You don't have to do this, Kendra said.38 Don't worry, I won't blame you if my brain gets eaten,Seth said. He opened the door and hopped out. Although I
can't help it if you blame yourself.
Seth jogged across the street and walked toward the lighted sign. A few cars came down the road toward him, and he averted his eyes from the bright headlights until they passed. On his way to the mortuary, Seth passed a small house that had been converted into a barber shop, and then a larger one that housed dental offices.
Even though he knew Kendra and Errol were close by, facing the forbidding mortuary was a lonely feeling.
Glancing back at the Volkswagen van, Seth could not see the occupants inside. He knew they could see him, though, so he tried to look relaxed.
Beyond the illuminated sign at the edge of the yard was a neatly trimmed lawn bordered by tidily rounded hedges that came no higher than his knees. Large potted plants crowded the shadowy porch. Three balconies with low railings projected from the upper story. All the windows were dark and shuttered. A pair of cupolas crowned the mansion, along with several chimneys. Even forgetting the dead bodies inside, the house looked haunted.
Seth considered turning back. Going into the funeral home with Errol and Kendra had sounded like an adventure.
Going inside alone felt like suicide. He could probably stomach a spooky house full of dead bodies. But he had seen amazing things at Fablehaven-fairies and imps and monsters.
He knew such things really existed, and so he knew there was a serious possibility that he was walking into an39 actual zombie lair, presided over by a real-life vampire(regardless of what Errol called him).
Seth fidgeted with the garage-door opener. Did he really care this much about getting rid of the kobold? If Errol was such a pro, why was he having kids do his dirty work?
Shouldn't somebody with more experience tackle this sort of problem, instead of a sixth-grader?
If he had been unaccompanied, Seth probably would have walked away. The kobold alone was just not worth it.
But people were watching, expecting him to do this, and pride would not allow him to wimp out. He had followed through on some intimidating dares-going down steep hills on his bike, fighting a kid two grades older, eating live insects. He had almost died climbing an escalating series of wooden poles. Yet this was the worst so far, because going into a zombie lair alone not only meant you could die, it meant you could die in a really upsetting way.
No cars were coming down the road. Pressing the button on the garage-door opener, Seth hustled across the driveway. The door opened loudly. It made him feel conspicuous, but he told himself that anybody who saw a person going into a garage would not think twice about it. Of course, any zombies inside the mortuary now knew he had arrived.
An automatic light brightened the garage. The black, curtained hearse did little to make the mansion feel more cheery. Neither did the assemblage of taxidermic animals positioned on a workbench along one wall: a possum, a40 raccoon, a fox, a beaver, an otter, an owl, a falcon-and, inthe corner, a huge black bear standing upright.
Seth entered the garage and tapped the button again.
The garage door shut with a prolonged mechanical groan.
He hurried to the door that would lead into the funeral home. The knob turned, and Seth eased the door open. He heard an immediate beeping. Light from the garage spilled into a hallway.
To the left of the door was a keypad, exactly where Errol had described. Seth punched in 7109 and hit enter. The beeping stopped. And the growling started.
Seth whipped around. The door was still open, and light from the garage revealed a mass of white dreadlocks approaching down the carpeted hall. At first Seth thought it was a monster. Then he realized it was a huge dog with such thick cords of fur that one of its ancestors must have been a mop. Seth did not know how the animal could see, it had so much hair dangling in its eyes. The growls continued rumbling, deep and steady, the kind of sound that meant at any second the dog might make a violent charge.
Seth had to reach a quick decision. He could probably leap out the door and shut it behind him before the dog reached him. But that would be the end of going after the statue. Maybe it would serve Errol right, for carrying out such lousy reconnaissance.
Then again, he was holding a dog biscuit. Surely the statue would not need the whole thing. Sit, Seth commanded, calmly but firmly, extending his hand palm outward.41 The dog grew silent and stopped advancing.That's a good dog, Seth said, trying to exude confidence.
He had heard that dogs could sense fear. Now sit, he ordered, repeating the gesture.
The dog sat, its shaggy head higher than Seth's waist.
Seth snapped the biscuit in two and tossed half to the dog.
The canine caught the biscuit on the fly. Seth had no idea how it saw the treat coming through all that fur.
Seth approached the dog and let it sniff his hand. A
warm tongue caressed his palm, and Seth rubbed the top of the animal's head. You're a good boy, Seth said in his special voice reserved for babies and animals. You're not going to eat me, right?
The automatic light in the garage switched off, plunging the hall into darkness. The only glow came from a tiny green bulb on the security keypad, so faint that it was useless. Seth remembered the shutters covering the windows. Even moonlight and the light from the sign could not penetrate the house. Well, that probably meant that people on the outside would not notice his flashlight, and he could not risk zombies sneaking up on him in the blackness, so he turned it on.
Once again he could see the dog and the hall. Seth moved down the hall to a large room with plush carpeting and heavy drapes. He swung the beam of his flashlight around, checking for zombies. Several couches and armchairs and a few tall lamps lined the perimeter of the room.
The center of the room was empty, apparently so mourners could mingle. There was a place on one side where Seth figured they laid the casket for people to view the deceased. He42 had visited a room not too different from this one when hisGrandma and Grandpa Larsen had died just over a year ago.
Several doors led out of the room. The word Chapel was written above a set of double doors. Some other doors were unmarked. A brass gate blocked access to an elevator. A sign above it announced, Authorized Personnel Only.
The dog followed Seth as he crossed the room to the elevator.
When Seth pushed the gate sideways, it collapsed like an accordion. Seth entered the elevator and shut the gate, preventing the dog from following. Black buttons projected from the wall, looking very old-fashioned. The floor buttons were marked B, 1, and 2. Seth pushed B.
The elevator lurched downward, rattling enough that