The Zombie Zone-a to z 26 (4 page)

Your picture is excellent! Ruth Rose said. “My grandmother likes to paint, too.”

Byron smiled and blushed. He walked toward his little garden. “Do you like strawberries?”

“Sure!” Josh said, and the kids followed Byron.

The garden was neatly laid out in rows. A shovel and hoe stood leaning against a small tree. There were tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and some things Dink didn’t recognize. One corner of the garden was filled with strawberry plants.

Byron told Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose to help themselves. The kids waded into the patch carefully as they picked the bright red berries.

Suddenly they heard a
whoosh
, and a large owl flew out of the trees. The bird landed on Byron’s wrist and plucked a strawberry from his hand.

“This is Bill,” the man said.

“He’s awesome!” Josh said.

Byron stretched his arm toward Josh. “You can pet him,” he said proudly.

While Josh was petting Bill, Ruth Rose poked Dink on the arm. When he looked at her, she nodded toward the shovel a few feet away.

The edges of the shovel blade were caked with red clay.

Byron carried Bill over to the soup pot. The kids watched him scoop out something and feed it to the owl.

“That red dirt looks the same as the dirt at the graveyard!” Ruth Rose whispered.

“So what?” Josh said, plucking another berry from the patch.

“Josh, that could mean Byron was digging in the cemetery,” she said, keeping her voice low. “The soil here in his garden is black, not red!”

Josh’s hand stopped halfway to his mouth. His eyes shut, then flew open again. “You mean … that could have been
him
in the cemetery last night!”

“Not so loud!” Dink whispered. “Guys, I’m sure there’s red clay in other places around here, not just in the cemetery. I saw the same color clay on the floor of Jack’s van yesterday.”

Josh stole a look at Byron, who was still feeding Bill. “That guy we saw last night had light hair like Byron’s,” he whispered. “And look at his big feet. He could have made those footprints we saw near the cemetery.”

“None of that proves anything,” Dink said.

He remembered Jack in the moonlight last night. Jack’s blond hair had looked silvery, the same as the hair of the mystery man in the cemetery. “I have some other ideas,” Dink added quietly.

Just then Byron looked up and smiled at the kids. “Do you want to swing on my tire?” he asked.

“N-no, thank you,” Ruth Rose said. “We have to be getting back.”

Byron tossed Bill into the air and the bird disappeared in the trees. Then Byron walked toward the kids and stretched out a huge hand. “It was very nice meeting you,” he said.

Dink shook Byron’s hand. Beneath the skin Dink felt the man’s strength.

“It was nice meeting you, too,” Dink said.

The kids walked toward the trail. When Byron and the cabin were out of sight, they began running. Five minutes later, they stopped, panting, in front of Myrna’s little hut.

Myrna was sitting on her porch talking with a woman dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.

“Did you kids have fun?” Myrna asked.

“Yes!” Josh said. “We met a big guy named Byron and his owl.”

“He showed us his painting,” Ruth Rose said. “He sure is a good artist.”

Myrna nodded. “Byron makes his own paints from nature,” she said. “He gathers berries, digs up roots, anything he can find. He grinds the stuff up to create his different colors.”

Myrna introduced the woman to the kids. “Lucy is a friend of Jack’s,” she said. “She’ll drive you back to your hotel.”

Lucy smiled at the kids. “Jack’s at the hospital with his wife,” she said. “Looks like today is the day for the baby to be born.”

They said good-bye to Myrna and followed Lucy to the trail. They had only gone a short distance when they saw a man approaching them. He was hurrying toward the village.

When the man noticed Lucy and the kids, he stopped. His face was red and sweaty. “Am I on the right trail for the village?” he asked.

The man was wearing a straw hat, dressy pants, and a striped shirt. His briefcase and shiny black shoes looked out of place in the forest.

Even with the hat, Dink recognized the man. He had been sitting near them at the hotel restaurant yesterday. What was he doing in the woods?

“Yes, about another five minutes straight ahead,” Lucy said. Then she added, “Is anyone expecting you?”

“Yes,” the man said, then hurried on his way.

“That’s odd,” Lucy said after the man left them. She chuckled. “If he’s a salesman, he’ll have a hard time selling anything!”

They kept walking. When they passed the zombie sign, Dink asked Lucy about it.

“I have no idea what that means or who put it there,” Lucy said.

“Jack thought it might be a joke,” Ruth Rose said.

“Not very funny,” Lucy said. “A lot of people who live near these parts believe in zombies.”

Lucy dropped the kids off, and they traipsed into the hotel.

“What are we gonna do about Byron?” Josh asked. “I think he dug up those graves, and I think he was the guy we saw in the cemetery last night!”

“Let’s talk upstairs,” Dink said quietly.

They took the elevator. On their floor, Ruth Rose unlocked the room she shared with her grandmother.

“Here’s what I think,” Dink said, sitting on the carpet. “The man we saw in the cemetery last night might have dug up those two graves, but we don’t know that for sure.”

Josh and Ruth Rose plopped down next to Dink.

“And we don’t know if the guy we saw was Byron, either,” Dink went on.

“Well, I think it was Byron,” Josh said. “Who else could it be?”

“How about Jack?” Dink asked. “He’s tall, and he has light hair like the man in the cemetery.”

“Jack?” Ruth Rose said. “But he was sleeping in his hammock.”

“Did you actually
see
him in the hammock when we left?” Dink asked. “Jack could’ve gone to the cemetery-after we were asleep and made it back to the campsite before we did.”

Josh shook his head. “Why would Jack be down inside that grave?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Dink said. “But I don’t know why Byron would, either.”

“I just thought of someone else with light hair,” Ruth Rose said.

Dink and Josh looked at her.

“That man we passed on the trail with Lucy,” she said. “He was wearing that funny hat, but underneath, his hair was kind of grayish white.”

“And you know what else?” Dink said. “He and another guy were sitting in the restaurant when we had lunch with your grandmother yesterday!”

“So?” said Josh.

“Well, they seemed pretty interested when we were talking about zombies and stuff,” Dink said.

Josh laughed. “Who wouldn’t be?” he said.

Just then the kids heard a light
thump
coming from the hallway. They froze, all staring at the doorknob as it slowly turned.

Suddenly the door swung open and Ruth Rose’s grandmother walked in.

“What’s the matter with you three?” she asked, setting down her paint box. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Gram, you scared us!” Ruth Rose cried.

“Me? I’m just a harmless old lady! So how was the sleep-out with Jack?” she asked.

“We had a nice time, Gram,” Ruth Rose said. “We’ve just been trying to figure out who robbed those graves.”

Ruth Rose’s grandmother sat on her bed and kicked off her sandals. “Can I help?” she asked.

Ruth Rose told her grandmother all about going to the cemetery last night, and about the man they saw crawling out of the grave.

“My word!” her grandmother said. “Did you tell Jack what you saw?”

“Yes,” Dink said. “He said it was probably one of the men from the village guarding the cemetery.”

“Dink thinks the guy we saw was Jack,” Josh said.

“I didn’t say it was Jack,” Dink responded. “I said it could be. The person in the grave was tall and he had light hair and dark clothes. Just like Jack.”

“And just like Byron,” Josh said.

Ruth Rose’s grandmother looked at Josh. “Now, who is Byron?” she asked.

“He’s this man we met after Jack took his wife to the hospital this morning,” Ruth Rose said.

“Yes, Jack kindly called me and let me know you’d be staying in the village with someone called Myrna Sanchez,” her grandmother said. “But you decided to go back to the cemetery, right?”

“We wanted to look for clues,” Ruth Rose said. “But the villagers were all in the cemetery, so we followed some footprints. They led right to a cabin in the woods. That’s where we met Byron and his owl, Bill.”

“I think Byron’s the guy we saw in the graveyard,” Josh interrupted. “I think he stole those coffins, too, because there was red dirt on his shovel just like the clay in the cemetery!”

Finally, Ruth Rose told her grandmother about the man they had met on the path. “It could have been him, too,” she said. “He had light hair, and he seemed pretty interested in the village.”

Dink mentioned that the same man had been eating lunch near them yesterday. “I think he was trying to hear what we were saying,” he said.

“Okay you’ve mentioned three different men who are tall with light hair,” Ruth Rose’s gram said. “One of them could be the man you saw last night. What I don’t understand is why any of them would have any interest in that cemetery.”

“I just thought of something,” Dink said. “When we walked down to the water with Jack, he told us he’d love to buy a piece of that land.”

Everyone was staring at Dink.

“What if Jack put up that sign and dug up the graves to scare the villagers?” Dink continued. “If they left, maybe he’d be able to buy their land.”