There's a Zombie in My Bathtub

by Henry Winkler

  It was late, and I was so tired. But there was no way I could fall asleep. Not with all those zombies in my room. It was going to be a long, hard night.

  I must have eventually fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, it was light out. I checked my room to make sure that it was zombie-free. Everything was in its place, except for Frankie. His sleeping bag was empty. Oh no! Did the zombies get him instead of me?

  I jumped out of bed and called out his name. But there was no answer. Slowly, I tiptoed across the carpet. The movie last night said that zombies are attracted to loud noises, so I wanted to be extra special quiet. I opened the door to my room and looked down the hall. It was empty. I counted to three and ran as fast as I could into the bathroom. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Hank,” I whispered to myself. “Your imagination has gone wild. This is not a movie. This is real life and you’re in your real bathroom. With real toothpaste and a real shower curtain that I’m going to check again now.”

  I grabbed the curtain and pulled it all the way to one side.

  “Aaagggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  There, in my real bathtub was a real zombie. His face was green. His lips were green. And his body was covered in torn rags. He let out a long, low moan.

  “Haaaaaaaaank,” he groaned over and over. “Haaaaaaaaaaaank.”

  I almost jumped out of my pajamas without unbuttoning them. I opened my mouth to scream, and nothing came out. Well, something came out. It was a little chunk of last night’s dinner. I wasn’t going to stay around long enough to clean it up. I turned on my heels and bolted for the hall.

  “Zip,” a familiar voice said. “It’s just me, Frankie.”

  “Frankie!” I wheeled around to look at him. “Did they get you, too? Are you a zombie?”

  Frankie laughed and stood up in the bathtub.

  “It’s just me in my Halloween costume,” he answered. “I had it in my bag, so I thought I’d test it out for trick-or-treating tonight. Looks like it worked.”

  I wanted to tell Frankie that his little test had scared me so much that my whole forehead had broken out in a cold sweat. But I was ashamed to admit that the zombie movie had gotten to me.

  “Tell the truth,” Frankie said, climbing out of the bathtub. “I had you believing I was a real zombie, didn’t I?”

  “No way,” I answered, using my coolest voice. “I knew it was you all along.”

  I heard small feet stomping down the hall. Then a hiss. It could only be Emily. No one else in my family walks like an elephant and wears a hissing iguana around her neck like a scarf.

  “Hi, Frankie,” she said as she came into the bathroom, not even blinking at his zombie costume.

  Wait a minute. Emily is younger than me, and she wasn’t scared for one single second by Frankie’s zombie-ness. What was wrong with me?

  “Hank, Papa Pete’s on the phone for you,” Emily said. “He wants to make a plan for today—although I don’t get why anyone would want to spend the day with you. I’d rather spend the day with a banana peel.”

  That was such a weird thing to say, I didn’t even know how to answer her. So instead, I just made like a banana peel and slid all the way to the phone.

  “Hankie, my boy,” Papa Pete said. I could hear the smile in his voice. “How’s your throwing arm today? Are you in the mood to go to the park and have a little pre–trick-or-treat catch?”

  “Sure, Papa Pete. But I had a bad night’s sleep, so I don’t know how good I’ll be.”

  “You don’t have to be good. We’re just going to have fun together. I’ve got my karate class this morning, so I’ll come by after lunch.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then just before I hung up, I added, “Papa Pete, you don’t think there are going to be any zombies in the park, do you?”

  “Zombies?” He sounded surprised at my question.

  “Yeah. Like the living-dead kind of zombies. The ones whose faces hang off their chins.”

  “Oh, those zombies,” he said with a laugh. “Well, you never know. There might be one or two around. But if we don’t yell, they won’t bother us. I hear they’re attracted to noise.”

  I hung up the phone and gulped. I think Papa Pete was kidding, but then again, he did say “You never know.”

  When I went back to my room, Frankie was folding up his costume and getting ready to go home.

  “So, Zip,” he said. “Are you still going as a kitchen sink tonight? I can lend you my plastic faucet that sticks on your forehead with a suction cup. It came with my magic set.”

  “I just changed my mind. I’m going as a zombie fighter.”

  “What exactly is that?”

  “A guy who fights zombies.”

  “Using what, exactly?”

  “I don’t know yet. As soon as you leave, I’m going in the kitchen to put together my anti-zombie gear.”

  Frankie left, and I got busy. I went through every drawer and cabinet, picking out anything that looked like it could be used for protection against a zombie attack. An egg beater. A couple of wooden spoons. A clump of garlic to wear around my neck. A frying pan. I used the belt of my terry-cloth robe to hang all the anti-zombie gear around my waist. As a final touch, I wrapped my chest in tinfoil so a zombie couldn’t detect my body heat.

  I checked my costume out in the mirror. If I do say so myself, I looked very prepared. And even a little bit scary. A guy most zombies wouldn’t want to mess with.

  Not that there’s any such thing as zombies, of course.

  After lunch, I threw on my Mets baseball sweatshirt and went downstairs to wait for Papa Pete. (I should mention here that I also put on pants and sneakers. I don’t want you to think I was standing in the lobby with only a sweatshirt on.)

  Papa Pete arrived with two black-and-white cookies for us, and we set out for Riverside Drive Park. I tucked my baseball glove under my arm while I ate the chocolate part of the cookie first. By the time we reached the park, the only thing left was the icing on my fingers.

  We found a place on the grass right next to the basketball courts. Papa Pete tossed me the ball, and I caught it, no problem. It wasn’t hard because I was really close to him.

  “Back up, Hankie,” he said after a few minutes. “I’m going to toss you some heat.”

  “Not too fast, Papa Pete,” I said, being careful to keep my voice down. “You know my eyes and my hands are not always friends.”

  “Why are you whispering?” he asked me.

  “Oh, no reason.” I shrugged.

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with . . . oh . . . zombies, could it?” He raised one eyebrow.

  I laughed, a little too hard. Okay, way too hard.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  Papa Pete nodded. I think he knew what I was really scared of. Papa Pete always knows everything about me.

  “Well, we’re here to have fun, so let’s do it,” he said. “Just back up a little more, Hankie. Every couple of throws you can back up another step. Pretty soon, you’ll be catching and throwing like a Major Leaguer.”

  We tossed the ball back and forth. I dropped some of the balls. To be honest, I dropped most of them. But Papa Pete didn’t mind. He just smiled and said, “Good try.”

  I took another few steps back, and Papa Pete threw me a real smoker. He has a good arm for a grandpa. Just as I stretched up in the air to catch it, I heard a mean-sounding voice shout, “I got this one, Zipperbutt.”

  From out of nowhere, Nick McKelty had zoomed right in front of me. Where had he come from? He held his claw-like hand up in the air and snagged the ball just before it reached my glove.

  “That’s how you catch a ball, ding-dong,” he snarled.

  “Excuse me, young man,” Papa Pete called to him. “My grandson and I are having a catch here.” />
  “You call this having a catch?” McKelty snickered. “I call it tossing around meatballs.”

  “Who brought you here?” Papa Pete asked, giving Nick a stern eye.

  “My dad. We just came from checking out his new bowling alley. It’s going to have one hundred fifty lanes. Oh and did I mention, the balls glow a million different colors. It’s so bright, you can bowl in the dark.”

  “Are you sure you’re not making some of this up?” Papa Pete asked him.

  I wanted to blurt out that McKelty was nothing but a big bully and a liar. But I didn’t want to raise my voice in case of zombies.

  “I’ve heard about this new bowling alley,” Papa Pete said. “In fact, I’ve been looking forward to starting a bowling league in the neighborhood. Maybe I’ll go discuss it with your father.”

  “My dad’s over there on the basketball court,” McKelty said. “He’s the one making all the slam dunks.”

  “Actually, he’s the short guy who keeps dropping the ball,” I told Papa Pete.

  “Why don’t you two boys toss the ball around while I talk with your dad,” Papa Pete said. “I’ll be back before you can say ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.’”

  “Why would I want to say that?” McKelty said. Obviously the big lug had never heard of Mother Goose.

  Papa Pete walked over to the basketball court. Instead of backing up for a catch, McKelty came really close to my face and flashed me a crooked smile.

  “So, Zipperhead, you almost wet your pants last night, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nick.”

  “I saw you covering your eyes during Attack of the Zombies. You were so scared, I thought you were going to cry. I bet you had zombie dreams, too.”

  “Who told you that?” I frowned, making my voice sound angry just like my dad’s does when he looks at my report card.

  “I know these things,” McKelty said.

  “You don’t know anything!” I insisted. “I wasn’t scared.”

  “That’s good, Zipperbutt, because I wouldn’t want you to be afraid of that old zombie sitting on the bench over there.”

  My eyes darted to the park bench. A very wrinkled man was sitting there eating a brown banana. A large bandage covered one eye and part of his face.

  “That’s One-Eyed Gilbert,” McKelty whispered in my ear. “The bandage is holding his face on. If you take it off, his eye falls out and his cheek slides right off his face.”

  The man’s face did seem kind of grey and loose. I didn’t want to believe McKelty, but I could feel myself shivering, and it wasn’t even cold out.

  “He’s getting ready for tonight,” McKelty went on. “The zombies always come out on Halloween. When they catch you, they bite you. And then you turn into one of them.”

  “Everyone?” I asked. He nodded.

  “Everyone they can catch. They especially like old people. They always go for them first.”

  A woman pushing a baby stroller walked by. The baby was crying.

  “See that baby?” McKelty whispered. “I happen to know his real name is Meatbag, but they call him Zoms for short. He’s a baby zombie. Their bite is the worst. Their little baby teeth are sharp as needles.”

  Before I could answer, the baby picked up his bottle and threw it right at me. It hit me in the elbow.

  “Oh no, he’s tagged you,” McKelty whispered. “You better watch out. And watch out for that grandpa of yours, too. He’s an easy target.”

  The baby’s mom asked if I would pick up the bottle and hand it to her. I didn’t want to touch it, just in case it had zombie cooties. So I picked up a stick and shoved the bottle toward her.

  “Where are your manners?” she said. I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. I was busy staring at her zombie baby. She picked up the bottle herself and quickly pushed the stroller away from us.

  I looked around for Papa Pete. He was just leaving the basketball court and walking over to us.

  “Careful,” Nick the Tick said, pointing to a skinny black dog that was lying under a nearby tree. “You don’t want to go near him. Zombie dogs are bad news.”

  “Zombie dogs? I didn’t know there was such a thing,” I heard myself saying.

  “They’re the worst. They don’t care what kind of brains they eat. Squirrel. Spider. I bet that guy is just about to pounce on the next squirrel he sees.”

  Suddenly, the dog jumped to its feet and started to bark at a little squirrel in the tree. I could see his black gums and sharp teeth.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I tried to whisper, but my voice cracked with fear.

  The dog turned to me, and his bark changed into a growl. A low growl that sounded like a moan. A zombie moan.

  I started to shake all over.

  By the time Papa Pete reached me, I was totally frozen with fear.

  “Whoa there, Hankie,” he said, throwing his big strong hand on my shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “That d-d-dog,” I stammered. “He wants to eat spider brains. Or squirrels. Or maybe even mine!”

  “Oh, you mean Dexter,” Papa Pete said. “No way. He just likes to relax under the tree and bark at the squirrels. He’s here every day.”

  As Papa Pete talked, I noticed that the dog had stopped barking. I let myself turn around and look at him. He wasn’t chasing me. In fact, his tail was wagging. I looked at McKelty, who had a huge grin on his thick face.

  “You lied,” I said to him. “That dog isn’t a zombie.”

  “Oh yeah?” he whispered. “Just wait until dark and his eyes start to glow. You’ll see what I mean.”

  With that, McKelty walked toward the basketball courts.

  “Now what is this all about?” Papa Pete asked.

  I opened my mouth and all my fear came out in one giant wave of words.

  “McKelty said that tonight there’s going to be a huge zombie invasion. And that Meatbag is going to attack you. Papa Pete, what if zombies take over the city? What if they live in my building? What if they’re in my bed right now, just waiting for me to come home?”

  Papa Pete held up his hand.

  “Okay, let’s take a deep breath and just slow down here,” he said. “First of all, zombies are make-believe. They don’t really exist, except in stories and movies and TV.”

  “But, Papa Pete,” I argued. “Nick McKelty pointed out three zombies right here in the park. One guy’s face was being held on by just a bandage.”

  Papa Pete looked at me and scratched his chin.

  “I can see that I’m not going to talk you out of this very easily,” he said. “So I have a wonderful idea. Let’s go to the library.”

  “Great idea!” I said. “I’ll bet libraries are zombie-free zones. It’s probably hard for them to read when their eyes are sliding out.”

  “Boy oh boy, your imagination is really flying,” Papa Pete said. “But I have a cure for that.”

  “Do I take it with a spoon?”

  “No, it’s called facts, Hankie. The best cure for fear is to have the facts, nothing but the facts. I say, let’s go to the library and look up zombies. I think real facts will calm you down and make you feel better.”

  I held Papa Pete’s hand tight. We left the park and headed up 78th Street past my apartment building. At Amsterdam Avenue, we turned left and walked the two blocks to the library.

  “I love this place,” Papa Pete said, holding the big wooden door open for me. “It’s got the delicious smell of books.”

  “I like the smell of books, too,” I said. “I just wish they weren’t so hard for me to read. It’s fun to check them out with my library card, but then when I get them home, they scare me. Which reminds me—can we look up zombies, please? Right now?”

  Papa Pete walked me up to the desk where a woman was sitti
ng on a high stool, wearing a T-shirt that said, Open a book, open your mind. In front of her was a sign that read: MS. LOPEZ, HEAD LIBRARIAN.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Lopez,” Papa Pete said in his quiet library voice. “Can you help us find some information about zombies?”

  “Of course I can,” she answered. “They don’t call me Info to Go for nothing. Follow me.”

  She took us to the research section on the second floor.

  “You can find the history of zombies in the encyclopedia,” she said. “Would you like to read that on the computer screen or in the actual book?”

  “My grandpa says that books smell delicious,” I said. “So I’ll go for the book.”

  Ms. Lopez pulled out the Z volume of the encyclopedia and put it on the reading table. She opened it to ZOMBIE, and then turned to Papa Pete.

  “While your grandson is reading, is there something special I can help you find?”

  “Well, I was just thinking about starting a bowling league. Do you happen to have the official bowling league handbook?”

  “Of course, it’s in the sports section. Let me show you.”

  “Hankie, I’ll be two shelves over in the sports section,” Papa Pete said. “Call if you need me.”

  They left. I looked down at the small print on the encyclopedia page. There were so many words there. All of a sudden, they looked like little fish swimming around in a tank of water. But if I was going to find out the truth about zombies, I had to start somewhere. No one was watching me, so I used my finger to follow every word across the page. I began to read.

  “The word zombie was first used in 1819 in Brazil,” the letters said.

  I was doing fine reading until that last word, the one that started with a capital B. I couldn’t sound it out. What could it be? Bug hill? That didn’t make sense. Bugs don’t use words. Maybe it was Bad Bill? I wondered if he was a zombie.