Zombiefied!

by C. M. Gray

  ‘Guess I’m a bit overprotective, sorry about that,’ said Mr Knight again, leaning down and grabbing my beanie out of the dirt. He dusted it off and handed it to me. ‘I’m glad you didn’t mention it to Sophie.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said, taking the beanie and putting it on. I headed for my bike, keen to get out of there as quickly as possible. The guy sure was being weird!

  By the time I’d reached the end of the street, Sophie was way ahead of me and pedalling hard. We always race to school. The trouble is that she usually wins, especially if she gets a head-start. I decided to take a short-cut through Henderson Park. I could see her flying along the road just beside me. At the park entrance, I swerved between the posts and zoomed up the footpath to avoid the speed bumps on the road at the school gate. It was against school rules to ride on the footpath, especially just before the bell went when heaps of kids were arriving, but I was pretty awesome at riding my bike and I knew I wouldn’t hit anyone.

  Then —

  ‘AAAAGGGHHH!’

  I swerved as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The front wheel of my bike connected with someone’s legs before bumping down into the gutter, while the back wheel skidded out. I fell sideways off my bike, landing on one hand and one knee. Luckily, I’d managed to slow down enough that the fall didn’t hurt too much. Sophie glided past me, looking smug.

  The legs I’d hit stopped in front of me. ‘What’d you do that for?’

  I was about to tell him it was his fault for stepping out in front of me. But when I looked up from my position on the ground, I clamped my lips shut.

  The kid I’d run into was called Tank. I’m not sure if that was the name he was given by his mum and dad, or if that was just the best way to describe him. Tank was big and square and hard. He was big enough to still be standing while I was sprawled on the ground.

  ‘Ahh . . .’ I muttered. ‘Sorry, Tank. My mistake.’

  ‘Yeah, it was your mistake,’ he said, staring down at me. ‘A mistake you won’t make again.’

  A few people had gathered around. They looked like they were hoping for a fight.

  ‘Well, like I said,’ I began, as I climbed to my feet and brushed the dirt off my knee, ‘I didn’t see you there, Tank.’ Some of the crowd laughed, because saying you didn’t see Tank was like saying you didn’t see an elephant when it was standing right in front of you. ‘Umm . . . what I mean is . . .’

  ‘You sound like you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’,’ said Tank, suddenly leaning down so his nose was only inches from mine. Cruisin’ for a bruisin’ was Tank’s favourite saying. ‘Are you cruisin’ for a bruisin’, little Benny?’ he said in a high-pitched voice, like he was talking to a kid in Year One.

  ‘Fight!’ someone yelled from the crowd. Then they all started chanting: ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’

  Tank pulled back his fist and took aim at my face.

  5

  I closed my eyes and braced myself. Getting hit by Tank would be pretty much the same as getting hit by an actual tank. It was not going to tickle . . .

  ‘What’s going on here, boys?’ asked a voice.

  I opened my eyes. Mr Crumpet, the Chemistry teacher, was staring down at us. I breathed a sigh of relief. Tank wouldn’t dare punch me in front of a teacher, even though Mr Crumpet was probably the softest teacher in the school.

  ‘Umm,’ said Tank, thinking fast. Or at least trying to think fast. ‘Umm . . .’

  I had to admit, it was pretty hard to think around Mr Crumpet. The man was kind of weird. I mean, it’s not every day you see someone wandering around with a raven on their shoulder!

  Mr Crumpet had found the bird when he was just a chick. He called him Corvus and kept him as a pet. Corvus wore a little hood over his eyes, so he wouldn’t fly away.

  Now the bird turned his head toward the sound of our voices and made a soft clicking noise with his beak.

  ‘It looks like Ben fell off his bike,’ said Mr Crumpet, ‘and you were helping him back onto his feet. Is that what happened, Tank?’

  Tank nodded slowly, staring at the bird. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what happened.’

  I nodded too. It was such a relief not to get punched in the face by Tank, I would have agreed to anything. ‘I’m OK. Thanks, Tank, for your . . . help.’

  Tank glared at me and disappeared into the crowd.

  ‘Looks like you’ve grazed your knee,’ said Mr Crumpet, peering at my leg, where a drop of blood was running down my shin. ‘It might be a good idea to go and give that a wash before class starts.’

  ‘Sure, Mr Crumpet,’ I said.

  Mr Crumpet never told us to do anything. He never even made us do homework! Instead, he just ‘suggested’ it would be ‘in our best interests’ to do things, like revise around exam time. Funnily enough, everyone worked just as hard in his class as they did in any other class. Maybe it was because Mr Crumpet seemed so gentle, none of us wanted to disappoint him.

  I wheeled my bike through the school gates. Of course Sophie was just on the other side of them, looking pleased with herself.

  ‘I won!’ she said, pulling her bike in beside mine. The Fuzzil was still stuck on her shoulder.

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ I said. How could she just ride right past me when I’d fallen off my bike? And where was she when I was attacked by the school bully? Some friend! I sped up and pushed my way through the crowd.

  ‘What’s the matter? It didn’t seem like the fall hurt that much,’ she said, running to keep up with me.

  I didn’t answer. If she couldn’t figure it out, why should I tell her? Angrily, I shoved my front tyre into the bike rack and wound my bike lock around the wheel.

  ‘Ben!’ She dropped her bike on the grass and stood with her hands on her hips. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Tank nearly punched my lights out!’ I said.

  ‘What?’ She looked stunned, but I didn’t buy it. ‘When?’

  ‘Just now.’ I was so mad, I was almost shouting. ‘After I fell off my bike!’

  ‘Are you OK . . .?’

  I ignored her. It was obvious she didn’t care! I dodged around her and lost her among the crowd. Maybe washing my knee was a good idea; that way she wouldn’t be able to follow me into the boys’ toilets.

  The bell rang as I walked through the school doors. The hallway was filled with kids, some taking things out of their lockers, some chatting as they made their way to class. A few said hello to me, but I pretended not to hear them as I made a beeline for the boys’ toilets, which were down the end of another smaller, less crowded hallway, opposite an old staircase. The staircase was blocked off with a rope, which had a little sign dangling over it:

  I think this was meant to show people the stairs were steep and dangerous, but someone had drawn on it with a black marker. Now the sign looked like this:

  If it hadn’t been for the sign, I would never have even noticed that one of the panels, which blocked off the space under the stairs, was loose. I stopped to inspect it. It wasn’t loose; it was open. What seemed to be a bit of ordinary wall panelling was actually a door. It reminded me of one of my favourite video games, Return of the Infected. Zombies would jump out from hidden doorways when you least expected it. Could zombies be lurking here too?

  I looked around. The hallway was now empty. I pulled the door open further.

  Inside was a small room. The floor was cluttered with stuff: stacks of buckets, boxes of rags, vacuum cleaners and other machines. Mops were leant up against one corner. A shelf, with fancy carved knobs at either end, ran along the length of one wall. It was piled high with cleaning products.

  This must be the janitor’s storeroom. It made sense that they would want this stuff near the toilets, but they wouldn’t want the kids to know where it was kept. People would come in and trash it! I imagined Tank in here, emptying the bottles of detergent on the floor and unravelling the rolls of toilet paper. He’d make a real mess of the place if he knew about it. I stepped back, pu
lling the door shut. I felt a bit disappointed because, for some reason, I thought I had discovered a secret room.

  But just as the weird door-disguised-as-a-panel was swinging shut, I saw something: a movement. I pushed the door open again and there it was, right in front of me — a gaping hole in the wall.

  6

  The opening was about the size and shape of a door, and as black as the mouth of a cave. A slight wind blew up out of it. The air smelt old and stale.

  For a few seconds I stood still, staring into the pitch-black hole. Where had it suddenly appeared from? I’m pretty sure my mouth was gaping too, because it’s not very often that a portal into the unknown opens up before your eyes. I decided I should get a closer look. Maybe I’d found a secret zombie crypt after all!

  I put my bag down and began to pick my way carefully between a box of rags and a big, old machine that I guessed was used to polish the floor.

  Suddenly, there was a sound behind me. I must’ve been kind of jumpy ’cause I spun around real quick. My leg hit the floor-polisher and, as I fell, I tried to grab the wooden shelf.

  ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?’ boomed a voice.

  I looked up from where I was sprawled on the floor. Standing in the hallway was Mr Slender.

  Mr Slender, the Maths teacher, was tall and thin and sharp. Unlike old Crumpet, whenever Mr Slender opened his mouth it was to give an order or to tell someone off. Sometimes, if he was really angry, he threw bits of chalk at people. Everyone was petrified of him.

  ‘Ummm,’ I said, wondering why, out of all the teachers in school, it had to be Slender who caught me. I must’ve been in shock because I added, ‘That just opened.’ I pointed behind me at the back wall of the cupboard.

  ‘What just opened?’ said Mr Slender, glaring at me.

  I glanced around. The hole was gone. There was just a solid wall.

  ‘It was just there,’ I said, still pointing. What had happened? Where had it gone?

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Mr Slender. ‘Your knee’s bleeding. Did you fall off your bike?’

  I was so stunned, I could barely register what he was saying. ‘There was a hole in the wall. Sort of like a doorway.’

  ‘I’m sure there was,’ said Mr Slender in a tone that made it clear he didn’t believe me. ‘Now did you fall off your bike or not?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m OK.’ I stared back where the hole had been. ‘It’s just that this hole . . . it wasn’t there, and then it appeared.’

  ‘You sound confused.’ Mr Slender peered at me. ‘Did you hit your head in the fall?’

  ‘Yeah — I mean no.’ I suddenly felt confused.

  ‘There is no hole. Look.’ He gestured toward the wall. ‘And as for things that appear out of nowhere, well, I’ve never heard anything stupider in my life. Now I think you’d better go wash your knee, then head straight to class. And I want to see you in my classroom after school so you can catch up on all the work you’ve already missed.’

  Detention! That was so unfair! People always arrived late to the first class of the day, so it’s not like I would have missed anything important!

  ‘Off you go,’ snapped Mr Slender. ‘This storeroom is out of bounds. If I catch you in here again, it’ll be detention for a week.’

  I shot one more look at the wall, then grabbed my bag off the floor. I walked past Mr Slender into the toilets and gave my knee a quick rinse under the tap. The water was icy cold, but I hardly felt it.

  Outside the bathroom, the hallway was completely deserted — except for Slender, who stood with his arms folded in front of the janitor’s storeroom. Now the door was shut, the panel blended in so well with the ones alongside it that it took me a second to work out which one had opened. I headed toward my English class in a state of disbelief. What had I just seen? Had a secret passageway really just opened up under the stairs? And if there was a secret passageway, where did it lead?

  7

  By lunchtime, I’d simmered down a bit. I was still pretty angry at Sophie, but I really wanted to tell her about what I’d discovered. Still, I wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. During English I’d sat at the front while she went straight to our usual spot at the back of the room. All the way through class, she kept throwing notes at me:

  Sarah was the only girl in our year who Sophie occasionally hung out with. Sarah spent most of her time in the library, so ‘hanging out’ with her meant sitting beside her, reading a book. Not exactly my idea of fun.

  I wrote a note and threw it back at her.

  During lunch I hung around the hallway entrance alone, watching the janitor’s storeroom. I was waiting for the hallway to clear; I didn’t want anyone nearby while I was checking out the storeroom again. If there was a secret passageway, I wanted to be the first to explore it.

  It wasn’t until the bell rang, and the last classroom door banged shut, that the corridor was empty. But just as I was about to step into the hallway, Mr Slender appeared again.

  ‘Still hanging around out here?’ he asked, striding toward me.

  ‘I was just getting some books out of my locker,’ I lied, relieved I happened to be standing near it. I opened my locker door and rummaged around inside, waiting for him to leave.

  He stood there watching me until I’d grabbed a couple of books and closed the door again.

  ‘Off you go,’ he said, still glaring at me. ‘And don’t forget: detention in my room after school.’

  I had no choice. I had to go to class.

  The rest of the afternoon dragged. By the time we were in History, our last class of the day, I was sick of being angry at Sophie. I threw her a note:

  She threw one back:

  I wrote:

  I heard her gasp when she opened it. A minute later, another tiny wad of paper hit my back. When the teacher wasn’t looking, I picked it up.

  Detention was always held in Mr Slender’s room. Nobody knew why he always supervised detention, but I’m pretty sure it was because he enjoyed watching people suffer.

  I sat at the back of the room, watching the hands of the clock inching around, and secretly reading the emergency zombie comic I kept in my bag. It was an old copy of Worm Eaten, which was one of my all-time favourites. I was supposed to be doing my homework, but, really, what was the point? I mean, it’s not like I’d be doing my homework at home if I was there!

  Mr Slender sat at the front of the room, watching us from under his eyelids. Occasionally, some kid would think he was asleep and whisper to the person beside them. These kids had obviously never been in detention before. They didn’t know that with Mr Slender, if you made one false move, you got a bit of chalk thrown at your head. Or, if you were really unlucky, the duster.

  Finally, the clock struck four. Just to be extra mean, Mr Slender pretended to keep sleeping. At five past four, he opened his eyes.

  ‘I hope never to see any of you in here again,’ he said, which was the line he always used at the end of detention.

  I rushed out as fast as I could. Sophie was sitting on the floor near the lockers. She stood up as I walked over to her, while the other kids ran past me to freedom.

  ‘How come you had detention?’ she asked.

  ‘Long story,’ I said. ‘I think it would be easier if I just showed you.’

  I glanced around. The place looked deserted. I grabbed Sophie’s arm and pulled her into the smaller hallway, toward the old staircase.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said.

  We stopped outside the toilets.

  ‘You’re not going to make me go into the boys’ loos, are you?’ She looked around as I fiddled with the panel that opened to the janitor’s storeroom.

  I was worried someone would come down the hallway and see us. I could pretend I was coming out of the toilets, but Sophie couldn’t. The girls’ bathroom was in a completely different part of the building.

  ‘You wait in here,’ I said, opening the door to the boys’ toilets
and pushing her inside. ‘It’ll look suspicious if anyone sees you down here.’

  ‘I can’t go in there!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘No one will know.’

  Sophie started to say something, then she caught sight of a urinal. ‘Yuck! Is that what I think it is?’

  I nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘But . . . but . . . everyone can see you! That’s disgusting!’

  I left Sophie staring in horror at the urinal while I slipped back out into the hallway. I searched around the panel for a while before I found a tiny catch on one side. The metal was stiff, but finally it clicked beneath my finger. The door creaked open.

  I poked my head back into the toilets. ‘C’mon,’ I said to Sophie.

  She looked happy to be getting out of there.

  Sophie followed me into the hallway, and looked at the open panel in surprise.

  ‘I didn’t even know this was here,’ she said.

  ‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘But that’s not the really weird thing. Check this out.’ I stepped inside the cupboard and began poking around the back wall. There had to be a way to make it open again.

  ‘It kind of stinks in here,’ said Sophie. ‘What are you looking for anyway?’

  ‘When I was going to the toilets to wash my knee this morning, I found . . .’ I paused and swallowed hard. ‘I found a secret doorway.’

  ‘Yeah. It leads to this janitor’s storeroom. Can we go?’

  ‘Not this doorway. Another one. It’s here somewhere.’ I felt along the wall.

  ‘What do you mean? I can’t see anything.’

  ‘I know,’ I told her. ‘It’s a secret doorway. It opened when I was standing there, right where you are.’