The Smoky Corridor

123

“You!” Captain Pettimore snarled through Azalea. “You’re the boy I thought would be the one!”

Zack’s eyebrows arched up. He had no idea what the man inside his friend was blabbing about.

“Kill him, McNulty!”

The giant flew across the room.

Zack held up the glass jar.

“Remember this?” he said to the beast.

The zombie froze.

“It’s your soul. It’s who you really are, not who Pettimore tells you to be!”

Zack smashed the jar down hard against the stone floor.

The zombie’s eyes opened wide.

Golden light, like a squadron of fireflies, zoomed up from the shattered glass and smacked the zombie square in the chest. He recoiled in shock. Surprise and joy and sunshine filled his face as he drew in one long breath.

“My name is Cyrus McNulty,” he said slowly. “I come from Indiana.”

“That’s right,” said Zack. “Welcome home.”

As McNulty smiled, his face seemed to bake—to dry out like mud in the sun. In an instant, it was crackled and brittle. In another, it crumpled into dust like it should have done back in 1864. The dead man’s empty rags drifted to the floor.

McNulty was gone.

“Come on!” Zack called to Malik as he ran to the ladder. “The other one’s upstairs and he doesn’t have a soul jar!”

Malik raced across the room and followed Zack up the rungs.

Azalea tried to chase after the two boys.

But she had loaded her backpack down with too much gold and could barely move!