If we got out of this.
The tunnel opened to a third room, which was empty except for a sarcophagus resting at its center. The sarcophagus was rectangular and carved out of smooth, white stone, dripping white candles lining its base.
“Maybe if we walk past it really fast, nothing will happen,” Adam whispered.
“I want to stay between you guys.” Blue’s voice shook.
Without a word, Adam took Blue’s torch, and we each grabbed one of his gnarled hands. We tiptoed across the room. The doorway loomed thirty feet away. Then twenty. Then ten….
Something scratched from inside the sarcophagus.
Stopping to see a monster close-up was always a fatal error in horror movies. “Just go!” I whispered sharply. We raced through the doorway and into the tunnel. I had to bend in half to fit. I raced along with one hand trailing along the ceiling, the other clutching the flashlight, Blue and Adam huffing close behind me.
I twisted to look over my shoulder, just in case this was another movie trick: a character hears heavy breathing and assumes it’s one of her friends. Meanwhile, said friend has been quietly eaten and replaced by a monster craving dessert.
Two sets of familiar eyes blinked back at me. “What?” Adam panted.
“Nothing.” I turned again just in time to see that we’d reached another fork, two paths this time. My stomach dipped.
“Crud!” Adam yelled. “Now what?”
“Let’s go left,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because there’s a fifty-fifty chance it’s the right choice.” We escaped into the left tunnel, gasping for air, keeping our ears pricked for the sound of a murderous mummy hot on our trail. The silence was unnerving.
We emerged in yet another room and came to a halt.
Adam raised his torch to get a better look. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
This room was filled with sarcophagi. At least two dozen lined the walls, all identical, with painted-on faces, staring eyes framed with blue and orange headdresses.
Blue tugged at my sleeve. “Come on. Fast. Like before.”
We sprinted across the room, our feet pounding against the rough floor. Behind us, one of the sarcophagi lids clattered to the ground. We whirled around.
A decaying mummy had fallen out, groping on its hands and knees. It lifted its head in our direction.
Another lid clattered to the ground. Then another, and another. Mummies fell heavily to the floor, groaning through their bandages.
“Go!” I screamed, hustling to the other side of the room where we reached a wall. Dead end. “Other way!” I shouted, and everyone followed as I threaded a path around the mummies scrabbling for footing. One clutched at my ankle as I darted past, like a dude with bad eyesight groping for his glasses. I stepped over the hand and darted out of the room.
Retreating up the tunnel, I tried to remember how far away the fork was. My chest burned, but I refused to slow down. Then I saw it.
“Stop!” I yelled. Everyone froze.
A mummy was advancing on us. The pharaoh.
“What do we do?” Adam shouted.
I opened my mouth.
A relic of the ancient past
Odd measures make a mummy last
But all those things which preserve it so
Will be the key to make it go.
The pharaoh blocked our escape. The bandages around its head had begun unraveling, and a decaying skull grinned at us. As I stared, a hairy spider crawled out of its eye socket and perched on its head.
I took a deep breath, hoping I wouldn’t throw up. “But all those things which preserve it so, shall be the key to make it go. What preserves a mummy?”
“Chemicals? Formaldehyde?” Adam muttered, wielding his torch like a weapon. “The Egyptians embalmed mummies. That’s how they stayed preserved for centuries.”
“Yeah, but what can we do with chemicals and formaldehyde?”
“Fire!” Adam cried. “That’s it! Stand back!”
Adam threw his torch at the mummy, and it burst into orange and blue flames. The mummy bellowed, staggering toward us with its arms outstretched. Fire crackled, and the horrible smell of rubbing alcohol filled my nostrils as smoke burned my eyes.
“Go around it!” Adam yelled. “Now! Now!” He pushed Blue and me forward.
As we skirted around the pharaoh, it groped for us, its fingers closing around Adam’s backpack.
“No!” I screamed as Adam pinwheeled his arms.
“Leave the backpack!” I shouted. I could see the indecision in his eyes, and I yanked at his arm. “Not worth dying for! Take it off!” My heart wrenched as I said it. Aunt Lucy’s journal was in there.
An orange flame snaked from the mummy’s loose bandages and onto Adam’s sleeve. I watched in horror as it caught fire. “Adam! Please!”
Finally, Adam shrugged out of his backpack and broke away. We raced down the tunnel without looking back. Behind me, Adam beat at his fiery sleeve.
I came to the fork and raced into the right-hand tunnel, training the flashlight on the path before me. Behind me, Blue and Adam gasped for air.
The hard ground turned to sand. I raised my arms above my head and didn’t hit anything. We were out in open air. Boy, did it smell sweet.
“Lissa!” Blue yelled. “Your back!”
I whirled around, expecting to stare into a mummy’s soulless eyes.
“Wha—?”
That’s when I felt the heat. I was on fire! I’d been so concerned with Adam that I hadn’t even noticed. The smell of scorched hair filled my nostrils as my scalp started burning. Shrieking, I beat at my head like angry bees were attacking me.
“I’ve got you!” Adam yelled, slamming me to the ground and knocking the breath from my lungs.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked, spitting out sand.
“Just a second.” Adam patted me, hard. “Okay. It’s out.”
I rolled over and sat up, touching the back of my head. The hair below my ponytail had been singed off. It felt nubby. This would never happen to a leading lady.
“Thanks!” I shook my head, trying to clear it.
“Sorry, I know that was a little rough. You all right?”
“Yeah,” I said shakily. Aunt Lucy’s journal—gone. We’d not only lost our road map, but everything—Aunt Lucy’s detailed observations about Down Below, her confessions of guilt over leaving that little boy, her drawings of the Monsterville prototypes. It was all gone forever.
Adam was watching me carefully. “Don’t think about it,” he said. “We have to keep our eyes on the goal. I have some supplies in my jacket. Now come on!”
SCENE FIVE:
FOUR HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES LEFT
Our feet slapped against the trail. My throat was dry and my lungs burned, but I kept pushing myself forward. Haylie, Haylie, Haylie, I thought with each step.
Finally I stopped, bending over and resting my hands on my knees. “We’re running out of time.”
“We’re okay,” Adam said. “We just need to go as fast as possible. Focusing on the time won’t help.” He unzipped his jacket pockets and poked through them.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Taking inventory of the remaining supplies.”
“Anything good in there?”
“Not really. Some trail mix and dried fruit, my Swiss Army knife, and my pocketknife.”
“Oh.” I looked up. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was truly seeing a black sky spattered with stars. It was hard to accept that it was all fake—like we were in a planetarium.
Mom and Dad must have realized we were gone by now. I pictured them in a tiny police station, drinking black coffee from Styrofoam cups and describing what Haylie and I had been wearing when they last saw us. I wished I’d left them a note, but what would it have said?
Dear Mom and Dad,
Gone to save Haylie from monsters. Back before dawn. Would appreciate pancakes for breakfast. Make lo
ts extra for Adam.
Love,
Lissa
Adam was looking at me. “What’s the matter, Lissa?”
“Well, other than the obvious …” I swallowed hard. “I was just thinking about how Mom and Dad must be freaking out right now.”
Adam reached for my hand. When our fingers connected, I felt a small charge. “It’s okay. Your parents will be so happy to see Haylie again that they’ll forget how scared they were.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I wiped them away. I couldn’t get over how nice Adam was being. I’d put him in horrible danger, and he was comforting me.
“Look.” Blue pointed ahead. “The path’s different.”
The path wasn’t stones anymore. It had turned into a wide asphalt road similar to the ones leading out of Freeburg. Ditches lined either side. Above us, a white ball hung from the ceiling. The moon?
There were night sounds, too. An owl hooted from far away. A cawing crow. A horse neighed, and a frog went ribbit.
“What on earth—” I frowned. “I thought Monsterville didn’t have normal wildlife.”
“Sound effects,” Blue suggested. “Humans play music. Monsters like animal sounds.”
Though it was ridiculous to think of cars passing us, we stuck to the right-hand side. Habit, I guess. Our feet crunched on fake grass (Astroturf?), the night still except for the sound effects. It must have been on a loop because we kept hearing the same sounds in the same order: owl, crow, horse, frog. Pause. Owl, crow, horse, frog. The monotony was almost soothing.
We’d been walking for what felt like a long time when Adam pointed across the road. “Do you see that?” Before us was a rickety wooden bridge. “What do you think, Lissa?” he asked. “It doesn’t look too safe to me.”
The bridge was made of slats held together by long ropes. It stretched over a wide chasm. There were gaps where wooden slats had rotted away, like missing teeth—that was the only part of the bridge we could see. The rest disappeared into fog.
“It looks really unsafe,” I said. “I doubt this thing can hold one of us, let alone three.”
“And that’s a rule.” Blue kneeled to inspect the bridge. “No splitting up.”
“This way’s a shortcut.” I tried picturing the game. “There’s only a troll, and that’s at the end of the path. The other way is longer and has zombies.”
Adam stepped onto the first wooden slat, testing it. “I vote we go the long way.”
“Me, too,” Blue said.
“You guys are right.” I ran my hand over my forehead. I hated losing time going the long way, but I knew it was too dangerous to take a chance on the bridge.
“I’m hungry. I wish we still had the backpack,” Blue said sadly.
Adam unzipped his jacket and tossed Blue a package of dried apples. “Eat slow.”
He didn’t.
We started back down the road, Blue’s flashlight trained on the gravel in front of us, mine off to conserve power. I kicked a piece of rock. Looking up at the fake moon and breathing in the cool air, I could almost believe I was traipsing down Mine Haul Road.
The soles of my feet throbbed. At least the socks I’d borrowed from Adam were thick. “I’m tired,” Blue said and, without a word, Adam bent so Blue could crawl up and ride on his back. Blue looped his arms around Adam’s neck, and my throat tightened. It was the same way Dad gave Haylie piggyback rides.
I resisted the urge to check my watch. We were walking as fast as we could. Checking the time wasn’t going to make us go any faster.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I raised my wrist to my face, squeezing the side so the face would light up. I groaned.
We’d been walking for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes we couldn’t get back.
And we still had zombies ahead.
SCENE SIX:
THREE HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LEFT
As we reached a curve in the road, my feet started vibrating. At first I thought they were throbbing because they hurt, but then the pulsing intensified. It reminded me of what it felt like to sit on Adam’s four-wheeler.
A monster around every corner. Bright yellow headlights lit up the road, and an engine growled. “Ditch! Get in the ditch!” I yelped.
We dove off the road just as a loud vehicle rumbled by. Cautiously, we raised our heads. All I saw was black smoke belching from the tailpipe and tires that had to be six feet tall.
“Who would drive something like that down here?” Adam asked as it rolled away.
“Someone who doesn’t care about the environment,” I muttered, wrinkling my nose. Dark gunk covered me. I could probably pass for a swamp monster.
“But zombies come next,” Adam said doubtfully. “Do they drive tricked-out cars?”
We both turned to Blue, who shrugged. “Monsters get all sorts of things from Up There, and when they take parts from junkyards, no one notices.”
“Scavengers. I’ll make sure I take a good souvenir from them,” I said.
“It doesn’t go both ways. You can’t take things from Down Below to Up There.”
“Huh,” I snorted, fiddling with my zipper. “That hardly seems fair.”
We climbed out of the ditch and kept walking. My hands were clammy and I kept rubbing them against my jeans. Up ahead, very close, zombies were waiting. What had the Monsterville card said about them?
Oh no, a zombie comes for you
With it in tow, a hungry crew
The way to escape the undead?
With all your might, swing for the head!
I narrowed my eyes. “We’re going to face a whole bunch of zombies—a crew. We need something hard to hit them with.”
Blue whispered, “Shhh!” He put a gnarled finger to his lips. “Do you hear that?”
Laughter filtered toward us, along with rough voices singing. “Sounds like a party,” Adam said.
“Monster New Year. Monsters celebrate all night,” Blue explained. “At least, that’s what Atticus says.”
It was getting lighter. Blue’s flashlight beam had looked bright cutting through the dark. Now, it disappeared ten feet in front of us, swallowed by hazy shadows.
“Turn that off,” I said. “We don’t want to be spotted. And it’s not much help, anyway.”
Up ahead, indistinct shapes rose from the gloom. As we crept closer, I realized we were entering a town. To the left was a trailer park, and to the right I saw a white building with a wraparound porch that had orange lights strung across its awning.
A small sign welcomed us to the town: ZOMBIE STATION. It was scrawled in messy writing. POPULATION 35.
As I examined the words, the number 35 disappeared, and a 38 materialized in its place. HAHA appeared underneath.
My skin crawled. “Guys. The zombies know we’re here.”
Adam went pale, but he straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “So what? The mummies knew we were inside the pyramid and we’re still standing. Bring it on!”
Even though his voice trembled a little, he still made me feel better. If anyone could whack a zombie into submission, it was Adam.
I wanted to help, too. What could I remember about zombies? “Zombie rules.” I laughed grimly.
“What’s funny?” Blue asked, his eyes darting all around us.
“Zombie rules. They’re kind of mean. Travel in a group—”
“Check,” Adam said.
“—because chances are someone will run slower than you, so they’ll get eaten first.”
“Oh.”
“And travel with dumb people. Ditto on getting eaten first.”
“Your rules aren’t very helpful. Got any better ones?”
“Yeah, don’t draw attention to yourself. Zombies aren’t super great when it comes to using their senses. If we creep along instead of screaming and making a big scene, we might have a shot at getting out of here.”
I tried not to think about Zombie Station’s welcome sign. It didn’t mean anything. It was just Down Below trying to
psych us out.
We walked along a cracked sidewalk, stepping over a tricycle with a bent frame. Apart from the voices coming from way off in town, the whole place felt deserted. A cold wind blew through the streets, rattling a broken shutter and whistling through a cracked window frame.
Adam nudged me. “This town’s pretty dead. Get it? Dead?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Haha.” I shivered as we passed a boarded-up house with a collapsed wooden porch. I hoped Haylie hadn’t seen any of this.
We came to a gas station. Tufts of grass pushed through the cracked pavement, and the lettering over the doors was faded and falling. It was now “GA ’N RAB.”
Adam stopped. “Hey. Think we could stock up here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe inside we can find gear to use as weapons. Broken broom handles—whatever works.”
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “When people stray off a path, they bite it.” I glanced down the street. I didn’t see any zombies, but I knew they were around. And in a horror movie, when monsters can close in around you, every second counts.
“Yeah, but we’re going against Zombie Town unarmed. I think that’s a bad call, too.”
He had a point. “Okay, fine. Let’s go around the back,” I said. “Maybe there’s a rusted-out door we can force open. But we have to be crazy-fast. Got it?”
“Hey, you don’t need to tell me.” He grabbed my hand, his fingers strong and warm around mine. My stomach fluttered, and I wasn’t sure if it was just because we were in the thick of Zombie Town.
We rounded the side of the building and found a supply door. I tried the knob. Locked.
“Allow me.” Adam released my hand and stretched. “Here goes.” He backed away about ten feet and charged, turning and slamming his shoulder against the door. It detached from the frame, hitting the ground and raising a cloud of dust. Adam climbed to his feet and stepped over the door.
“Looks like brute strength worked this time,” I commented.
As I followed Adam into the store, something grabbed the bottom of my jacket. “Ah!” I squeaked, then relaxed when I realized it was only Blue.
“I don’t like this,” he announced, holding tight to me, twisting the fabric in his fingers. “I have a bad feeling. We should have taken the bridge.”
Monsterville Page 17