They ran over to the gazebo. Well, Ernestine ran. Charleston mostly squished along and tried not to freeze into an icicle.
“Charleston, are you sure that was a zombie you saw?” Ernestine squinted at the dormant shrubs and dead flowers.
“D-d-d-definitely.” Charleston shrugged, still shivering. “I m-m-m-mean, what else could it be?”
“It’s just that it ran away from us and our nice, delicious, juicy brains. Doesn’t that seem kind of weird to you? What sort of zombie doesn’t try to crack open our skulls or something?”
“Yeah, that does seem kind of w-w-w-weird,” Charleston admitted, his lips beginning to turn blue. “But it was definitely a zombie. Maybe our b-b-b-brains aren’t ripe since we’re kids. You know, kinda like green f-f-f-fruit.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my brain! I bet it’s perfectly delicious,” Ernestine huffed, taking off her coat and handing it to him as she swept her flashlight beam around the garden for footprints. Terrific. Just terrific. She’d finally managed to raise a zombie only to immediately lose it—twice! How embarrassing.
“How d-d-d-did we raise the wrong zombie, anyhow?” Clutching her coat about him and still dripping, Charleston followed Ernestine as she spotted something on the ground beneath the laundry room window.
“What do you mean, ‘wrong zombie’?” Ernestine asked defensively.
“Well, n-n-n-nothing dug its way out of Herbert’s grave, right? So the zombie m-m-m-must have come from one of the other graves.”
Rather than answering, Ernestine picked up the object lying on the thick mat of autumn leaves. It felt cold and heavy to the touch.
“What’s that?” Charleston asked.
“It’s a crowbar.”
“D-d-d-did the zombie drop it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I guess?”
Ernestine blinked at the curved strip of metal. What kind of zombie carried a crowbar around? Of course, zombies did try to break in windows, but they did so by just pounding on the glass with their hideously decayed hands until it broke. They didn’t use tools, did they? Where would a zombie even get a crowbar, anyhow? Unless someone had the foresight to bury them with one, of course. You know, just in case they had to pry the lid off their coffin. But even if they had, why go after the window instead of the much-easier-to-get-into door a few feet away?
“I c-c-c-can’t believe we started the end of the world only to lose our zombie,” Charleston moaned, smacking his hand to his face. “Oh, m-m-man. We’re going to be in so much trouble if it eats s-s-s-someone.”
“I don’t know. It seemed like a scaredy zombie to me, what with all that shuffling and hiding and everything. I can’t see it eating anyone unless they’re, like, really slow or stupid, and that’s hardly our fault if they are,” Ernestine said vaguely as she unlocked the back door and went inside, taking the crowbar with them.
“Oh, it f-f-f-feels good to be in where it’s warm!” Charleston stuttered, dripping pond water onto the floor like some sort of monster from the blue lagoon.
“Here, let’s put our coats in the dryer so they’re ready for us to wear to school tomorrow.” Going into the laundry room, Ernestine stuffed them into one of the dryers. As she did so, she noticed that the window above it had been wedged open a fraction of an inch. The lock had been broken for a while now, but the scratches on the sill looked new.
They also matched up perfectly with the crowbar when Ernestine laid it against them.
Pulling out her notebook, Ernestine made two notes in it. They read:
Fix the laundry room window
Zombies maybe use tools???
Tapping her pen against her chin, Ernestine said, “Charleston, how could the zombie know that window was broken… and that it would be the easiest to open? And since when have zombies been stealthy?”
“What do you mean? In the movies, they’re always sneaking up on people.” Charleston had found a pile of their clothes in a laundry basket that his dad, Frank, had forgotten to take upstairs. Squatting down behind a washing machine, he changed into a dry pair of pajamas. “Ernestine, we can’t let our zombie actually eat anyone. It just wouldn’t be right. We’ve got to find it before it hurts anyone.”
“I guess,” Ernestine agreed reluctantly, still not entirely convinced they had raised a zombie. Sure, it would be nice to think she had released the ravenous undead on the city, but she didn’t want to take credit for something she hadn’t actually accomplished.
On the bright side, someone had tried to break into the house. Maybe it wasn’t a zombie, but it might be a bloodthirsty killer, which was at least a step in the right direction.
Though why that someone had bothered to actually break in, Ernestine didn’t know. Sure, in theory the doors were kept locked, but in practice, Mrs. MacGillicuddie was usually throwing a party that anyone was invited to. Zombies and bloodthirsty killers included.
This quickly became evident when a bloodcurdling scream ripped through the house.
Ernestine shot out into the main hallway that ran like an artery through the entire house. More screams followed, along with the excited rumble of voices that always accompanied interesting things when they happened around a large group of people.
“Oh, this is more like it!” Ernestine beamed approvingly at Charleston as he staggered out of the laundry room, glasses askew and still trying to button his shirt. “Let’s go see who Herbert’s trying to eat!”
“I hope it’s not the Swanson twins. They said they were going to teach me how to walk a tightrope.”
“You want to learn how to walk a tightrope?”
“Seems like a good way to get around if the streets are filled with the zombie hordes.”
This was an excellent point, and Ernestine was chagrined that she hadn’t already thought to include it in the zombie survival guide she was planning on publishing. However, before she could pull out her notebook, they had reached the swinging door that led into the front foyer.
Rather than swinging forward, though, it thumped against something solid.
“Oof!” Ernestine said as she bumped against it.
“Oof!” Charleston gasped as he bumped against her.
Mr. Ellington, the saxophone player from 3C, cracked the door open and let them through. He had been the something solid the door had hit a moment before. Even though he was a very strong man, he had difficulty opening the door enough to let them wriggle into the foyer.
The reason for this became immediately clear once Ernestine and Charleston were inside. A very large crowd of elderly partygoers had jammed the hallway as the Swanson twins, each clutching a swan, climbed out onto either end of a tightrope hooked to the balcony three stories above. Swans and Swansons alike appeared riveted by whatever was going on in the middle of the foyer beneath the chandelier’s blazing light.
“Fifty on the skinny grocer!” One of the twins yelled merrily down into the crowd.
“The chef has a meat cleaver, Libby!” shouted the other twin, who must have been Mora. “I say seventy on him!”
“What the—” Ernestine began, only to be cut off by Mr. Ellington.
“Mr. Talmadge is going to fight Dill, the vegan grocer from around the corner.” Mr. Ellington crossed his arms and shook his head as though that explained it all. And maybe it did. Just not to Ernestine or Charleston.
“Why?” Charleston asked, spotting a platter of vegetable canapés and scooping up a handful of miniature baked potatoes and a couple of mushroom tarts. Ernestine grabbed a canapé herself and squeezed her way forward to get a better look.
“Because they both want to open up a restaurant in the empty building next to Dill’s vegetable co-op,” explained Mr. Ellington.
That didn’t make a bit of sense to Ernestine, though Charleston nodded thoughtfully around a mouthful of potato and hummus as though it did to him. Personally, Ernestine didn’t really care what the reason was. While she thought that learning to wield a meat cleaver against an opponent was excellent
training for fighting zombies in the coming apocalypse, she also knew she’d be the one stuck cleaning the blood off the floor if Mr. Talmadge actually managed to whack anything vital off of Dill.
Plus, she quite liked Mr. Talmadge and would prefer not to see him sealed inside a jail cell like Jell-O in a plastic cup, just waiting to be cracked open by the first zombie someone was thoughtless enough to leave the prison gate open for.
“Last call for bets!” Mrs. MacGillicuddie called out cheerfully from the middle of the room as Eduardo counted the wads of cash people kept shoving at him. Her nephew Lyndon seemed to be trying to set up his own betting ring over in the corner but everyone kept ignoring him. “Twenty-to-one odds on Mr. Talmadge, fifty-to-one odds on the skinny grocer! Sorry, Dill, darling.”
“Pin him up against the door, Parsley, or whatever your name is!” Libby Swanson leaned forward to call out, accidentally dropping her swan in the process. “Oopsy!”
The outraged swan flapped its wings as it landed, causing the crowd to skitter out of its way. Ernestine almost fell down but was able to grab Mr. Theda’s cape just in time to keep herself upright.
Spotting her, Mr. Bara pulled her to the front of the crowd so she could see better. Now that she had a clear view, Ernestine watched Mr. Talmadge and Dill circling each other. Burly Mr. Talmadge had once been personal chef to rocker Alice Cooper. From the stories he liked to tell, this wasn’t the first time he’d brought a meat cleaver to a fight. Meanwhile, Dill looked around dazedly like he wasn’t entirely sure how all of this had happened. Especially given that his weapon against the meat cleaver appeared to be a dinky paring knife.
“You know, it really just isn’t one of Mrs. MacGillicuddie’s parties until someone tries to murder someone else,” Mr. Theda drawled to his partner.
“I’m taking one-hundred-to-one odds that it’s Talmadge.” Lyndon wiggled hopefully through the crowd to stand next to them. He had a desperate look on his skinny, hang-dog face, possibly because he’d yet to get a single person to place a bet with him in spite of all the knives flashing about.
“You’re taking bets on whether someone actually dies?” Mr. Bara slowly cocked an eyebrow in such a way that Lyndon blushed.
“Well, it’s not like I’m actually trying to kill someone!” he protested, hunching his shoulders. “I’m just—er—trying to make money off of it. Nothing wrong with that, right?”
“Are you taking bets on whether one of them will come back as a zombie afterward?” Ernestine asked, feeling that Lyndon—as usual with Mrs. MacGillicuddie’s nephew—was missing the real opportunity here.
Lyndon blinked. “Is that likely?”
“I don’t know. Aren’t you the one taking bets?”
“Mother! I insist you put an end to this farce this instant!” Mrs. MacGillicuddie’s son, Rodney, pushed his way through the crowd. He wore the costume of an Egyptian pharaoh and had swelled up his chest pompously, his moustache quivering with rage. Nearby, his daughter Aurora Borealis was dressed as a black cat. Or at the very least, a black cat who wore a miniskirt and stiletto heels. She was old enough to be in college but had decided to try and be an Instagram star instead. Somehow, Aurora Borealis had already managed to amass a hundred thousand followers—and she certainly hadn’t done it by hanging out with a bunch of elderly artists. Right now, she sat on the steps next to the ornate Cupid statue holding up the bottom of the banister, only looking up from her jewel-encrusted phone to throw a bored, pouty look at all of the chaos.
“Daaaaaaddyyyyyy,” she whined, “is it time to goooooo yet? This party is sooooo lame. Nothing interesting ever happens at any of Grammy’s parties. I’ve, like, already lost a million followers.”
“Rupert, you put that meat cleaver down right now!” Mrs. Talmadge bellowed through the crowd. “He’s only got a paring knife! I’ll go get the bread knife for him, luv! Make it a fair fight and all!”
That immediately brought about a new round of betting as the promise of a new weapon seemed to substantially improve Dill’s odds, though Dill himself looked far less convinced.
“Mrs. MacGillicuddie, I really don’t think this is a good idea.” As Ernestine tugged at her landlady’s fur coat, she swept the room with her eyes. There was so much chaos, her zombie could stumble in here and graze like it was at a five-star buffet without anyone ever noticing. Even her parents, Frank and Maya, had wandered out of their artist studio down to the third-floor balcony to see what all of the commotion was about.
Just as she spotted them, Ernestine noticed that the immense crystal chandelier dangling from the ceiling nearby had begun to sway far more violently than it had any reason to, as though all of the excitement below had gotten it worked up, too. Easily ten feet tall, its curly silver arms, glittery pendants, and bright lights hung close to the third-floor balcony where the Swanson twins were still balancing precariously on their tightrope.
The light fixture had to weigh a couple of hundred pounds, Ernestine realized in horror as she watched it sway. Heavy enough to turn them all into humanburger patties, if it fell. She frantically tried to get her mother and Frank’s attention, but they were already heading down the stairs toward her.
The Swanson twins had realized something was wrong, too. Perhaps they had seen Ernestine’s panicked pointing. Or maybe they had finally noticed the way their tightrope was quivering from the breeze from the shaking chandelier. Either way, they looked upward in alarm just as half of the bolts holding the chandelier popped out of the ceiling, showering the crowd below with dust and plaster.
“Is it snowing?” Mr. Talmadge asked in confusion, cleaver in hand.
“Twenty-to-one odds that it is!” Lyndon shouted, waving his arms frantically in effort to be noticed through the crowd.
“No! Look!” Ernestine cried, pointing upward.
“What is it, darling? Oh, my!” Mrs. MacGillicuddie gasped.
“Oh, help!” the twins screamed.
Before anyone could say or do anything else, several more bolts gave way. The base of the chandelier, still attached to part of the ceiling, cracked and lurched downward, exposing the electrical wires above. For one breathless moment, it seemed like they would hold.
Then, in a shower of sparks, the wires snapped apart. Slicing through the tightrope, the chandelier plummeted to the floor.
Directly toward Ernestine and Mrs. MacGillicuddie.
Chapter Three
The Apocalypse Is Put Temporarily on Hold
TUESDAY, 12:51 AM
With a massive thrust, Ernestine flung both herself and Mrs. MacGillicuddie out of the way. The chandelier crashed to the ground, smashing apart the marble floor. Broken stone and shattered crystal exploded across the crowd as they all fell down, covering their heads with their hands.
“Ernestine!” The silver platter Charleston had been holding clattered down and skidded right over to Ernestine’s nose as her stepbrother raced over to help her up. All around them, partygoers sat among the wreckage of the chandelier—along with water-stained books, broken musical instruments, and several dozen moldering photo albums. All of which had, until recently, been stored in the attic above.
“Goodness, darling!” Rolling over, Mrs. MacGillicuddie blinked in amazement at the mess now filling her lovely foyer. Standing up, Eduardo flicked a single crystal shard off his red Roman general’s cape, tucked the purple silk handkerchief behind his breastplate, and gave her a hand getting to her feet.
“Is anyone injured?” he asked, in his Spanish accent.
“My meat cleaver has seen better days.” Mr. Talmadge sadly held up the wooden handle in one hand and the enormous blade in the other.
Mr. Theda was trying to tug his silk-lined cape free of one of the chandelier’s silver arms, but he wasn’t having much luck until Mr. Bara came to his aid. Mr. Ellington dumped broken crystal out of the mouth of his saxophone, while Mr. Sangfroid ranted, “This is what comes of letting hippies into the place! No-good beatniks!”
“Could someone he
lp us?!” wailed one of the Swanson twins. They were both dangling from the third-floor balcony railings. They’d lost their glittery white shoes in the crash, their elderly bare toes digging into the wall for support.
“Ten to one odds that they fall before someone can!” Lyndon waved about some money but everyone ignored him.
“Are our swans all right?” Libby asked anxiously. A flutter of feathers and some irritable honking confirmed that the swans were, in fact, just fine and quite ready to go home. In fact, one of them had snatched Aurora Borealis’s phone away from her, possibly in an attempt to call a ride.
“Ooo! Animals always get extra likes!” Grabbing her phone back from the swan, Aurora Borealis took a selfie with it, though neither of them quite looked their best, as the swan had lost quite a few of its feathers, which now stuck out of Aurora Borealis’s hair instead.
The other partygoers got unsteadily to their feet as well. Surprisingly, no one had broken a hip.
“Thank goodness for titanium!” Mrs. MacGillicuddie beamed, knocking her fist against her hip and then holding up her arms. “The elbows, too!”
“Mother! This really is the last straw!” Rodney staggered to his feet from beneath a pile of old people. His pharaoh’s headdress was askew on his head, while his toupee had slunk down into the safety of his collar. “I am having my personal doctor evaluate your mental fitness! Your lifestyle at your age and your insistence on throwing all of these wild parties—in the middle of the week, no less—is alarming to say the least! I don’t think you should manage the family’s money any longer!”
“Oh, put a sock in it, Junior.” Mrs. MacGillicuddie shoved his overcoat at him. Behind them, Aurora Borealis had finished posting to Instagram but still hadn’t gotten up, apparently too busy eyeing a pair of the Swanson twins’ shoes glittering amidst the debris. “And it isn’t ‘the family’s money.’ It’s my money. What happened to all of the millions your father left you? And you think I’m not fit to handle money? Now take that vapid creature you spawned and go home before I have the swans attack you.”
Ernestine, Catastrophe Queen Page 3