The Smoky Corridor

5

Zack realized he must’ve taken a wrong turn.

In his search for the bathroom, which he really needed to use now, he had ambled up all sorts of twisty, windy hallways, some of which were modern, some old, some ancient. His new school was a dozen or more buildings all linked together by cinder block corridors lined with lockers.

He took another turn, opened a wooden door with a frosted glass panel, and found himself in an extremely narrow corridor, maybe six feet wide. The only light was the faint red glow of an exit sign reflecting off the mottled glass in the door at the far end of the hallway.

Zack could also see a classroom door on the left-hand wall and two doors close together on the right. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed signs jutting out above the double doors: Boys, Girls.

Yes!

He had (finally) found a bathroom.

He hurried up the hallway and smelled smoke—like the wet lining of a chimney when rain trickles down it in the summer.

Then he heard a soft boom.

Felt the whole floor shimmy and shake.

It was pretty chilly for the first day of September, so Zack figured it was just the furnace kicking in downstairs. Nothing more. Nothing to be afraid of.

As he neared the boys’ room, he could read another sign, the one hanging over the door at the far end of the hall, which was bloodred, thanks to the nearby exit sign. It said “Wood Shop.”

Great.

This was the smoky corridor—the place where the two boys and their teacher had died.

Zack decided he really didn’t need to use the bathroom after all.

He turned around and headed back the way he’d come.

He passed a porcelain drinking fountain with a steady drip-drip-drip.

Then he suddenly froze, because, once again, he could sense someone staring at him from behind, making him feel like he needed to defrost his neck.

Could it be the ghost of his dead mother?

That would explain the smoky smell.

His real mother had smoked so many cigarettes she’d caught cancer and died. But before she died, she summoned Zack to the railing of the hospital bed they had set up in the living room of their New York City apartment, and croaked at him, “You’re the reason I smoked so much!”

“Psst!” whispered a voice behind him. “Got a match, sport?”

Zack spun around.

“How about a lighter, pal?”

It wasn’t his dead mother.