The Black Heart Crypt

Zack Jennings did not want to chase a slobbering black dog with glowing red eyeballs up into the Haddam Hill Cemetery three nights before Halloween.

It was Zipper’s idea.

They were in the backyard after dinner, playing with a squishy yellow ball, when Zipper picked up the other dog’s scent and went tearing down the highway after it.

“Zipper? Halt! Stay! Come!”

Zack wasn’t exactly sure which command to use to stop his dog from chasing after the thundering black beast, which had to be some kind of hellhound; otherwise its eyes wouldn’t be a pair of red-hot coals.

But Zipper did not halt, stay, or come. The small dog slipped through the cemetery’s wrought-iron railings to pursue the monster, which had so many rippling muscles Zack figured it must belong to the Gym for Gigantic Dogs.

Of course he couldn’t squeeze between the railings like Zipper had, and he wasn’t much at scaling fences, especially when his glasses got all foggy, so he dashed around to the back of the cemetery, where he knew there was a gate because one night, back in June, he and his friend Davy had hidden in this very same cemetery to escape a knife-wielding nut job whose body was being controlled by an evil ancestor.

A dead evil ancestor.

Yep. Ghosts can do that. They can slip their souls into the bodies of family members and totally take them over.

Zack yanked open the gate and shuffled through the sea of leaves smothering the ground between tombstones. A chilly autumn nip was in the air. The moon was hidden behind a pile of angry dark clouds. The sky was a murky black. Three nights before Halloween, this cemetery was creepier than ever.

“Zipper?” Zack’s voice echoed off a marble monument. “Where are you, boy?”

Finally, his dog barked a quick volley of yaps to let Zack know he was extremely busy.

Then Zack heard a deep, throaty rumble. The demon dog!

“Hang on, Zip! I’m coming!”

Zack swung around a concrete angel and raced over to a tomb the size of a small cabin—the biggest, darkest mausoleum in the whole Haddam Hill Cemetery. Its arched wooden doorway was sealed tight with a black heart-shaped lock. Even in the gloom of night, Zack could read the name carved into the stone slab over the entryway:

ICKLEBY

“Zipper?” No answer.

Zack trotted around the stone building, which sort of looked like a miniature church made out of gray Lego blocks.

“Zipper?”

He heard a weird whimper that sounded like a weary sheep bleat.

“Zip?”

His dog came padding around the corner of the blockhouse with a bewildered grin on his snout.

“The big black dog disappeared on you, didn’t he, boy?”

Zipper wagged his tail excitedly, as if to say, Yeah, yeah. It was freaky.

Zack bent down to rub his buddy’s head.

“Well, maybe next time you’ll listen to me when I tell you not to chase after devil dogs.”

Zipper leapt up to lick Zack’s face. Zack laughed.

That is, he laughed until he heard the sharp slice of a shovel blade digging into dirt.