The Zombie Next Door

CREEPY IS CLOSER THAN EVER

Leo is convinced his next-door neighbor, Mr. Smith, is a zombie. But in Rotfield, things aren't always what they seem. When a terrible incident happens to Mr. Smith, Leo realizes it's his fault. He and Chad try their best to make things right. But something about Mr. Smith seems very wrong. The boys are sure he's hiding something. Will they learn his deepest, darkest secret?

Cover

About this Book

Title Page

CHAPTER 1:
THE ZOMBIE NEXT DOOR

CHAPTER 2:
DEEP TROUBLE

CHAPTER 3:
CURIOUS INDEED

CHAPTER 4:
STRANGE SOUNDS

CHAPTER 5:
UNLOCKING MYSTERIES

CHAPTER 6:
THE ADAMS PARTY

CHAPTER 7:
ZOMBIES FOR REAL

CHAPTER 8:
ZOMBIES ON THE LOOSE

EPILOGUE

Note to Our Readers

Copyright

Read each title in Zombie Zappers

Tap, tap, tap. Scratch. Tap. Scritch. Tap.

Sigh.
Leo stopped typing for a minute and smiled to himself. He looked across the kitchen table at his friend Chad. This was one of Leo’s favorite ways to spend an afternoon—him on his laptop, Chad with his sketchbook. Two different artists, one awesome subject: zombies.

“What do you think?” Chad tipped back his chair and held out his page for Leo to see. It showed his latest T-shirt idea. “Do you think it will sell?” Chad was in charge of the merchandise section of Leo’s Zombie Zappers Web site, the one Leo was just updating.

Leo leaned in closer. The sketch showed a zombie handing a pie plate to another zombie. On the pie plate was a chopped-off hand, oozing blood at the wrist. “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” read the text.

“That’s pretty good,” Leo said. “But what if the hand was coming out of an actual pie?”

“Oh, that’s good.” Chad’s tongue poked out of the side of his mouth as he scrubbed the page with his eraser.

“Want to hear what I’ve got?” Leo didn’t even look up to see Chad’s nod before he began reading:

That night, Leo couldn’t sleep. He was too hot. His pajamas were too itchy. He’d fall asleep and then wake up wondering where he was.

Finally, Leo sat up and rubbed his eyes. He reached for his laptop. Maybe his post on Zombie Zappers had gotten some comments. Leo pressed the button and the screen’s green glare made him feel normal again. He scrolled down. Thirty comments!

“ZZ #1,” Leo began reading, “What are you still doing living next door to Mr. Squish? Don’t the words
sitting duck
mean anything to you? Grab your survival kit and—”

WHOOOO-HOOOOOO!

What the heck was that? It sounded like it was coming from outside.

YA-YA-YA-YAAAAAA!

It was somebody—some people—yelling. It was coming from next door. Leo pushed the curtains aside and looked out his window. Flashlights were crisscrossing everywhere in Mr. Squish’s yard. And dark figures were running—two, three. No, at least four.

Leo opened the window. He heard feet pounding on the dry grass. Glass shattering. A crash. Then,
Splat! Splat, splat, splat!
And the knocking sound of someone shaking a can of spray paint. Closer to his yard was a flash of something white. It unraveled, growing longer, loopier, like streamers at a party.

Then all the lights were on in Mr. Squish’s big old house at once. The old man was standing on his porch in a flapping bathrobe. He was shaking a fist over his head.

Splat, splat, splat!

All the dark figures slid into a car. Doors slammed. The engine revved. With a squeal, the car was gone in a haze of smoke.

Leo leaned against the window. What should he do? Should he go over there? Should he wake up his parents? Should he help?
Could
he? No, no. He was just a seventh grader, right? He didn’t have to do anything.

He kept watching, frozen in place. Mr. Squish pulled his bathrobe tight around him. He shuffled back into his house.

A moment later, Mr. Squish came back out of the house carrying his violin. The terrible squeaky noises filled the night. Leo closed the window.
Weird
was the last thought in Leo’s head as he slumped onto the floor and fell asleep at last.

Leo woke up with a feeling that something was wrong. What was it? Then he remembered about last night. Leo forced himself to look out his window. He took in the scene with one amazed gasp.

Mr. Squish’s house was splattered with gobs of rotten vegetables and streams of yellow egg. At least one window was broken. A porch railing was ripped off.

The yard was all torn up. The vandals had rolled the giant boulders from Mr. Squish’s stone wall across it. That left long, muddy streaks across the grass.

The gardens were destroyed too. The vandals must have ripped out the plants in big handfuls. Vines lay in withered clumps like dead bodies on a battlefield.

There was a mess of junk scattered everywhere: toilet paper rolls, empty spray cans, pieces of broken glass, eggshells, rotten fruit, and someone’s lost boot.

Leo looked over to Mr. Squish’s apple orchard on the other side of the house. That explained the white stuff. Toilet paper streamed from the branches.

Poor Mr. Squish,
Leo thought.
Why would anybody do this? What jerks!

Then Leo scanned over to the chicken coop. The little white house with its green roof gave off faint clucking sounds that Leo liked to listen to on quiet summer nights.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

The vandals had spray-painted a message across the side of the white coop. Even from this distance, Leo could make out the angry red letters: “GO AWAY, ZOMBIE!”

“Leo! Leeee-ooooooh!” Leo’s mother was calling from downstairs. “Leo, can you come down here, please?”

“Leonard Francis Wiley!” That was the angry voice of Leo’s father. “Get down here . . . NOW!”

Was it possible? No doubt, his parents knew what had happened to Mr. Squish. Had they somehow found out about his Zombie Zappers post? Did they think this was all his fault?

Leo’s feet were actually shaking as he tried to make them land on each stair. He grabbed the railing and half-slid down to the first floor.

The first thing he noticed was that the front door was slightly open. Then he saw a long, mud-splattered jacket hanging on the coat rack. A
gray
jacket.

Leo grabbed his stomach. Something deep inside his intestines gurgled up into his throat.

“Leo!” his father barked.

Leo forced himself to push open the kitchen door. His father was standing there, legs spread, arms crossed over his chest. He peered down at his son.

Leo’s mother was sitting at the table with a laptop open in front of her. The screen glowed green.
My Z-News update,
Leo realized. His mother reached out to him with both arms.

“Why, Leo?” she asked.

Shelly was there too, behind them at the counter. She wasn’t even bothering to pretend to butter her toast. She just stared open-mouthed at the unfolding spectacle.

Sitting across the table from Leo’s mother,
hands folded in his lap, was Mr. Squish. He looked weirdly different. The old man’s gray hair was usually a mess of spikes on his head. But now it was combed in neat lines over his scalp.

Leo had never looked so closely at his neighbor before. He saw that Mr. Squish’s eyes weren’t gray. They were light green, but sunken in shadows. Mr. Squish’s cheeks were dangling flaps of skin. They caved in around his bones. His gray whiskers looked like dirt growing from his neck.

“Have a seat.” Leo’s dad practically shoved a chair underneath him. “Mr. Smith has something he’d like to ask you.”

Leo met the old man’s eyes. All of a sudden, it felt like something was squeezing his heart. “I’m sorry about your yard,” Leo managed to squeak out.

Mr. Smith just nodded. “Me too,” he said evenly.

For the first time ever, Leo heard his neighbor’s voice. A scratchy, whispery voice. The sad voice of a living person—not a zombie.

Mr. Smith sat silently for a long time. “Son,” he said at last, “would you mind taking down that post about me on your Web site?”

Leo felt all the blood in his body rush to his face. His ears burned like glowing coals on the sides of his head. He nodded. “Um, yes. Yes, Mr. Squi—.” He looked up at his father, who was maybe even redder than he was. “Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Smith.”