Enter the Zombie Read online

  “We’ll see. Mort’s just one kid. I have a whole class to deal with.” Then she smiled and said, “Little Einstein … That’s kind of nice.”

  A bunch of other kids came over to congratulate us. Most of them gave me a strange look, like they weren’t sure it was safe to go near me.

  Mookie pointed to his shirt as we left the table. “Score one for Team Mookie. I think snagging second place in the shuttle run locked up the victory for us. It might look like a simple event, but it takes real strategy. The secret is in the turns.”

  He pivoted on his heels a couple of times, then stumbled and fell flat on his face. “Hey, look—I’m doing a Rodney imitation.”

  My parents came up to me on the way out. “That was very impressive,” Dad said. “Where’d you learn to box?”

  “Video games,” I said. “I play a lot at my friends’ houses. I’d play at home if I had my own system.”

  Dad ignored the hint.

  “I was afraid you’d hurt that poor boy,” Mom said.

  “Rodney’s tough,” I said.

  “When did you decide to enter this contest?” Dad asked.

  I shrugged. “The other day. It was a last-minute thing. But I guess we’re going to the second round. That’s okay with you, right? It’s just over in Hurston Lakes. But if we win that one, I think the third round is going to be in Princeton.”

  Mom and Dad both nodded. Good. It looked like we were all set.

  “Mr. Murphy will be happy we won,” Mookie said after my parents left. “You should send him a message.”

  “He already knows,” I said.

  “How?” Mookie looked up at the ceiling. “Did he plant a camera or something?”

  “Nope. He was there.”

  “I didn’t see him,” Mookie said.

  “The old man in the second row,” I said. “The one with the cane. That was him.”

  “Really?” Mookie glanced back over his shoulders at the empty bleachers. “How do you know?”

  “You can’t hide those ears,” I said. “Even under a fuzzy wig. And he was the only person in the audience who didn’t seem surprised by Abigail’s intelligence.” I turned to Abigail. “Speaking of hiding—how did it feel not hiding your brain power?”

  “Nice,” she said. “I could get used to this. Hey, you guys want to come over and celebrate?”

  “Sure.” That sounded good to me. I was proud of our team. But when we got to Abigail’s house, we found a big surprise waiting for her, and that surprise had brought an even bigger surprise, especially for me.

  8

  Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner

  “That’s weird,” Abigail said when we reached her house. “All the curtains are drawn. I hope everything’s okay.”

  I saw what she meant. There was a big window in the front of the house. Usually, you could see inside. But the curtains were closed. Mr. Murphy had taught me that it was important to pay attention to anything around you that suddenly changed.

  “Mom?” Abigail called when we went inside. “Where are you?”

  “In the kitchen,” her mom called back. “Are you alone?”

  “Nathan and Mookie are with me,” Abigail said.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Abigail shrugged. “No idea.” She took two steps, then stopped and said, “Wait. There’s only one explanation. Ohmygosh!” She raced down the hall and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Twinkle!” someone shouted.

  It can’t be.

  “Uncle Zardo!” Abigail said.

  It is.

  “It’s him,” I said to Mookie. “Nobody else calls her Twinkle.”

  “Not unless they want a kick in the shins. But I thought he was hiding out on some island,” Mookie said.

  “Yeah, he was on Bezimo Island. It’s in the Caribbean. I guess he came back.” I went to the kitchen. Abigail’s uncle Zardo, the crazy scientist who’d made the formula that killed me, was sitting on a stool by the kitchen counter. He looked different. He had a tan, his dark hair was dyed blond, and he’d shaved his mustache. But he still had eyes that seemed to be seeing a different world from the one the rest of us saw. At the moment, Abigail was giving him a hug.

  “Nathan,” she said, turning her head toward me, “look who’s here.”

  “I see.” I scanned the table to make sure there weren’t any bottles of chemicals, or anything else that could make things even worse for me. “Aren’t the police after you?”

  “They have more important things to do,” Zardo said. “That whole incident at the college was just a small misunderstanding. Nothing worth worrying about. I’m sure they’ve forgotten all about me.”

  “Then why are the curtains closed?” I asked.

  “I’d rather not remind them of our encounter. I might have neglected to ask their permission before I slipped away.” He turned to Abigail’s mom. “Do you have any of that bread I like? The type with the thick crust? I haven’t had a decent grilled cheese sandwich since I left the country.”

  “I’m all out,” Abigail’s mom said. “I’ll run to the store. It won’t take long. It’s just two blocks away.”

  As soon as the front door closed, Abigail’s uncle leaned toward me and said, “Let me tell you why I’m here. When I heard what the Hurt-Be-Gone did to you, I started doing research. Luckily, I was already in the perfect place. Bezimo Island is the source of some of the most believable of the original zombie legends, as well as being the only place on earth where the corpse flower grows naturally. I felt that if a cure existed, I’d find it there.”

  “A cure?” I still hoped I’d get to be alive again some day, but I guess part of me had accepted that it might never happen. I was trying to make the best of a dead situation.

  “Yes. A cure. I believe I’ve found one.”

  I didn’t leap up in the air and shout. Zardo’s first formula, which was supposed to erase bad feelings, had wiped out my body’s feelings instead, and slowly turned me from a living kid to a half-dead zombie. It was actually a formula Abigail had created, but her uncle had used the corpse flower by mistake instead of the corpus flower. There was no reason to believe anything he came up with would work. I looked at Abigail.

  “What’s the cure?” she asked him.

  “Didn’t you get my text messages?” he asked.

  “That was you?” Abigail grabbed her phone and pulled up her old messages. “What in the world does hunting cur morel eater mean? Or rarf lower?”

  Zardo stared at the phone for a moment. “Oh, dear. That was supposed to be Hunting cure. More Later. And, of course, Rare flower. I guess my texteaser needs tweaking.”

  “Texteaser?” Abigail asked.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out some sort of mechanical box with ten metal thumbs on it. He slid a phone into a slot under the thumbs, then shoved two fingers into an opening in the bottom. The thumbs started wriggling, tapping the surface of the box. “You can do everything with a pair of fingers. It makes texting so much easier. Especially for people who are on the move a lot. At least, it will when I iron out a few wrinkles.”

  I had a feeling we could get way off track if I didn’t stop them. “The cure?” I asked.

  “The corpse flower caused the problem,” he said. “According to legend, there’s an anima flower than can bring someone halfway back to life. Since you’re only halfway dead, that should be enough to do the trick.”

  “So that’s what enima flow was supposed to be. Anima flower. Is it on Bezimo Island?” Abigail asked.

  “No. I’m fairly certain it has to be on the opposite side of the world,” Zardo said. “You have to admit, that sort of makes sense.”

  Abigail glanced up at the ceiling for a second. I guess it didn’t take her long to figure out a simple geography problem—simple for her, at least.

  “Somewhere near the Philippines,” she said.

  “That’s what I believe.” He handed her a sheet of paper. “These are the other ingredients, a
nd the steps required to mix everything. The rest should be easy to get. The flower will require a bit of travel.”

  “We can’t go there,” Abigail said.

  “But I can,” Uncle Zardo said. “I just wanted to see you before I went there, and let you know I’m trying to fix things.”

  “That’s sweet,” Abigail said.

  “And borrow a bit of money from your mother for the trip,” he added.

  “That’s typical.” She gave him another hug. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too, Twinkle.”

  I guess the second Twinkle was too much for Mookie. He struggled hard, but he failed to hold back his snicker. He stopped laughing as soon as Abigail kicked his shin. That turned his snicker into a howl.

  An instant later, his howl had company. I heard a siren somewhere off in the distance. My hearing is better than anyone who’s alive because I don’t have the sound of blood rushing through my head. “You sure nobody knows you’re in the country?” I asked Zardo.

  He frowned, looked toward the window as the siren grew louder, then said, “Why take chances? I better get going. It’s a long way to the Philippines.” He hopped off his stool and dashed out the back door.

  The siren got even louder, then shot past the house. I watched through the window as an ambulance streaked by. “Not the police,” I said.

  “Not this time,” Abigail said. “But they’d track him down sooner or later if he stayed around. Uncle Zardo is sort of like a magnet for trouble. It’s probably a good idea for him to keep moving.”

  “Do you really think he found a cure?” I asked. “He’s not exactly the best scientist on the planet.”

  “It’s possible. I’ll try to do some research on the anima flower tonight,” Abigail said. “Knowing him, it probably has some other effects he thinks he can use to get rich. But that doesn’t mean it can’t help you.”

  The front door opened. Abigail’s mom came back in, carrying a small bag of groceries. When she reached the kitchen, she looked at the empty stool. “Where’s Zardo?”

  “He had to get going,” Abigail said.

  “But you’re still making grilled cheese, right?” Mookie asked.

  I wanted to believe Abigail’s uncle was going somewhere that would help me. I wasn’t letting my hopes get too high. Right now, I needed to keep my attention on winning the next round of Brainy Brawny. It wouldn’t be as easy as beating Rodney, Eddy, and Mort. There’d be teams there from all over South Jersey.

  “Aren’t you worried about him?” Mookie asked.

  “No,” Abigail said. “I’m worried about school on Monday.”

  So was I. Now that I had some time to think about our victory in the gym, I realized it was going to change the way kids treated me. Whether it would be a good or bad change, I couldn’t guess.

  9

  Slipping Pasta Security

  Saturday night, as I was lying in bed, my radio switched on by itself. I went over to shut it off, but a message popped up in the little window where you see the station number. Words scrolled across the panel: GO TO BUM. I saw a small wisp of smoke drift from the back of the radio. I unplugged it from the wall before it could burst into flames.

  After I was sure my parents were in bed, I snuck out of the house and went to the Museum of Tile and Grout.

  Once I reached BUM, Mr. Murphy said, “That was an impressive display of boxing skill, Nathan. It was clever how you used his actions to lower his defense. You can definitely think on your feet.” He let out a little laugh. “Or should I say, on your toes? Perhaps I really should look into some martial arts training for you.”

  “I’d love that.” I threw a kick, and then a karate chop.

  “But not this evening,” he said.

  “Am I doing some spy training?” I asked. Mr. Murphy had taught me all sorts of spycraft, both at BUM headquarters and out in the world. I knew how to follow people, and how to make a drop. I’d even learned a bit about secret codes, though that wasn’t my best thing.

  “Not tonight. We have a mission,” he said. “It should be an easy one, but I assure you, it is vital.”

  “What is it?”

  Mr. Murphy looked away.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m absolutely going to tell you. I was just figuring out how to tell you.”

  I waited.

  “We uncovered a laboratory that is doing botanical research,” he said. “It’s funded by people who help support RABID. We believe they’re growing the corpse flower, along with a variety of other rare and dangerous plants.”

  “And you want the place destroyed?” I asked.

  “That’s the mission.”

  “So why were you worried about telling me?” I asked.

  “The greatest danger for any spy occurs when he is personally involved with a mission. If you start thinking about the corpse flower, and what it did to you, you might get distracted, or make a foolish decision. Can you handle this mission?”

  “For sure.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Always.”

  We took a regular elevator down to another floor. The door opened into a large room. Mr. Murphy went over to a table and picked up a package wrapped in plastic. “Here. Take this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Clothes,” he said. “You really don’t want to walk around covered in sauce.”

  “Sauce?”

  “Spaghetti sauce,” he said. “You’re infiltrating the facility by hiding inside a drum of spaghetti sauce.”

  “You’re kidding.” I checked his face for any sign of a smile.

  “Not at all. It’s the only way we’ve come up with to get an agent inside. Security there is very tight.”

  I took the package. Then I pointed to my shirt. “What about the clothes I’m wearing?”

  “You might want to leave them here,” he said.

  Great. I seemed to end up in my underwear a lot more than you’d think a superspy would. I took off my pants and shirt. I could see myself climbing out of the drum, dripping sauce from every part of me. “What about my body? That’s going to be soaked.”

  “There should be a sink or something over there,” Mr. Murphy said. “You’ll be in an area where food is prepared. I’m sure a resourceful spy such as yourself will have no trouble finding a way to clean up.”

  “What do I do when I get there?”

  Mr. Murphy handed me a small package wrapped in plastic. “First, you’ll unscrew the lid of the drum. After you get cleaned up, find the room with the corpse flower. Unwrap the package. There’s a small device in here with a power cord. Plug it into any wall outlet.”

  I took the package from him. It was small but heavy. “It won’t explode, will it?”

  “I certainly hope it will.”

  “What?” I almost dropped the package.

  “Relax. I’m kidding. RABID blows things up. We don’t. This will just cause the wiring in the whole building to slowly overheat. People will have plenty of time to escape. Nobody will be harmed, but the plants growing in the lab will be destroyed. Many of them could be used for dangerous purposes. After you’ve installed the device, go back to the kitchen. Somewhere along the rear wall, there’ll be a chute.”

  “What kind of chute?” I asked.

  “It’s a garbage chute,” he said.

  “Great, you’re sending me into a pile of garbage again.”

  Mr. Murphy shook his head. “Not this time. The chute empties directly into a river.”

  “A river?” I wasn’t sure whether I was more annoyed that garbage was getting dumped into a river, or that I was getting dumped into one.

  “What can I say? They’re not very nice people. But that isn’t important. Listen carefully. When you hit the water, stay under and keep swimming. Don’t come to the surface until you reach the other bank. I’ll be waiting for you up there. Questions?”

  “Does it have to be spaghetti sauce?”r />
  “Would you prefer borscht?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Beet soup.”

  “I guess not. Let’s do it.” I tucked the package under my arm and walked over to the drum. There was a chair next to it for me to stand on.

  “In you go,” Mr. Murphy said. “After we screw on the lid, you’ll be loaded on a truck. Then there will be a short plane ride. After that—”

  “A plane ride? I can’t go that far away.” Tomorrow was Sunday, so I didn’t have to be up early for school, but my parents would check on me sooner or later if I didn’t show up for lunch.

  “You’ll be back home in plenty of time,” Mr. Murphy said. “It’s an extremely fast plane. Once you land, you’ll be loaded onto another truck, and then the drum will be brought inside the target facility. Once the drum stops moving, count to one thousand before you come out. We don’t want the delivery men to spot you.”

  I stepped into the sauce. It rose up as I sank down. “Are you sure I’ll be home in time?”

  “Absolutely. Good luck. Oh—one more thing. Stay alert. There might be armed guards.”

  I scrunched down and let the sauce cover my head. It was strange. I could feel the weight of it. Not in a big way. It wasn’t like I was being crushed. But I could tell that I was in something a lot thicker than water. Or milk. I couldn’t help laughing. Milk. Sauce. I was working my way through a balanced meal. Maybe I could hide in a crate of artichokes next.

  A moment later, I felt the drum rising. The noise from outside was muffled by the sauce, but it sounded like they were using a forklift.

  Here I go.

  It all went as Mr. Murphy said. I could feel the truck moving for a while. Finally, it stopped. I heard the truck door open. I started moving again.

  Whoa!

  Even though I couldn’t see anything, I could tell I was going fast. My body was pressed hard against the side of the drum. I couldn’t guess how long I was in the air. After we landed, I felt the drum getting moved to a second truck. That ride was a lot bouncier. Finally, I had another forklift ride. Then all the motion stopped.

  After I counted to one thousand, I unscrewed the top of the drum. There were handles inside that made it easy. When I climbed out, I saw I was in some sort of storage area in the back of a large kitchen. I found a sink and managed to wash off the sauce, and then dry myself with dish towels. I wiped up the floor and put the lid back on the drum, just in case any guards passed through while I was on my mission. After I got dressed, I went out to look for the plants.