Chris Grabenstein - The Smoky Corridor

Oh, Zack had a pretty good idea: a brains-eating zombie!

“And, whatever you do, don’t tell those two where Malik is.” Airman Sherman gestured toward Ms. DuBois and Eddie, the janitor. “They are not to be trusted. It’s up to you, Zack. Are you going to go down there and help Malik?”

“Zack?” said Ms. DuBois.

“Are you ready to go, son?” asked the janitor.

Zack was facing Mr. Sherman when he answered.

“Yes, sir. I am.”

He was also ready not to believe another word Ms. DuBois or Eddie, the pistol-packing janitor, had to say.

73

Kurt Snertzlowered the binoculars.

He was lying on his stomach, spying on Zack Jennings, his stupid little dog, the new history teacher, and the bizarro Goth chick Azalea Torres. Snertz’s right fist was wrapped in a bandage; he had sprained it slugging the locker.

Today Jennings would pay for that. Maybe his mangy mutt, too!

Snertz watched his targets march into the school.

He lost visual contact.

“Darn it!”

He’d been tailing the Jennings wimp since first thing that morning. So far, he’d seen the dork and his dad take their stupid dog out for a stupid walk and then go home to eat what looked like stupid pancakes.

Now he was with a stupid teacher.

Kurt would have to bide his time. Catch Jennings when he wasn’t being protected.

“Soon,” he muttered to himself. “Soon!”

Then he crawled closer to the school.

74

Malik, holdinga flashlight, stood frozen in fear at the top of a steep staircase.

The monster, crouching at the bottom in a dimly lit pit, glared up at him with burning red eyes. A deep, throaty purr rumbled up the steps.

Some kind of dog , Malik thought. It has to be some kind of mutant dog . It was the only logical explanation.

Then he remembered the first line of code carved into the stone he and Zack had found in the janitor’s closet: A zombie guards my treasure well .

The first time Malik had read it, he had focused on the treasure bit. Now he was thinking about zombies. Corpses brought back to life by powerful voodoo sorcerers to do their masters’ bidding. Reanimated dead people that feasted on human flesh and brains.

If you wanted to guard millions of dollars’ worth of gold, a zombie would sure make a good watchdog.

He inched his gaze down a bit. In the jittering circle of light twenty feet below, he saw slick fangs glistening with slime.

“W-what are you?” Malik stammered.

The beast rumbled up another purr.

“Stay away!” Malik shouted, wishing he’d spent more time playing video games instead of reading books, because there were all sorts of ways to kill zombies in video games. He’d heard guys talking about it on the bus.

“Leave me alone! Go! Get out of here!”

Then, much to Malik’s surprise, the creature turned and scurried off into the darkness.

Still terrified, Malik stepped backward into the tunnel that had brought him down to this split and the two staircases. There was probably some other kind of monster waiting at the bottom of the other set of steps. He swung his flashlight left to check it out and the beam bounced off tiny circles of glass.

Antique pocket watches suspended from tarnished brass hooks on a wall between the two staircases.

Malik counted thirty-nine. They seemed to be clustered in groupings. Two watches. Three. Two.

Like letters in words.

Another code! he thought.

“The watches tell you which way to go,” Malik mumbled out loud. “How to avoid the zombie!”

Could the arrows on the hour and minute hands be pointing in the direction he should head to stay safe?

No. They were pointing up, down, sideways—all over the place.

He studied the thirty-nine clock faces hanging on the far wall.

It looked like the dials on a water meter.

But it was something else. A secret message.

It had to be.

Now all Malik had to do was figure out what it said.

75

It wasSaturday and Benny was bored.

So he biked over to Zack’s house.

Maybe they could blow something up out in the woods. Maybe they could stick a firecracker in an old Lego model and watch the bricks fly.

Benny hopped off his bike and ran up to Zack’s front porch to ring the bell.

His stepmom answered the door.

“Hi, Mrs. Jennings!”

“Hi, Benny.”

“Can Zack come out and play?”

“Well, he’s not here right now.…”

“Oh.”

“He had to go to school.”

“Really? On a Saturday?”

Mrs. Jennings nodded. “It’s something, uh, special.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sure he wishes you were there with him … but, well, this is more or less a dry run … a test.”

“He’s testing something?”

“Yeah. More or less.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Jennings.”

“Sure, Benny. Say hi to your mom and dad for me.”

“Okay.”

She went back into the house.

Benny grabbed his bike.

This is so awesome! he thought. Zack was definitely doing something major at the school. Even if it was only a dry run or a test, it’d be exciting.

He pedaled hard.

He had to be there to see it.

He saw his buddy Andrew Oldewurtel riding around in circles on his bike in the street in front of his house.

“Hey, Andrew!”

“Hey, Benny. Where you goin’?”

“School. Zack’s gonna do something amazing!”

“When?”

“Like right now!”

“Awesome! Did you tell Riley and Emily?”

“No time,” said Benny, biking up the street.

“I’ll text them,” shouted Andrew. “They can text Jessie and Harry and Laurel. Hang on. I’m right behind you, man!”

76

Zack, Zipper, and Azalea followed Ms. DuBois and the janitor out the front door of the school.

Zack wished he didn’t have to keep pretending to be interested in the cemetery crawl. It had been Azalea’s big idea and she didn’t seem interested in it at all. She had barely said a word to anybody all day. She didn’t seem herself.

Zack needed to be downstairs. He needed to crawl through the hole in the old root cellar wall and find Malik. Given the way Azalea had been acting, he couldn’t ask her for help. And he definitely couldn’t ask Ms. DuBois or Eddie!

“Um, where are we going?” Zack asked.

“The graveyard, Zack,” said Ms. DuBois. “Where else would we do a cemetery crawl? Now, I thought we’d start our field trip with one of the oldest headstones. The marker commemorating the valiant John Lee Cooper.”

“Have fun,” said Azalea. “I’m heading inside.”

“What?” said Ms. DuBois. “Are you feeling okay, Azalea?”

“Fit as a fiddle. I just forgot to use the latrine this morning.”

Ms. DuBois sighed. “Fine. But hurry. Meet us down by the river at Colonel Cooper’s headstone.”

“Right. Will do.” Azalea went back into the school.

“Come along, Zachary,” said the janitor, who had an extremely eerie smile plastered on his face. “We mustn’t keep the colonel waiting.”

Zack and Zipper followed the two adults up a narrow footpath through the forest behind the gymnasium.

Zipper whimpered. Used his snout to nudge Zack’s ankle.

When Zack looked down, he saw the lacy hem of a Civil War–era wedding gown: Mary Jane Hopkins was walking beside them, her body passing straight through trees and boulders blocking her path.