Goop Soup

by David Lubar

  She waited until they’d climbed into the backseat, then got in the car and pulled on to the road. Twenty minutes later, we reached Dobbsville.

  “Come on,” Dr. Cushing said. “Let’s find a good place for you to die.”

  16

  The Zombie Accident

  We drove off the highway and searched for a road that had some traffic, but not so many cars that we couldn’t set things up.

  “This looks good,” Dr. Cushing said as we cruised past a street that was five blocks and two turns away from the main road.

  Just as we were pulling over to the curb, her cell phone rang. She answered it, spoke for a moment, then turned to me. “They’ve tried to find out as much as they could about the staging base. The only thing we’ve learned is that satellite photos show some evidence of construction next to the funeral parlor. But there’s nothing on the surface. So the staging base might be underground.”

  I might end up underground, too, if I messed up at the funeral parlor. But at least I knew a little bit more about what I was going to face when I got there. “Anything else?”

  Dr. Cushing handed me a flash drive. It was twice as thick as the normal ones and had a small antenna attached to it. “This has an auto-run copy program, and a transmitter.”

  “Will it explode?”

  She flashed me a grin. “No. It’s not from our research department. It’s from the computer store.”

  I was glad the question made her smile. “What do I do with it?”

  “If you get a chance, plug it into any port on their computer, and you’re all set. It will copy the files and send them to BUM. But don’t take risks. Smetchinski is probably extremely dangerous and ruthless. I wish we didn’t have to send you in.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I looked at the road in front of the car. “So, should I just fall down and act dead?” It sounded simple. But it hadn’t been that easy the last time I’d tried.

  “A bicycle accident would look more convincing,” Abigail said.

  “If we had a bike,” I said.

  She pointed to the trunk. “We do.”

  Dr. Cushing popped the trunk again. I looked inside.

  Sure enough, there was an old two-wheeler pushed in the back.

  “I’m impressed,” Dr. Cushing said as she pulled the bicycle from the trunk.

  “I thought you didn’t have a bike,” I said. The last time I’d seen her on one, she’d borrowed it. And, to tell the truth, watching her ride was actually one of the scarier experiences I’ve had in a while.

  “I was such a bad rider, I figured I’d better practice,” Abigail said. “So I bought one with some of the money I made tutoring.”

  Dr. Cushing started to close the trunk, but Abigail stopped her and reached back in. “We need one more thing.” She pulled out a bike helmet. It was split in half.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “It will help convince them that this was an accident,” she said. “Put it by the lamppost. That way, they won’t treat it like a crime scene. We don’t want anything to delay your trip to the funeral home.”

  I took the two parts. “How’d you break it?”

  “Learning to ride,” she said.

  Dr. Cushing put the bike on its wheels and rolled it over to me. It wobbled a bit, like it had been in more than a few collisions already. “I guess the rest is up to you, Nathan. We’ll go around the corner, out of sight, and wait until they take you away. Then I’ll park near the funeral home. If you think you’re in danger at any point, just get away however you can.”

  “I’m not leaving without Mr. Murphy,” I said.

  “Good luck,” Abigail said.

  “This is awesome,” Mookie said.

  I hoped he was right. I was about to do a whole bunch of things I’d never planned on. I watched Dr. Cushing drive off. This wasn’t a game. This was for real.

  Ready to be a spy?

  Yeah. I was ready.

  I waited for the street to clear, walked to the curb, and let the bike fall. I thought about stomping on one of the wheels to make the accident look even more realistic, but I was afraid I’d break my foot.

  “Here goes . . . ,” I said. Dead kid playing dead. How weird was that? I hoped I could do a better job of playing dead this time. I had to. There was no other choice.

  I put half the helmet right next to me and tossed the other half onto the sidewalk. I sprawled out on the ground, facedown with my eyes closed, near a lamppost. Then I waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  I heard tires screech. Then I heard car doors.

  “Hey, kid,” a man said. He shook my shoulder. I stayed limp. “Kid? You okay? Wake up.”

  I managed to keep from answering him.

  “Don’t move him,” a woman said. “He could be hurt.”

  “I think he’s more than hurt,” the man whispered.

  The woman started to cry. It took all my strength not to open my eyes and tell her I was okay.

  A minute later, I heard a siren.

  Then things got real busy. People tried to get me to answer them. I stayed dead.

  “Unresponsive,” someone said.

  Somebody rolled me over onto my back. I felt someone pressing my chest. They slipped some sort of mask over my nose and mouth, and something else around my neck. Someone pumped air into my lungs. It all felt totally weird, but I managed to keep my eyes closed.

  I heard my shirt being ripped. They did something to my pants, too.

  They lifted me.

  I was being carried. It sounded like they were putting me in an ambulance.

  Doors slammed.

  Seconds later, we raced off with the siren blaring. The one thing that kept me playing dead was the thought of Mr. Murphy being held by RABID. I had to save him.

  All through the ride, and after we got to the hospital, the paramedics and doctors really tried to bring me back to life. It felt good to know they worked so hard, though nothing they did could possibly make a difference. I guess I felt a bit bad about tricking them. But when you’re a spy, sometimes you have to trick people.

  Finally, they rolled the cart I was on back outside. They lifted me up again. I heard the ambulance doors close. This time, there wasn’t any siren. No high-speed drive. No hurry. Ten minutes later, they rolled me out. It felt like I was being carried down some steps. Then they picked me off the cart and put me on another flat surface. Probably a table.

  They walked away. I heard a door close. Through my eyelids, I could tell they’d shut off a light. And then there was silence.

  I guess I was where I needed to be. I didn’t want to open my eyes, but I had to. I was afraid I’d find myself surrounded by bodies.

  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Just a dimly lit room with five tables. Empty tables, except for me. I was glad about that. The walls were unpainted brick. There were three steel poles under a beam in the center of the room. I guess I was in a basement. Like in the zombie movies Mookie told me about. I looked down.

  My shirt was gone.

  So were my pants.

  I was in my underwear.

  At least I wasn’t wet.

  I saw two doors. One led to a hallway. The other, behind me, was solid. That had to lead to the bad guys. The table wiggled a little and creaked as I slipped off it.

  I walked over to the solid door and tried the knob. It was locked. There was a keyhole in the knob. Even if I’d learned how to pick locks, I didn’t have any sort of pick with me.

  A door closed at the other end of the hallway. I heard footsteps. Someone was coming.

  17

  Breaking In

  I scooted back to the table and stretched out again. But I kept my eyes open. I wanted to see what was going on. I figured I’d look just as dead if I stared straight ahead.

  A guy came through the door, carrying a take-out bag from a burger place. He barely glanced at me, but I recognized him from the pictures on Dr. Cushing’s phone. It was Gregor Smetchinsk
i.

  “Stupid kid,” he muttered. “You must have messed up.”

  I guess he was used to seeing bodies down here. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a key ring. “You’re better off missing what’s coming.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. But I could worry about it later. Right now, I had to figure out how to get through that door. Abigail would have invented a clever plan. But Abigail wasn’t here. And there was no time to think. I didn’t have a clever plan, but I had a wild one. I guess wild would have to be good enough.

  I acted. But I acted in a very small way. I waited until Smetchinski put the key in the lock, then wriggled my body. Just once—and just enough to get a tiny creak out of the table.

  He froze, then pulled the key from the lock and walked to the table. He leaned over and stared right into my eyes. Even though his face was so close that I could see the tiny red veins in his eyes, I stayed still. After a moment, he went back toward the door.

  I wriggled again when he put the key in.

  Once again, he pulled out the key and walked back toward me.

  Once again, I remained dead.

  This time, I waited until he actually unlocked the door.

  Wriggle. Creak.

  He dropped his hand and turned toward me.

  I sat up, screaming like the living dead coming back to life. “Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!”

  I howled again and thrust my arms in front of me, then slid off the table, landing on my feet.

  “Brains!” I screamed, like I had the biggest craving in the world, and I’d be happy to bite into his skull to satisfy it. I took a staggering step toward Smetchinski. “Must eat brains!”

  His eyes got so wide, I thought they’d fall to the floor. He opened his mouth to scream. Only a thin whine came out, like a balloon losing air. I’d heard about people being too scared to scream, but I always thought it was just an expression.

  I took another step. “Kill! Kill!”

  Maybe people who work with the dead are especially scared by them when they seem to pop back to life. He dropped the bag and leaped toward the door to the hallway. I heard a loud WHACK! as he ran right into a pole. He went down hard. I could tell from all the way across the room that he’d be out for a while.

  Who needs to pick locks? Not me.

  “Nighty-night,” I said as I walked over to the door and took the keys from the lock. I’d hoped to scare Smetchinski off long enough so I could rush in and rescue Mr. Murphy. It looked like I’d have a bit more time than that.

  It’s hard to think like a spy when you’re only wearing underwear. There was a plastic bag on the counter near the tables. I found my clothes in it. The shirt was ripped. The pants legs were slit halfway up. My jacket was missing. Mom was going to kill me. I put on the pants, then went back to the door.

  I checked my pockets. I had the iClotz, a rubber ball, a couple of Abigail’s gumballs, the flash drive Dr. Cushing gave me, and a bottle of the bone glue I always carried. Not exactly what I’d ask for if I was collecting spy supplies. I dropped the keys in my pocket, just in case Mr. Murphy was locked up.

  Still trying to think like a spy, I went back over to the guy and checked his pockets. There was nothing in them except for a slip of paper. All it had on it was CXATEHWM. There was another line under it, but that one had been erased. Great. A code. I shoved the paper into my pocket and hoped I’d never need to look at it again.

  Finally, I checked the fast food bag. I wasn’t hungry, of course—except for information. There were three dinners in the bag. That was bad news. Unless Gregor Smetchinski had a monstrous appetite, this meant I had two more guys to deal with. And no idea how to do that.

  There was a tunnel on the other side of the door. It led to another hallway. I crept down to the end of the tunnel and listened. I heard voices from one end, but they didn’t seem very close. I got down on the floor and peeked past the end of the tunnel. About twenty feet to my left, I saw a closed door with a sliding bolt on it. I figured Mr. Murphy was locked inside. There was a door right across the hall from me with some sort of keypad lock. A small red light blinked below the numbers. There was another room at the other end of the hall. That door was open. I saw two guys in there, sitting at a table, talking. While I was watching, they got up and started walking down the hall.

  I slipped deeper into the tunnel. The two men walked by me. They looked pretty big. I thought about trying to scare them, but I didn’t see anything they might run into. I heard the bolt slide open. There was some shuffling and grunting.

  A moment later, they came past me, dragging Mr. Murphy between them.

  “Last chance to talk,” one of them said.

  I waited until they’d gone by, then peeked out. They were tying Mr. Murphy to a chair. They’d left the door open at the other end. I saw a bed in there with straps on it.

  I slipped back down the tunnel, and through the door to the room with the tables. I needed to be where they couldn’t hear me. I pulled out the iClotz and set it to record. I waited thirty seconds—that seemed long enough—and then started talking.

  After I’d made my recording, I went back to the end of the tunnel. I peeked out to make sure the two guys were busy with Mr. Murphy. You’ve got one shot, I told myself. If I missed, it was all over.

  18

  Let It Slide

  It would be just like playing shuffleboard in gym class. I was good at that. I pressed play on the iClotz, then leaned out and slid it down the hall, aiming for the open door.

  Score!

  It slid right in, all the way to the back of the wall. A moment later, the recording reached past the silent part and started playing my voice.

  “Hey! You guys! You’re totally ugly. Stupid, too.”

  It worked. Both guys went running past the tunnel toward the room at the end of the hall. As soon as they passed me, I got out and followed them, being careful not to make a sound. They didn’t look back.

  “Bet you can’t find me. Don’t look under the bed.”

  They raced inside. I slammed the door, then slid the bolt shut before they knew what happened. They both hurled themselves at the door, screaming at me. But there was nothing they could do. I’d caught them. I went to the other end of the hall.

  Mr. Murphy was tied to the chair. His face was puffy, like he’d been slapped around a bit. He looked really tired—the way my dad does when he’s been working long hours for a couple weeks in a row.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “No permanent damage.”

  I reached for the ropes, then paused. “I passed my physical. Totally fooled the doctor with some simple tricks.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I did it without being carved up by anyone.”

  “Very good. Are you trying to make some sort of point? Because if you are, I’d much rather discuss it with you elsewhere.”

  “Yeah, I have a point to make. I’m a person. I might be dead, but I have feelings.”

  Mr. Murphy smirked. “Bad choice of words.”

  “Stop that. You know what I mean. You can’t just make plans for me like surgery and stuff. I’m not a lab rat.

  I know I joined BUM, and you’re in charge. But you have to promise to respect my body.”

  “I promise,” Mr. Murphy said.

  I stared at him. His promise was probably worthless. But we could discuss that some other time. I was new at being a spy, and I still needed lots of training, but something had changed between us. I untied the ropes.

  “Do you have my phone?”

  Mr. Murphy pointed across the room. “It’s on the table with my phone.”

  I went over and saw the one thing that could strike terror in my heart. “It’s in pieces!” My phone had been taken apart. The chips were lying there like dead rectangular bugs with shiny legs.

  “Just leave it.”

  “No. My mom will totally kill me. I just got the phone last Christmas. I also got a half-hour lecture about responsibility. No way
I’m going home without it.”

  “Bring the pieces. We can put it back together at BUM.”

  “Great,” I muttered as I dropped the pieces into an empty fast food bag I’d found in the trash. “My new ringtone will be an explosion.”

  “No, your ringtone will be a shrill little whine. Boo-hoo. Poor me. You can share your feelings with me later. Let’s snatch their computer files and get out of here. The bad guys report to their headquarters every evening.

  When they don’t check in, RABID will know something has gone wrong.”

  I untied him. He stood, took a half step, then fell back into the chair. I held out my hand. “Come on. Lean on me.”

  “You’ll snap.”

  “I’m stronger than I look.”

  “Apparently.” He got up again. I helped him down the hall to the locked door near the tunnel. This one had a ten-button keypad on it, with the numbers from 0 to 9. The pad was right over the knob. I tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn, so I rattled it.

  “Have you ever seen a locked door spring open when you rattled the knob?” Mr. Murphy asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Feel free to keep trying. Who knows? Maybe this one is different. Maybe it will magically rattle open.”

  I couldn’t believe someone who had just been questioned for nearly twenty-four hours still had the strength to make fun of me. I let go of the knob. I’d show him. One way or another, I was going to find a way into that room. What would a spy do? I thought about some of the movies I’d seen.

  “We could kick it down,” I said.

  “It’s a reinforced metal door, Nathan. But go ahead and try if you’re curious to see what happens when your zombie toes meet three inches of hardened steel.”

  “You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Misery loves company. At the moment, I’m fairly miserable.”

  “You sure are,” I muttered.

  But he was right—kicking the door wouldn’t do any good. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the keys. They wouldn’t do any good. There was no keyhole in the door. But when I put the keys back, I felt something else.