Chris Grabenstein - The Smoky Corridor

Zack finally realized why Davy and Mr. Willoughby wouldn’t let him talk to any adults about what was going on underneath the school. They’d end up dead. The Donnellys would kill them.

“We’re done now.” The voice of Seth.

“No, we’re not! We’re gonna kill these two, too!”

“No, we are not!”

“Yes, we are!”

“Malik?” Zack said in a quick whisper. “Stay in here. Keep your eye on Azalea.”

“Okay.”

Zack sprang out of the box, tumbled to the ground.

The first thing he saw was Zipper lying on his side. Whimpering.

Zack scrambled to his feet. Realized he had just crawled out of the furnace underneath the boiler in the same room where he and Malik had been before they went through the back door to the small room.

“Zack!” shouted Judy and his father.

“Where’s the zombie?”

Judy pointed to a heap on the floor. “Out cold.”

“We were told he’d lose his zombification,” said Seth, “if the one who bit him found his soul. Did you do that for Mr. McNulty, Zack?”

“Yeah, Seth. I did.” He bent down to pet Zip, who thumped his tail. “Who hurt my dog?”

“The zombie,” said Joseph. “It wasn’t us.”

Zack was fuming. “But you guys told him to do it!”

“Not really,” said Joseph. “Besides, the zombie only listens to Seth, not me. So if you’re gonna blame anybody—”

And that was when Davy appeared. “All right,” he said to the Donnelly brothers. “You boys got your revenge. Ain’t no reason to haunt here no more. Time to move on.”

“Thank you!” said Seth.

“B-b-but …,” stammered Joseph.

“Vamoose, Joseph. Daniel Boone hisself wants a word with you. Davy Crockett, too!”

The Donnelly brothers disappeared.

Davy moved closer to Zack.

“I gotta go, pardner. Need to escort the Donnelly boys up to their tribunal. They’ll go easy on Seth.”

“What about Joseph?”

“Can’t rightly say. Folks upstairs will see that justice gets done.”

Zack nodded.

“You done good, Zack. Real good. We didn’t think nobody could go up against Horace P. Pettimore and his zombies. But, dang—you sure did!”

“I finally figured out why you wouldn’t let me tell any adults about what was going on. Guess the rules are there for a reason.”

“Sometimes,” Davy said with a wink. “Sometimes.”

And then he vanished.

Zack’s dad raised a hand. “Um, isn’t that the boy who used to …”

Judy laughed. “Yes, honey.”

“So he was a ghost, even then?”

“Yep,” said Zack. “He sure was.”

The fake furnace door swung open.

“Zack?” said Malik.

And then Azalea shoved him out of her way and crawled into the room.

126

“Thought youcould come down here and steal my gold, did you?” said Azalea as she stumbled around the furnace chamber, her heavy backpack tilting her backward, throwing her off balance.

“Azalea?” said Zack’s dad.

“She’s not really herself right now,” said Zack. “She’s possessed by the spirit of Horace P. Pettimore.”

“The Horace P. Pettimore?”

“Yeah. His soul snuck inside Azalea so he could live again and retrieve his gold.”

“It’s downstairs,” added Malik. “Tons of it.”

“So,” said Judy, “do we need to find an exorcist or something?”

“Cut the chin music, you gallinippers!” grumbled Azalea. “I’m not pulling up stakes without my gold!”

“I don’t know what to do!” said Zack.

A young girl stepped into the room.

“Don’t worry, brother. I do.”

She looked like she was maybe eight. She wore a yellow head scarf and had strange black markings painted on her caramel-colored cheeks.

“Greetings, Cap’n Pettimore. We meet again, no?”

Azalea stumbled backward in horror. “No! You?”

“Yes, Cap’n. I remember the night you killed me. You thought you were oh so clever. Well, Cap’n, the teacher, she always know more than the pupil, no?”

The girl pulled a glass jar out of a burlap sack.

“Queen LaSheena?” Azalea sputtered out the words.

“Yes.” The little girl slowly twisted the lid on her jar and opened it. “My spy dog see your spy dog, no? For many years, I watch you and wait for you to make this mistake. I know all about the charm you bury in front of your mansion to lure your descendant to this place. I know everything. And so I wait for you to be foolish and greedy and put your soul inside a human body, where I can so easily snatch it.”

“But … I have gold.…”

“I have more.…”

“Tell me what you want! I’ll give it to you!”

“I only want the one thing, Cap’n.”

“What?”

“Your immortal soul!”

She quickly chanted words Zack had never heard before. They were angry, short, and sharp.

Then she slammed the lid on top of the jar and tightened it.

Azalea slumped to the floor.

“Is my friend your zombie now?” Zack asked.

The little girl shook her head. “No. She will be fine. Tomorrow, she will not remember a thing. It will all be a bad dream. But Cap’n Pettimore? He is now a zombie of the soul. He belong to me for all eternity.”

She held up the jar. Stared at the amber glow flickering inside.

“Joc-a-mo-fee-no-ah-nah-nay,” she mumbled. “Don’t mess with me, Cap’n!”

127

That night, all sorts of people were clustered in the main entrance to the school, right below the portrait of Horace P. Pettimore.

First came the police and paramedics, who took Azalea and the janitor Wade to the hospital, Ms. DuBois and her brother to the morgue. The first detectives on the scene had a theory that the brother and sister had died in a domestic dispute: They both wanted the gold, but they didn’t want to share it. So Ms. DuBois hired an attack dog, while her brother relit Captain Pettimore’s boiler and tricked his sister into going into the smoky chamber, where she suffocated when the door locked behind her.

Zack’s dad, Judy, Malik, and Zack did not feel compelled to disagree with the detectives.

While the police issued an all-points bulletin for a “giant attack dog,” Judy rushed Zipper to the closest animal hospital just to make sure that the zombie kick to his ribs hadn’t broken any bones.

Zack’s dad used his cell phone to call Malik’s father, who came racing over to the school. While they waited for the police to finish their work and haul the gold up from the basement, Zack’s dad and Mr. Sherman talked about how proud they both were of their brave sons. After a while, Mr. Sherman told Zack’s dad all about how sick Malik’s mom was and how they didn’t have health insurance right then.

That was when the assistant principal, Carl D. Crumpler, stormed into the building.

“Jennings?” he screamed at Zack and his dad, who were standing in a corner with Malik and Mr. Sherman. “What goes on here?”

Zack’s dad put his arm around Malik’s shoulders.

“Well, Mr. Crumpler, my client, Malik Sherman—”

“Your client?”

“That’s right. He needs someone to help him manage his money.”

“What?”

“Mr. Sherman and Mr. Wade Muggins, a janitor here at the school, a man of great initiative, uncovered a coded stone left in the old root cellar by Horace P. Pettimore.”

“What root cellar?” Mr. Crumpler had never looked more flustered.

“Showing great courage and determination, the two of them found what has eluded so many for so long: Captain Pettimore’s stolen Confederate gold.”

“Stolen?”

“Well, I’m sure the statute of limitations has expired, and the aggrieved party, the Confederate States of America, no longer exists. Therefore, it will be the recommendation of the Pettimore Trust that some reward money be given to both Mr. Sherman and Mr. Muggins.…”