Chris Grabenstein - The Smoky Corridor

It was in New Orleans that he had met a voodoo queen named LaSheena, who, for a sackful of gold coins, had taught Pettimore everything he’d needed to know to become a bokor: a voodoo witch doctor.

“I will give you much power, which your soul will carry in this life and into the next!” Queen LaSheena had promised.

Pettimore learned quickly. Seemed to have a natural talent for sorcery. Before long, he could do more dark deeds than even his instructor.

He could paralyze his enemies by sprinkling secret powders on the ground where they walked.

He could create undreamed-of misery by ritually damaging a voodoo doll depicting whomever he wanted to hurt.

But his greatest power was his ability to raise zombies.

To resurrect corpses.

To turn dead men into mindless slaves to do his bidding.

Using the spells taught to him by Queen LaSheena, Pettimore first sucked Cyrus McNulty’s soul out of its body and sealed it in a jar—a jar still hidden in this labyrinth of tunnels beneath the school and the cemetery behind it.

Private McNulty had been buried in a mass grave along with sixty-five other dead soldiers. Captain Pettimore had resurrected them all. He’d snuck out to the burial grounds at midnight the day after they’d all died. He carried with him a list of their names and rode in a buckboard wagon filled with sixty-six empty glass jars.

First he dusted the ground with lightning powder; then he chanted the queen’s mambo spells; and finally, he called the dead soldiers forth, chanting each buried soldier’s name three times.

“Cyrus McNulty. Cyrus McNulty! Cyrus McNulty!”

Since McNulty, a farm boy from Indiana, had no family in Louisiana to seal up his ears with clay to make him deaf to the sorcerer’s call, his wispy soul flew up through the mucky soil to be trapped as easily as a firefly in a jar. Then the lifeless body, lacking a soul and, therefore, drained of all free will, had no choice but to crawl out of his casket and dig his way back into life.

On that fateful April night, Cyrus McNulty and sixty-five other men rose from the dead to become Pettimore’s army of slaves.

Yes, even after Pettimore died, McNulty, the one zombie he had kept, to act as his treasure guardian, had to obey his every command.

And what an ideal slave the living dead man was!

McNulty barely spoke. He had no desires, no ambitions, no memories or consciousness. Since he was already dead, nothing could kill him—as long as he avoided fire and no one released his soul from the jar where Pettimore had trapped it.

The resurrected McNulty was three times stronger than he had been when he was alive, making him the ideal beast of burden and protector. The zombie would fiercely guard Captain Pettimore’s gold until the day when, using the darkest black magic spells ever taught him by Queen LaSheena, Horace P. Pettimore himself would rise from the dead to reclaim his treasure.

All he needed was one very special child.

The one he had been seeking for more than a century. The one he had used a voodoo charm of magic powder, herbs, dove feathers, and a pint of his own blood to attract to this place.

A blood relative.

Just one!

A new school year was about to begin, and Pettimore hoped, as he did every autumn, that the special child he sought would soon walk through the doors of Pettimore Middle School.

13

The nextmorning, Zack sat with Judy in the breakfast nook, swirling soggy cereal around a bowlful of milk.

Judy yawned and sipped coffee. She had gotten home very late.

“At least it’s a short week,” she said with a faint smile. “Just Thursday and Friday. Two days.”

“Yeah,” muttered Zack. His new school shirt itched at the collar. His pants were so stiff they felt like they were made out of cardboard.

Over in his dog bed, Zipper looked like Zack felt: totally bummed out because summer was officially over. His head was slumped between his paws. This was Zipper’s first autumn ever. He probably sensed that something was different but couldn’t figure out what it was besides the smell of dead leaves and wilted flowers. So every now and then, he exhaled a huge dramatic sigh. Zipper had lost all his zip.

“I don’t know who’s going to miss you more,” said Judy. “Me or Zipper.”

“I’m gonna miss you guys, too.”

Judy reached across the countertop. Squeezed Zack’s hand. He always felt better whenever she did that.

“Your dad caught the six o’clock train into the city,” she said. “He said to wish you good luck and to tell you to say hi to Scary Arie for him.”

“Okay.”

“So who’s Scary Arie?” Judy asked.

“The ghost of a crossing guard who haunts my new school.”

Judy put down her mug. “You’ve seen another ghost?”

Zack shook his head. “Dad just told me about this dead guy, Scary Arie, who kids used to talk about back when he went to Pettimore.”

“So the school isn’t really haunted?”

“Well, not by a crossing guard.”

“Zack? Who did you see?”

“Joseph and Seth Donnelly. The brothers who died back in 1910.”

“At the school?”

“Yeah. But they also told me, ‘We’re sons of Daniel Boone,’ which made absolutely no sense, because then they’d be the Boone brothers, right? Plus, the younger one, he said he was Johnny Appleseed and asked me to be their Kit Carson.”

“Wow. Confusing.”

“Yeah. Maybe they were in the drama club or something and were putting on a show for Pioneer Day and they can’t move on until they complete the cast and get a kid to take the part of Kit Carson or something.”

“Could be,” said Judy. “How exactly did they die?”

“Well, according to dad, they were playing with matches and started a fire. A teacher died trying to rescue them.”

“How horrible. No wonder they’re still haunting the hallway.”

“Yeah,” said Zack. “To be safe, maybe I should just skip classes for a year or two. You could homeschool me. If they want me to play Kit Carson in their show, I’d probably have to die first.…”

“Honey?”

“Yeah?”

“I know you don’t like school, that the thought of going—”

“I’m not making this stuff up just to get out of going to school.”

“I know,” Judy said gently.

That made Zack feel better, because his real mother used to say that all he ever did was make up lies to get what he wanted.

“But maybe the two brothers are friendly spirits,” said Judy. “Like some of the ghosts you met over in Chatham.”

Grudgingly, Zack nodded. “They didn’t try to spook me or anything. I think they just wanted me to play with them.”

“Well, see? You haven’t even started classes and you’ve already made two new friends.”

Zack laughed. “Yeah. Two guys who’ve been ‘held back’ since 1910!”

Judy smiled. “Hey, Zack, what if things are different this year? A couple guys in the neighborhood already think you’re pretty cool.”

“True. But their parents don’t.”

“Zack?”

“Yeah?”

“Their parents won’t be going to school with them.”

Judy was right. Some of the guys who lived close by, like Benny and Tyler, thought it was pretty awesome how Zack and his pal Davy Wilcox had dealt with the haunted tree. A couple had even come to the Hanging Hill Playhouse to see Curiosity Cat , and Zack had taken them on backstage tours and introduced them to his new Hollywood movie star friends in the show.

“All I’m saying,” Judy continued, “is it’s a different school and you’re a completely different person from who you were last school year.”

Also true. Zack hadn’t had a cool new stepmom last September. He hadn’t even slain his first real demon until school was over and they moved up there.