Zombies in the House Read online

  Reluctantly, the gang peeled off to go their separate ways.

  Five minutes later, Inchy found himself staring up at a sign that said Geriatric Ward. Great – he’d got lumbered with the smelly old people. With a sigh, he pulled out the small rosewood box that contained his Scales of Justice. As a Voice of Reason Angel, Inchy used them to judge whether a course of action would turn out well or badly. This time, however, they just hung there, utterly motionless.

  ‘Well,’ muttered Inchy, ‘at least they’re not telling me it’s going to be awful.’

  Placing the scales carefully back into his pocket, he took a deep breath and walked through the doors, trying to ignore the mental images of lots of wrinkly old people smelling of soup and sweaty slippers and sitting in miserable silence.

  ‘Wa‐hey!’

  ‘Ooh, look – a little man to talk to! Brilliant!’

  ‘Wayth a minith while I geth me teeth in!’

  ‘Over here, boy, if you want to hear some stories about the good ol’ days!’

  Inchy froze, shocked by the riot of noise and movement that greeted him.

  ‘Er, hi.’

  Cautiously, he edged forward, more than a little surprised by the warmth of his welcome. He had only taken a couple of steps, though, when an orange bounced off his head.

  ‘Howzat!’ waved an old man. ‘Sorry! Just practising my fast bowling.’

  ‘You’re all… happy,’ said Inchy, confused. Weren’t old people supposed to be gloomy? They were nearly dead, after all.

  ‘Well, of course we’re happy, dear!’ chirped a voice to his left. ‘Hospital is just so much fun!’

  Inchy turned to see who’d spoken, only to come face‐to‐face with a world of wool. The wizened old lady in the nearest bed was wearing a knitted hat, a knitted jumper and knitted blouse. And she was knitting.

  ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Now stand there. Good.’

  The old lady held up her knitting and placed it against Inchy’s chest.

  ‘You know, I think it’s the perfect size.’

  ‘It’s pink,’ said Inchy.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said the old lady, ‘it’s strawberry blush, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘What is it?’

  The old lady smiled vacantly for a few seconds, then said, ‘You know what? I haven’t a clue! Mavis? Mavis!’

  Something stirred in a bed some way down the ward.

  The old lady held up her knitting and shouted, ‘Mavis! What is this I’m knitting? Can you remember?’

  ‘Roast dinner!’ came the reply.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. A roast dinner.’

  Inchy looked at the old lady, puzzled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look,’ said the old lady and opened the cupboard by her bed. ‘See?’

  Inchy gazed in.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked, grinning.

  ‘Er, well,’ said Inchy, ‘I’ve, er, well, I’ve never seen a knitted roast chicken before.’

  ‘No,’ said the old lady, ‘and neither has anyone else. It’s OK, I think, but I’m happier with the roast potatoes.’

  ‘The gravy’s very effective,’ said Inchy, wondering what he’d ever done to end up discussing knitted food. Whatever Tabbris had said, it seemed a very unlikely way to get back into Heaven.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the old lady. ‘My name’s Lily, by the way. Lily Patton.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Inchy. ‘I’m Inchy.’

  He had just worked up enough courage to ask why this old lady was knitting a roast dinner, when another voice interrupted.

  ‘Any chance of a souvenir, Lily?’

  Inchy turned to find an old man with a sad face standing behind him.

  ‘You leaving us, Harold?’

  ‘Afraid so,’ said the old man. ‘I’ve just been discharged. I don’t want to go, really.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame you. Here.’ Lily reached down to her cupboard and handed Harold two knitted roast parsnips and a handful of knitted sprouts. ‘I’ve not done the carrots yet,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Harold, and shuffled back to his own bed, where a half‐packed suitcase awaited him.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ muttered Inchy.

  ‘What, my lad?’ said Lily.

  ‘Well, this is a hospital, isn’t it? It’s not a holiday. I didn’t think it was supposed to be fun. Aren’t people supposed to want to go home?’

  Before Lily could answer, a nurse walked in.

  ‘Oooh, this is the best part of the day!’ giggled Lily excitedly.

  The nurse was smiling like that was all her face was designed for. Her teeth were bright, her eyes wide and she was carrying pompoms. Pink ones with silver sparkles.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ the nurse announced, thrusting the pompoms into the air and bobbing her head. ‘It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Live on Green Hill Hospital Radio, Aubrey Adonis is back on the airwaves!’

  Inchy pricked up his ears. Maybe this was his chance to find out more about the peculiar‐looking DJ.

  The nurse stopped bobbing her head, but only so that she could do a couple of spins on the spot. ‘So jump into your beds, rattle your tablets and loosen your bandages!’

  The nurse’s eyes sparkled at each and every patient in the ward. Then, to Inchy’s ever‐increasing surprise, she ran forward, leapt into the air, did a somersault and landed in the splits. ‘It’s… Brain Dead!’

  And at those two simple words, the whole ward went wild. The air was suddenly filled with whooping and yelling and false teeth and grapes and then…

  Silence.

  Inchy stared. ‘What’s going on, Lily?’

  Lily didn’t respond.

  ‘Lily?’

  Inchy looked over to see that she, like everyone else in the ward, was now sitting silently on her bed, wearing a set of heavy‐duty earphones and staring into nothingness.

  Inchy waved his hand in front of Lily’s eyes.

  Nothing, not even a blink. The clatter of doors made him turn just in time to catch a glimpse of pompoms disappearing through the doors of the ward. What had just happened? He’d never seen or heard of anything like it in his life!

  A voice interrupted. ‘Hsss! Boy! Hey you!’

  Inchy turned. Stared.

  ‘Over here!’

  Inchy didn’t even have time to work out where the voice was coming from before something whizzed past his ear to thwack into the chair at the side of Lily’s bed. It was a dart fashioned from a large syringe with flights made from medical prescriptions. A note was wrapped around it.

  Inchy opened the note and read, Over here, you numpty!

  Only then did he notice, off in the darkest corner of the ward, the wildly glinting eyes of an old man with a thin red bandage wrapped round his head.

  ‘Quick!’ hissed the old man. ‘Before zey all go valkabout again!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Inchy, running over. ‘What’s going on?’

  The old man saluted smartly.

  ‘Kowalski. Captain,’ he said, his voice thick with an accent Inchy didn’t recognize. ‘Velcome to ze front line, soldier!’

  ‘I’m not a soldier, I’m an ange–’ started Inchy, stopping himself just in time. ‘Er, I mean I’m a visitor. How can I help?’

  ‘Look!’ said Mr Kowalski, handing him a pair of earphones identical to all the others in the ward. ‘See? See vot I did? Zey von’t catch me asleep, oh no! I have gone for days vizout sleep. Days, I tell you! Ve Poles, ve are survivors, you know? Nossing can beat us! Nossing can beat me!’

  Mr Kowalski thumped a clenched fist against his chest defiantly, and coughed.

  Inchy couldn’t help but think that Mr Kowalski would probably get on rather well with Tabbris. Then he looked at the headphones and found them stuffed with cotton wool. It looked like Mr Kowalski was a total nut ball. Nuttier than Tabbris, even.

  ‘See?’ said Mr Kowalski, eyes wide and wild. ‘It von�
��t affect me viz zat stuffed in zere – I’m not going to end up like the rest of zem. Look at zem!’

  Mr Kowalski gestured round the ward with an age‐spotted hand.

  ‘What?’ asked Inchy. ‘They’re just listening to the radio.’

  Mr Kowalski seized Inchy’s hand and leaned forward.

  ‘Zat show, Brain Dead,’ he said. ‘Hospital radio show. Zey’re all hooked. Addicted. But it’s more zan a radio show – much, much more!’

  Inchy tried to pull away, but was surprised to find himself held fast by the old man, his grip like iron.

  ‘You heff to tell somebody! Zis hospital… Zere is something wrong viz it, something dark and evil!’

  ‘But why can’t you tell someone?’ asked Inchy. ‘The nurses?’

  ‘No!’ howled Mr Kowalski, his face shocked. ‘No, zey are a part of it too. No, it must be someone outside, someone who is not involved. I know too much already. Ze nurses are already suspicious. I cannot leave ze ward. Besides, I have friends in here – I can’t just leave zem! You’ve got to raise ze alarm!’

  ‘I… I –’ started Inchy.

  Mr Kowalski sat up straight and, to Inchy’s surprise, lifted him clean off the floor and pulled him so close that their noses almost touched. For a few seconds that seemed to last hours, Mr Kowalski stared straight into Inchy’s face, the whites of his eyes almost glow‐in‐the‐dark bright.

  ‘Don’t you understand? Hell is coming, child! Hell! Now go!’

  Inchy, suddenly released, turned and ran.

  In the ward, no one stirred.

  4

  After Hours

  ‘Watch it!’

  ‘Cherry!’ said Inchy, skidding to a halt.

  ‘What’s the hurry? What’s wrong?’

  ‘This hospital is seriously weird,’ said Inchy.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, for a start, no one wants to leave – they’re happy here. In fact, they’re more than happy, they’re ecstatic!’

  ‘You too, then?’ said Cherry, falling into step beside Inchy as they headed for the exit.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well,’ said Cherry, ‘after what Alex said about people in hospitals being miserable, I was expecting everyone on my ward to be gloomy, but they were happy as well. It’s freaky. We ended up having a sing‐song and –’

  ‘You sang?’ said Inchy incredulously. ‘And they were still happy? People smiled and stuff? Didn’t any of them wonder why their ears were bleeding?’

  Cherry folded her arms and stared as hard as she could.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Inchy. ‘It’s just that happiness wasn’t the weirdest thing on my ward.’

  ‘Why? What else happened?’

  ‘Well, for a start, there was this break‐dancing nurse. Well, she was more like a cheerleader, actually. And then this radio show came on, Brain Dead, and everyone completely zoned out, and then this crazy old guy fires a syringe at me and tells me that the hospital is evil or something. I mean – Oof!’

  Inchy’s tirade was cut off as he and Cherry bumped into something.

  ‘Hey, slow down, little people, OK? Life’s fast enough as it is. So why not park a while and, you know, take a rest.’

  Stumbling backwards, the pair looked up. Above them, Aubrey Adonis rose in all his skinny‐jean‐clad glory. As they stared, the DJ crouched down so that he was face‐to‐face with them.

  ‘Little friends,’ he said, as he reached out and pulled them close to him. Adonis was evidently trying to be friendly, but the combination of his bony limbs and the chunky rings on his fingers made it an experience rather like being hugged by a skeleton. The DJ smelled strongly of cheap aftershave, which masked a deeper, earthier smell that was even less pleasant.

  ‘It hurts me to see such young ones in hospital,’ he continued. ‘I can only hope I am, in some small and insignificant way, able to ease your pain a little.’ Adonis’s lips parted in a smile that released a stand‐up‐and‐salute row of gold teeth, each embossed with a tiny diamond.

  ‘Yes, well, er, thank you…’ began Cherry, trying to wriggle free of Adonis’s embrace, but only succeeding in getting a mouthful of greasy backcombed hair.

  ‘Here,’ said Adonis, standing up, ‘perhaps this will help?’

  With that, he flicked back his ankle‐length leather coat, whipped out a huge wallet and shook it open. It only stopped unfolding when it hit the floor. Twice. Reaching into the wallet, Adonis pulled from it two pictures of himself holding a lamb and a puppy. Handing them to Cherry and Inchy, he said, ‘Whenever you look at these, it will remind you that I’m thinking of you and praying you’ll get better.’

  The two angels took the pictures, speechless. ‘But what are you little dudes doing out of your cosy cribs anyhow?’ asked Adonis, his brow furrowed. ‘You should be tucked up listening to my show!’

  ‘Oh, we’re not patients,’ replied Inchy without thinking. ‘We’re just visit– Ouch!’

  Inchy broke off as Cherry elbowed him sharply in the ribs. Adonis’s frown deepened.

  ‘Visiting hours are over, dudes. You shouldn’t be here. Time to go.’

  Adonis turned and walked over to a nurse sitting on a chair in a nearby ward. She had Brain Dead headphones clamped on to her head and a dreamy expression on her face. Adonis reached out and tore the headphones away in one swift, almost painful, movement. Then he snapped his fingers and the nurse seemed to wake up.

  ‘I found these two wandering the corridors,’ he murmured. ‘Could you please show them the way out. And maybe you should take more care to make sure all the visitors leave at the end of visiting hours tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Adonis. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again,’ said the nurse. She looked positively ashamed of herself, but Adonis ignored her apology, turning his attention back to Cherry and Inchy.

  ‘Fare thee well, my little friends,’ he said, his voice all silk and honey again. ‘I go now to bring what little healing I can to those less fortunate than I.’

  And with that he glided off down the corridor, leaving Cherry and Inchy to be herded towards the exit by the now very alert, awake and bossy nurse. As she ushered them out of the door, Cherry could see the rest of the gang waiting for them on the other side of the car park. The nurse turned, favoured them with another radiant smile, rustled her pompoms, chanted ‘Ooh, yeah, Ad‐on‐is!’, then left with a very impressive backflip.

  Inchy turned to Cherry. ‘That was really odd.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Cherry. ‘Those pompoms are hideous.’

  ‘No, not that!’ said Inchy. ‘Well, not only that. You know how we were just talking to Adonis?’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘And you know how everyone was listening to his show on the radio?’

  Cherry ground her teeth. ‘Get to the point, Inch.’

  ‘Well, how come Adonis is walking around the hospital at the same time he’s on the radio?’

  ‘Simple,’ said Cherry. ‘The show’s pre‐recorded.’

  ‘But then what on Earth is he doing while the show is on?’

  ‘And then she wanted to play kiss‐chase. I’m not joking – kiss‐chase! And when she caught me… Yeurch! Her lips were like wet rubbers on springs.’

  The gang were back in the shed, laughing at Spit’s account of nearly being granny‐kissed to death.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded. ‘Have any of you ever been chased by a flirty grandma who’s just discovered strawberry lip balm? No! You haven’t! I think I’m going to be sick.’ He thumped down on to the floor and folded his arms, looking grumpy.

  ‘It’s the weirdest hospital I’ve ever heard of,’ said House.

  ‘For once, you’re right,’ said Spit. ‘I mean, hospitals are for sick people. They’re places people don’t like to be. So why was everyone happy?’

  ‘I ended up playing footie,’ said Alex. ‘It was broken arms versus broken legs. Strangest game I’ve ever played.’

  ‘Who
won?’ asked House.

  ‘That’s not the point, really, is it?’ snapped Cherry.

  ‘Arms,’ whispered Alex, leaning across to House. ‘My team!’

  ‘Well, I got shown a knitted roast dinner,’ said Inchy. ‘And someone thought I was a cricket wicket and threw an orange at my head. But none of it was as weird as what Mr Kowalski told me…’

  Everyone noticed the way his voice trailed off suddenly. Alex stepped forward, concerned by the dark troubled look on Inchy’s face.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Inchy replied. ‘After all that stuff with Dante the demon geography teacher, I’m probably just overreacting.’

  Alex’s face was stern now. ‘Tell us, Inchy.’

  ‘He said… He said, “Hell is coming!”.’

  It was as if Inchy’s words had sucked all the warmth from the shed. House shuddered. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘“Hell is coming!”,’ muttered Cherry. ‘Well, if it is, I bet it’s got something to do with that Adonis. He’s long gone off the cliff of cuckoo.’

  ‘Cuckoo doesn’t automatically equal evil crackpot,’ said Spit.

  ‘But we do know there are other demons in Green Hill,’ argued Alex. ‘Dante told us that much. Adonis could be one of them.’

  ‘I agree with Spit,’ said House. ‘You might think we’ve stumbled on something all evil and dodgy, but this is nothing like what happened with Dante. This is just a hospital.’

  ‘What about Mr Kowalski, then?’ asked Cherry. ‘Inchy sounds spooked by what he said.’

  ‘I was,’ Inchy replied, ‘but I guess he’s just one person. And he did seem a bit mad.’

  ‘Besides,’ added Spit, ‘all we’ve got in the way of evidence to support him are some strangely happy patients, some dancing nurses with no taste in pompoms and a radio DJ who likes dressing in black. Strange? Maybe. Self‐obsessed? Definitely. Evil? I don’t think so.’ He frowned. ‘Besides, no self‐respecting demon would ever wear that much jewellery.’

  ‘Right,’ said Alex, ‘we have to admit that there’s no hard proof. There could be something demonic going on, but for all we know this could be what all human hospitals are like.’