Quickly, Alex and Spit told the rest of the gang about the picture of Adonis’s radio studio in the paper, and how they’d spotted the Necronomicon on the shelf.
‘So Adonis is in league with the Other Side,’ muttered Cherry. ‘That makes sense. But why is he hypnotizing the patients? What’s it all for?’
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Alex. ‘We have to follow them.’
‘Oh, great.’ Spit rolled his eyes. ‘Another brilliant plan from the Master of Disaster.’
‘Alex is right,’ snapped Cherry. ‘We have to discover what they’re doing. It might be the only way to find Mr Kowalski.’
‘And Jim,’ added Inchy. ‘I made friends with him yesterday,’ he explained as the others looked at him blankly. ‘But when I woke up this morning, he’d vanished too.’
‘What are we waiting for, then?’ cried Alex. ‘Follow those patients!’
Spit rolled his eyes in exasperation, but even he followed the gang as they quickly and quietly made their way across the hospital car park, keeping an eye out for the strange parade of patients.
‘There!’ whispered House, spotting the last few figures as they disappeared into the corner of the car park.
‘But that’s a dead end,’ said Alex. ‘There’s nothing there at all.’
‘Well, they don’t seem to think so,’ said Inchy. ‘Look, it’s not a dead end – there’s a gap in the fence.’
Suddenly, Cherry stopped walking. ‘Oh no.’
‘Cherry?’ asked Inchy, turning. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It is a dead end,’ said Cherry. ‘Not in the way Alex meant, but it’s certainly dead, and it’s definitely the end for those who end up there.’
‘Great,’ said Spit, kicking a loose stone across the tarmac. ‘We’ve got a hospitalful of patients wandering around in a state of hypnosis and now Cherry’s decided to start talking in riddles. What exactly do you mean?’
‘You mentioned it yourself – how “conveniently” the hospital was located,’ replied Cherry grimly. ‘Don’t you remember what was next door? It’s the ultimate dead end – the cemetery. They’re all going into Green Hill Cemetery!’
12
The Graveyard Shift
‘Now this is something you don’t see every day,’ said Spit as the gang edged through the gap in the fence and past some old, worn tombstones.
‘Really?’ replied Cherry. ‘I thought all hospitals gave their patients exercise by sending them out under hypnosis to wander around graveyards!’
‘But what are they up to?’ asked Alex, pushing forward through the undergrowth to get a better look.
‘Ouch!’ said Cherry. ‘Watch where you’re putting your feet, you…’
Cherry’s voice tailed off, but it didn’t matter, Alex wasn’t listening anyway. He was staring.
‘What’s up?’ called House in a low voice. ‘Why’ve we stopped?’
‘Yeah, come on, Alex,’ said Spit, ‘don’t hog the view.’
The rest of the gang pushed forward to join Alex and Cherry at the edge of a tangle of overgrown bushes. Now, just a few metres away, they could finally see clearly what the patients were doing.
They were digging.
Still in their hospital gowns and pyjamas, teams of patients stood around dozens of graves, relentlessly burrowing down, down, down. Dust and grit spun high into the air as they used their bare hands to pull stones and roots free from the grip of the earth.
They also pulled up coffins. On one side of the graveyard, two piles of them towered high, and more were being added every minute. Some were new, the brass handles still shiny. Others looked ancient, close to disintegrating into dust. And at the centre of it all, commanding the show like some gothic circus ringmaster, stood Aubrey Adonis.
His hands were outstretched, the fingers splayed outwards. Occasionally, a spark of blue light would crackle and fizz from them and dart around the graveyard like lightning. Whenever it touched patients, they jumped and moved faster, as if energized.
Adonis’s face was wild, his eyes close to bursting from his face, his smile a slash of thin lips and ferocious teeth. Above the graveyard, a dark sky bubbled and boiled like hot mud. Light itself seemed to be avoiding the place, as though it was horrified by what it had seen and wanted to forget about it very quickly indeed.
‘Oh my,’ croaked Inchy. ‘I think I’ve been here before.’
‘What?!’ hissed Spit incredulously. ‘And you didn’t think to tell us that before now?’
‘I don’t remember it,’ replied Inchy, ‘but when I woke up this morning I noticed that I had dirty hands. Loads of other people did too. It didn’t make any sense then, but now…’
‘Well, this pretty much seals the deal on Adonis, doesn’t it?’ said Alex. ‘I mean, I’m no lawyer, but I think that what we see before us is enough to convince anyone that he’s not really a hospital radio DJ.’
‘Then what is he?’ asked Cherry, still staring. ‘Is he a human or is he a demon?’
‘Oh, he’s human,’ replied Inchy slowly, ‘but –’
‘If he’s human, then I can take him,’ barked House, turning to the rest of the gang. ‘Who’s with me?’
No one stepped forward.
‘Let me finish, House,’ said Inchy. ‘He may be human, but I think he’s a necromancer.’
‘A necro‐what?’
‘Necromancer,’ explained Inchy. ‘A human servant of the Other Side. They’re horrible in most ways – as close as a human gets to being a demon. The “mancer” bit means they’re into magic and stuff.’
‘Oh no,’ gulped Cherry.
‘It’s worse than “oh no”, I’m afraid,’ continued Inchy. ‘The “necro” bit? Well, that means “dead”. Necromancers use the dark magic of death and the dead.’
‘Not very nice, then?’ said Spit.
‘No,’ replied Inchy. ‘Not in any way.’
‘Where do you learn all this stuff?’ asked House.
‘From books,’ said Inchy. ‘You should try one sometime.’
‘OK, so Adonis is a necromancer,’ said House. He chewed his lip for a moment, then brightened. ‘But it could be worse – at least there aren’t any zombies, although those patients are doing quite a good impression!’
‘A good point and well made,’ said Spit, ‘but from now on I would suggest that you don’t make any more.’
‘But we’ve got to do something!’ said House. ‘We can’t just stand by and let him dig up people’s graves. I don’t need Gabriel to tell me that’s not right.’
‘You’re right: we can’t ignore this,’ agreed Alex. ‘But what can we do? If Adonis has magic powers, we don’t stand much of a chance.’
‘Alex, look!’ hissed Cherry, pointing.
‘Where are they going?’
The gang watched as, at a gesture from Adonis, the patients stopped digging and started to make their way back towards the hospital. Most were returning just as they had come out, only muddier. Others, though, were going back with something they hadn’t brought with them.
‘They’re taking the coffins back in with them!’ Cherry’s eyes bulged at the thought.
‘I’d prefer a hot water bottle,’ said House.
Ducking back into the cover of the bushes, they watched as Adonis ordered the hypnotized digging party back through the gap in the fence. Keeping low, Alex led the gang in pursuit.
In the car park, the patients split into two groups. One went back in through the broken fire doors, obviously heading straight for their wards. The other group, the ones carrying the coffins, turned left towards a small metal door, with Adonis in the lead. As the door clanged shut behind them, the gang scurried up. Without hesitation, Alex reached for the handle.
‘Hold on a minute,’ said Cherry, slapping his hand away. ‘Call me superstitious, but I don’t much like the look of this. The last time we decided to see what the bad guy was doing behind a mysterious door, didn’t we end up in a battle with a Level Four Fire De
mon?’
‘And that was big, big trouble,’ declared House.
‘You mean you didn’t enjoy it?’ asked Spit, smirking.
‘Come on, that wasn’t the same,’ said Alex, gripping the handle. ‘Ouch!’
He pulled his hand back sharply. ‘It really wasn’t the same,’ he hissed, sticking his hand under his armpit. ‘Dante’s cellar was boiling hot. That door’s freezing! It’s so cold, it burns!’
‘Now that you mention it,’ said Inchy, rubbing his hands together briskly, ‘it’s pretty cold just standing here.’
It was true. It wasn’t just the door that was freezing cold but the very air around them. Their breath hung in clouds, as if it was the middle of winter rather than summer. Within a matter of seconds, the whole team was shivering.
‘L‐l‐look,’ chattered Spit, ‘l‐let’s just get this over w‐with, OK?’
‘B‐but we don’t know w‐what’s in there,’ objected Cherry, jiggling up and down on the spot.
‘Well, I’d r‐rather take my chance with a n‐necromancer than f‐freeze to death. Which is what’s going to happen if we s‐stay here.’
‘Come on, then,’ said House, and before anyone could stop him, he pushed open the door and marched through.
The gang followed him inside and stopped dead, staring at the sight before them. It looked as if they were in what had once been a storeroom – until it was hit by a blizzard. The place was utterly frozen. Icicles hung glittering from the light bulbs and the windows were thick with frost. Ice cascaded over a pile of old chairs, like a frozen waterfall. Everything was covered in sparkling whiteness. It looked strangely beautiful, like a scene from a fairy tale.
Only instead of fairies, there were coffins. Piles and piles of coffins – filling the room, lying on the floor, stacked up against the wall. Some were partly encrusted in the ice, while others were laid neatly on top of it.
‘There must be hundreds of them,’ said Alex, wide‐eyed. He was so shocked, his teeth had forgotten to chatter. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s Adonis,’ said Inchy. ‘He’s made this happen.’
‘How?’ asked Spit, holding his hand out, palm upwards. ‘I mean, look – it’s actually snowing in here!’
‘He’s using magic to keep it cold so he can store the bodies.’
‘Why?’
‘To stop them going off until he’s ready to bring them to life as zombies,’ said Inchy, looking more than a little queasy.
‘Blimey,’ muttered House. ‘So there are zombies. There’s enough of them here for an army!’
And as House spoke, everything clicked into place in Inchy’s mind. His brain rewound back to the words he had heard through the door of Adonis’s studio – One more day and you will have all the soldiers that you need.
‘That’s it!’ exclaimed Inchy. ‘It is an army. Adonis is building an army of zombies! He’s using Brain Dead to hypnotize the patients to dig up the bodies, and when he has enough, he’ll bring them to life and use them to take over Green Hill!’
The gang stood stunned. The diabolical genius of Adonis was enough to take their breath away.
‘We have to stop him,’ said Alex finally. ‘There must be a way for the patients to get back into the main part of the hospital from here.’ He scanned the room. Its shape barely visible through the strange indoor snowstorm, Alex could just make out another door. ‘There it is! Come on!’
Without a second thought, the gang raced forward, dodging coffins and ducking under hanging icicles. Unfortunately, the ice‐covered floor meant that racing forward was much easier than stopping.
As they found when they approached the double doors.
House lost his balance, landing on his bottom with a thump that knocked the air out of him. Arms windmilling, Alex tripped over his big friend, sending Cherry and Spit flying too. Only Inchy, stabilized by his crutches, managed to stay on his feet as the gang crashed through the doors in a tumble of flying limbs and rude words.
From his position at the bottom of the pile, House was the first to notice their new surroundings.
‘Kitchen!’ he said. ‘We’re in the kitchen!’
The rest of the gang pulled themselves up on to their feet and looked around. They were surrounded by the gleam of metal surfaces – pots and pans, cookers, worktops and shelves of tins.
Slowly, they started to edge their way forward. The kitchen was an enormous place filled with impossible smells, most of them deeply unpleasant. And the further they went, the worse the smells became.
‘Something isn’t right,’ said Inchy nervously.
‘Too right,’ said House. ‘I’ve tried the food they make in here – it’s rubbish.’
‘Yes, but who made the food?’ said Spit. ‘If this is a kitchen, where are the chefs?’
‘Um, here they are,’ replied Cherry, as a tall figure stepped out from behind an even taller set of shelves.
The figure was wearing a big white hat, but that was where any similarity to a real chef ended. Beneath the hat, its face was waxy and grey, with empty eye sockets and a long scar that ran all the way across its throat. Its toothy mouth grinned death and decay. Behind the first figure, several more looked up from the saucepans they were stirring.
‘Zombies,’ said Spit, stating the obvious.
‘Cooking the food,’ said Inchy, following suit.
Cherry swallowed hard.
‘Anyone for takeaway?’
13
Kitchen Nightmares
‘We’re dead,’ said Spit.
‘No, they’re dead,’ corrected Inchy.
‘This is no time for jokes,’ moaned House.
‘No wonder the place smells so bad,’ observed Alex, surveying the band of zombies facing them. Some had no hair, others had just a few wisps, half of which fell off every time they moved, taking strips of dry skin with it, dropping into the cooking pots with a revolting splash. Alex felt his stomach do a somersault. ‘And I guess that’s why the food is so foul.’
The zombies’ clothes were like a snapshot of history’s dirty laundry. One was wearing a battered dusty top hat and carrying a broken cane. Another, which looked like the remains of a tall and elegant woman, was swooshing around in a tattered ballgown. The fabric of the dress stretched over the empty ribcage beneath it like the tired skin of a long‐forgotten airship. Scampering up and down inside was a pair of large rats.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a plan for this sort of situation?’ Cherry asked Alex, pulling out her bow.
Alex was just about to admit reluctantly that he had nothing of the sort when the zombie wearing the head chef ’s hat let out a strangled groan. As if this was the signal they had been waiting for, the other zombies grabbed hold of an alarming array of carving knives, cleavers and wicked‐looking skewers. Armed, they began to stumble forward, blades flashing.
‘You know what,’ said Spit, ‘I’m getting the impression they don’t like us.’
‘Well, the feeling’s mutual,’ snarled Cherry, loosing an arrow. The shaft zipped through the air and slammed straight into the eye socket of the head chef zombie and out the back of its head, pinning it to the monster behind.
‘Nice shot!’ yelled Alex. ‘You been practising?’ The gang waited for the arrows to take effect and the zombies to turn and gaze lovingly at each other. But they didn’t. Instead, with a ferocious heave, the lead zombie pulled itself forward, yanking the arrow straight through its head, leaving a hole big enough to see daylight through. Then it resumed its steady march towards them.
Another arrow fizzed through the air, followed by another and another. At such close range, even Cherry’s notoriously dodgy aim was good enough to pepper the leading zombies. But they didn’t even slow down.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Spit, as the gang started to back away.
‘I don’t think my arrows work on zombies. Being dead kind of stops people falling in love.’
‘Right!’ yelled House, eyes afire. ‘I’ve ha
d enough of this!’ He turned, reached into a draw and pulled out a weapon of his own. Everyone gasped.
‘What is that?’ squeaked Cherry.
‘I think…’ replied House, looking at the strange device in his hand, ‘… it’s an electric whisk. Hey, no fair! How come they get all the sharp stuff ?’
Nobody had time to answer House’s question, though, as a terrible roar erupted from the zombies. The monsters broke into a shambling run, brandishing their knives as they stumbled towards the gang.
‘We have to immobilize them,’ cried Inchy.
House looked blank.
‘Stop them moving!’ Spit explained in a shriek.
‘Oh right,’ nodded House. ‘You mean smash
’em up!’
‘Exactly! Grab anything you can!’ yelled Alex. ‘And chuck it!’
No one needed to be told twice. House hurled the electric whisk at the nearest zombie. Alex and Spit upended a huge saucepan of foul‐smelling liquid on to the floor, trying to prevent the other zombies getting any closer. Cherry and Inchy slung kettles and frying pans.
But it wasn’t enough. The advancing zombies just seemed to ignore the barrage of kitchen weaponry.
‘It’s not working!’ yelled Inchy, as the zombies spread out across the kitchen.
‘They’ve cut off our exit!’ hollered Spit. ‘We’re trapped!’
Alex’s stomach lurched. It was true – without seeming to do so, the zombies had backed them into a corner.
‘Do something, Alex!’ pleaded Cherry. ‘We’ve thrown everything at them except the kitchen sink.’
Alex’s reply died on his lips as a strange shadow fell over him. What new monster was this? It was large, black and square, and it looked like it had legs…
‘Forget the kitchen sink,’ grunted a strained voice. ‘I’ve got a better idea!’
‘That’s not possible,’ said Spit, mouth open, eyes popping.
‘I don’t think House agrees,’ replied Inchy.
Sweat pouring from his forehead, Big House lumbered forward, his huge frame towering over the gang. Held high above his head was an enormous silver fridge. With an almighty heave, he launched it towards the zombies.
Zombies in the House Page 8