The Smoky Corridor (13 page)

“What’s that?” asked Zack.

“Well, you go to a graveyard and take rubbings off the headstones. Some of the inscriptions are wicked funny, like ‘Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake, Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.’”

“That would make an awesome field trip for our history class!” said Malik.

“Yeah,” said Azalea. “I already talked to Ms. DuBois and she said it was an awesome idea, too! We just need to pick a date.”

“The sooner, the better,” said Malik. “The rubbings would make excellent Halloween decorations.”

“Yeah,” said Zack. “We could hang them on our lockers, which kind of resemble caskets.”

Malik’s and Azalea’s smiles instantly curdled into frowns.

“What? Okay. You don’t like the locker-coffin idea. We could—”

Someone grabbed his belt from behind and hoisted him off the ground.

“Well, if it isn’t wacky little Zacky.”

Kurt Snertz.

So that was why his friends had stopped smiling so fast.

“You ready for your toilet swirly, wimp?”

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Kurt Snertz
must’ve spent all month plotting his revenge.

When Kurt let go of his belt and Zack spun around, he could see that Snertz had
four
guys with him this time. Zack had Azalea and Malik.

“Leave him alone!” shouted Azalea.

“What? You got girls fighting your fights for you these days, Jennings? You are such a wimpy wuss! Good thing we’re so close to the girls’ bathroom—the one you probably use all the time. Six toilets, no waiting. One swishy coming right up!”

His thug friends snickered.

“Stop this,” said Malik. “I’ll call the police!”

“Shut up, Lick-Me. Or you’re next!”

“I told you before,” said Zack. “Leave Malik out of this! Azalea, too! If you’re still mad about what I did to your little brother last summer …”

“Nah. I’m mad about what you’ve done to him this month! A Snertz eating at the nerd table? Cracking jokes and back-talking to
me?
You ruined him, Jennings! So now I’m gonna ruin you!”

Snertz cracked his knuckles.

Flexed his fingers.

Balled his hand into a fist.

“So, wussy boy, you know any prayers?”

Another movie unspooled in Zack’s brain: with Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. “Yes, and I’ll say one for you!”

Some of Snertz’s bully buddies actually laughed at the snap.

But not Snertz.

Veins bulged on his arm and in his neck.

“I hope you enjoyed that, Jennings. Because those are the last words you are ever gonna say!”

Snertz cocked back his fist.

That was when Malik stomped down as hard as he could on Snertz’s shoe and Azalea grabbed Zack by the arm.

Snertz wailed in agony.

“Run for it!” shouted Malik. “Hurry!”

“In here,” shouted Azalea. “Quick!”

“What?”

She shoved him through a swinging door.

The girls’ bathroom!

“Wait!” said Zack. “We’re trapped.”

“MR. SNERTZ?” boomed a loud voice out in the hall.

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Zack stuck
his ear to the bathroom door and could hear Snertz’s buddies running away.

The big voice boomed again. “WHY WERE YOU ABOUT TO GO INTO THE GIRLS’ BATHROOM?” Mr. Green. The tech ed teacher. He had the loudest voice and biggest muscles of all the teachers in the school.

“I lost somethin’.”

“IN THE
GIRLS’
ROOM?”

“Um …”

“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN ROOM NINETY-THREE. DETENTION HALL! WITH ME! MOVE IT.”

“I’ll be back!” Snertz shouted.

“BACK FOR WHAT?”

“Nothin’.”

“YOU DO KNOW I COACH WRESTLING
AND
BOXING, RIGHT?”

“Yes, sir.”

Zack heard Snertz and Mr. Green walking away.

Five seconds later, there was a knock on the door.

“Hey, you guys? It’s me!”

Malik.

Azalea pulled open the door, grabbed Malik’s arm, and yanked him into the bathroom. Fortunately, the bathroom had been empty when Zack and Azalea had first burst through the doors.

“We should probably hide in here a little longer,” Azalea suggested. “Just in case Snertz overpowers Mr. Green and pulls a jailbreak.”

Zack and Malik nodded slowly. Azalea had a way of making things way overdramatic.

“So, either of you guys ever been in the girls’ room before?” Azalea asked in a hushed tone.

Both shook their heads.

“I’ve been inside the boys’ room lots of times,” she said. “It’s nothing special.” She moved to the row of sinks and mirrors. “It’s not haunted like this one is.”

“This bathroom is haunted?” asked Malik.

Azalea nodded ominously. “Bloody Mary. You ever heard of her?”

“Um, I don’t think so.…”

“Who is she?” asked Zack.

“No one knows for sure. Some say she’s a little girl who was buried alive. Others say it’s the ghost of crazy Mary O’Malley!”

“Who?” asked Zack.

“This crazy Irish cleaning lady who used to scrub floors with babies!”

Zack nodded. “Oh. Her.”

“But most agree—Bloody Mary is Mary Tudor, the saddest queen of England ever, a lady who had five babies die on her and doesn’t like it if you make fun of her and her dead kids.”

“Question,” said Malik.

“What?”

“Why would the ghost of the former queen of England choose to haunt the girls’ bathroom in a middle school in Connecticut in America?”

“Turn off the lights! You’ll see.”

Azalea pulled a black candle out of her backpack. Lit it.

Zack shrugged. What the heck? They had to kill a little time to make sure the hallway was totally clear. He flicked the switch.

“Come on, you guys,” said Azalea. “Move closer to the sinks. Stare into the mirror!”

Zack and Malik followed Azalea and stared at their own flickering reflections in the bathroom mirror.

“Now, all we have to do is say, ‘Bloody Mary, I have your children,’ five times real fast while turning around in circles!”

“And then what happens?” asked Malik.

“Bloody Mary comes screaming out of the mirror and scratches our eyeballs out of our heads!”

“And this is fun exactly how?”

“It just is!”

“Come on, Malik,” said Zack. “Azalea needs our help.”

He was thinking that the sooner the three of them spun
around in a circle five times, the sooner they could all go home.

Malik nodded. “Very well, Azalea. Proceed.”

“Okay. Say the words with me. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“One, two, three …”

“Bloody Mary, I have your children!”

They turned around in a circle.

“Bloody Mary, I have your children!”

They made another circle in front of the mirror.

“Bloody Mary …”

Zack stopped.

Because someone appeared in the mirror.

And it wasn’t the queen of England.

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Zack stared
blankly at the mirror.

Azalea and Malik were speaking to him but their voices sounded like they were underwater.

Zack’s eyes were riveted on the mysterious figure wavering inside the mirror, a young woman wearing a wreath of white leaves in her raven black hair, long white gloves, and a ruffled white wedding gown that made her look like a bell.

“I am Azalea’s guardian,” the ghost said in a woeful whisper. “She is in grave danger.”

“Is it the zombie?” said Zack.

He felt Azalea nudge him in the ribs when he said that.

“No, but I cannot say his name, for were he to hear it spoken, all would be lost.”

Zack nodded. He understood. Sort of.

“Guard Azalea. Do not let her fall into the evil demon’s clutches, for if she does, within the day, she will surely lose her soul.”

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

Azalea nudged him in the ribs again and said something
like “You’re just pretending” and laughed, so Zack laughed, too, even though the woman in the mirror was weeping.

“I am but an outcast daughter. A weeping widow. A great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.”

All those greats made Zack gulp.

“My name is Mary. Mary Jane Hopkins.”

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At the
very same moment, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, an eight-year-old girl with caramel-colored skin and a bright yellow kerchief wrapped around her head strolled into her aunt’s kitchen.

The older woman was sipping chicory-flavored coffee from a demitasse cup and had been enjoying a freshly fried and lightly powdered beignet. She put them both aside when she saw the look in the little girl’s eyes.

“What is it, child?” the aunt asked in a whisper.

The little girl smiled. “The time has come, Auntie. We must travel north. Tonight. Now.”

“Connecticut?”

The child’s smile grew even broader. “Connecticut.”

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“Sorry, I
was just goofing around,” Zack said for the tenth time.

He, Azalea, and Malik were on the bus, headed home.

“Why did you ask if Bloody Mary was a zombie?” asked Azalea, laughing so hard she had to hold on to her sides. “Was that like even one of the options?”

“I dunno,” said Zack.

“And then,” said Malik, short of breath from giggling, “you kept saying ‘What is your name?’ when, obviously, it was supposed to be Mary!”

Zack went ahead and laughed along with his two friends, who were more or less laughing at him. Hey, it beat explaining what he’d really seen.

Azalea wiped some of the laugh tears out of her eyes, smudging her makeup as she did. “You guys hanging out at Zack’s today?”

“Nah,” said Zack. “We need to do some junk at Malik’s house.”

“Okay. Cool. Have you done your family tree, yet?”

“Oh, yes,” said Malik. “My father and mother helped me last weekend.”

“Yeah,” said Zack, “mine, too.”

The bus came to a stop. “What’s the matter with you guys? Haven’t you ever heard about waiting till the last possible minute to do anything?”

Zack laughed. “You’re doing yours tonight, right?”

“Yep. Because they’re not due until
tomorrow
. See ya!”

56

The Donnelly
brothers had been working with Seth’s new zombie for more than a month.

“How come he only obeys you?” groused Joseph.

“Because I was the first human soul he came across after he got zombie-bit, I guess.”

Joseph balled up his fist like he was going to give his little brother a good walloping. “You’ll make him do whatever I tell you to make him do, right?”

“Sure, I will. You’re all the family I got, Joe.”

“And don’t you forget it, boy-o! We’re never gonna let some grown-up get the better of us again, are we?”

“No, Joe. We’re gonna get the better of them!”

Joe swung out his arm, but instead of punching his brother, he draped it over Seth’s shoulder. “You and me. We’re all we got. Together, we’re gonna make some dumb grown-up pay for what that Mr. Cooper done to us.”

“Then can we move on, Joe?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d like to meet my mom and dad.”

“I said maybe! First we need us our revenge!”

“Okay. How do we kill a grown-up so we can head home?”

Joseph gestured at the steam boiler. “See that thing? It used to be on Captain Pettimore’s paddle wheeler.”

“Sure, I remember. Mr. Cooper told us all about Pettimore.”

“Why you think the captain put it down here so deep in his tunnels?”

Seth shrugged. “To heat the place?”

“Nah. He’s dead. Don’t need no heat. Use your noggin, dummy.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You died too young. Didn’t get to be as smart as me.” Joseph walked over to the cold furnace. “See, we’re real close to where the captain hid his gold.”

“I know,” said Seth, who didn’t like it when his big brother said he was dumb. “I’ve seen it.”

“Well, think about it. The chamber on the other side of that door there, the one the chimney pipe winds its way over to? That there has to be one of the captain’s most ingenious defenses.”

“How’s it work?”

“Easy. His zombie chases a treasure hunter into this room; the man sees that chamber, runs in to hide. He slams the door shut, thinks he’s safe. Meanwhile, the zombie lowers that lock bar, ambles on back to the boiler here, and sets in to stoking the furnace beneath the water tank. Zombie gets a real nice fire goin’ with all that wood stacked up …”

“And all the smoke goes up the chimney and over to the locked chamber!”

“Bingo! The treasure hunter chokes, suffocates, and dies—just like we did.” Joseph winked. “Your zombie gets to feast on smoked brains!”

Now Seth started training his zombie to do the things Joseph wanted done. Loading firewood into the fuel doors underneath the boiler tank. Greasing the hinges on the lock bar outside the smokehouse-chamber door.

“You do a good job,” Seth told his zombie, “and I’ll let you go upstairs for some real tasty treats.”

“Yep,” added Joseph, “all the kid brains you can eat! A whole school of ’em.”

The zombie drooled.

“But you don’t get nothin’ but dried-up old carcasses and bones until we get us our revenge! Tell him, Seth!”

“You heard my brother?”

“Yes, master.”

“Good,” said Joseph. “Now, any Son of Daniel Boone will tell you, when setting a bear trap, the first thing you need to do is make sure it doesn’t look like a trap to the bear!”

“Open that door for us,” said Seth, indicating the heavy wooden door below the angled smokestack pipe.

The zombie opened the door and stepped into a small room, six feet wide, twelve feet long. The door on the far end was closed.

“That’s it! You still got those fire sticks?”

The zombie pulled the box of matches out of his tattered trousers.

“Let’s get this show on the road!” shouted Joseph.

The Donnelly brothers’ simple trap was set.

Now all they needed was one grown-up dumb enough to stumble into it.

The way they’d been dumb enough to trust that murdering liar Mr. Cooper.

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