The Smoky Corridor

by Chris Grabenstein

  Zack didn’t get to hear the rest.

  Someone grabbed him by the collar and yanked him away from the locker.

  “Who you talking to, wacko?”

  Kurt Snertz stood in front of his three toughest friends.

  “Where are all your little buddies? All those nerds from the nerd table?”

  “Guess they went home.”

  “Yeah,” said Kurt. “And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “The teachers go home fast on Fridays, too. Looks like you and me are finally all alone.”

  “What about these other guys?”

  Kurt’s brow knitted in confusion. “Huh?”

  “Your three friends. We can’t be alone if they’re here.”

  Zack heard a laugh. And it didn’t come from Kurt or the three goons.

  Wherever it came from, the laugh kept Zack feeling brave.

  “I mean, how can we ever be alone, Kurt, if you always need three or four guys to make you feel tough?”

  Another laugh. Someone different.

  “See, ‘alone’ would mean just you and me. So if you were, I don’t know, waiting until we were alone to ask me to dance or something …”

  A gale of laughs greeted that line.

  “Shut up!” said Kurt.

  And then Zack saw who was doing all the laughing: A whole host of guardian ghosts materialized in the hallway, at least two dozen of them. All the spirits he had done favors for had clustered together to become his cheering section.

  Zack felt bold.

  Kurt balled up his fist.

  “Wait for it,” said the ghost who used to play football without a helmet. From the looks of his bent nose, he also used to box without a face mask.

  So Zack stood in front of his locker and waited.

  Snertz’s face turned purple.

  “I’m gonna cream you, Jennings!”

  “Wait for it!” the ghost coached from the wings.

  Zack stood stock-still.

  Snertz cocked back his arm.

  “Aaaaaaand … duck!” the ghost said.

  Zack ducked.

  Snertz’s fist smashed into the locker’s steel door.

  “Ooowwwww!!!”

  The ghosts applauded.

  “Well played!” “Good ducking!” “Nicely done, Zack!”

  And now the laughs were coming from Kurt’s friends, too.

  Kurt kept shaking out his fist, trying to make the pain go away.

  Zack casually strolled toward the exit. The guardian ghosts escorted him down the hall.

  Behind him, he could hear Kurt Snertz bellowing at his bullies.

  “Shut up, you guys! Quit laughing!”

  “But,” said one of them, “it’s funny, man. When you slugged that door, you dented it!”

  “Shut up!” And then Snertz started screaming at Zack. “You’re dead, Jennings! You hear me? Dead!”

  Zack didn’t look back. He calmly stepped outside and, when he saw the last bus home to Stonebriar Road, said a quick thanks to his ghost pals.

  Then he ran faster than he had run when he’d snuck Zipper out of the building.

  Because if he missed the last bus, Snertz’s prediction would undoubtedly come true: Zack Jennings would be a dead man.

  70

  “Sounds like fun,” Zack’s dad said when he heard about the Saturday-morning history crawl through the old cemetery. “Can Judy and I tag along?”

  They were sitting around the dinner table, eating fried chicken. Judy didn’t cook it. The Colonel did.

  “That would be fun,” said Judy. “You guys need extra adults?”

  “Not really. Ms. DuBois wants to keep this first trip small. Just me, Azalea, Malik, and her. She probably thinks it might get boring, just looking at gravestones and junk.”

  “Boring?” said his dad. “Maybe some of the spirits will rise up out of their graves and wail at you for cutting across their lawns! Moo-ha-ha!”

  Both Zack and Judy pretended to find that funny. Gave him a weak “heh-heh-ha”-style laugh.

  Poor Dad. He didn’t have a clue.

  After dinner, Zack and Zipper were playing fetch in the backyard.

  That was when Davy showed up.

  “Howdy, pardner. Hey there, Zip!”

  Zipper wagged his tail. Davy was probably his second-favorite boy in the world, even though Davy was from some otherworldly world.

  “So, Davy, what’s going on?” Zack asked. “Mr. Willoughby started babbling in my locker and then Mary Jane Hopkins took his place and then Kurt Snertz …”

  “Yep. Things are all in a jumble. But you were smart not to invite your pops and Judy to join you tomorrow.…”

  “Well, Ms. DuBois …”

  “Pardner?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We need to have us a little chat about Ms. Daphne DuBois.”

  Zack nodded. “She had a real peculiar look on her face this afternoon.”

  “Boy, howdy, did she ever.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Yep. Folks upstairs asked me to keep an eye on Ms. D today.”

  “And?”

  “Zack, let’s just say you can’t judge a book by its cover, especially if it’s a phony one.”

  “Really? But she seems so nice.…”

  “Yep, she sure seems that way, don’t she? She wants you to lead her to some kind of treasure tunnel. Don’t do it, hear?”

  “Don’t worry. That’s where the zombie is. Said so on the warning stone!”

  “That’s the other thing I need to talk to you about.”

  “The zombies?”

  “Yep. Like I said before, we can’t see much of what they’re up to, on account of all the voodoo hoodoo spells, but at least one of them zombies started movin’ around today, goin’ places he ain’t been in years.”

  “Is it looking for children’s brains to eat?”

  “Maybe. Can’t say for sure. Wouldn’t doubt it. This particular zombie feller is the fiercest, most vicious creature Captain Pettimore shipped up here from Louisiana. Tall, bone-thin man with a dinosaur-style head, all jaws and teeth and eyeballs buggier than a bullfrog’s.”

  Zack tried not to picture this beast while Davy kept describing him.

  “On the hunt, he moves fast—like a two-legged cheetah. He can rip off your head and crack open your skull, lickety-split.”

  Zack struggled to find his voice. “You can kill a zombie with fire, though, right? I read that in a book. It was a comic book, but …”

  “Yep. Fire’s just about the only way to stop a zombie.”

  “Just about?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is there another way?”

  Davy looked around the backyard. “Well, maybe …”

  Thunder rumbled across the cloudless sky.

  Davy mumbled, “Dadgummit,” under his breath and quit talking.

  Zack had already gotten into enough trouble with fire over the summer; he didn’t want to use it again if he didn’t have to. “If there’s some other way to stop this thing …”

  Davy looked squirmy. He glanced up at the sky. “Zack, you know I can’t come right out and tell you what to do.”

  Zack couldn’t believe this. “Because of the stupid rules?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’ve got an indestructible zombie with ginormous fangs and superhuman strength who could devour a whole school full of kids first thing Monday morning and you won’t tell me how to stop him without burning down the building?”

  “Can’t, I reckon.”

  Zack more or less pouted for a second. “Stupid rules,” he grumbled.

  Zipper groaned in agreement.

  “Well, I best be goin’.…”

  Davy started to fade away.

  “Wait!” Zack pleaded. “Don’t go! Not without telling me!”

  Oddly, Davy lifted a foot, examined the bottom of his shoe.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I got me a hole in my … w
hat do you call that thing?”

  “Your shoe?”

  “On the bottom there.”

  “Your sole?”

  Davy touched his nose. Held up two fingers.

  “I have to guess a second word?”

  Davy nodded.

  Man! He couldn’t tell Zack how to stop the zombie but he had time to play charades?

  “Dang, I like pickles because they come in a …”

  “Sandwich?”

  “Think glass, pardner.”

  “Ajar?”

  Davy touched his nose again. Gestured for Zack to butt the two words up against each other.

  “Sole. Jar.”

  “Hey, that sounds like a dadburn plan!”

  “What? Wait a second. Are you trying to tell me I need to find the zombies’ soul jars to stop them?”

  “Shoot, pardner. I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’. That’d be against the rules.”

  And with a wink, Davy was gone.

  71

  At 9:01 on Saturday morning, Zack heard a car tooting its horn in the driveway.

  “There’s Ms. DuBois,” said Judy, waving out the window. “You all set, Zack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She seems like a terrific teacher,” said his dad.

  Yeah, she sure seems that way, Zack wanted to say just like Davy had said it. But for reasons still not clear, he was supposed to keep his mom, his dad, and all other adults out of this.

  “Have fun,” said his dad.

  “Come on,” said Judy. “I’ll walk you to the car.”

  They went out the front door. Zipper followed.

  “Well, hello again, Mrs. Jennings!” Ms. DuBois called out the driver’s-side window. Zack could see Azalea in the backseat. She looked kind of sleepy.

  “This is such a neat idea,” Judy said. “Are you going to do headstone rubbings?”

  “We surely are,” gushed Ms. DuBois. “I packed butcher paper and a box of black crayons.”

  “Do one for me, okay, Zack?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Good morning, Azalea,” Judy called into the backseat.

  Azalea opened an eye. “Good morning to you, too, ma’am.”

  “Well, we best be going,” Ms. DuBois said very quickly. “Malik is meeting us at the school.”

  “Okay,” said Zack.

  Zipper grumbled.

  Zack got a screwy idea. Zipper had been pretty helpful in the past when Zack had had to deal with demons. And since Zack had no idea what he was getting into …

  “Can I bring my dog?”

  Now Ms. DuBois blinked like a broken stoplight. “Pardon?”

  “Saturday’s usually the day I spend a ton of time with Zipper.…”

  “Fine,” said Ms. DuBois, obviously in a rush. “Bring your dog. It’ll be fun.”

  “Cool. See ya, Mom.”

  Judy looked a little puzzled.

  “Um, okay …”

  Zack wished he could tell her what was going on.

  Then again, he didn’t really know.

  Just that Ms. DuBois was a book with a phony cover and there were two zombies moving around underneath the school, but you could kill them with fire or if you opened up their soul jars, something Zack had researched on the Internet after playing backyard guessing games with Davy the night before, and Azalea was in some sort of grave danger and Zack was going to spend the day rubbing tombstones. Other than that, it was just your typical, normal Saturday.

  The car pulled into the street.

  “Finally!” said Azalea. “Who was that woman anyway?”

  Okay. Azalea wasn’t very normal, either.

  72

  For whatever reason, when Zack, Zipper, Azalea, and Ms. DuBois walked into the school, the new janitor was in the lobby waiting for them.

  “Good morning, Eddie,” said Ms. DuBois.

  “Good mornin’, Daphne. You brought a dog?”

  The janitor was apparently off duty. He was wearing khaki pants and a golf jacket instead of his usual green work clothes.

  “Zack insisted.”

  “Very well. Shouldn’t pose a problem.” The janitor tapped a bulge in the chest of his jacket. Zack didn’t like it when he did that. He watched a lot of movies. Jacket bulges, especially when tapped, usually meant hidden guns and shoulder holsters.

  All of a sudden, Zack remembered the pair of ghosts who had been trailing the janitor down the hall: They’d both had bullet holes in their heads!

  “Why’s the janitor here?” he asked.

  “Oh, he’s an expert on graveyards,” said Ms. DuBois.

  Yeah—putting people into them, Zack thought.

  “Has Malik arrived?” she asked.

  “Nope,” said Eddie. “But Mr. Sherman, the boy’s father, he swung by about five minutes ago.”

  “My goodness. What did he want?”

  “Well, the poor man says he cannot for the life of him find his son. Thought maybe he came over here. Seems they had a big fight last night. Something to do with money. Mr. Sherman kept mumbling how it was all his fault.…”

  “Malik ran away from home?”

  “So it would seem.”

  Now Zack saw somebody nobody else (other than Zipper) could see: an African American man dressed in a World War II aviator uniform. Helmet on. Goggles up. Zack squinted so he could read the name patch sewn to his flight jacket: SHERMAN.

  Malik’s guardian ghost! Probably his great-granddad, the one who’d flown fighter planes with the Tuskegee Airmen.

  While Ms. DuBois and the janitor kept jabbering, Zack casually strolled across the lobby and pretended to be interested in the baseball trophies on display in a glass case.

  Because Mr. Sherman was standing inside it.

  “You’re Zack?” the airman asked.

  He nodded.

  “Malik’s in trouble.”

  Zack raised his eyebrows.

  “He went through that hole you boys found. He’s looking for the treasure. Wants to sell the gold and buy his mom the medicine she needs.” The airman shook his head. “Bravest and craziest thing the boy’s ever done. Sure his heart’s in the right place, but he isn’t using his head. You have to go get him, Zack. Malik doesn’t stand a chance down there on his own. Who knows what he’ll run into?”

  Oh, Zack had a pretty good idea: a brains-eating zombie!

  “And, whatever you do, don’t tell those two where Malik is.” Airman Sherman gestured toward Ms. DuBois and Eddie, the janitor. “They are not to be trusted. It’s up to you, Zack. Are you going to go down there and help Malik?”

  “Zack?” said Ms. DuBois.

  “Are you ready to go, son?” asked the janitor.

  Zack was facing Mr. Sherman when he answered.

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  He was also ready not to believe another word Ms. DuBois or Eddie, the pistol-packing janitor, had to say.

  73

  Kurt Snertz lowered the binoculars.

  He was lying on his stomach, spying on Zack Jennings, his stupid little dog, the new history teacher, and the bizarro Goth chick Azalea Torres. Snertz’s right fist was wrapped in a bandage; he had sprained it slugging the locker.

  Today Jennings would pay for that. Maybe his mangy mutt, too!

  Snertz watched his targets march into the school.

  He lost visual contact.

  “Darn it!”

  He’d been tailing the Jennings wimp since first thing that morning. So far, he’d seen the dork and his dad take their stupid dog out for a stupid walk and then go home to eat what looked like stupid pancakes.

  Now he was with a stupid teacher.

  Kurt would have to bide his time. Catch Jennings when he wasn’t being protected.

  “Soon,” he muttered to himself. “Soon!”

  Then he crawled closer to the school.

  74

  Malik, holding a flashlight, stood frozen in fear at the top of a steep staircase.

  The monster, crouching at the bottom in
a dimly lit pit, glared up at him with burning red eyes. A deep, throaty purr rumbled up the steps.

  Some kind of dog, Malik thought. It has to be some kind of mutant dog. It was the only logical explanation.

  Then he remembered the first line of code carved into the stone he and Zack had found in the janitor’s closet: A zombie guards my treasure well.

  The first time Malik had read it, he had focused on the treasure bit. Now he was thinking about zombies. Corpses brought back to life by powerful voodoo sorcerers to do their masters’ bidding. Reanimated dead people that feasted on human flesh and brains.

  If you wanted to guard millions of dollars’ worth of gold, a zombie would sure make a good watchdog.

  He inched his gaze down a bit. In the jittering circle of light twenty feet below, he saw slick fangs glistening with slime.

  “W-what are you?” Malik stammered.

  The beast rumbled up another purr.

  “Stay away!” Malik shouted, wishing he’d spent more time playing video games instead of reading books, because there were all sorts of ways to kill zombies in video games. He’d heard guys talking about it on the bus.

  “Leave me alone! Go! Get out of here!”

  Then, much to Malik’s surprise, the creature turned and scurried off into the darkness.

  Still terrified, Malik stepped backward into the tunnel that had brought him down to this split and the two staircases. There was probably some other kind of monster waiting at the bottom of the other set of steps. He swung his flashlight left to check it out and the beam bounced off tiny circles of glass.

  Antique pocket watches suspended from tarnished brass hooks on a wall between the two staircases.

  Malik counted thirty-nine. They seemed to be clustered in groupings. Two watches. Three. Two.

  Like letters in words.

  Another code! he thought.

  “The watches tell you which way to go,” Malik mumbled out loud. “How to avoid the zombie!”

  Could the arrows on the hour and minute hands be pointing in the direction he should head to stay safe?

  No. They were pointing up, down, sideways—all over the place.

  He studied the thirty-nine clock faces hanging on the far wall.

  It looked like the dials on a water meter.

  But it was something else. A secret message.