My Zombie Hamster

by Havelock McCreely

  “Good luck,” he said.

  12:30 p.m. Well, that was terrifying. We stumbled outside and made our way around to the front of the building, where the cops from the station were standing around complaining about kids and their pranks.

  We walked very fast around the edges of the park, heading back toward city hall. The pet show was in full swing now. Brad Johnson’s dad was still doing his thing. At least, trying to. “And now we have—well I’m not sure what this is. A mongrel, surely? Looks like a cross between a Doberman and a miniature sausage dog. Ma’am, why would you even enter that in a pet competition? It’s scaring the children.”

  We moved behind the stage and up the steps into city hall. We’d been here last year on a school trip, so we knew where the offices were. (There aren’t many places for us to go on school trips in Edenvale. The garbage dump, the police station, city hall, and the museum. We’d visited them all.)

  We climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  “So, is Kilgore Dallas helping us?” asked Calvin.

  “ ‘Helping’ is a bit of a strong word,” said Aren.

  “He’s … getting out of our way,” I said. “Which is pretty much the same thing.”

  We found the mayor’s office and headed inside. It was a big room dominated by a massive, old-fashioned desk. There was a glass candy jar right next to the mayor’s computer. Calvin made a beeline for it, helping himself to a handful.

  Aren and I split up to search for the keys. Dallas had said they would be hanging on a hook. Not very secure, really, but I suppose the cells in city hall aren’t actually meant to be used.

  There wasn’t just a single hook. There was a piece of wood with the words “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!” written along the top, and beneath these words of wisdom was a whole row of hooks filled with key rings and keys. There were at least thirty keys, maybe more.

  Aren and I looked at each other, shrugged, then grabbed every set of keys and shoved them into our pockets.

  We turned to Calvin. He was standing by the desk holding the jar of candy. He was looking a bit suspicious.

  “What have you done?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “Calvin?”

  He held up his hand and shook it. His hand was stuck in the jar.

  Aren and I tried to pull the jar off, but it didn’t budge. I stepped back and glared at him. “Seriously?”

  “Sorry,” said Calvin meekly.

  “Maybe we should just break it,” said Aren.

  We looked around for a likely surface. The edge of the desk seemed good enough. Calvin wasn’t too keen, though. He squealed and turned away, shielding his face while Aren and I got ready to smash the jar against the desk.

  “The glass is really thick,” whispered Aren.

  It was. It would take a hefty smack to break it. I was worried about cutting Calvin’s hand.

  “You’re going to have to keep it till we get outside,” I said.

  Calvin brightened up. “Do I get to keep the candy?”

  I was about to reply when there was a noise outside the office. We froze, ears straining.

  The mayor’s annoying voice could be heard, growing louder as he approached his office. He was speaking to Pugsley. (How did I know? Because he’s one of those people who speak to their pets in weird baby language.)

  “Just a quick little brushy-wushy and then poo-dums will be all ready to show those ugly people and their mutts just who’s the prettiest dog in all the land. Yes? Yes, that’s right. It is. So it is.”

  We panicked. I’ll admit that. We ran around in aimless circles, wondering what to do. The doorknob turned. The door started to open.

  We all dived beneath the desk. Yes, I know. Not very original. But what would you do?

  The mayor entered his office. We could see his feet approaching beneath the desk. (He couldn’t see us, though.) He was wearing one pink and one yellow sock.

  He stopped in front of the desk. We heard scrabbling above our heads as he set Pugsley down. The dog was sniffing and snuffling all over the place. Then he started to growl.

  “What is it, boy?”

  There was a faint noise. We turned and saw that Calvin had tipped the jar up and was trying to wiggle a piece of candy out of a tiny gap. He smiled nervously and gently put the jar back down.

  That was when the mayor farted. Seriously. He let rip with a huge, noisy fart. Aren gasped in horror, but luckily the noise of the fart actually drowned him out. We clamped our hands over our mouths. (Why did I pack away our masks?) Calvin forgot he had the jar stuck to his hand and banged it against his head as he tried to shield his nose. He groaned quietly.

  “Pugsley!” said the Mayor in his baby voice. “Who’s got a stinky bottom, hey? Pugsley does. Yes, he does.”

  Pugsley barked, probably signaling in dog language that the mayor should keep his body odors to himself and not try to blame others.

  “Now. Just a quick brushy-wushy and then we’re off. I ordered a brand-new trophy, you know. Yes, I did. A big one. A very big one.”

  He was busy for a minute or so.

  “There we go! All pretty and ready to win. Yes, we are. Yes, that’s right.”

  His feet headed back across the office to the door. Where he paused.

  “What about some candy?” he said. “Should we have some candy, Pugsley? Should we?”

  My breath caught in my throat. Calvin’s eyes were wide with horror. We waited while the mayor decided.

  “No, maybe not,” he said in his baby-talking voice. “I think I can hear someone shouting outside. We should go and see what’s happening, shouldn’t we? Yes, we should. Besides, we’ve got the victory cake to eat. Don’t we? Yes, we do! We do!”

  He left the office.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, and we slid out from beneath the desk.

  “That. Was. Disgusting,” said Aren.

  I had to agree. I never wanted to smell anything like that again.

  We hurried to the door and peered out. The corridor was empty, so we slipped out and sneaked downstairs, all the way down to the basement level. The passages here were dim. Most of the lights weren’t working.

  “Which way?” asked Calvin.

  I shrugged. “Guess we just check every door till we find the cells.”

  It took longer than I thought it would. Twenty minutes at least. I thought I heard some sort of commotion from above, but I couldn’t be sure, and there was no time to check. We had to find Charlie before the pet show was over.

  We finally found the cells behind a door blocked by a filing cabinet. The mayor really wanted to make sure Charlie didn’t come into contact with anyone. We pushed the door open. It led into a dark passage. I felt around for the light switch. Strip lights flickered to life, illuminating a dusty area filled with junk. Old desks, broken chairs, typewriters. But there was a cleared space outside one of the heavy doors that opened off the corridor.

  We hurried forward. Aren boosted me up so I could see through the tiny gap in the door.

  Charlie was there, pacing back and forth in the cell.

  I felt a rush of relief at seeing her. We were really doing this. We were rescuing her.

  “Charlie!”

  She whirled around, staring up at me in astonishment. “Matt?” she said.

  Charlie hurried to the door, reaching up to grab my hand through the gap. “What are you doing here?”

  I gave her my best heroic smile. “I’m here to rescue you.”

  She grinned at me. “Aren’t you a little short for this?”

  I frowned. “I’m not that short!”

  She rolled her eyes. “And you call yourself a fan?”

  “Huh?”

  Then it clicked. Dad would be so disappointed in me. I grinned back and was about to say something devastatingly witty and cool, but just then Aren’s legs buckled and I fell from his shoulders, both of us landing in a twisted pile on the floor. The next five minutes were spent tryin
g all the keys in the lock until we found one that fit. We finally got the door open, and Charlie rushed out and grabbed Aren, Calvin, and me into a really tight hug.

  “You came back for me,” she said.

  We finally managed to escape her clutches. “Of course we did,” I said. “What else would we do?”

  “But time is ticking,” said Aren. “We need to move.”

  We retraced our steps out of the basement and toward the front doors. We could hear the celebrations, the shouting, the—

  —the screaming?

  We looked at each other. That didn’t sound good. We moved faster, and as we approached the glass double doors leading out into Edenvale we saw that it really wasn’t good.

  Not good at all.

  A scene of chaos greeted us as we stepped through the doors. People were running in all directions, screaming and shouting. Smoke drifted into the air from what appeared to be a roasted chestnut cart that was on fire. The tent had collapsed. It was like a war zone.

  Then we saw them.

  Anti-Snuffles and his deadbeat army.

  The missing pets were rampaging through the park, hundreds of them, lurching and shuffling after anyone who came close. The deadbeat squirrels were hassling people trying to shelter beneath trees, the squirrels throwing nuts at their heads. Zombie dogs limped and waddled after live cats. I saw a zombie snake that had been cut in half, both halves slithering toward a live hamster that had gotten loose. A deadbeat parrot had landed on the shoulder of what I assume was his old owner. The man was squealing, whirling round in circles as he tried to dislodge the zombie bird, while it squawked, “Who’s a pretty boy? Who’s a pretty boy?”

  And the most bizarre thing of all? The mayor was doing his victory lap around the area where the pet show had been held, totally ignoring the chaos around him. The loudspeaker on his golf cart was blaring out “Circle of Life” from The Lion King while a terrified aide stood in the backseat holding Pugsley high in the air, just like the scene from the movie.

  Pugsley was wearing a crown.

  I turned slowly to Aren, checking if his iPhone was still on his head. “Are you getting all this?”

  “Oh yes,” said Aren in awe.

  A second later Kilgore Dallas appeared in the park, leading the Zombie Squad. They were wearing thick gloves, and they chased after the deadbeat animals, trying to toss them into sacks.

  “Come on,” I said to Charlie. “We have to get you out of here.”

  We hurried down the steps. I was about to lead Charlie behind city hall, thinking we could skirt around the park, when she suddenly stopped.

  “No.”

  “No? What do you mean, no?”

  “Dallas will never catch them. Not before they turn every pet in town.”

  “So? What can we do about it?”

  But it was too late. Charlie was stepping calmly past the screaming townspeople, people who only screamed a lot louder when they saw her. Because, let’s face it, you couldn’t really mistake her for anything but a zombie now.

  We hurried after Charlie. I wasn’t sure why, except that we had only gotten the gang back together, and we weren’t going to just leave her on her own.

  As we drew closer I saw that the mayor’s golf cart was being chased by the Rottweiler from the storm drains. Not only that, but Anti-Snuffles was riding on his back.

  This was insane. It was like he really was an evil genius, bent on taking over the town.

  Anti-Snuffles saw us and dug his little claws into the dog’s fur. It skidded to a halt, then turned around.

  It started moving toward us. We shrank back, but Charlie didn’t move. By this time, Dallas and the Zombie Squad had spotted us as we stood still in the center of the madness. Even a few townspeople who were screaming their lungs out had paused to see what was happening.

  The dog came on, snarling and groaning. But I wasn’t watching it. I was watching Anti-Snuffles, because his eyes were locked on me.

  I swallowed nervously as the dog came within a few feet.

  And then Charlie raised a hand and pointed. “NO!” she shouted. “Naughty dog! Naughty!”

  The dog paused and cocked its head to the side.

  “You’re a bad doggy! Yes. Bad!”

  The dog looked around uncertainly. Then it sort of whined. Charlie waited a second, then moved slowly forward with her hand held out. The deadbeat dog sniffed her hand, and Charlie gently stroked its head.

  “There, there,” she said softly. “You’re not a bad dog, are you? You’re a good dog.”

  The dog whined hopefully.

  Anti-Snuffles was not happy. He was leaping up and down, chittering noisily in the dog’s ear. Eventually, the Rottweiler had had enough, and he shook himself violently. Anti-Snuffles flew up from his perch and sailed through the air, cartwheeling against the blue sky.

  I ran. I grabbed an empty sack from Dallas and held it open beneath my hamster. He landed right in it. I snapped the sack shut and breathed a sigh of relief. I had him. I had Anti-Snuffles.

  The mayor’s golf cart skidded to a halt in front of us. “Circle of Life” stopped suddenly and was replaced by his nasal voice, speaking into the hand mike connected to the loudspeaker.

  “Arrest that deadbeat! Arrest her!”

  The Zombie Squad made a move toward Charlie, but the Rottweiler turned and growled at them. They stopped moving.

  Charlie straightened up and moved toward the golf cart.

  “What … what are you doing? Don’t come any closer! Stay away. That’s an order!”

  Charlie kept going. The mayor finally dropped the mike and fell out of the cart, scrambling backward across the ground. Charlie climbed into the golf cart.

  “You guys coming?” she asked.

  “You got a plan?”

  “I think so.”

  So we climbed in, Aren and I in front and Calvin in the back with the terrified aide still holding Pugsley. Charlie put her foot on the pedal, and the cart lurched forward. She picked up the mike and started speaking into it.

  “Come on!” she said in a jolly voice. “Come on now. Follow me. There’s a good doggy. There’s a good pussycat. Come on now. Come on.”

  As we left the park, Dallas jumped into the back of the cart. It was seriously overloaded now, but it still managed to move forward. Just.

  Charlie kept calling the animals through the loudspeaker. And you know what? It was working. I’m not sure if they were responding to her voice or if it was because she was a deadbeat, but the zombie pets were following us.

  We were like a horror version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin as the golf cart chugged slowly through the streets of Edenvale, Charlie’s voice echoing through the loudspeakers, calling, cajoling, drawing all the deadbeat pets after us.

  I looked over my shoulder. They formed a long line behind the golf cart, a trail of zombie animals. And behind them were the townsfolk, following after to see how this was going to end. People were coming out of their houses to see what the noise was all about. I saw Mom and Dad as we passed the house. I waved at them. Dad waved back. Mom just looked at us in astonishment.

  But they joined the crowd that followed.

  I finally saw where Charlie was taking us. The gates in the wall. They loomed above us as we approached.

  She turned to Dallas.

  “You better open them.”

  He nodded, hopping from the golf cart and sprinting ahead.

  “You guys better get off now.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked. Rather stupidly, really. It was pretty obvious what she was doing, but I wanted to hear it from her.

  “I’ll lead them outside.”

  “And then?”

  “And then … and then I don’t know,” she admitted. She glanced behind us. It looked like the whole town had gathered.

  “You’re coming back,” I said.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. Charlie, you are not going to ride off into the woods. I’m not getting off this cart unti
l you promise to come back.”

  “Matt—”

  “No. Charlie, I’m serious.”

  “Me, too,” said Aren.

  “And me!” said Calvin, raising his hand. He still had the jar attached.

  Charlie looked at each of us in turn, then finally threw her hands up in exasperation. “Okay, fine! I promise!”

  The gates started to open. I gave her the sack holding Anti-Snuffles, and we hopped off the cart. I felt a twinge of guilt at this. Poor guy. Yes, he was an evil zombie hamster, but he was still my pet. I felt a bit sad to see him go.

  Charlie drove on, calling all the pets to follow her. After a few minutes, the last of the deadbeats had crossed over the town boundary.

  Charlie kept going till she hit the line of trees in the distance. Then she stopped and got off the cart. I couldn’t really see what she was doing, so I ran up the steps to the top of the wall for a better view.

  She was petting and stroking the animals. It looked like she was just talking to them.

  Finally, she straightened up, climbed back into the golf cart, and drove back toward town.

  The zombie pets didn’t try to follow.

  She was about halfway back to us when the mayor arrived, gasping and sweating.

  “Shut the gate!” he bellowed. “Quick! Before she gets back in.”

  Dallas was standing before the gate controls, but the mayor tried to push him out of the way and close the gates. Dallas shoved him back.

  “You need to step away, sir,” said Dallas.

  The mayor looked at him in amazement. “You—you can’t do that!” he sputtered. “You can’t push me. I’m the mayor!” He tried to get past Kilgore again, but this time a few people from the crowd stepped forward to stand in his way.

  It was Mom, Dad, and Charlie’s mom.

  “Move!” screamed the mayor.

  “That girl saved our town,” said Mom.

  “She’s not a girl! She’s a deadbeat.”

  “No, she’s not,” said Dallas. “Leastaways, not the old kind. She’s something new.”

  “I don’t care! This is my town, and I will not be ignored!” He tried to push Mom out of the way, but as soon as he laid a hand on Mom, Dad stepped forward, pulled his fist back, and punched the mayor right in the face!