The Smoky Corridor

72

For whatever reason, when Zack, Zipper, Azalea, and Ms. DuBois walked into the school, the new janitor was in the lobby waiting for them.

“Good morning, Eddie,” said Ms. DuBois.

“Good mornin’, Daphne. You brought a dog?”

The janitor was apparently off duty. He was wearing khaki pants and a golf jacket instead of his usual green work clothes.

“Zack insisted.”

“Very well. Shouldn’t pose a problem.” The janitor tapped a bulge in the chest of his jacket. Zack didn’t like it when he did that. He watched a lot of movies. Jacket bulges, especially when tapped, usually meant hidden guns and shoulder holsters.

All of a sudden, Zack remembered the pair of ghosts who had been trailing the janitor down the hall: They’d both had bullet holes in their heads!

“Why’s the janitor here?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s an expert on graveyards,” said Ms. DuBois.

Yeah—putting people into them, Zack thought.

“Has Malik arrived?” she asked.

“Nope,” said Eddie. “But Mr. Sherman, the boy’s father, he swung by about five minutes ago.”

“My goodness. What did he want?”

“Well, the poor man says he cannot for the life of him find his son. Thought maybe he came over here. Seems they had a big fight last night. Something to do with money. Mr. Sherman kept mumbling how it was all his fault.…”

“Malik ran away from home?”

“So it would seem.”

Now Zack saw somebody nobody else (other than Zipper) could see: an African American man dressed in a World War II aviator uniform. Helmet on. Goggles up. Zack squinted so he could read the name patch sewn to his flight jacket: SHERMAN.

Malik’s guardian ghost! Probably his great-granddad, the one who’d flown fighter planes with the Tuskegee Airmen.

While Ms. DuBois and the janitor kept jabbering, Zack casually strolled across the lobby and pretended to be interested in the baseball trophies on display in a glass case.

Because Mr. Sherman was standing inside it.

“You’re Zack?” the airman asked.

He nodded.

“Malik’s in trouble.”

Zack raised his eyebrows.

“He went through that hole you boys found. He’s looking for the treasure. Wants to sell the gold and buy his mom the medicine she needs.” The airman shook his head. “Bravest and craziest thing the boy’s ever done. Sure his heart’s in the right place, but he isn’t using his head. You have to go get him, Zack. Malik doesn’t stand a chance down there on his own. Who knows what he’ll run into?”

Oh, Zack had a pretty good idea: a brains-eating zombie!

“And, whatever you do, don’t tell those two where Malik is.” Airman Sherman gestured toward Ms. DuBois and Eddie, the janitor. “They are not to be trusted. It’s up to you, Zack. Are you going to go down there and help Malik?”

“Zack?” said Ms. DuBois.

“Are you ready to go, son?” asked the janitor.

Zack was facing Mr. Sherman when he answered.

“Yes, sir. I am.”

He was also ready not to believe another word Ms. DuBois or Eddie, the pistol-packing janitor, had to say.