The Humanimals of Mizzer

Beulah and the Skeleton

For a moment Beulah took a moment to take in her surroundings, the mine was near a river that currently gathering large chunks of ice on its shore as it was October and this was just a only a little bit South of the polar regions.

Then she heard raucous laughter! The Humans hut...The men were already getting drunk, but Beulah knew they could still see her if they looked out the window, the sun had not even completely set yet!

So after many years of neglect Beulah opened up her carapace, spread her Beetle wings and began to fly…

She flew to where the forest met the meadow and she could see that the House was already there!

From her position she thought she could simply fly down into the front yard, but no, she hit something that felt like a force field, she slid down the protective bubble down to the front gate...Out of a hole in the fence appeared a book.

A sign above the book appeared saying ‘Sign the Guestbook First Please.’

‘OK...’ Beulah said ‘...So this place is a real stickler for rules.’ She saw a feather pen and near the book she took hold of the quill but as she lowered the quill to meet the open page she saw without out even touching the paper her name...Burned itself into the page of the book! The book was withdrawn back into the fence and the gate opened.

Beulah stepped through not knowing what to expect…

As she approached the front door of the house, the door opened, something stepped out...Something that caused Beulah to jump back and scream a little...It was a Skeleton! A Human Skeleton!

“Enter if you dare...” Said the Skeleton that for a moment Beulah wasn’t sure weather that was a male or female voice, the skeleton’s jaws never moved when it spoke, and it held a lantern in one of its boney hands…

After that initial jolt of fear Beulah realized this was only natural for a Haunted House, possibly even worse things were still waiting for her inside!

So steeling her nerves she continued walking forward toward the open door…

“...You’re in for a scare!” Chuckled the Skeleton as He...She? Stepped aside to let the Dung Beetle in.

As soon as she was in the House, the Skeleton said “You’re in my house! Now the can can begin! Too bad you can’t go out, the way you came in!”

With that the front door shut itself behind Beulah! She squeaked at the loud noise

The Skeleton seemed to only speak in rhyme as it explained to her the name of the game, behind the picture frame was a Puzzle...The Puzzle would be a message on how to get out of the house. When Beulah touched a certain space the Skeleton would speak a rhyme about the place where she would find the piece for that space...The speaking in rhyme and the lack of any other spooks around the house was causing Beulah to think that this Skeleton may in fact be quite harmless and that this ‘Game’ was quite harmless...If not particularly fun for her (She was never a fan of puzzles and riddles, her idea of fun was a good game at the basketball court)

She looked around, she was on the first floor, One door in front of her, one to her left and one to her right, in the front hall was one riddle in the form of the key cabinet, she decided to do that one first.

And thus she learned what the game of ‘Riddles’ was everyone started with ‘I Spy’ and the Skeleton would rattle off a rhyme about things in the area and Beulah would have to touch (Or merely point if the thing was out of reach or otherwise untouchable) and every time she touched or pointed to the right object the thing would move in a strange way, it was initially scary but after seeing that was to show she found what she was looking for Beulah quickly stopped being scared and began to think how this whole situation reminded her of her days on Planet Mizzer and specifically watching VHS Tapes of that Ancient Earth Show Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. After finishing the riddle of the key cabinet, she went to the door to the left and entered the Den or Living Room...Or was it the Parlor? Anyway she saw there was a Cat that she never saw move but seemed to be able to appear in the next room...Beulah waved her antennae and got no scent from her, she thought to herself ‘Is the Cat a living toy? It looks more like a toy of a Cat then a real one, come to think of it, I’m getting no scent from the skeleton...Is he also a toy?’ The idea that instead of being an actual skeleton moving around it was actually a giant skeleton doll made of plastic that was bewitched to animate was somehow comforting to Beulah...Living toys were a slightly more pleasant thought than Animated dead…

She was brought back to reality by the Skeleton looking at her, with its arms folded, It seemed incapable of changing expression but Beulah quickly got the hint that she was supposed to be doing riddles not contemplating the nature of her surroundings, she went over to the window pulling back the purple curtain.

Outside she could see the last thumbnail of sunlight setting at the Skeleton recited his riddle rhyme...These ‘I Spy’ Riddles didn’t seem so hard...This was actually seeming incredibly easy!

And actually there seemed to be more than just ‘I Spy’ Riddles when she opened something in the Parlor it was actually a game called ‘Mystery Bins’ where the object of the game was to touch two things that matched in a certain way, things could be matched by color, by the fact they were words that rhymed or that they were two different kinds of the same kind of object, and after winning three rounds of this game she got a puzzle piece.

‘This doesn’t seem hard at all!’ Beulah thought to herself she was also thinking most of the Native Humanimals were tremendous cowards for not taking the opportunity for life and freedom all because it seemed a little spooky.

Of course...Beulah would soon learn it wasn’t all fun and games (At least not for her)