Attack of the Shark-Headed Zombie (4 page)

“Okay,” Keats said. “Step one says we have to stand on one foot.” The boys did. Keats was a little more wobbly than Henry.

Keats read step two. “Now wave the wand.”

Henry did. “What’s next?”

“I don’t know,” Keats answered. “We’re supposed to say something. But step three is missing. I don’t know what the words are.”

“You named your bike after the guy who wrote the dictionary,” Henry said. “You like words! Make something up!”

Keats thought for a second. “How about … zombie, go up a tree and set us free!”

“That’s really strange,” Henry said with a nod. “But I like it.”

Henry waved the wand, and both boys said, “Zombie, go up a tree and set us free!”

Keats held his breath. Henry was grinning, waiting for a bang or something big.

But nothing happened. The zombie just kept ramming the wall. The boys put both feet on the floor again.

“Sorry,” Keats said, disappointed. “We need the real words to make the spell work.”

“It’s not just that. Listen.” Henry shook the wand again. Keats heard a rattling sound. It was the noise a burned-out lightbulb makes.

Keats said, “The bulb is burned out. The wand probably can’t work with a busted bulb.”

“No problem,” said Henry. “We’ll just get another one.”

But it was a problem. They looked in the cabinets. There weren’t any bulbs there. And the ones in the lamps in the kitchen were all too big. They didn’t fit into the wand.

“Hold on!” Henry said. “I know where we can find a bulb. In the note, Mr. Cigam asked us to
bring the box of lightbulbs down from the attic.
The bulbs are waiting for us! We just have to go get them.”

Keats felt his stomach flip-flop.

If the garden and the kitchen were so creepy, he could only imagine how scary the attic would be.

“WAIT A SECOND
, Henry,” Keats said. “I just want to make sure I understand your new World’s Greatest Plan.” He took a deep breath and asked, “You want us to go up to the attic to get the lightbulbs and bring them downstairs and use one of them to put in the wand so we can zap the zombie with a spell and finish the to-do list so the owner of the house will come back and take us home?”

Henry laughed at the really long question. He knew Keats was trying to stall. “Don’t go chicken on me, Keats. We can follow my plan. Or we can stay here and wait for our zombie pal.”

Keats looked at the shaking kitchen wall. The pounding from outside had gotten louder. Cracks were forming in the wall. It wouldn’t be long before the zombie broke through.

“Okay, let’s go,” Keats said.

Henry opened the door on the other side of the room. Behind the door was a hallway.

“
Another
hallway?” Keats asked.

Henry shrugged. “I guess that’s why Mr. Cigam called this place Hallway House.”

The hallway was fairly dark. Doors lined both walls. And at the end, they could make out the bottom steps of a winding staircase.

“Those steps must lead up to the attic,” Henry said. “Come on.”

With Keats holding the wand, the boys crept out of the kitchen. After they walked through the doorway, it shimmered. Then it was gone. This seemed totally normal by now. But it also made the hallway even darker.

Slowly, the boys made their way down the hall.

“Ouch!” a voice said.

Henry chuckled. “What’s wrong now, Keats?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Keats said.

“Then who said ‘ouch’?” Henry asked.

“I thought you did,” Keats said. He took another step.

“Ouch!” a voice said again. Something nipped at Keats’s toes. He could feel it through his sneaker. He jerked back his foot. “What was that?” Keats asked in shock.

“It’s too dark,” Henry said. “I can’t tell.”

Keats pressed the button for the light on his watch. He aimed the light down at the carpet.

“There are faces on the rug!” Keats yelled. In the dim light from his watch, he could see the pattern in the carpet. Faces as big as oranges had been woven into the fabric.

The faces were repeated over and over. There was one about every three inches—and they were moving!

Blinking, yawning, frowning. Each face was like the head of a stick figure. They just had eyes and mouths and looked like something a little kid might draw.

Henry crouched down and touched one of the faces.

“Ouch!” the face cried. It bit Henry’s finger. He pulled his hand back.

“I don’t think they have teeth, but that still hurts!” Henry said. “Why would Mr. Cigam want a carpet like this?”

“Maybe the faces are like the zombie, and he doesn’t want them here,” Keats said. “What are we going to do? We can’t go back. And we can’t get to the attic steps without stepping on the faces.”

Henry frowned and then snapped his fingers. “Sure we can!” he announced. “Just walk on your toes. Like this.” Henry stood up on the tips of his shoes and stepped forward. As Henry moved, he put his toes in the empty spaces between the faces.

Henry tiptoed farther down the hall. “Come on, Keats! It’s kind of like dancing.”

That was the problem. Keats wasn’t a very good dancer. But he didn’t have a choice.

Keats got up on his toes. He looked down and started walking carefully on the carpet. His eyes were used to the dark now. As Keats stepped between the faces, they watched him. A couple opened their mouths. They were ready to bite him if he stepped too close.

That made it even harder to think about what he was doing. Keats started tiptoeing faster. Soon he was moving so quickly, he couldn’t stop. If he did, he’d fall over.

Waving the wand in front of him, Keats pushed past Henry and almost tripped both of them. Then he started to mess up.

“Ouch!” said a face on the carpet as Keats stepped on it.

“Ouch!” said Keats as the face bit his toe.

“Ouch!” another face shouted, and bit down.

“Ouch!” Keats cried again.

The hall filled with shouts of “Ouch!” from the faces and Keats.

“Almost there!” Henry called over the racket. “Keep going!”

The boys were just a few feet away from the attic stairs. But Keats couldn’t make it. A face bit down especially hard on his toe. Keats finally lost his balance and fell sideways.

“Ack!” Keats yelled. He tumbled through a doorway. The wrong doorway.

Henry didn’t have a choice. He had to follow Keats or they would be separated.

“I’m coming, Keats!” Henry shouted.

And before the door could disappear, Henry dove after him.

THE COUSINS ROLLED
through the doorway, across the room’s hard floor, and banged to a stop against a bookshelf.

Once again, Keats and Henry found themselves lying on their backs, trying to catch their breath.

“Where are we?” Henry asked, sitting up.

Keats sat up, too. Luckily, he had managed to hold on to the wand. He looked around the
room. Bookshelves climbed up the high walls. Weird railings that looked like thick tubes wove in and out of the shelves.

“It’s a library,” Keats said. He was still a little dizzy from all the tumbling.

Henry looked pretty unhappy. “Well, I’m glad we’re in one of your favorite places,” he said. “Because we’re trapped.”

It was true. The door to the hallway had become a wall after they fell through it. And there wasn’t a single door or window in the room.

Keats felt lousy. “I’m sorry, Henry. We were so close to the attic and getting the lightbulb! I just couldn’t keep my balance.”

Henry gave him a smile. “Hey, don’t worry about it, Keats,” he said. “I wanted a tour of the house anyway.”

Keats smiled, too. Then he thought of something. “In books,” he said, “libraries in creepy
houses always have secret passages.”

Henry frowned. “Secret passages?”

“Sure, you know, hidden doorways,” Keats said. “We just have to pull on the right book, and I bet a way out will open up.”

“There are thousands of books in here,” Henry said. “But it can’t hurt to try.”

The cousins got to their feet. They started sliding books on and off the nearest shelf. Nothing happened.

Maybe one of the books on the higher shelves would do the trick. Keats climbed up onto one of the wide railings. It was a little soft but held his weight.

Keats pulled on book after book. Still no sign of a secret door. Suddenly the railing he was standing on started to move. It twisted and turned under his feet.

Keats dropped the book in his hand. He jumped down to the floor.

“Was that an earthquake?” Keats asked.

“More like an earth
worm
,” Henry said. “A big one.”

He pointed at what Keats had thought was a railing. The thick tube was sliding around with squishy, glooping sounds.

“That’s not an earthworm. It’s a giant bookworm!” Keats cried.

As if to prove Keats right, the worm pulled its head out of a nearby book. It didn’t have eyes or ears. But its mouth was as wide as a watermelon. The worm chomped down on another book. It tore off part of the cover and chewed slowly, like a cow with a mouthful of grass.

Keats looked around the library again. There were at least six more giant bookworms tunneling through the books. Each one was as long as a minivan. They must have gone still when the boys burst into the room. But now they seemed to realize the cousins weren’t a threat and went back to eating.