Chris Grabenstein: The Smoky Corridor

Zack, Zipper, and Malik were sitting in a small room, staring at the wild inscription on the wall:

“Any idea what it is?” Zack asked.

“Some kind of voodoo symbol,” said Malik. “Probably painted with chicken blood.”

“Gross. We need to find where Pettimore stored his soul jars.”

“You mean there’s another root cellar?”

“Sort of. See, when the bokor steals a dead person’s soul, he captures the ti bonanj , the part of our spirit that holds whatever it is that makes you and me unique and different from everybody else.…”

“Did you look this up on Google?”

“Last night. A friend gave me a heads-up on what we might be facing.”

“Who? Benny?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is—”

Suddenly, Zipper’s ears perked up.

“He hears something!” said Malik. “The zombie?”

“No. His tail’s wagging. He’s not afraid. He’s happy.”

Zipper looked up at Zack and gave him a series of short barks.

“What’s he trying to say?” asked Malik.

“I don’t know. It’s not one of his standard barks.”

And then Zipper took off!

“Where’s he going?” asked Malik.

“Back the way we came …”

“What about the zombie?”

“I don’t think they like dog brains. Just humans’.”

Malik sighed. “I sort of wish I were a dog.”

“Come on. Let’s go see what’s up ahead.”

101

“This isit,” said Daphne DuBois, staring at the scorched hole in the wall. “The entrance to the treasure tunnel.”

“There’s a stone on the ground,” said Eddie. “See it? What do all those strange carvings mean?”

“That’s the Masons’ code,” said Daphne, pulling out her spiral notebook, the one filled with all sorts of information related to the treasure quest. She found the page dealing with the code and quickly translated the stone’s message.

“It mentions a zombie,” she said.

Eddie laughed. “The old carpetbagger is bluffing! Colonel Cooper told Zack Jennings in no uncertain terms, ‘There are no more booby traps in the tunnels, no more guards.’”

“Yes. The boy would never have been brave enough to crawl into that hole if he thought there might be a zombie at the other end waiting for him!”

“I’ll go in first,” said Eddie. “Grab a couple of those candles off the shelf.”

She did. Eddie lit them.

Daphne smiled. “Now let’s go get our gold!”

102

Daphne watchedEddie slide down the chute.

When he hit the ground with a soft thump, Daphne crawled into the hole. She was all set to slide down to join her brother when she heard him scream.

“Leave me be!”

Next Daphne heard an angry roar and thrashing and Eddie shrieking.

“No! Stop!”

More howls and bellowing. The shredding of cloth. Snarls and rips and the crunching of bone and sloppy wet feeding sounds.

She blew out her candle.

Bracing her hands against the ceiling, her feet against the floor, she crept down the sharply inclined tube. She moved very slowly, very cautiously, the whole time serenaded by the sounds of someone greedily stuffing his face with food.

“Mmmm … good … brains …”

She reached the bottom. Crawled feetfirst into some kind of darkened cave.

Eddie’s black wax candle lay on the floor, still sputtering, still casting a faint glow—enough light for Daphne to see the most horrific thing she had ever seen in her life.

A lanky beast in a frayed Yankee soldier uniform scooping curdled gray matter out of her brother’s cracked-open skull and slurping it into his mouth.

103

Zack andMalik kept moving forward.

The tunnels were chilly, dark, and quiet. The narrow passageways turned back on themselves at abrupt angles. Whenever the path split, they headed left—just like the pocket watches had told them to.

“Thanks again, Zack,” Malik whispered.

“For what?”

“Being my friend. Coming down to find me.”

“No problem.”

“You think that thing killed Kurt Snertz?”

“I hope not.”

They walked some more.

“If we actually find the gold,” said Malik, “I’ll split it with you!”

“That’s okay. You keep it. I just want to go home and play with Zip in the backyard!”

They kept walking.

Downhill.

Working their way deeper into the labyrinth.

The zombie’s lair.

104

The beastwas licking his spindly fingers.

It pained Daphne DuBois to see her brother this way. Torn asunder. His pants and legs lying in a heap to the left. His jacket and torso to the right.

His head hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin.

But she had to press on.

For Edward Cooper DuBois.

For Patrick J. Cooper and John Lee Cooper! For every son of the Confederacy humiliated by the Union aggressors when the noble cause ran out of money because the scoundrel Horace P. Pettimore ran off with the shipment of English gold!

She saw Eddie’s revolver lying on the ground near the gnawed remains of his right arm.

The beast seemed momentarily satiated. Gorging on her brother’s meaty brain appeared to have made him drowsy.

She saw the creature’s bulging eyes disappear beneath their reptilian lids.

Very quietly, she reached down and took the pistol.

Then, turning away from the beast, she started trotting quietly down a long, straight tunnel. After about fifty feet, she lit her own candle. Held it out in front of her.

Ahead she saw a wall full of pocket watches.

The straightaway ended. She had a choice. A staircase twenty feet to her right. A staircase twenty feet to her left.

She could not decide which way to go.

She needed help. A spirit guide!

“Colonel Cooper?” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”

There came no ghostly reply. Frustrated, she stomped her feet. “Grandfather!” she whined. “Tell me which way I should go!”

One hundred yards behind her, she heard the beastly thing bay. Heard him rumble like a dragon.

She probably shouldn’t have raised her voice like that.

A loud roar shook the rafters.

Daphne DuBois ran as fast as she could down the staircase on the left.

105

Judy sawZipper tear out the front door of the school.

“George! It’s Zip!”

“Hey, boy.” George knelt down.

The dog practically trampolined off the asphalt and into his arms.

And then he wouldn’t stop barking.

“Where’s Zack?” George asked.

Zipper barked more loudly.

“Is he in trouble?” asked Judy.

He gave a bark that sounded an awful lot like “Yes!” Followed by a series that sounded like “Hurry! Follow me!”

“Take us to him, Zip!”

Zipper flew back into the school.

Judy and George flew after him.

106

A slow-movingcar pulled into the driveway at the front of the school.

A young African American girl—about eight years old with caramel-colored skin, her hair piled up under a bright yellow head scarf, her cheeks freckled with dots of black paint—stepped out. She was carrying a small burlap sack.

“Wait for me here, Auntie,” she said. “I shan’t be long.”

The little girl marched toward the school, quietly singing a snatch of her favorite song.

My grandma see your grandpa sitting by the fire

My grandpa say to your grandma, gonna fix your chicken wire .