The Smoky Corridor

23

Zack hurried up the hallway—without Mr. Willoughby, thank goodness.

He had thirty seconds to make it to Mrs. Alessio’s math class.

He raced around a corner, pushed open a swinging door, took a left, and nearly bumped into Mr. Crumpler, the assistant principal, who was standing in the corridor, barking into a walkie-talkie.

“Where is the janitor, Mrs. Pochinko?”

“I don’t know!” a nasal voice shouted back.

“Find him!”

“I’m trying!” Mrs. Pochinko’s tinny voice whined out of the radio. “Mr. Muggins is not answering his radio.”

“We have a serious vomitory situation in corridor twelve!”

“I’ll keep trying to locate him, sir.”

“Hurry! It won’t smell any better the longer it sits on the floor!”

“Yes, sir.”

Zack glanced left and saw a queasy-looking girl holding her stomach.

He wondered if the poor girl had just heard what zombies liked to eat for breakfast after they wake up from a twenty-year nap.

Mr. Crumpler saw Zack staring at the girl and the lumpy puddle on the floor.

He clipped his radio back to his belt and did that two-fingers-to-his-eyes, two-fingers-to-Zack thing again.

Zack now had two old men keeping an eye on him: one living, the other dead.