He guided them farther away from the window.

  Away from the thing with dead eyes.

  7

  CARTER GOES FOR HELP

  Half an hour later, they had a plan.

  And Esme hated it.

  “It’s too dangerous,” she argued. She listed all the reasons why it was a terrible, horrible, stupid idea. “We don’t know what those zombies will do,” she concluded. “You can’t go out there.”

  Carter stood with his arms crossed, half listening. His mind was made up. He glanced impatiently at Arnold, who was methodically trying key after key in an exit door at the northwest corner of the building.

  “How you doing with that lock?”

  “Working on it, dude,” Arnold replied.

  Esme placed herself in front of Carter. “This is crazy,” she reasoned. “Somebody will come for us. We just need to sit tight.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” Carter said. “My parents don’t know I’m here. Same with Arnold, same with you. We all came here without telling anybody.” He said the next words slowly, patiently, firmly: “Nobody knows we’re here.”

  Carter began to pace. “I don’t want to stick around with that janitor downstairs. Besides, I’m not like you,” he confided to Esme. “I can’t sit around and wait. I get this boxed-in feeling, like I’m claustrophobic, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know,” Esme pleaded.

  The key slid into the Master Lock.

  “Got it,” Arnold whispered.

  He unwrapped the chain.

  “I’ll be careful,” Carter promised. “No worries. I’ll walk out nice and slow. Remember, I live only two blocks from here. Piece of cake.”

  “Maybe we should go with you?” Esme offered.

  Carter shook his head no.

  “Wait a sec,” Arnold said. He pushed off on his skateboard and glided down the hall. Two minutes later, he was back again—this time, carrying a field-hockey stick. He tossed it to Carter, who caught it with one hand. “You might need a weapon,” Arnold said. “I found it in the gym closet.”

  “Sweet,” Carter said, as he slashed the stick through the air like a ninja.

  Esme peered into the night. “There’s a few of them wandering around. What do they want?” she asked.

  Arnold sighed, rolled his eyes. “Hello? Don’t you play video games? World of Warcraft? The Elder Scrolls? Dead Space?”

  Esme stared at him blankly.

  Arnold flung his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know why there’s a bunch of zombies out there.” He pointed beyond the door. “You want answers? Ask them!”

  “Van Der Klemp knows,” Esme said.

  Arnold looked at her thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he admitted.

  Esme struggled to form the question. “Do you think maybe they don’t want to hurt anybody?”

  Arnold shrugged, then glanced at Carter. “I wouldn’t stop to take a poll,” he advised. “You saw that guy outside the window. Mr. Dead Eyes? Pretty scary if you ask me.”

  Esme stepped closer to Carter. “Don’t go,” she urged.

  He moistened his lips, grinned, and opened the door. In a pretty good imitation of the Terminator, he intoned, “I’ll be back.”

  The door opened.

  An odor drifted into the building. A smell of decay, dead leaves, and rotten flesh. The odor floated down the hallways, clung like vines to clothes, wafted into nostrils. It was the unmistakable aroma of death.

  The door shut.

  And Carter was gone.

  8

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN, OOOOOAAAAANNNN

  For a few minutes, it seemed like the plan might actually work. Then the crows came. And things went very, very wrong.

  As he’d promised, Carter stepped out into the mist with supreme calm. Cool as a lake. It was foggy, but he could still see about thirty feet in any direction. He gave a thumbs-up to the three worried faces that stood vigil at the door.

  It’s all good.

  A crow landed near his foot and cawed noisily. Then another, and another. Carter stepped cautiously, not wishing to disturb the birds. He noticed a dark figure ahead and veered away from it.

  “CAW-CAW!” Carter looked up to see a crow dive-bombing from above, talons out. The black bird hit Carter’s head at full force, wham, and tore into his scalp.

  “Ow, shoot!” Carter cursed. He staggered back a step, dazed, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Carter tenderly probed the injury with his fingers. His scalp was torn. Under a loose flap of skin, his flesh felt like raw hamburger. It was wet.

  He checked his fingers. Blood. Lots of it.

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN,

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN.

  The moans came, louder and louder, from every direction. As if the creatures were calling to each other. Now, more shapes appeared in the distance, moving toward him. It’s the blood, Carter thought. They smell it.

  His hands tightened around the field-hockey stick.

  Esme called from the door. “Carter! Carter! Come back!” she yelled.

  He considered making a mad dash for home, weaving through the slow-moving bodies. But there were more of them now, arriving from all over, and in growing numbers. He returned to the school door.

  But it didn’t open.

  “Guys?” he whispered. “Let me in.”

  In her panic, Esme tried to help Arnold with the key ring. It fell to the floor.

  Carter slammed on the door with an open palm. “Kind of in a hurry out here,” he urged.

  “Which key is it?” Esme screamed, frantically searching through the set. She was nearly blind with fright.

  “Silver, square-shaped,” Arnold said.

  A filthy, blackened hand with long fingernails reached out to Carter. He turned and sliced the stick through the air. Thud, it hit something. The hand fell to the ground.

  “I gotta go!” Carter screamed. “Meet me by the front doors!”

  And he took off running like a tailback on the football field, zigging left, zagging right, spinning and slashing with the stick as he ran.

  Faster. And faster.

  Into the night of the zombies.

  9

  “THEY’RE COMING!”

  Esme tossed the key ring to Arnold. He rocketed down the hallway on his skateboard. In seconds, Arnold was hunched by the front door, feeding key after key into the lock.

  “Come on, come on,” he urged.

  Esme stood in the main lobby, a frayed bundle of nerves. She bit her lip, sucked on loose strands of hair, searched for any sign of Carter. Nothing. “Something must have happened,” she worried. “He should be here by now.”

  Arnold kept working his way through the keys. One by one.

  Carter appeared out of nowhere, running at full speed. He slammed into the door. “Open up!” he cried. “Now!”

  He still clutched the field-hockey stick in one hand, but it had been broken in half.

  “Arnold!” Esme screamed.

  “I’m trying!” Arnold shouted back.

  Carter pounded at the door. His chest heaved, and Esme saw, for the first time, pure terror in his face.

  A hand plucked the key ring from Arnold’s fingers. “I believe these are mine,” Van Der Klemp said.

  All eyes turned to the ancient man. The night janitor held the keys high in front of his face. He fingered the keys, as if counting the beads on a rosary. “Hmmm,” he murmured. “Where are you? Where … are … you?”

  Carter cried out as he pounded on the door,

  “THEY’RE COMING!”

  “Ah, yes!” Van Der Klemp whistled. Humming softly, he selected a key, inserted it into the lock, and turned. CLICK. It opened. Arnold and Esme unwound the huge chain from the handle … Carter pushed … and the door flew open!

  In the span between two heartbeats, Carter slammed the door shut behind him. Whew.

  Carter looked from one face to the other: Arnold, Esme, and Van Der Klemp. After a few moments of stunned quiet, Carter reared back his head and laughed—a wild, unhinged whoop of relief and joy: “I’ve never been so happy to be in school in my life!”

  Esme wrapped her arms around Carter, squeezed him tight, then quickly pulled back. Arnold pumped a fist in the air. Carter was back. Van Der Klemp did not celebrate. He simply wrapped the chain back around the handles, pulling it tight. He closed the lock and returned the key ring back to its familiar place on his belt.

  “You came to help us,” Esme said.

  He waved a hand as if swatting away a fly.

  “Why?” Esme asked.

  The ancient man looked into the mist. “I am the night janitor,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “You knew this was going to happen,” Esme said. There was a new tone of anger in her voice. “You warned us. You told us they were gathering outside.”

  Van Der Klemp coughed into his soggy, red-tinged handkerchief.

  Esme picked up Carter’s splintered hockey stick from the floor. It was a sharp, dangerous weapon in her hands. A spear. “Tell us everything you know,” Esme warned, “or else.”

  10

  THE UNDEAD CANNOT BE STOPPED

  Van Der Klemp stared long and hard at Esme. A resigned smile crossed his face. He turned to the others, who stood shoulder to shoulder, defiantly watching the old man. Finally, the night janitor nodded.

  “First thing, we need to stop this boy’s bleeding,” Van Der Klemp said. “Then we’ll eat. You’ll need your strength. And then … we’ll talk.”

  The moment Van Der Klemp mentioned food, they realized no one had eaten since lunch. It was now past nine o’clock. So they raided the teachers’ lounge—a room legendary for its supply of cupcakes, sweets, treats, salads, bagels, and assorted refreshments. Every student at Buzz Aldrin Elementary knew that teachers ate like kings and queens, especially on Fridays.

  Esme pulled a plastic container of brownies from the refrigerator. The group hadn’t realized how hungry they were until they saw the food arranged on the table. “Brownies with peanut butter cups!” Esme announced.

  “I don’t know, Esme,” Arnold teased, buzzing from sugar. “This might be against the rules, and we know how much you looooove rules. Isn’t that right … Little Miss Perfect?”

  He grinned at her.

  Carter sat leaning on an elbow, gauze pressed against his wound. He laughed softly.

  Esme blushed, embarrassed. “Well, I guess sometimes rules are meant to be broken,” Esme said, popping a brownie into her mouth.

  She slid the rest across the table. For the next few minutes, they scarfed down food like it was a contest at a county fair: Who could pig out the most? Finally, Esme turned to Van Der Klemp and said, simply, “So?”

  All eyes turned to the night janitor.

  “The curse began when we—when they—built this school nearly one hundred and twenty years ago,” Van Der Klemp said. “It was the perfect spot, a clear meadow on a hill. But there was one inconvenience.”

  “There’s an old photograph of it in the display case,” Esme confirmed.

  Van Der Klemp nodded. “That picture was taken one hundred and twenty-six years ago.”

  “You said there was an inconvenience,” Carter prodded.

  “There was an old, abandoned graveyard near where the playground is now. Long story short: The graves were disturbed.” Van Der Klemp paused to suck on a tooth. “It is a very, very bad idea to wake the dead.”

  “Wait. What?!” Carter said.

  “This has happened before,” Van Der Klemp said. “The dead rise every eighteen years to haunt the grounds for one horrible night. And always, the world forgets.”

  Carter leaned back in his chair, frowning. “That’s crazy. You can’t keep something like that a secret. It would be all over the Internet.”

  The old man seemed exhausted. “I speak the truth,” he shrugged. “Believe what you wish.”

  “I left bodies out there,” Carter said. “People will know.”

  “It will all be washed away,” the night janitor said. “The crows feast even now. Repairs are made, memories will be scrubbed clean. Come tomorrow, if we reach tomorrow, none of you will remember the events of this night.”

  “We’ll forget?” Esme asked with a catch in her voice. Somehow, the thought of forgetting, of her memory wiped clean, frightened Esme more than anything. It would be like having parts of her life erased.

  “Those zombies out there—” Arnold began.

  “They are the sleepers that should never have been awakened,” the man said.

  “So, what do we do now?” Esme asked. “Can we fight them?”

  Van Der Klemp shook his head. “They can be slowed, perhaps. But you cannot harm those creatures. The undead cannot be stopped.” He plucked a stray gray hair from an ear, studied it for a moment, flicked it away. “The plan is simple. Stay alive until dawn. At sunrise, the spell breaks.”

  11

  “THEY WILL COME”

  They decided to make camp in the library. Van Der Klemp called it “defensible,” noting that the large room had three exit doors. They agreed to keep the lights off and speak only in whispers. Do nothing that might attract attention.

  Carter sat by a window to scan the playground outside. Van Der Klemp stood nearby.

  “It’s quiet,” Carter observed.

  “For now,” the janitor grunted.

  “Do you think they will try to get inside?”

  Van Der Klemp stole a glance at Esme and Arnold, who sat at a table across the room. He nodded. “Yes, they will come. Remember that if things get bad, head to the roof. It’s the last, best place.”

  Across the room, Esme sat hunched at a table, writing furiously.

  “What are you doing?” Arnold asked.

  “I wrote it down, everything that’s happened so far, all the details,” Esme said. “I don’t want to forget.” She plucked a black permanent marker from a coffee cup. She took Arnold’s arm and scribbled in his palm:

  VAN DER KLEMP ROCKS!

  Arnold laughed. For a brief moment, they forgot about the danger outside. Later, Esme made two copies of her story, and solemnly gave one each to Carter and Arnold. “Keep it safe,” she said. “Remember.”

  As the hours crept past, the unthinkable became possible. Arnold stretched, Esme yawned. Even Carter felt his head loll and his thoughts grow fuzzy. Van Der Klemp told them to sleep. They huddled close on beanbags in the center of the room for comfort as much as for protection.

  The night janitor took the first watch.

  Time passed.

  Creatures gathered in the night.

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN,

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN.

  Carter’s eyes snapped open.

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN, OOOOOAAAAANNNN.

  He sat up, his eyes adjusting to the dark.

  Van Der Klemp snored softly. He had passed out in a chair.

  Arnold also slept.

  But Esme was gone.

  Carter heard footsteps in the hallway. The squeak and groan of a door swinging open, banging shut. Click. A light switch flicked on. She’s in the bathroom, he thought.

  And then he smelled them, the zombies.

  An odor of evil had entered the building, bitter and sour. It came like smoke, like fire, swirling and circling and searching through the rooms of the school.

  It came like a warning, an alarm.

  They are coming.

  In that eerie silence, Carter could feel the blood push through his veins. He sensed the nerve endings of his fingertips, felt the air that passed from his lips. He waited, and hoped.

  Arnold turned in his sleep, whispered, “No, no.”

  Just a dream … a nightmare.

  CRASH!

  A loud crack erupted, like a gunshot.

  It was the sound of a window shattering, a thousand shards of glass falling to the floor, echoing in a tiled room.

  The next thing he heard was Esme’s scream—it was loud enough to wake the dead.

  12

  AND THEY CAME

  Things happened quickly, a haze of events, shouts and screams and wild terror.

  Esme burst out of the bathroom, the door flung wide. She was ashen-faced, followed by three dark figures who had broken through the glass window inside. Their bodies were stiff and convulsive—they moved in fits and jerks—but they were not slow. Their eyes were clouded white, unseeing.

  They’re blind, Carter realized.

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN, the creatures moaned. The smell of death trailed them like a shadow.

  Carter and Arnold stood, frozen in fear. Esme scrambled toward them, frantic, trembling. They stood together in shock, too stunned to move. Not one living soul stirred. The horror was too immense, too overwhelming.

  More windows crashed, more noises came from down the hall.

  Van Der Klemp pushed forward past Carter, clutching a mop crossways. “Go,” he spat. “Don’t look back. Just run. Get to the roof!”

  “But—”

  “Arrrrr!” Van Der Klemp roared a thunderous cry, and he plunged forward to battle the undead.

  They did not look back. Carter took Esme’s hand, and they all ran.

  Down the corridors, past the lobby …

  “In here, the gym,” Carter said. “They’re blind. Maybe we can hide.”

  “They can smell us,” Arnold argued.

  More zombies filled the hallway.

  Arnold hurried to the sports supply closet, where earlier he had found the field-hockey stick. He tossed makeshift weapons to Carter and Esme, outfitting his companions like some bizarre army in a future war game. They listened to the shuffling of feet, the rising hum of animal groans:

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN,

  OOOOOAAAAANNNN.

  Carter saw a hatch on the ceiling with a pull cord. “Esme, climb up and open that hatch. We’ll hold them off.”

  “I can’t—”

  But there was no time. The zombies followed their trail like hounds, and had reached the entranceway. Carter swung his stick in wide, swooshing arcs. Arnold stood by a huge basket of baseballs and fired them at the heads of the oncoming zombies.

 

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