The Smoky Corridor

by Chris Grabenstein

  It had to be.

  Now all Malik had to do was figure out what it said.

  75

  It was Saturday and Benny was bored.

  So he biked over to Zack’s house.

  Maybe they could blow something up out in the woods. Maybe they could stick a firecracker in an old Lego model and watch the bricks fly.

  Benny hopped off his bike and ran up to Zack’s front porch to ring the bell.

  His stepmom answered the door.

  “Hi, Mrs. Jennings!”

  “Hi, Benny.”

  “Can Zack come out and play?”

  “Well, he’s not here right now.…”

  “Oh.”

  “He had to go to school.”

  “Really? On a Saturday?”

  Mrs. Jennings nodded. “It’s something, uh, special.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sure he wishes you were there with him … but, well, this is more or less a dry run … a test.”

  “He’s testing something?”

  “Yeah. More or less.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Jennings.”

  “Sure, Benny. Say hi to your mom and dad for me.”

  “Okay.”

  She went back into the house.

  Benny grabbed his bike.

  This is so awesome! he thought. Zack was definitely doing something major at the school. Even if it was only a dry run or a test, it’d be exciting.

  He pedaled hard.

  He had to be there to see it.

  He saw his buddy Andrew Oldewurtel riding around in circles on his bike in the street in front of his house.

  “Hey, Andrew!”

  “Hey, Benny. Where you goin’?”

  “School. Zack’s gonna do something amazing!”

  “When?”

  “Like right now!”

  “Awesome! Did you tell Riley and Emily?”

  “No time,” said Benny, biking up the street.

  “I’ll text them,” shouted Andrew. “They can text Jessie and Harry and Laurel. Hang on. I’m right behind you, man!”

  76

  Zack, Zipper, and Azalea followed Ms. DuBois and the janitor out the front door of the school.

  Zack wished he didn’t have to keep pretending to be interested in the cemetery crawl. It had been Azalea’s big idea and she didn’t seem interested in it at all. She had barely said a word to anybody all day. She didn’t seem herself.

  Zack needed to be downstairs. He needed to crawl through the hole in the old root cellar wall and find Malik. Given the way Azalea had been acting, he couldn’t ask her for help. And he definitely couldn’t ask Ms. DuBois or Eddie!

  “Um, where are we going?” Zack asked.

  “The graveyard, Zack,” said Ms. DuBois. “Where else would we do a cemetery crawl? Now, I thought we’d start our field trip with one of the oldest headstones. The marker commemorating the valiant John Lee Cooper.”

  “Have fun,” said Azalea. “I’m heading inside.”

  “What?” said Ms. DuBois. “Are you feeling okay, Azalea?”

  “Fit as a fiddle. I just forgot to use the latrine this morning.”

  Ms. DuBois sighed. “Fine. But hurry. Meet us down by the river at Colonel Cooper’s headstone.”

  “Right. Will do.” Azalea went back into the school.

  “Come along, Zachary,” said the janitor, who had an extremely eerie smile plastered on his face. “We mustn’t keep the colonel waiting.”

  Zack and Zipper followed the two adults up a narrow footpath through the forest behind the gymnasium.

  Zipper whimpered. Used his snout to nudge Zack’s ankle.

  When Zack looked down, he saw the lacy hem of a Civil War–era wedding gown: Mary Jane Hopkins was walking beside them, her body passing straight through trees and boulders blocking her path.

  “He has her!” she gasped. “Captain Pettimore has taken over Azalea’s body. He will use her to retrieve his gold and then snuff out her soul. You have to save her, Zack! You have to force my brother’s spirit to leave Azalea’s body before her own soul withers away into nothingness!”

  Zack nodded.

  He’d just add it to his list.

  Mary Jane Hopkins disappeared.

  “This footpath will take us to the cemetery road,” said Ms. DuBois. “But I’m sure you already knew that, Zack. I’m sure you sneak over this way all the time, to chat with your friends.”

  “Not really. Mostly we hang out in the cafeteria or at my house after school.…”

  “I meant your other friends.”

  “Huh?”

  “We are given to understand,” said Eddie, “that you, Zachary Jennings, are conversant with those on the distant shore.”

  “You mean like over in France?”

  “Ghosts,” said Ms. DuBois, rather nastily. “You talk to ghosts! Don’t try to deny it. Azalea told me!”

  “What? She was just kidding. She made it up!”

  Eddie pulled out a pistol with a wooden handle, a brass trigger guard, and a very long barrel.

  “You better be able to talk to ghosts, son,” he said. “Or you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I will most assuredly turn you into one.”

  77

  Judy and George sat in the TV room.

  George flipped through sixteen channels, then paused on a college football game before clicking forward another sixteen channels.

  He handed the remote to Judy who flipped back through thirty-two channels.

  “I miss Zack and Zipper,” she said.

  “Me too,” said George.

  “You want to take them lunch?”

  “Yeah. We could pick up a couple pizzas. Swing by the cemetery. Surprise everybody!”

  “Excellent!” Judy zapped off the TV. “But no pepperoni for Zipper.”

  “Right. No pepperoni for the dog.”

  “He gets gassy, George.”

  “I know. Besides, he prefers sausage.”

  Judy laughed and scooped up her keys.

  This would be fun! A pizza picnic and maybe she could do her own grave rubbing. Later they’d take the kids to the Olde Mill for cold cider and hot doughnuts.

  It’d be a perfect October Saturday!

  78

  It was incredible!

  Daphne DuBois stood beside the grave of John Lee Cooper, marveling at Zack Jennings as the young ghost seer, like Seth Donnelly before him, conversed with her deceased ancestor—the first Southerner to come north to retrieve the Confederacy’s stolen gold.

  Bringing the boy’s dog along for the field trip turned out to be an excellent idea.

  The dog could see ghosts, too!

  Daphne DuBois could tell, just by studying the angle of the dog’s unblinking stare, that the spirit of John Lee Cooper was standing in front of his headstone.

  “I understand,” Zack said to the empty air.

  Then, of course, there was a pause as John Lee Cooper spoke to the boy.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll show them where Captain Pettimore put his special marker.”

  This was amazing!

  “You say there are no more booby traps in the tunnels? No more guards?”

  Of course not, Daphne thought. Pettimore had died a century earlier. Any guards he had hired had long since abandoned their posts.

  “What? The message on the stone is written in code? Can you tell me how to crack it? Good. Thank you, sir.”

  Daphne looked at her brother, Eddie. He still had the .44-caliber Colt revolver aimed at Zack.

  “Oh, put that thing away, Edward! Zack’s doing exactly what we told him to do.” Then she whispered, “I think he has a crush on me. I think all the boys do.”

  Eddie lowered the gun, moved closer.

  “But what about the girl?” he whispered.

  Right.

  She had nearly forgotten. The warning scribbled on Madame Marie’s spirit slates: Find the boy. Beware the girl.

  “Hurry back to the school,” sh
e said to her brother. “Find Azalea. Put her out of our misery.”

  Eddie smiled. “One lead ball to the head is all it should take!”

  79

  “Edward Cooper DuBois?” the ghost snarled. “You come back here with that pistol!”

  “Yes,” said Zack. “I understand.”

  “Consarn it all! Tell him to turn around, boy!”

  John Lee Cooper was probably the angriest, most spiteful, meanest-tempered ghost Zack had ever encountered, a sour-faced man with a long, curly beard, a bird beak for a nose, and two tiny black eyes.

  “Boy, you tell Edward Cooper DuBois to come back here and put a bullet in your fool brain!”

  Zack nodded. “So all we need to know is how to convert Roman numerals to crack the code?”

  “What? I didn’t say that. Consarn it, boy! You’ve not spoke one true word of what I told you! Tell Daphne she must be careful. There be a ferocious voodoo zombie standing guard in that tunnel.”

  “And once we find the stone, we have nothing to worry about?”

  “Why, you little Yankee coot! Where’s that Donnelly boy? Him I could talk to. You’re nothin’ but a sockdologizing young whippersnapper!”

  “Thank you, sir. Is that everything?”

  “No, dagnabit! There’s booby traps and danger around every corner! Captain Pettimore was clever and cunning! Spent years building his fortifications. You go down the wrong tunnel, the wrong staircase, that zombie of his will rip the flesh right off your bones!”

  “Okay. Thanks. Hope to talk to you again soon, sir.”

  Zack turned away from the headstone and snicked his tongue so Zipper would quit staring at the ghost, too.

  Zipper turned toward the teacher.

  “Consarn it! Don’t you turn your back on me, boy. I’ll knock you into a cocked hat, you no-account hornswoggler!”

  Zack smiled at Ms. DuBois. Zipper wagged his tail.

  “All set? I know where we need to go.”

  80

  Malik stood in the tunnel, studying the faces of the pocket watches.

  He’d been working on the puzzle for quite some time and still hadn’t cracked the code.

  He had assumed that it was a number/letter cipher, as in A=1, B=2, and so forth. Or Z=1, Y=2, and backward. But only a few of the watches were set precisely on the hour. So that wouldn’t work.

  He focused on what had to be a four-letter word.

  “Seven, six-oh-five, six-oh-five, nine.”

  The two letters in the middle were definitely the same. Probably “e,” one of the most commonly occurring letters in the English language. Malik figured it was a vowel, because the repeated letter was in the middle of the word. The letters at the front and back of the word were different. “So it might be ‘deer’ but it can’t be ‘peep.’ Though, it could be ‘beep’ … ‘keep’ … ‘deep.’”

  Next Malik tried adding the numbers together if the time shown wasn’t a straight-up hour. So 6:05 became six plus one—seven. Or should it be six plus five—eleven?

  Malik stopped thinking when he heard somebody coming!

  He doused his flashlight, huddled up against the wall between support beams.

  “McNulty? Stand down. It’s me!”

  It sounded like Azalea, only different. Gruff.

  Somebody holding a lantern came marching down the long mine shaft that led from the root cellar to the wall with all the watches.

  Malik peeked around a post.

  It was Azalea! Only it wasn’t. Something was different.

  She passed Malik. He couldn’t see what she was doing. Didn’t dare lean forward again. She was too close.

  “Right,” he heard her say. “McNulty? It’s me! Your captain! I’m coming down.”

  Malik waited another minute. Then he started breathing again. He stepped forward. Azalea was gone but Malik couldn’t tell which staircase she had chosen when she’d reached the split.

  She’d called herself the captain.

  Malik shone his flashlight on the wall of watches.

  He remembered the final lines from the warning stone: Next stand watch like a sailor should and your prospects shall be very good.

  “Stand watch like a sailor should.”

  Clever. Even used the word “watch.” The old code was there to help him crack this new one.

  It was definitely time to start thinking like a sailor again!

  81

  “Horace P. Pettimore wrote a secret message on the cornerstone of the school building!” Zack said to Ms. DuBois.

  “Of course! Excellent!”

  She was walking so fast Zack and Zipper had to trot to keep up.

  “But,” said Zack, “Colonel Cooper didn’t tell me which corner.”

  His string of lies to Ms. DuBois was all part of his plan to stall the history teacher until … well, until he came up with a better plan!

  Fortunately, Pettimore Middle School had been added on to so many times it had a billion corners. It might take hours to find the corner of the foundation where the Masons had laid the ceremonial stone.

  “So,” Zack said, “why don’t you and Eddie search the north and south sides of the building? Azalea and I can check out the east and west …”

  And I’ll run downstairs to rescue Malik!

  “No need for us to split up, Zack,” said Ms. DuBois. “I found the cornerstone my first day on the job. I had a hunch that since Captain Pettimore had been a Mason, he may have had his ‘brother Masons’ place a secret message there! This way!”

  The wording on the cornerstone was brief and to the point:

  MDCCCXCV

  LAID BY THE MASONIC FRATERNITY

  SO ALL MAY FIND THE KNOWLEDGE

  WHICH THEY SEEK

  “There you are!” Eddie came around the corner of the main building, tucking the long barrel of his pistol into his pants. “Sadly, I could not find Miss Torres.”

  “No matter. We’ll deal with her later. Quickly, Mr. Jennings! Decode the inscription!”

  “Well, uh … this might take a while.…”

  “Nonsense. The ghost of Colonel Cooper told you precisely what to do!”

  “Riiight. Okay. Well … uh … the trick is in the Roman numerals there.”

  “Of course! MDCCCXCV! What does it mean?”

  “Eighteen ninety-five.”

  “We know that,” said Eddie. “What else?”

  “Well … and this is what he told me … he said … um … each letter stands for a word …”

  “Yes?” said Ms. DuBois eagerly.

  “M … D … that could be ‘My Dog’ …”

  Zipper barked.

  “Or ‘Medical Doctor’ …”

  “Didn’t Colonel Cooper tell you precisely what words the letters stood for?” demanded Ms. DuBois, who didn’t smell much like warm cinnamon rolls anymore. More like boiled cabbage.

  “Yes, yes. He did. But you guys are screaming and hollering at me so much and you’ve got a pistol tucked into your pants so I’m kind of nervous and when I get nervous I forget stuff. Maybe we should go back to the graveyard and …”

  Eddie raised his pistol. Cocked back the brass hammer. Pointed the slender steel barrel directly between Zack’s eyes.

  “Would you like to start talking to ghosts the easy way, son?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then tell us where to find the gold!”

  Zack stared at the letters.

  “Miles … Down … Connecticut … Country … Christmas …”

  “There you guys are!”

  Eddie quickly hid the pistol under his jacket.

  It was Benny.

  “We heard Zipper’s bark! Figured you guys were back here. What’s going on?”

  Benny was with Andrew, Chuck, Alyssa, Harry, Jessie, Ryan, Amanda, Joseph Stockli, Laurel Jumper, Riley Mack, Marty Tappan, Rachel Curcio, Jenna Verrico, Sam Maroon—the whole gang from the cafeteria. Three dozen kids with bicycles swarmed around Zack, Ms. DuBois, and Eddie.

 
“Hey, you’re the new janitor!” said Benny. “Was that like a pretend Civil War pistol or a real one you were pointing at Zack?”

  “I don’t have a pistol.…”

  “It’s in your coat,” said Rachel Curcio.

  “Can we see the gun?” somebody else asked.

  “My goodness,” said Ms. DuBois, all sugar cookie-ish again, “whatever are all you children doing here at school on a Saturday?”

  “We came to see what cool stuff Zack was getting into,” said Benny. “Is this like a Civil War reenactment or something?”

  Eddie laughed. “That’s right.” He pulled out his pistol. “And this here is a reproduction of a Colt Pietta, a Confederate army revolver from the 1860s.…”

  “Coool!” The kids crowded closer.

  “Zack and Mr., uh, Eddie, and I were working on a skit for history class!” said Ms. DuBois.

  “Neat!”

  “Can we touch the pistol?”

  “Does it really work?”

  And while Zack’s three dozen friends swamped their two captors, Zack and Zipper backed away, ever so quietly, around the corner.

  After that, they ran!

  82

  “Yes!”

  Kurt Snertz saw Zack Jennings and his stupid little dog come running around the side of the school.

  No teachers. No janitors. No friends.

  They were dead meat.

  Jennings yanked open a side door and darted into the building.

  Snertz jumped up. He was going in after him.

  He’d find a toilet and finally give Jennings that swirly.

  But first he’d break a few of the geek’s bones.

  And drop-kick his dog up the hall!

  Yes!

  83

  “Flip the flue!” Seth Donnelly said to his zombie.

  “Yes, master.”

  His slave shoved the lever forward. A damper blocked one exhaust chimney and redirected the fumes to the second smokestack.

  “Have him open the door!” shouted Joseph.

  “Open the door to the smoke chamber!”

  “Yes, master.” The zombie shuffled over to the door. Opened it.

  The corridor beyond was filling with a curling gray cloud.