, that is what it is called.” She sang as she lifting me into the air and had me stand on the lid of the toilet.

She had my pants unsnapped before I could protest again, “I c-can d-do it m-myself.”

I thought I might have made her mad at first but then she smiled and said, “You know something? I have always wonted my own little boy to take care of. How about just for tonight, you be my little boy?”

Confused I answered, “B-but I c-can’t be.”

Auntie Catharine looked sad, “How come? Don’t you want me to be your mommy just for tonight?”

Not understand that she was only meaning for pretend I said, “B-but y-you’re my A-aunty?”

She took a moment to think before saying, “You know how you pretend to be Superman?”

“Yeah.” I answered.

“But you are not really Superman right? You are just pretending right?” she asked.

I thought for a second, “Yeah.”

She smiled at this, “So how about if I pretend to be your mommy and you pretend to be my little boy?”

I didn’t really know what to say so I shrugged my shoulders.

“Okay then! So you will call me mommy and I will call you . . . what should I call you?” she asked.

I shrugged, this time with my arms and hands too, “Simon!”

This made her laugh, which I was glad of.

“Okay, but since you are my ‘little’ boy,” she put extra emphasis on the word ‘little’, “Hum, what do they call really little boys? Oh, I know! I will call you Baby Simon! How’s that?”

“B-but I’m n-not a b-baby!” I answered.

“Oh of course you’re not! This is just for pretend! Like another game!” she said reached up again to unzip my wet pants. This time I didn’t protest, through I was feeling apprehensive about all of this.

“Aft-ter m-my b-bath, c-can I-I have an ‘S’ l-like in th-the p-painting?” I asked as he had me lift each leg so that she could remove my shoes and socks.

“Oh I think that is a grand idea!” she said reaching up and giving my nose a flick with her fingertip.

She had me stripped naked in no time and despite my efforts to get her to let me keep the cape on while I took my bath, she had untied it and hung it on a hook on the back of the door.

I stood on the lid of the toilet stark naked with my hands cupped over my nudity. When she turned back around her eyes fell on me and she smiled, “You are just the most darling baby boy.” And I felt my face go all hot.

When she lifted me into the air I could feel on hand placed firmly against my back and the other was cradling my bottom cheeks as she lowered me into the bathtub. The water was not too warm and not too cold, it was just the right temperature for a summer day like today.

At first, I sat stone still with my hands still placed firmly over my boyish nudity but then she opened the little cabinet door benieth the sink and brought out several bath toys.

There was a cool wind-up powerboat that skipped across the water. There was a really neat submarine with a tube to blow in so that when I blew air into it, it would come to the top of the water and when I stopped blowing it would sink again. After a few tries I was able to make it hang stationary in the water, not sinking and not floating. She also gave me this yellow duck to play with. It wound-up to and had little feet on the bottom that were like pattle wheels but I think I liked the submarine the most.

She let me play in the water until my toes and fingers started to get all prune looking. I was never left alone, she stayed right beside the bathtub playing along with me right up until she announced, “Okay, lets wash you up and then we can get dressed and go make some supper.”

“Don’t forget about my ‘S’ for my chest!” I reminded her by drawing an imaginary ‘S’ on my glissening chest with my finger.

With her finger she gave my nose a beep and said, “Beep!”

I grinned and made a splash.

I continued to play with the submarine while she washed my hair and body. I didn’t mind it at all until she had me stand up and she began to wash my bottom. She took a very long time washing back there and it tickled a lot. I tried not to laugh but I couldn’t help it. And then she started washing my front parts and at first I got a little scared but then it started to tickle too, but different somehow. She said something about how my mommy shouldn’t have let the doctors cut me down there but I didn’t know what she meant by that.

When she had all the soap rinsed off of me, she lifted me out of the tub but she didn’t put me on the floor. Instead, she had me stand on the bathroom counter while she dried me off all over really good.

She had me raise my arms high over my head so that she could wrap the towel around me, it went around three times before she tucked the end into the top and carried me from the bathroom.

As we were leaving I shouted, “Don’t forget my cape!” and I reached out and snatched it off the hook at the last possible second.

I was glad when she carried me to the room she had prepaired for me instead of to the painting room first. I would have felt more then a little funny standing there in all of my boyhood glory while she painted a big red ‘S’ on my chest.

However, from the moment we stepped into the room, I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and it only grew stronger when, instead of lowering me to the floor, she stood me on top of the odd sort of dresser and removed my towel.

Though I felt peculiar about being nude, I didn’t bother with trying to cover myself now; I figured that she had seen everything I had, so what was the use.

Dropping the towel on the floor to the right of the dresser, she picked me up again and this time laid me flat on my back ontop of the dresser. She reached across me, pulled out some sort of yellow belt or strap and stretched it across my chest. I heard a click as she fastened the end of it to the front of the dresser before sinching it tight.

“W-what’s th-that f-for?” I asked with my stuttering nearly back to normal now.

“So you don’t fall off.” She cooed.

With a single finger, she tapped my chin, “Open up for mommy!”

“Mommy?” I thought, boy that sure sounded weird but I did as she asked and opend my mouth.

She placed a pacifier in my mouth and slipped a strap around the back of my head so that I couldn’t spit it back out. The sucky part of the pacifier was so big that it nearly filled my entire mouth and thus making it impossible for me to talk anymore. I attempted to reach up and pull it from my mouth but that attempt was thwarted when she took hold of both of my arms, raised them high over my head and tied them in that position with another strap from the left side of the dresser.

I was beginning to get very scared, actually I had passed scared and was right on the verge of a full out fear fest of tears and whaling.

Then just like that she was gone. She had abruptly turned on her heals and walked out of the room leaving me laying there naked and strapped to the top of the dresser.

With my wrists and chest both firmly strapped to the dresser, I attempted to buck my hips and kick my legs but it was useless. I couldn’t even shake the dresser or make it bang against the wall.

With tears streaking down either side of my face and snot running down the back of my throat, I laid there waiting for my Auntie’s return. Thankfully, I only had to wait about five minutes.

She came walking back into the room carrying what kind of looked like a baby bottle without the nipple. With a smile she said, “This will make my baby Simon feel so much better!” and proceeded to attach the bottle to the pacifier that was strapped into my mouth.

A second later I could taste the sweetness of peaches filling my mouth and I had to swallow to keep from choking. Auntie Catharine squeezed the bottle until I had swallowed down every last gulp before removing the bottle again.

It didn’t take long before my head began to swoon and my ears sounded like they were filled with cotton. Auntie Catharine was singing something but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was she was singing. It was something about babies with beds in trees; at least that is what the words were.

Laughing, I found myself laughing. “Why am I laughing?” I wondered.

I lifted my head so that I was looking down my exposed body. Auntie Catharine was singing her song while she put cake frosting all over and around my little pee-pee. Of course it wasn’t cake frosting but in my current mental state of drunkenness it sure looked like cake frosting and it tickled more then the washing had.

I watched in wonder as she began to shake a bottle of powder over me. I tried to speak to ask her why but with the pacifier filling my mouth and all I was able to do was make funny little grunting sounds; not unlike that of a baby.

With a blink, I tried to focus my eyes on her hands. They were moving in slow motion and the words to her song seemed to hang in the air for the longest time.

Her face drew closer and closer to mine until I could not see her but I felt her wet lips against my forehead.

“Swimming, Swimming! My head, it won’t stop swimming!” I heard the words in my mind but they were trapped there, unable to escape due to the pacifier filling my mouth so that words could not form on my tongue.

I don’t know how long I laid there, it might have only been a few moment, it might have been a few hours. I honestly had no idea and it wasn’t until I found myself standing in the middle of Auntie Catharines painting room, looking down at my chest while she painted a big red ‘S’ on me that I realized that I was no longer strapped to the top funny looking dresser.

It was weird but I couldn’t see but about a few inches past my nose. When I looked up, I couldn’t see Auntie Catharine though when I looked down I could see her hand, which was holding a long wooden paintbrush with red paint filling the bristles.

“I know it tickles, but try not to laugh and move or mommy might mess up.” I heard her say.

I tried to stop thinking and just listen . . . I could hear someone giggling, it sounded like a little kid joyfully giggling. It was me, I was the one erupting with silly laughter.

“But it tickles so much!” I laughted to her.

“I know, I am almost done!” she laughed too.

I looked down, “It’s upside down!” I observed.

She laughed and moved her face closer so that I could see her now. She was grinning as she said, “You are a very silly baby!”

After one last stroke of her brush she announced, “Okay, all done!”

As I began to move my hand toward to it she smacked it rather harder then maybe she meant. “No don’t touch it! Let it dry!”

“I wanna see, I wanna see!” I squeeled.

“Run into the bathroom and look in the mirror on the back of the door.” She said.

Extreamly excited, I lifted my left foot to run but found I couldn’t run, I could barely even walk. It was like my legs were somehow confused about how to operate.

“Does baby want mommy to cawwy him to the mir-wer?” she asked in a very babyish voice.

“I tell you what, cover your wittle eyes!” she said.

“But I want to go see!” I whined.

“Simon, I want you to cover your eyes first.” She said in a slightly stronger tone.

“Alright, I gonna cover my eyes!” and I placed my fingers over my eyes, “Biiiig peeeeek!” I teased while peeking through my open fingers.

“No, no peeking!” she said with a grin that she was trying to hide from me.

“Biiiiiiiiiiig peeeeeeeek!” I teased again.

“Simon! No more of that!” she said sternly.

“Alright, I promise! No more peeking!” I giggled and covered my eyes proper this time.

She must have picked me up and carried me to the bathroom, but I don’t remember for sure. I just remember standing infront of the mirror with my hands over my eyes.

From behind me, I heard her say, “Alright, take your hands away and open your eyes.”

I did just as she asked and stood there admiring my Auntie’s artwork on my chest. I was wearing my new red cape and it hung behind me so nicely.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“I see me! Handsome, handsome me!” I giggled.

She sounded amused as she said, “Never mind that!”

“So handsome!” I continued.

“Simon!” She said, “I-I just want you to look hard at yourself in the mirror.”

“Alright! I’ll look at myself, but I don’t know why!” I giggled and shrugged.

Then I saw something that puzzled me. I was wearing some funny looking underpants . . . and then I realized what I was seeing.

I looked disbelievingly into the mirror at the reflection that stood before me. The boy in the mirror, he had my face, he was wearing my cape, he even had my ‘S’ painted on his chest but he was also wearing a big, puffy diaper!

I was so frightened that I jumped up and squeeled, “Aaahhh!” and tried to run from my reflection but I couldn’t run. I fell to my hands and knees where I where I began to scamper over the white tiled floor, past Auntie Catharines legs and hid beside the toilet.

“Simon, come back here!” she yelled, “It was just you!”

“Was not!” I shouted back.

“Yes it was!” she argued.

“Was not!” I shouted again.

She was standing in front of the toilet and me, though I couldn’t see any higher then her knees.

“Who do you think it was?” she asked.

“Don’t know!” I grunted fearfully.

“Now look at yourself in the mirror again.” She said stepping out of my range of view.

I swallowed and scuttled slowly out from beside the toilet. I waddled toward the mirror and when I came to within viewing distance and was able to make out my reflected form again, I shouted, jumped and fell down again.

I didn’t make it to the safety of the toilet again because Auntie Catharine had blocked my way this time.

“Simon now stop that!” she commanded, “It was you again!”

“Was not!” I started arguing again.

“Was too!” She said, “Who do you think it was this time?”

Unable to get past her I covered my face with my hands, “I don’t know!”

“It was you!” she said bending over and getting me to my feet.

“Was not!” I struggled to stay clear of the mirror this time.

“Yes it was!” and she pushed me toward the mirror, “Now look in the mirror!”

I didn’t drop my hands, “I don’t want too!”

“Son! Look in the mirror for mommy!” she tried sounding calmer.

This time I opened my fingers a bit and peeked through and squeeled at my reflection, “Aaaahhh!” but Auntie Catharine had a firm grip on me so that this itme I couldn’t get away from the boy looking back at me.

And the more I looked, the more I was able to bare looking at myself in the mirror and at the diaper. The diaper bulged out everywhere and rose so high on the boy in the mirror, that it covered his bellybutton.

I turned sideways and the boy in the mirror turned too. Though the back of his diaper was concealed by his long red cape, it was obvious by the way his cape was hanging that his diaper stuck way out in the back.

“I-I’m wearing a diaper?” the words, they came out sounding more like a question.

Auntie Catharines face suddenly appeared next to the boy’s in the mirror, “Well of course you are, all babies have to wear diapers!” and I could feel and see her hands petting my hair.

“B-but why?” I asked and I watched as the boy in the mirror began to cry.

“Sshhhh, don’t cry my precious little baby boy!” she hushed and kissed my cheek.

“B-but I d-don’t want to be a baby!” I wimpered.

Staring at my reflection, I could see now why I was having such a difficult time with making my legs move a moment ago; there was so much diaper between my legs that it was impossible for me to stand normally. Instead, I looked like I had spent an entire day riding the penny pony outside the grocery store. I was so bow-legged that I bed Auntie Catharine cound have crawled under me.

“Are you done looking?” she asked.

I nodded as she took my hand, opened the door and proceeded to lead me from the bathroom. It was all I could do to keep up with her and the harder I tried the more it made my head swim again. About half way down the stairs, she stopped and carried me the rest of the way down. However she again made me waddle from the bottom of the stairs all the way to the kitchen where she had me sit on the floor.

I watched as she took a normal looking baby bottle out of the same cabinet that earlier today I had seen her get the Superman cup from. She filled it about half way with milk and the rest of the way with something from out of a brown colored glass bottle which she had retreved from the refrigerator when she was putting the milk back away.

With the nipple screwed tightly on she bent down and instructed, “I want you to drink this all gone!”

I shook my head, “I don’t want too.”

She quickly adopted a very stern tone, “Do you want mommy to pull your diaper down and spank your butt?”

I began to cry again as I reached up and took the bottle from her.

“Put it in your mouth and drink it!” she ordered.

For only a second I hesitated as tears began to flow again. I lifted the bottle to my mouth and began to suck on it.

I sucked on the bottle, drinking down the milk while she began making dinner. She kept a very close eye on me to be sure I finished my bottle.

Dinner turned out to be a lot more then I had been expecting, though at this point I should have been expecting anything.

While sitting on the kitchen floor, I had finished my bottle and was feeling particularly well. I wasn’t feeling as spaced out like I was after drinking the bottle of Peach Schnaups up in the room though its effects were still very prevalent. No, this new stuff, whatever it was, that came from the brown bottle was making me feel . . . well happy and a little more clear-headed.

“Now doesn’t mommies little baby feel better?” she cooed as she took the empty bottle away from me.

“Mommy’s almost finished with dinner . . .” she was saying when the door buzzer sounded from the livingroom.

“ZZZZZZZZZZT”

Auntie Catharine wiped her hands on her aprin and rushed past me to answer the door.

“Oh hello, hello! Please come in! I have dinner nearly ready!” I heard Auntie Catharine say.

“Someone else is here!” I felt a twinge of panic within my small heart but it didn’t last, whatever it was that had been in that bottle with the milk seemed to cancel out any concerns or fears in an instant.

“Oh please come-come-come-come-come!” I heard Antie Catharine smozing over a guest, or maybe more then one guest.

A strange sounding female voice, “Oh Catharine I do love what you have done with this place!”

Yet another woman spoke up, “Oh how precious these curtains look in here!”

And then there was a younger sounding voice, like that of a child that asked, “Mommy can I go pay with the cars?”

“Me too?” another asked though this one sounded younger then the first.

“Run along, run along, run along!” Auntie Catharine said in a sing-song melody and tittered cheerfully.

“Oh Catharine you must tell me how you manage to keep such a big home so well together all by yourself.”

“Mommy can I go pway too?” another small voice asked.

Auntie Catharine seemed to explode into a surprised and loving tone, “Hello there Lowell! I did not see you hiding back there! Yes, go play, go play, go play! Have fun, have fun, have fun!”

There was the sound of someone thundering up the stairs and then someone asked, “So where is the little rascle?”

“He’s in the kitchen. He has just had another bottle so I think he will be very pleasant.” Auntie Catharine said, “Let me go get him.”

A moment later she entered the kitchen and without saying a word lifted me off the floor and swept me off to meet her guest. I did try to protest by squirming a little but the moment I saw all three ladies I froze.

“Here he is, here he is!” she announced.

There standing in the middle of the livingroom were three ladies all looking to be about the same shape, size and age as my Auntie Catharine though their hair styles varied amoungst them.

“Oh he is such a darling baby!” the lady with the big puffy red hair said.

“Oh and look at his wonderful cape! Catharine you did such a good job on it. You have to make William one!” A lady with curly brown hair and way too much makeup had said.

The third lady with her blonde hair pulled tightly into a bun at the back of her head leaned in and pinched my cheeks, “Oh he has the cutest little cheeks.”

I was feeling overwhelmed and felt the need to get the heck out of there but with Auntie Catharine holding me for all three women to ogle, I had no chance of escape.

“When did he arrive?” The red haired lady asked.

“Just this afternoon, shortly after lunch.” Auntie Catharine answered, “He’s staying until tomorrow but I’m sure he will be back.”

“Oh what smells so good?” the blonde lady asked.

“Could you watch Simon for me while I finish getting dinner on the table?” Auntie Catharine passed me off to the Brown Haired lady who began to pat my diapered bottom and bounce me in her arms.

To my dismay, the three ladies proceeded to pass me back and forth, each taking turns cooing and fawning over me. Inside, I kept having moments of panic and in the blink of an eye, those feelings were gone thanks to whatever it was Auntie Catharine had added to my bottle of milk.

“Dinner is ready! Dinner is ready!” Auntie Catharine announced.

“Boy’s! It’s time to come down for dinner.” The red haired lady called up the steps.

I was placed on the floor where I sat watching to see who came down the stairs; to my astonishment, it was three boys, the first was crowned with bright red hair parted neatly on the left side. He looked to be a little smaller then me, I guessed he was maybe five and he too was clad in a big cloth diaper. He had not seen me and waddled around the corner into the dining room.

Hot on his heals came the second boy with brown hair cut into a summer buzz and looked much older. He looked to be at least eight or nine though no one could tell from the diaper he was wearing and the pacifier he was sucking on. He followed the red haired boy into the dinning room.

A full half a minute later came the third and last boy. I heard him tromping down the stairs as loudly as he had when he’d gone up them. Before I saw him, I had already guessed he would have blonde hair since the other two boys seemed to have the same color hair as two of the ladies. I was right, he hit the bottom of the steps with a thud; he had jumped from several steps up. He however did not go into the dinning room but instead waddled over to me. Unlike the other two boys, he wasn’t wearing a cloth diaper, he had on a disposable diaper with little blue bunnies and yellow duckies on the front. It was also obvious from the smell and the way it hung so low on him that he had pooped and probably peed in it. I could only guess that this had happened after his arrival as none of the ladies had said anything before sending him up to play. He was smaller then the other two boys, heck he was even smaller then me. Out of the four of us, he was the only one that looked young enough to still belong in diapers; though only just.

He stopped in front of me and plopped down onto his diapered butt with a squish. “What you name?” he asked souding like a toddler who had not yet learned to add vowels to his sentance.

I was suddently conscious of the fact that my mouth was hanging open and that I was drewling on myself but even though I was conscious of it, I couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

“Hey!” he waved his hands in front of me to try to snap me out of my daze.

“Lowell honey are you coming down . . . Oh there you are!” said the Blonde haired lady.

She came over to where the two of us were sitting on the floor, “Boy’s it’s time to come eat.” She said but stopped, bent down and then called out, “Catharine, I think you might have given baby Simon here a bit too much. He looks stoned out of his precious little head!”

Auntie Catharine and the red haired lady came out of the dinning room together.

The blonde lady said while helping her son up, “Oh my I think someone needs a change after we eat. Now you go in and sit at the table with Peter and Jasper like a biggy boy for mommy.” Without question or comment, he took off waddling his diapered bottom just like a duck would its feathers.

Auntie Catharine picked me up and cradled me in her arms while the blonde lady used a tissue that she had pulled out of the front of her dress to wipe the drewl from my mouth and chin.

“Oh he just needs some food in his tummy and he will feel much better.” Said the red haired lady as she pulled at the front of my overly thick diaper and added, “And I think he’s going to need a change after lunch too.”

From out of the dinning room, I could hear singing and it started out quiet and slowly grew louder and louder. I was genuenly surprised for about half a second until I realized what song it was that I was hearing sung, “Kirri a, kirri a, kirri a laisson! Kirri a, kirri a, kirri a laisson!”

I reached up and rubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands. A groaned escaped as I yawned, trying to wake back up. I opened my eyes to see that I was still surrounded by the fowl smelling darkness and swiftly realized I had been dreaming the whole time.

I yawned and stretched again, remembering every aspect of the dream I had just had. It was all there in my mind, and then it occurred to me that it couldn’t have been a dream at all. It must have really happened, all those years ago it must have happened . . . “But how could it!” I said aloud, “It’s imposible!”

Had I not been distracted from my thoughts at that very second I would have broke down crying but the melodious words once again reached my ears and chased away any negative feelings in an instant, “Kirri a, kirri a, kirri a laisson! Kirri a, kirri a, kirri a laisson!”

My heart skipped several beats when I realized who was approaching. Taking a deep breath dispite the stench that surrounded me, I sang out as loud as I could, “Kirri, kirri, kirri, kirri, kirri, kirri, kirri, kirri a!”

Sounding much closer, the reply came, “Kirri a, kirri, kirri a laisson!”

From directly above me I heard the sound of two feet stomp hard against the wooden floor as Lowell calling out, “Squad Halt!”

“Uh, too late, I’m done as halted as I can halt without going backwards!” I teased up at him because if I had said anything else at that moment, I was sure I would have broken down and lost all control over my erupting emotions.

“Lowell!” I cried out not bothering to keep my voice down, I mean if we had not been heard singing then what was the chances anyone could hear anything else we said way down here.

“Sssshhhh!” He hushed with a giggle that warmed me to my very core. “They say I got to go by Trey here.” Lowell said with he face smashed against the grate.

Dispite the fact that my body was almost completely numb from the cold, I was to my feet and scurrying up the ladder in record time. I stuck my left hand through the grate and Lowell took a firm hold of it, intertwining his clean warm fingers with my filth covered ice fingers. We both began weeping but they were happy tears, well most of them were.

Lowell squeezed my hand super hard, “I knew you was still alive! I just knew you was! I knew, I knew, I knew!” and I felt his tears falling down on my face.

Lowell had laid himself flat on the grate and since I couldn’t stay on the ladder much longer I went down to the bottom but we could still hear each other. We talked for the longest time. I learned that the police captured Bull but he is in the hospital cause he was hurt bad. The police also managed to rescue eight missing boys, two of which were the boys that had been found in Bull’s wrecked car.

“What about my brother Jamie and Mike and Tate?” I asked.

After pausing before answering he finally said, “Uh, the news said that there was a fire in a cave under the park and they say a bunch of kids and people were killed, and some police even got killed.” and then he got really quiet.

“What?” I said stongly.

“Everyone thinks you and your borther Jamie and Tate and his brother Mike were all killed in the fire too.” Lowell said unable to keep from crying.

“No! Jamie was in the car with Tate and the rest of us! We all were in the car, those two kids they found, Tater and his brother and my brother Jamie too!” I paused to take a breath, “Somebody took me someplace after the wreck, I don’t know where but then they put me on a boat.” I was talking fast and crying at that same time.

“I know, I read!” Lowell sniffed.

Not understanding what he had just said I grunted, “Huh?”

“You wrote it down, I found it when that girl, uh . . .” he stalled while trying to think of her name.

“Cho?” I offered as more a question.

“Yeah, her. She put me in a bed and after she left, I found the note pad under the pillow. I read some of it but not all of it.” Lowell said and coughed softly.

At that very second there was the loudest farting sound from above me. It echoed around the corridor for what seemed like ten minutes. When the echos stopped Lowell and I both busted out laughing so histerically that neighter could talk for sometime. I don’t think it was really as funny as our laugher made it seem but maybe it was fueled by our nervous fears over our capture and enslavement here.

Finally, when I managed to regain some of my composure but only just barely I said, “Don’t let anyone else read it.” I had to stop to stifle a giggle and tell Lowell to stop laughing, “I am trying to tell you to keep it hid ‘til I get out of this place!”

The two of us continued talking for a while. Lowell was filling me in on what had happened since the night I went missing and I told him everything that had happened from my perspective.

“So they bring you here by boat too?” I asked when he had paused to catch his breath.

“Na, by plane! It was super loud and hurt my ears.” He said coughing, “Man I hate this smell!” he added.

“Huh? Oh yea, I learnt that if you keep breathing through your nose it goes away but don’t stop or it hits you again.” I instructed.

“Oh, okay then!” he said.

“So is this were they put you last night?” I asked.

“Yeah that mean drunk little man pushed me down and I landed in the, uh water.” He said and for half a second I thought he was going to say the ‘SH’ word.

I don’t suppose it would have mattered if he had. I mean who’s going to tell our parents if we cuss down in this place?

We talked until there wasn’t much left to talk about and we both grew quiet for a while before a thought suddenly hit me, “Hey?” I called up to Lowell.

“What?” he said sounding like he might have been sleeping or at least dozed off up there.

“So did you finish your story?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah actually I did!” and the way he answered made it sound as if he had been surprised by my question.

“Really?” I squeeled with delight.

“Man I wish you had it with you! I would love to hear you read it to me.” I said excitedly. “Don’t suppose you remember it well enough to tell me it do you?” I probed, hopeful that he would say yes.

“You don’t want to hear it now. It’s pretty scary for a place like this.” He said with caution.

“Oh come on! Please Lowell! It will take my mind off the cold!” I begged.

After some hesitation he finally relented, “Oh okay, but I might forget some of it.”

“That’s okay, just do your best!” I tried to assure his confidence, which didn’t sound very strong right then.

With a surrendering sigh he said, “Okay let me think here a second.”

I could hear him russling around overhead and figured he was making himself more comfortable. By the way he sounded now, I was guessing he was laying on his back talking into the air.

“Let me back up a bit first.” Lowell said.

“Yeah that’s a good idea, ‘cause I can’t exactly remember how the last bit ended.”

Lowell let out a funny sort of croaking sound that must have been his attempt to clear his throat, “Huh, my butt itches!”

“Lowell stop stalling!” I said laughingly up at him.

“I’m not stalling!” he paused before adding, “That wasn’t me farting that you heard, I pooped in my diaper!”

“You did?” I asked with no small amount of surprise at this announcement.

“Uh, maybe you should go find Cho to change you again.” I suggested.

“No way! She gives me the creaps!” He neary shouted.

And I couldn’t help but to tease him a bit, “Well, suite yourself but don’t come down here crying to me when you end up with a nasty case of diaper rash!”

“Oh shut up or I will . . .” but when he couldn’t think of anything to say he just said out of frustration at being bested, “Just shut up!”

I laughed and so did he though not has much as I did.

“Do you want me to tell you the ending of Hamunaptra or not?” he said trying to get one over on me with his idol threat.

“Okay I will be quiet Trey!” I said using his Banachelli name.

I heard him groan and expected him to say something derisive back but instead he just said, “Okay then, I think the ending of the last chapter you heard, which was chapter 5 by the way, went something like this . . .”

Uncle Max helped me back to my feet. We both looked up to the opening, expecting to see someone but no one appeared. I felt my legs going weak and I jumped as Uncle Max placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Uncle Max, don’t do that!” I demanded as I clasped my chest.

Uncle Max gave me a look that said he was sorry, “Now we are in a real fix.” He said.

I bent back down to look at the ladder and could see that it had been cut. I held the cut end up to show Uncle Max; he looked alarmed but seemed more concerned with Miss Lillian Hassley’s body, or what remained of her body. Ignoring the fact that someone had just cutaway our only way out of the tomb, he knelt again next to her and just looked at her for a while.

Trembling with fear, it took me a moment or two to get the lantern to work but once I had it lit, my eyes began to dance around the room. I was breathless at the sight what lay before me. I could see clearly now, that the walls were all covered in gold. As if acting as a welcoming or maybe a warning two Golden statues stood about twenty feet further into the room. One of the statues I had faintly seen last night and from above I thought they looked like some kind of creature that was half goat and half bird. I could now see that the body was more like that of a horse but with more powerful looking muscles and with a tail like a whip. The tail had to be at least fifteen or twenty feet long and rose up over the statue as if it were being lashed about. The head of the statues were distantly that of the dragons of Komodo but were covered in short stubbly looking feathers also cast in gold. What I thought was a beak last night was actually a single long jade fang that extended about eight inches past its lower jaw and curving under slightly. As I said, they were two identical statues that stood on either side of the room with their tails meeting high above and intertwining together.

The walls, though covered in gold, were also painted with a strange form of hieroglyphics that I had never seen before. The language seemed to have traces of Egyptian as well as a dozen other languages and I wondered to myself if it might be the lost language of Babel, the legendary first ever city and language of man before they were divided and scattered across the earth by the great god Jehovah.

The floor was indeed encrusted with red rubies that spanned as deep into the tomb as either of us could see. Several gold and silver sarcophagi with more red hieroglyphics inscribed on them were leaning against the sidewalls.

However, what really caught my attention was what was in the center of the room. An enormous sarcophagus, the biggest I had ever seen or heard of, ever! The thing that made it stand out as so odd, I mean besides its massive size was that it was made out of ordinary stone. Everything in this room was obviously made of the purest and greatest of treasured materials. The tomb itself was a treasure greater then even King Solomon had once possessed and yet here, laying in the middle of all these riches was an oversized and yet un-remarkably plain, stone sarcophagus.

“Uncle Max?” I whispered.

He was still leaning over Miss Lillian Hassley’s body when I turned to look at him I saw that he was tapping the fingers of his left hand against his lips as if almost in some sort of meditative trance. I had to call his name three more times before Uncle Max finally looked up at me and I saw his eyes as for the first time he too was noticing the fabulous treasures of this room. I watched, as his eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. Slowly he lifted himself to his feet and gazed around the room. I would have enjoyed watching the wonder on his face more had I not been so anxious and troubled by the mystery of the sarcophagus in the middle of the room.

“Uh, Uncle Max?” My voice cracked as I pointed toward the stone oddity.

He followed the invisible line my finger made and when he finally saw it too, he grunted with an obvious amount of uneasiness in his voice.

“Last night,” I started to say but had to stop and swallow because my throat was so very dry, “Last night, when we were looking in here, did you notice that stone sarcophagus?” I asked and the tone in my voice was beginning to scare even me. His eyes kept moving from the two statues and then back to the large sarcophagus.

He took one step and was at my side. Placing his hand on my shoulder he, ever so slightly, shook his head from side to side without speaking a word.

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” I asked softly as if now worried that something might hear us.

“Never!” His voice broke as he attempted to answer me.

We looked at each other and we both knew the answer to my question. Uncle Max still had his hand on my shoulder and was squeezing a bit too hard.

“Uncle Max, you’re hurting me!” I cried softly.

“What? Oh, sorry Jason.” He said letting go of me and wiping his face with the same hand.

“How do you remember all this so well?” I interrupted him.

“I don’t know. Guess cause I wrote it and have reread it so many times.” He said.

“You got a great memory for stories!” I complemented him.

“Thanks.” He said and as though I had not interrupted him he continued.

“Do you think Miss Lillian Hassley could have opened it?” I asked even through I already knew the answer.

“That cover must weigh better than fifteen tons.” Uncle Max took a breath, “There is no way any one man, or woman in this case, could have moved it.”

“Uh, you stay here.” He said as he took a single step away from me and toward the sarcophagus.

“Are you nuts? I am not staying alone anywhere down here!” I knew I was not being brave but had anyone else seen what Miss Lillian Hassley looked like... Whatever did that to her was obviously big and powerful and there was no way I was going to be alone. Of course, I know the irony of it all, especially given that I was told to say up topside and I did not listen.

Uncle Max stopped, turned and looked at me. My expression must have been enough to convince him that I was seriously scared though I was doing my best to keep it hidden. With a twitch of his head he said, “Okay, but stay close to me.”

He took the lantern from me and we both walked slowly over to the center of the room. I could feel the wetness of my pants as the fabric touched the skin of my legs. It caused chills to run through m,e which only magnified the strong emotions I was already feeling.

After a few steps, my stomach let out a growl that caused us both to jump, “Oh crap I am sorry,” I said grabbing my belly, “I guess I am hungry.”

I gave Uncle Max a half smile hoping he would stop looking at me the way he was, but he did not return my smile. Instead he said, “How on earth can you be hungry?” he motioned toward Miss Lillian Hassley’s body.

I shrugged my shoulders and we continued over to the edge of the stone sarcophagus. I had to stand on my tiptoes to be able to see down into the stone coffin and what I saw, I hope I shall never see the likes of again.

“Uh what is it?” I muttered under my breath.

He handed me the lantern so that he had both of his hands free. I could see clearly now that it was the mummified remains of a man, a very large man; he looked to be as wide as three normal sized men dressed in a robe of gold cloth. He was not wrapped in linen bindings, just a robe of gold cloth with strange symbols woven into the cloth. Moreover, his head was not a mans head but more like that of some mythical beast with two rams horns protruding from his forehead and spiraling outward of either side of his head.

We both examined the mummified man-beast carefully; my heart was aching within my chest from beating so ferociously and sweat was flowing down my face as if they were great drops of blood. I moved to position myself so that I was looking up from his feet, across his enormous frame all the way up to those deadly looking horns.

When Uncle Max finally said something, he scared me so bad that I dropped the lantern. It hit the floor with a crash leaving the two of us in total darkness.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god!” I was mumbling in the dark.

“Do not move!” Uncle max said in a near whisper, “Do you hear that?”

I did not so much as breathe as I listened in the darkness. There was a sound; a very distant, almost non-existent rumble that seemed to have originated from deep within the bowels of the earth. It was low and hard and seemed to grow stronger and louder by the second. When the urge within my lungs cried out for oxogine, I finally allowed myself to draw in a much-needed breath and my nostrils became filled with the overpowering sent of sulfur mixed with cinnamon, myrrh and spikenard.

Right at that moment, as Lowell was telling his story to me, I couldn’t help myself as I yawned rather loudly.

“You still awake down there?” Lowell called down to me.

“Oh yeah! Just listening is all.” I sent back up.

“Alright, but if you get sleepy, just go to sleep ‘cause I can always tell you this later.” He instructed.

“Okay but I won’t. I want to hear it all now.” I said trying to hide another yawn.

“Actually, I think that gets us up to where chapter five ended and chapter six started.” Lowell then added, “So the rest went something like this . . .”

And he began, “Hamunaptra - City of the Dead by Lowell. Chapter six.”

“No, no! That’s not right!” I shouted up at him.

“What aint right?” He called down to me.

“It’s by B.L.!” I jokingly corrected him.

He laughed and said, “Oh yeah! See I told you I might not remember everything just right!”

“I’m only teasing! Go on then!” I laughed too.

He began again, “Hamunaptra - City of the Dead by B.L.” and with another laugh he asked, “That better?”

“Much better!” I giggled.

“Okay then, “Hamunaptra - City of the Dead by B.L.”

“You done said that part!” I joked again.

“Shush up or I won’t tell it to you!” he growled

“Alright, I’m sorry! Please go on.” I tried to sound sincere.

I didn’t interrupt him again as he begin once more, but this time with all the theater and special effects thrown in to make it even better.

Hamunaptra
City of the Dead

By B.L.

~ Chapter Six ~
Discoveries

I tried to stifle a chuckle.

“SIMON!” Lowell barked in mock irritation.

“Sorry, it won’t happen again!” I assured him.

Fumbling in the dark we managed to find the lantern and get it working again. I was never so glad to see light as I was at that moment.

I pulled the front of my shirt up and whipped the sweat from my face and eyes; as I pulled it back own over my stomach my eyes again landed on the enormous creature that lay in the sarcophagus before us and a shiver ran down my spine.

A second later there was another rumble but this one did not come from deep within the tomb. It came from me again. Uncle Max was shining the lantern on me and looking both frightened and agree. I covered my stomach with my hands and made a grimace.

The odder of sulfur grew so strong that it overpowered the sents of cinnamon, myrrh and spikenard

When Uncle Max moved the glow from the lantern away from me it reflected against a picture on another wall and for only a moment I saw it clearly.

I saw the most magnifince painting of a blue and gold dragon, the kind from childrens storybooks and Eastern Legons.

“Here take this!” Uncle Max said handing me a torch he had removed from a wall and lit using the lantern. “And stay close!” he ordered but I didn’t obey. I had to get a closer look at that dragon.

I was puzzeled by several things. The head of the dragon appeared to be that of a hawk with a mane like a lion, and it appeared to be wearing clothing. A blue robe or cloak that covered a great deal of its body and most increable of all, it appeared to have been painted in with tears falling from it’s eyes.

I stepped closer and noticed that the tears were actually blue saphired that had been set into the wall and at closer inspection the dragon was not a painting but a sort of statue that had been only partially carved from the stone wall.

And at that moment I saw another picture, one I had seen before. It was obviously done by the same hand that had created the image on the side of the Cliffside graveyard as well as the portrate back by the tomb entrance.

.

“Y-e-s...” I whispered to myself.

Yes of course I could recognize her face; I had seen her before, back at the hotel and again at the airport.

I glanced over to see Uncle Max moving closer to the sound emanating from somewhere deeper. Assured that he had not left me, I returned my attention to read the inscriptions cared below her portrate.

TO BE CONTINUED

Next Installment:

PART 5 – Who Cares

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