by Clare Hutton
A memory of the creature she’d seen in the backyard of the McNally house flashed into Becky’s mind, and she swallowed nervously.
“Then what happened?” Jake asked. His eyes were bright and fascinated.
Paul shrugged. “Dr. McNally died of a heart attack. Mrs. McNally said the rumors weren’t true, and eventually she moved to a nursing home. But nobody wanted to live in the house after that. I thought that, whatever he’d done, there might still be something here.”
Becky’s heart was beating hard. “I don’t think there’s anything like that here,” she told him.
“Well, I got all these pictures,” Paul said. “I’ll look at them and see if I can find any evidence. Let me know if anything happens, okay?”
Becky nodded. “Sure, but I don’t think it will,” she said. Her voice sounded stiff to her own ears, and she thought Nate gave her a strange look before he turned his attention back to Paul.
“So, are you done looking for zombies?” he asked. “Because if you are, we could go play on the Wii.” Paul nodded wistfully, taking one last picture of the fence outside the McNally house. “Do you want to come with us, Becky?” Nate added.
“No thanks,” Becky said. She didn’t feel like playing video games.
The guys left for Nate’s house, and Becky started inside, telling herself fiercely that she was going to stop worrying about this. There were no zombified animals in the house next door. She had seen a stray cat, that was all.
She was already up the porch steps when she realized Jake was still standing in the yard, trying to peer through the fence between their house and the McNally house.
“Jake?” she called. “Are you coming in?”
Her little brother didn’t turn around. “Jake?” she called again, uncertainly.
“Did you hear what he said?” Jake asked happily over his shoulder. “Zombies? Awesome.”
That night, Becky dreamed she climbed the fence into the McNally yard. The yellowing lawn there sucked at Becky’s feet, and she felt her shoe slip off as she struggled out of the muck. Dropping to her knees next to the sinkhole, she watched in dismay as her pink Converse sneaker disappeared into the ground.
Limping with only one shoe, she found herself climbing the porch steps up to the house. They were slippery and damp, the paint peeling in weird wet stripes, and when she got inside the house, it was all moldy. Green and white fungi sprouted from the walls and grew in thick, squishy pillowlike piles all over the floor. There was no one in sight. Becky walked farther into the house, the floor disturbingly soft under her feet.
A horrible rotting smell, worse than a Dumpster on a hot day and strangely familiar, filled the air. Becky coughed and gasped, holding her nose to try to shut it out. Everything was wet with slime, and Becky let go of her nose and clutched her hands together, frightened of touching anything, not wanting to get that viscous, gooey slime on her hands.
There was a footstep behind her, and Becky whipped around. In the doorway loomed a tall figure, backlit by moonlight. Becky blinked, trying to make out its face. It was gaunt and pale, and as she caught sight of its staring, glazed-over eyes, Becky lurched backward with shock.
There was blood running down the creature, and there was something else wrong. It looked like its face was shredded. Its arms extended as it reached for her, and a soft, garbled moan came out of it, as if it was trying to talk through its rotted mouth.
Becky tried to run, but she couldn’t make her legs work. She pressed back against the wall, and the slime dripped down over her shoulders, sticky against her back. The creature — the zombie, she realized with a sickening shock — shambled toward her.
When she woke up, sweating and disoriented in the dark, the first thing Becky realized was that the rotting, stomach-turning smell from the weekend — the same smell as in her dream — had come back, filling her room. The second was that Bear, who she’d snuck into her room again because he seemed lonely and restless, was no longer pressed against her legs, no longer in the bed.
“Bear?” she whispered. There was no answering woof, no shifting of doggy paws on the floor. She dropped her hand to the rug next to her bed: Maybe Bear had gone down to where she told him to sleep for once. But there was no big, furry sleeping dog there.
Bear was gone.
From outside came a long scraping noise, like claws against the side of the house. Becky held her breath. The smell in the house was so thick it almost felt solid, hanging in the air. The scraping came again, an eerie screech.
Nervously, Becky climbed out of bed and sidled along the wall toward the window, trying to keep out of sight. The room was chilly and it felt late. Glancing at the clock on her bedside table, she saw that it was past one in the morning.
She peered out the window into the moonlit yard below. The McNally yard was full of shadows, and for a while she didn’t see anything unusual despite straining her eyes.
Then something shifted in the shadows closest to the fence and there was a quick flash of green, an eerie color reflecting the moonlight. Becky moved closer to the window. There was a humped shape by the fence, moving up and down. The scraping noise was coming more frequently now, in time with the movement of the creature. Straining her eyes to see in the darkness, Becky tried to figure out what it was down there, and what it was doing. Too big to be a squirrel or a lab rat, whatever Paul had said. Too thin to be a raccoon, and the shape didn’t seem quite right for a cat.
With a shudder, she finally realized what the creature, whatever it was, was doing. It was digging a tunnel under the fence. A tunnel into her yard.
As it began to work its way under the fence, Becky heard a whimper coming from downstairs. Her heart dropped. Bear.
The last thing Becky wanted to do was leave her room. It seemed so safe and cozy in comparison to the dark emptiness of the rooms downstairs right now. But the strange creature was going under the fence. What if it could manage to get into her house?
What if it attacked Bear?
She didn’t believe in zombies, she told herself firmly. But whatever was out there, if it got in, even if it was only a stray animal, it could hurt Bear. He was just a great big puppy; he didn’t know how to defend himself.
Making up her mind, Becky squared her shoulders and headed out of her room and down the hall. Bear needed her.
Going down the stairs, Becky stepped as lightly as she could and didn’t turn on any lights. It seemed important not to draw attention to the fact that she was awake, or to where she was in the house. She tried to breathe slowly and evenly; her heart was pounding hard.
Down in the front hall, she stopped and listened. Was that a faint scraping noise at the front door? Could the creature have gotten under the fence so fast?
“Bear?” she whispered, padding quickly and quietly toward the kitchen. “Where are you, boy?” She could hear that her voice was shaking a little.
The faint scraping noise came again. It definitely was not her imagination. What if Bear’s outside? she thought suddenly. She didn’t know how he could have gotten out, but he was an escape artist, after all. He’d gotten out of the yard loads of times. Reluctantly, Becky moved toward the door. She was going to have to look outside.
The hall light suddenly flicked on, and Becky screamed.
Her mother was standing in the hall in her pajamas, one hand on the light switch. She blinked at Becky in confusion. “Beck? What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night!”
“I … uh.” Becky swallowed nervously and said, “I heard a weird noise outside.” As she spoke, she heard the scraping against the door again, louder this time.
Her mom walked over and opened the front door wide. A gust of wind blew in, blowing Becky’s hair back and strengthening the thick rotting smell. But there was nothing unusual outside, no creature on the doorstep.
“Ugh, what is that?” Becky’s mom coughed and covered her mouth and nose. “Did something die out there?”
“I don’t know,” Becky said, str
aining to see past her into the yard. Was there something moving out in the shadows?
Her mom closed the door. “Let’s get back to bed,” she said firmly. “We’ll figure out the smell in the morning, if it’s still there.”
Bear chose that moment to wander into the hall, the tags on his collar clinking against each other and his toenails clicking on the floor. When he saw Becky, he sped up and ran toward her, a happy doggy grin stretching his mouth wide.
“Bear!” Becky’s mom shouted.
Startled, Bear lost his balance, his paws skidding on the hardwood floor, and lurched into Becky, who sat down hard. Immediately, she found herself with a lap full of concerned dog. Bear pushed his cold, wet nose into her face and, realizing she was fine, licked her with his warm, even wetter tongue.
“Crazy dog,” Becky said affectionately, putting her arms around him. Looking up, she saw her mom frowning.
“What is Bear doing out of his cage?” her mom asked. Her voice was angry.
“Uh …” Becky said, the scraping outside and the gross smell forgotten.
“Becky, you know Bear’s supposed to sleep in his crate,” her mom told her. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, and she ran her hands through her hair distractedly. “If you keep encouraging him to break the rules, he’s never going to learn to behave.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Becky said. She pushed Bear off her lap and got up. Sensing the tension in the air, Bear looked worriedly from Becky to her mother and whined softly.
Becky’s mother sighed. “Put Bear in his crate and go to bed,” she said, more gently. “But we’re going to have a talk about this tomorrow.”
Becky nodded and led Bear into the kitchen. He gave a small woof of discontent when she steered him into the crate, but he didn’t fight her. He settled down on his cushion and rested his head on his big paws.
“Good night, my good boy,” Becky said, stroking his ears through the bars. “Sweet dreams.” Bear, his eyes already drifting closed, nuzzled her fingers, then thumped his tail once against the floor.
Becky’s mom had already gone upstairs. Becky flicked off the hall light and was about to follow her when, once more, she heard a slow scrape against the front door, as if something was asking to come in.
Shivering, she hurried up the stairs. She tried to make herself believe she was imagining the sound and that, if there had been some creature digging its way under the McNally fence that night, it had been a stray cat or wild raccoon going about its private business.
There was no way it could have been a zombie.
The next morning, Becky sat at the breakfast table with dry eyes and a pounding headache. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep after shutting Bear in his crate, and it felt like almost no time had passed before her alarm went off and she had to get up again. She poked disinterestedly at her cereal.
The rotting smell was weaker but still lingering, and it was making her feel sick at the thought of eating anything.
“What’s up with you?” Jake asked, staring at her. “You look like you’re about to fall off your chair.” Without waiting for an answer, he went on, “Hey, did you tell Mom and Dad about the zombies?”
“Zombies?” her mom asked, sounding highly amused. Becky tuned out her little brother’s explanation of what Paul had told them. Her mom looked like she was having trouble not laughing; she clearly wasn’t going to take seriously any suggestion that there might be some kind of monster next door.
Becky’s dad had gone outside to call Bear in from the yard. He reappeared at the door, frowning, and called to Becky. “Come out here. I want you to see something.” Becky groaned and got to her feet. She was just so sleepy.
Outside, Bear galloped over and pressed lovingly against her side. Becky’s dad led her into the yard and pointed silently at a yellowed, dying patch of grass.
“Huh, weird,” Becky said, not sure why her dad was showing it to her. “It wasn’t like this yesterday.”
Looking at the grass, she realized the patch led from the fence between their house and the McNally house, across the lawn, and toward their front door. In fact, it wasn’t so much a patch as a trail. A trail that seemed to begin about where she had seen the creature tunneling under the fence last night.
Below the fence, just where the dead grass began, was a space, one that might have been scraped out by paws. Becky gasped, remembering what Paul had said about plants dying around zombies. The creature had been scratching at their front door last night.
“Look,” her dad said accusingly. “Look what Bear’s done now.”
Becky stared at him. “Bear didn’t do this,” she said.
Her dad spread his arms wide, indicating the spread of yellowed grass. “Honey, look around,” he said. “The grass is dead where that dog goes, over and over again, pacing between the fence and the front walk. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to, but he’s just destructive. This is exactly why I didn’t want to get a dog.”
Becky stared sadly at the dead grass. Then she saw something move. She bent closer, but pulled back in disgust. A big black beetle crawled across the dirt beneath the grass. Beside it, worms squirmed past the stalks. All through the patchy grass, insects and worms twined together, thick and revolting, covering the entire path below the yellowed, patchy grass. Bear snuffled next to her, then pulled back, snorting.
“Dad …” Becky said, wanting to point out the squirming insects, but her father wasn’t looking at the grass anymore. He was staring straight at her, his face heavy with concern.
“Becky, if you can’t figure out how to keep your dog under control,” he said, “we can’t keep him.”
Her dad’s words echoed in Becky’s ears all morning, making her anxious and snappy. She had trouble paying attention in her classes, and her English teacher yelled at her for spacing out during second period. By the time she got to the library for study hall, where she tripped on the carpet coming in, Becky felt like she was going to cry. Worst day ever, she thought. Usually, she would have sat with Charlotte, Lila, and Tonya, but she couldn’t talk to them about the weird things happening at her house. Today she just wanted to talk to Nate. He was smart, and he lived on her street, so the McNally house was his problem, too. And he liked Bear.
“There’s something weird going on,” she told him bleakly, dropping her books on the table next to him. “I need you to help me.”
Nate pushed his long bangs out of his eyes and frowned at her with concern. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Becky told him everything, feeling a tightness release in her chest just by being able to let it all out: everything from first seeing the animal in the yard next door, to its flashing green eyes, to just how wrong it had felt. About the creature tunneling under the fence, and about the bugs and worms wriggling through the dead grass where it had walked. Worst of all, about her dad’s threat to get rid of Bear.
“They always blame everything on him,” she said, her eyes filling with hot tears. “It’s not fair. He’s a good dog. He is.”
“I know he is,” Nate said. He stared at her for a minute and then said slowly, “You think Paul’s story about the mad scientist and the zombies is for real?”
Becky shrugged helplessly. “It sounds crazy, but it’s starting to feel real, you know? I just want to figure out what’s going on.”
Nate tapped his pencil against his lips thoughtfully. “So, what do we know about zombies?” he asked.
Relaxing suddenly, Becky let out a breath. These were crazy things she had been saying, she knew, and she realized that if Nate hadn’t believed her, hadn’t accepted that there was something going on, she wouldn’t have known who else to turn to.
“Well,” she said, opening her notebook, “the whole brains thing, right?” She glanced up and held her arms up stiffly in front of her for a second, letting her eyes go wide and vacant. “Braaaains, like in the movies. Only Paul said that wasn’t always true, not in all the stories.”
“Right,” Nate said. “And gett
ing bitten by a zombie turns you into a zombie. That’s in movies, too. Only Paul said that wasn’t always true, too.”
Becky shivered. “But what if it is?” she said, panicked. “What if the creature bites someone? It might turn the animals around our house into zombies, or Bear. Bear’s always roaming around! Or someone on the street. If getting bitten turns you into one, then no one is safe!”
Mrs. DaCosta, the librarian, shushed her from her desk, frowning, and Becky realized her voice had risen. Glancing hurriedly around, she saw a couple of kids staring at them from the nearby tables.
“Take a deep breath,” Nate said. “But you’re right — we need to assume that the bite of a zombie can turn you into a zombie, since there’s no way to prove that it doesn’t. That makes this a dangerous situation. So if we figure out how to get rid of the zombie, we can keep everyone safe.” He huffed out a quiet laugh, his hair falling back into his eyes. “This is the craziest conversation.”
“You believe me about the thing in the yard, though, right?” Becky asked.
Nate looked straight at her, his blue eyes shining with sincerity through his shaggy bangs. “Of course I do,” he said simply, and Becky felt better. “Let’s make a list of everything we remember from Paul’s report,” he said, and she looked back down at her notebook.
She started writing.
1) Some zombies eat brains.
2) The bite of a zombie could turn you into a zombie..
3) Bad smell comes with zombies..
4) Zombies are active at night..
5) They have glowing eyes.
“They come because they want something, or someone calls them,” Nate added, and Becky wrote:
6) Exist because they are either called or they want something.
“What else?” she asked.
“What did Paul say?” Nate said, remembering. “That Dr. McNally made zombie animals when he was trying to use herbs to cure cancer, right?”
Becky wrote: