Zombie Dog

by Clare Hutton

  “So the house has just been sitting there empty for ten years?” Becky asked, interrupting Mrs. McNally.

  “I have the house maintained,” Mrs. McNally said, sitting up even straighter and frowning. “It’s in quite good shape.”

  “But why don’t you sell it or rent it out?” Becky asked tentatively. Maybe she’ll tell us the real reason: Because of the zombies!

  “Because I choose not to,” Mrs. McNally said firmly.

  “Um, there are a lot of stories about your old house,” Nate said. “Like, that it’s haunted or” — he glanced at Becky — “that zombies live there.”

  Mrs. McNally straightened even further and glared at them through her glasses, her eyes a bright, fierce blue. “That is completely absurd,” she said. “I certainly hope your school isn’t encouraging you to spread rumors about my property.”

  Nate stumbled over his words, apologizing and reassuring her that, no, the school didn’t want him to write about that, and that of course they didn’t believe the silly stories. Becky could just imagine the trouble they’d get into if Mrs. McNally complained and the school found out they’d been bothering her with a school assignment that didn’t exist.

  Once Mrs. McNally stopped looking quite so disapprovingly at them, Nate started asking her questions about the garden, and Becky was able to look around the room. She carefully avoided ChiChi’s glazed dead stare while she pretended to take notes. A shadow box on the wall caught her eye. Inside it sat matching red and blue collars and red and blue dog tags, but only one red toy ball. She must have unintentionally made some kind of surprised sound, because Mrs. McNally stopped talking about her basil plants and gave Becky an inquisitive look.

  “I was admiring the picture of your dogs up there,” Becky said awkwardly. “They’re so cute.” The two Chihuahuas looked eager and happy in the picture in the shadow box, more lively than in the huge picture on the door, much more lively than ChiChi’s poor stuffed body in the corner.

  Smiling for the first time, Mrs. McNally rose and took the shadow box off the wall.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Mimi’s in the blue collar here, and I’m sure you recognize ChiChi in the red one. Such good dogs.” She sighed and handed Becky the shadow box.

  “They’re adorable,” Becky told her, while her mind raced. “I have a dog, too.” The little red ball covered with stars in the box looked so familiar…. Where had she seen something like it before?

  The phone rang.

  “Excuse me for a moment, children,” Mrs. McNally said, and walked away.

  Becky finally realized what she was looking at. “Look!” she hissed to Nate, and he looked. “This ball — Bear found a ball exactly like this, only blue, and really old and gross,” she told him. “It must have been Mimi’s ball that he dug up somewhere! Maybe that’s why the zombie is mad at him.”

  “And check this out,” Nate whispered back. He gestured at the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Becky saw several books about alternative medicine and some regular-looking medical books. But nestled by them on the end of the shelf were three books that seemed out of place: Traversing the Boundaries Between the Living and the Dead, Herbal Powers, and Deadly Magicks. “Write down these titles,” Nate said. “We should try to find out stuff about them online.”

  Becky scribbled down the titles quickly. “Those books look like they definitely could have something to do with zombies,” she said, keeping her voice too low for Mrs. McNally to hear.

  Nate nodded in agreement. Glancing up and listening to hear if Mrs. McNally was still busy on the phone, he quickly slid Traversing the Boundaries Between the Living and the Dead out of the bookcase.

  He searched through the index while Becky slid her notebook back into her bag and kept an ear out for Mrs. McNally.

  “What are you looking for?” Becky asked.

  “Something about objects,” Nate said absently. “Since you realized Bear might have taken the zombie’s ball. Okay. Found the chapter.” He turned the pages, then read silently, biting his lip, and handed the book to Becky. “Here, look,” he told her, tapping his finger on one particular spot.

  The print in the book was old looking, thick, and black. Becky read:

  Certain objects important to the walking dead in life can on occasion be buried with them and bring them peace; if these are removed from the dead’s final resting place, they will walk again.

  That night, Becky dreamed about the McNally house again. She could hear the quick beat of her own heart thudding in her ears as she walked through its damp and musty rooms. She was sure she was looking for something, but she couldn’t quite remember what.

  And she had the disturbing feeling that something was following her. When she paused for a moment in the hall, she heard the squelch of small feet in the sodden fungus of the floor. Whipping around, Becky didn’t see anything, but her heart began to thump even faster. She struggled to run. But the more she tried, the slower she went, her legs heavy. The floor sucked at her feet, and she found herself sinking ankle-deep in thick slime. Each time she pulled a foot out to take a step, the slime made a horrible slurping noise.

  The light footsteps kept following her, squelching quickly along.

  As she turned a corner, Becky found herself at a dead end and stopped. Turning, she found her way blocked by the Chihuahua. It looked at her balefully, its green eyes glowing, and began to move closer, teeth bared, body low, preparing to bite.

  Becky woke up in the dark, sick and dizzy with fear, to the sound of thunder. She took deep breaths and thought about her and Nate’s visit to Mrs. McNally to distract herself from her nightmare. After she’d made the connection about the dog toy, their meeting had been uneventful. Luckily, Mrs. McNally hadn’t seen them looking at her books. They’d left her apartment on good terms soon after she came back into the room.

  Before long, Becky drifted back to sleep.

  The next day was a rain-filled Saturday. Becky spent her time inside searching the house, looking through drawers and cabinets, under her bed, in all the nooks and crannies of her room. The whole time, though, she knew it was pointless.

  She remembered Bear bringing her a small blue star-spotted ball just before all the creepy stuff had started happening. That ball that was the counterpart of the red one in Mrs. McNally’s shadow box — the ball that had woken up the zombie dog. She could picture it clearly, muddy and dingy and stinking with the same rotting smell that was everywhere now. And she remembered dropping it in the trash with disgust. The trash she had taken out to the curb the day she saw the zombie dog. She checked every spot she could think of where it might possibly be, just in case, but she was pretty sure the ball was gone for good.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked Nate bleakly when he came over later in the afternoon. “The dog wants something that I threw away. We’re never going to get rid of it.”

  Nate patted her on the back, wrinkling his nose a little at the rotting smell that still filled the house. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “First, let’s see if we can find out anything helpful about those books online.”

  They couldn’t find anything about Traversing the Boundaries Between the Living and the Dead, and Herbal Powers brought up too much stuff when they searched for it, none of it useful. But it turned out that some kind of witchy website quoted from Deadly Magicks, and it sounded like just what they needed.

  “Look at this,” Becky said excitedly. “Deadly Magicks actually talks about an herbal paste that it claims can ‘put the undead to rest.’ That would include zombies, right? It has some of the stuff we found online before: poppy seeds and cloves, but also white flour. You grind it together with pure water to make a paste. Oh … and an angel’s trumpet flower. Wasn’t that part on the voodoo website, too?”

  Nate looked puzzled. “The first three things are easy enough, but what’s an angel’s trumpet flower?”

  “Here,” Becky said, finding a picture online. “Ooh, pretty. It says it’s poisonous, though.” T
he screen showed a photograph of a large shrub with oval leaves and dangling bell-like flowers.

  “Huh.” Nate looked closely at the picture. “Is it just me, or does that look kind of familiar?”

  “Nah, they grow way down south,” Becky said. “It says they’re semitropical.”

  Nate frowned at the picture, and then his face lit up. “There’s one of these next door,” he announced. “I remember seeing it. It looked, like, more withered than the one in the picture, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing.”

  “Are you sure?” Becky asked. It seemed suspiciously convenient.

  “Don’t you get it?” Nate said. He was starting to smile. “This almost proves that we’re on the right track. The McNallys must have planted it because they needed the flowers so that they could raise the zombies and lay them to rest. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  Becky nodded. “Okay,” she said. “So, if you’re right, we can get everything we need to make the magic anti-zombie paste. But will that really put the zombie to rest even if we don’t return its ball?”

  “Well, we can at least try. Maybe we can find a similar ball and give it that, too,” Nate said. “Let’s go.”

  In the kitchen, Becky’s dad was loading the dishwasher, standing right between Becky and the spice cupboard. Bear, who’d been lying under the kitchen table, came over and nosed Becky’s hand, and she petted him. He looked thinner, she thought, and he hung by her side nervously instead of bouncing around.

  “Hey, kids,” her dad said, rinsing a plate. “Sure is raining out there today.” There was a big pile of dishes in the sink, so it looked like he’d be there a while.

  “Do we have cloves and poppy seeds and flour?” Becky asked him.

  Her dad scratched his nose thoughtfully, dripping water onto his shirt from his wet hands. “I think we have cloves and flour, but probably not poppy seeds. Why?”

  “Uh …” Becky thought hard for a second. “We thought maybe we’d make cookies later?” she said uncertainly.

  “Okay,” her dad said. “Sounds great, as long as you wash up your dishes. I’m sure you can find a recipe without poppy seeds. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had cookies with poppy seeds in them.”

  He went on filling the dishwasher, then started scrubbing pots from the previous night’s dinner, still blocking the spice cupboard.

  “Want me to do that, Dad?” Becky offered at last.

  Her dad seemed happy to hand off his dishrag. “Don’t let Bear beg any human food,” he warned, and headed off upstairs at last.

  Becky took a little bowl and put cloves and flour in it, then grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.

  “What about poppy seeds?” Nate asked. “I don’t think I’ve even ever seen them just for sale by themselves, have you?”

  “No, but I think I know where to find some,” Becky said, opening the bread box. She held up a poppy-seed bagel in triumph. “Ta-dah!”

  “Good thinking,” Nate said. He took the bagel and started scraping seeds into the bowl. “Don’t forget the pots, though, or your dad will get mad.”

  “Ugh,” Becky said, but went to work. When she finished and turned back around, Nate was handing a broken-off piece of bagel to Bear, who took it gratefully in his mouth, lay down, and started gnawing. “Hey!” she said. “My dad just said not to give him people food.”

  Nate blushed. “Sorry, I forgot,” he said. “He really seemed to want it.”

  “I know,” Becky told him. “He’s such a good beggar that Jake and I are always feeding him from the table. So he just begs more.”

  “Should we brave the rain to go back to the McNallys’ yard?” Nate asked her.

  Becky left the water and bowl of flour and cloves on the counter, and she and Nate grabbed their rain jackets and headed hesitantly to the back door. “I guess there’s no way to avoid it,” she said nervously. Bear scrambled up to follow them, but Becky pushed him gently back as she opened the door. “Stay, Bear,” she told him. Bear whined with disappointment as the door closed behind them.

  As they pushed the loose board aside to cross into the McNallys’, the steady rain seemed to increase. By the time they got through the opening, they were both very wet.

  “Looks like the zombie dog’s angry,” Nate said, glancing up at the sky.

  “Or not,” Becky said, nervously peering around the yard. “Sometimes it just rains, right?”

  Neither of them could keep from glancing over their shoulders, looking for shaking bushes or the zombie Chihuahua’s tiny angry figure to suddenly appear. But everything stayed quiet.

  They finally found the glossy-leafed bush that Nate had remembered. Becky’s fingers fumbled at the wet petals of several of its orange flowers as she tried to pick them. It was so wet from the rain that the petals stuck to her hands and tore.

  “Yuck,” she said, tucking the battered flowers in her pocket. “Let’s go.”

  Once they were back through the fence, they both started to run. Mud splashed up from their sneakers and cold rain ran down the back of Becky’s neck as, half laughing, they slammed the door of Becky’s house behind them.

  They left their shoes by the door, and Becky handed Nate a towel from the laundry basket.

  “Let’s get upstairs quick before your parents see us,” Nate said. Bear came over and nosed at their cold hands and wet jeans and, as Becky petted him, she stooped down to pick up a toy he’d left by the door.

  “This is perfect!” Becky exclaimed. The ball was not exactly like the Chihuahua’s, but the right size, and blue with white dots that looked almost like stars.

  Upstairs, Becky used pens and a ruler to mush the ingredients together while Nate checked the instructions on the Internet. They made sure to leave some aside in case they needed to try again. The wet flower petals tore into shreds, while the cloves and poppy seeds remained hard and whole, but the flour and water formed a sticky paste that held the other ingredients together.

  “Becky,” Nate said tensely, “it says here that the flowers can be really poisonous and not to get them in your eyes or mouth.”

  Becky stared at her hands for a minute and then got up and washed them for a long time with hot water and soap. “Thanks,” she said. Before coming back, she slipped down to the kitchen and grabbed the big rubber cleaning gloves from under the sink. Back upstairs with the gloves on, she picked up the ruler again and poked at the mixture more gingerly.

  When the ingredients seemed as combined as they were going to get, Becky and Nate scraped it up with pencils and glopped it onto Bear’s ball. It was pretty gross and sticky when they finished, and Becky tucked the ball into a sandwich bag she’d brought upstairs with her.

  “It’s pretty dark out,” Nate said, looking out the window. While they had been covering the ball with anti-zombie glop, the sun had set. “We’d better get going.”

  By unspoken agreement, they were both as quiet as possible creeping down the stairs, and Becky held her breath as she eased the front door open. The rain had lessened slightly, but it was still a steady drizzle. She could hear Bear’s dog tags jingling in the kitchen; he was probably busy following her mother around in the hopes that she’d drop some food for him as she made dinner. Becky hoped he stayed occupied and didn’t come out to find her. There would be no good way to explain this to her parents if they caught them now.

  No one came, and she and Nate slipped out into the night. It was getting chillier in the evenings now, but Becky’s shiver wasn’t just from the cold. They’d agreed: It made sense to put the toy on the McNally property. But she felt really reluctant, scared to cross out of her own yard and back onto the zombie dog’s territory again. She sort of wished Bear was with her, even though she knew that it was better to keep him away from danger.

  In her own yard, the porch light illuminated the lawn a little bit but, once they slipped through the hole behind the loose board, everything was pitch-black. They stayed still, pressed close to one of the evergreen t
rees, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness as water dripped down from the pine needles onto them. Gradually, the shapes became clearer around them. The bushes and the side of the house made darker patches in the night. The ground was muddy, and the slight sucking sound it made as they stepped reminded Becky uncomfortably of her dreams.

  “The driveway,” Nate whispered, his voice unsteady. Becky realized she was trembling, and she reached out for Nate without thinking about it. Ordinarily, she would have been too embarrassed to hold a boy’s hand, but she needed something to hold on to. They gripped each other firmly as they headed toward the front of the McNally house. Becky’s hands were freezing, but Nate’s hand was comfortingly warm around hers. She was so grateful, suddenly, that she wasn’t alone in this, and she squeezed Nate’s hand.

  They each stumbled a couple of times on their way, skidding on the wet grass, but they managed to keep each other from falling. The sickly rotting smell was stronger here than at Becky’s house, and she shuddered as she imagined the smell rising from the peeling flesh of the little dog as perhaps it watched them unseen from the darker shadows around the house.

  Finally, they saw the driveway, its concrete a paler patch ahead. Stepping onto it from the grass, Becky hesitated and then shook the sticky blue ball out of its sandwich bag and dropped it into the middle of the driveway.

  “What now?” she asked, hesitating, and Nate, still holding her hand, tugged her backward, off the driveway and back into the grass. Becky thought she felt something move beneath the sole of her shoe and flinched, hoping she wasn’t stepping on one of those squirming insects she had seen in the daylight. A cold gust of wind shook the evergreens behind them noisily, and a few heavy drops of water landed on their backs. Becky shivered.