Bones of Skull Island

By A. Remlov

"The prophecy of Surly Max is an ancient legend, one that goes back seven hundred thousand years." 

Hunter and his family travel to the Baja Peninsula for a summer vacation. While searching for artifacts with his amateur archeologist father, they discover a jawbone that startles them when it quickly moves toward t

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Mar 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684863709

A. Remlov

Author and Illustrator: A. Remlov - a.k.a. M. A. DuVernet is a novelist and filmmaker. Her first book, "Pushkin's Ode to Liberty," is about the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. She has two wonderful daughters, five grandchildren and spends her time in Minnesota and Oregon.Co-author: Chase Stevens is in the six grade. He loves wrestling, baseball, football and video games. He is on the student council and is making videos about the student experience. Most of all, he loves to tell a good story.

Book preview

Chapter 1

What the Heck!

Hunter loved the summertime as his family always went on a road trip to do some digging for lost treasures. This year the Burrow family traveled to the Baja Peninsula, just south of San Diego, California, to hopefully find some dinosaur bones.

Hunter was the most curious lean and lanky eleven-year-old boy. He liked discovering new things, listening to his dad tell stories about his finds, and he liked digging; he developed a habit of always looking down as you never know when you might find a fossil or an agate with gleaming red stripes. He was also somewhat shy around girls and afraid of heights. Today he had just finished drawing another make-believe map. In a way, he wished they were back home in San Diego, in the cool of the air-conditioning with his video games. But for the next three weeks, his family would be living in a makeshift yurt village on the West Coast beaches of the Baja Peninsula.

Suddenly, an old man appeared from the entrance of the yurt next door. The old man wore round lens spectacles, chewed away at a thick mustache and had a massive amount of curly hair on his very round head. He pointed at Hunter’s map and asked, What’s that? His slow limp-like shuffle and all-knowing manner made Hunter wonder what he was doing here.

It’s a map I made up, replied Hunter.

The old man bent over to take a closer look. You just made that up? whispered the old man.

yeah . . .

You are not lying . . . are ya?

No.

Nobody told ya what to draw?

No.

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That red door up there . . . that really exists. He pointed to the red door that Hunter had drawn at the top of a high cliff beside the ocean shoreline.

Really? asked Hunter.

You don’t want to know what‘s inside there. You called it the Door of Dome . . . He chuckled. That’s about right. Then he shuffled away.

Hunter’s eyes widened as he saw the old man disappear back into his yurt. Wait a minute . . . mister . . ., he called out.

Hunter’s dad, Mitch - just a bigger version of Hunter -ran up, yelling, Hunter! I found a great spot for us to dig. Grab your gear, and let’s go!

Hunter’s mom Margarete (Marty for short) and little sister Iggy (short of Elizabeth) popped out of the yurt. Dinner will be ready in one hour, Marty proclaimed. Let me know you heard me! she yelled as the two grabbed their dig sacks and hurried off to catch the last few hours of diminishing daylight.

Ya, ya! they replied, waving their hats in the air.

They reached the spot in less than ten minutes. The site was just over the ridge from where the yurts were set up.

You see the lines in those big rocks? asked Mitch. That’s an indication of many years sediment deposited in layers of strata, also called bedding. This is a very good spot to dig. Let’s turn these rocks over and see what we can unearth before dinner.

The father-and-son team retrieved their small spade shovels and soft paint brushes from their sacks and started digging and brushing away the dirt. Soon enough, something white appeared in the dirt.

What is that? asked Hunter leaning in for a closer look.

His dad poked at it and brushed away more dirt from around the object. A tooth appeared and then another tooth and then several more. His dad gently tugged at it, but the earth would not give it up.

To get at it would take more time, said Mitch.

Hunter’s dad was an amateur archeologist. He just loved to dig. Back home, he worked for the NRG power company, but when he was on vacation, there was always a dig involved. He had found plenty of treasures which he then would sell to various museums or other collectors. Mitch often took the whole family out to dig for agates and picnic. He wanted his son Hunter to learn what a good digger looks for.

First, you look for lots of rocks with history, said Mitch. Those rocks over there told me that the glaciers moved through here after the dinosaurs. I was expecting to find some dinosaur bones, but look at this . . . Mitch brushed a bit more dirt away from the teeth they had discovered.

I hope it’s not another dead body, said Hunter.

That was pretty freaky, wasn’t it? Sorry, son, I did not mean for you to experience that. Just never know what you find these days under all these rocks. At least we were able to give some closure to those people who had been looking for their son for all those years.

Well . . .what is it? asked Hunter.

It’s a jaw bone . . . maybe from a monkey or something. Mitch kept scraping the dirt away around the teeth until the lower jaw popped out on its own and hit Hunter on the forehead, knocking him to the ground.

What the heck!

Mitch’s eyes went wide, and he repeated Hunter’s words. What the heck?

They both watched as the jaw bone kept eagerly hopping toward the yurt camp.

Chapter 2

Hold On to It!

Hunter hurried to catch it, but as fast as he would grab hold, the bone would break free and leap forward another five feet. Hunter was quick. He ran and pounced and ran and