Zombies in the House Read online

  House’s face fell. He wondered whether, after the accident with Inchy, the gang would ever trust him again. Luckily, Cherry saw his doleful expression and relented.

  ‘Actually, House,’ she said, ‘let’s stick together. Two heads are better than one.’

  House smiled at her and mouthed a Thanks.

  ‘That means you’re with me, then,’ said Alex to Spit.

  ‘Hurrah,’ said Spit. ‘Oh, the joy.’

  ‘And,’ continued Alex, ignoring Spit’s sarcasm, ‘I reckon we should try to find out everything we can about Adonis.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Alex, ‘I’m guessing that when Adonis joined the hospital radio, it was reported in the local paper. He’s not exactly publicity‐shy, is he? So why don’t we check out the newspaper archives and see what we can uncover?’

  ‘Right,’ said Cherry, standing up. ‘Let’s get going. We’ll all meet back at the shed at lunchtime.’

  ‘Oi! Who made you leader?’ asked Alex rather crossly.

  ‘Well, somebody’s got to take charge or we’d be sitting here talking all day!’ said Cherry, twirling an arrow between her fingers. ‘Come on, House, let’s go!’

  Inchy’s mind was a swirling whirlpool. He felt almost like he had his wings back and was flying again, soaring around inside a tornado of spinning colours and sounds. He couldn’t tell how long he was immersed in the kaleidoscope of shifting lights, but finally the colours slowly faded and he woke up.

  For a moment, blinking in the sunlight, Inchy couldn’t work out where he was. Then he remembered. The tackle by House that had gone just a little bit wrong. The journey to the hospital. The cast being put on his broken leg. Tabbris and the rest of the gang sitting by his bedside. Aubrey Adonis stopping by to give him some earphones. Tuning in to Brain Dead. Then… Then…

  Inchy frowned. He supposed he must have fallen asleep, but he had no memory of drifting off. No dreams. Nothing. A complete blank. It was like he’d slipped on the earphones and passed out.

  Before Inchy could think about it any more, though, a nurse appeared. Like all the others, she was extremely pretty, with sparkling blue eyes and platinum blonde hair done in an elaborate style. Although she was wheeling a large trolley down the ward, she seemed so glamorous she wouldn’t have looked out of place on the red carpet at the Oscars.

  ‘Good morning, Inchy!’ she trilled, handing him a steaming bowl. ‘Time for breakfast!’

  The idea of breakfast struck Inchy as a very good idea indeed. He vaguely remembered something Big House had said about the hospital food not being very good, but he couldn’t recall exactly what it was. It probably wasn’t important. Anyway, he thought, as he peered into his bowl, House must have been talking about somewhere else entirely – this food looked delicious.

  Filled with hunger and enthusiasm, Inchy grabbed his spoon and took a large mouthful. It was exquisite. Nothing like the salty mush that Tabbris served up each morning under the misleading name of porridge.

  As Inchy sank back against his pillows with a contented sigh, he realized that, despite a slight throbbing in his broken leg, he felt very happy indeed. Hospital wasn’t so bad, after all. It was fine. In fact, it was better than fine, it was great! His bed was comfy and warm, the food was delicious, and everyone around him – from the patients and the nurses to the titan of cool that was Aubrey Adonis – were all such lovely people.

  Taking another mouthful, he glanced over at the bed opposite. It looked like all the other beds in the ward: white, clean and comfortable. But there was one significant difference – it was empty.

  Inchy was pretty sure there had been somebody in that bed yesterday, but he just couldn’t remember the name. Jack? No, that wasn’t right. Jake? No… Jim! That was it – Jim! The bed had been Jim’s, hadn’t it?

  ‘Nurse!’ he called. ‘Nurse!’

  Almost at the speed of light, a radiant nurse appeared at Inchy’s bedside.

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘Where’s Jim?’

  ‘Who’s Jim?’ replied the nurse with a smile.

  ‘He was in that bed over there.’

  The nurse looked across the ward, then back to Inchy.

  ‘Oh, he’s been discharged,’ she said.

  Inchy felt strangely satisfied with the answer. Jim must’ve got better and been sent home. Of course. Still…

  ‘I didn’t hear him leave.’

  ‘Well, you must’ve been asleep,’ said the nurse sympathetically. ‘Now eat your porridge, there’s a good boy.’

  ‘And he didn’t say goodbye,’ said Inchy sadly.

  ‘Never mind, dear,’ soothed the nurse. ‘Brain Dead will be on soon and that will take your mind off things. Don’t forget to tune in – it’ll make you feel so much better!’

  Inchy smiled at the thought of Brain Dead. He was already really looking forward to it. With a final warming smile, the nurse smoothed down Inchy’s crisp white bedsheet and skipped away down the ward.

  Turning back to his breakfast, Inchy felt very glad that it wasn’t him who’d been sent home. Indeed, he couldn’t even imagine leaving the hospital. He had a faint recollection that he was supposed to be doing something while he was here, but he couldn’t remember what. And surely it couldn’t matter. After all, what could possibly be more important than Brain Dead? Yes, hospital was just great and Inchy knew he wanted to stay forever.

  Lifting another spoonful of creamy porridge to his lips, Inchy’s eyes slid carelessly across the empty bed opposite him. As they did, he noticed that just sticking out from under the mattress was the corner of a glossy cover. Like a magazine or a sticker album.

  A sticker album!

  Inchy felt as if he’d been drenched with a bucket of ice‐cold water. The comfortable feelings he’d been enjoying vanished like a puff of smoke. Jim was so proud of his sticker album, there was no way he’d ever leave it behind. Something was wrong. And suddenly Inchy remembered all the other strange things about the hospital – the cheesy nurses and the horrible food. He glanced down into his spoon.

  Yeuch! The porridge he had just been about to scoff down was a dirty grey colour, flecked with green. It looked like sick. Inchy felt his stomach turn at the thought of how much of it he’d already eaten. How could he ever have thought it was nice? With a jolt of horror, Inchy realized the truth.

  Brain Dead. Ever since he had listened to Adonis’s show, Inchy had started to become just like the other patients – strangely happy to be in the hospital, and perfectly content to eat the horrible food.

  ‘Mr Kowalski was right,’ muttered Inchy to himself. ‘There’s something very wrong here.’

  Inchy shook his head. He’d been under the influence of Brain Dead too, but now he was free and could think clearly. First Mr Kowalski had disappeared, now Jim. And wherever they had gone, it certainly wasn’t home. Setting his jaw grimly, Inchy made a decision. Someone had to find them.

  And that someone was him.

  9

  Looking for Answers

  ‘Right,’ said House, marching purposefully ahead of Cherry, ‘we’re going to do this by the book. No mistakes. No tripping up. No way anyone gets hurt. Understood?’

  Cherry skipped up behind, grinning.

  ‘Yes, Master Chief!’

  ‘Yeah,’ House growled, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘By the book. I copied this down just before we left. It’s from my Guardian Angel textbook. If we follow these guidelines, nothing goes wrong.’

  Cherry scanned the words scrawled on to the page. House’s handwriting was just like the rest of him – big enough to be easily seen from a distance.

  ‘So this guide of yours suggests we do a door‐to‐door search, yeah?’

  House nodded, a proud smile splashing across his face.

  ‘Which means knocking on every door in Green Hill and asking if Mr Kowalski is in?’

  House nodded again, although his smile had faded slightly.

  ‘So h
ow long do you think that’ll take?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘How long? I mean, there are about a thousand houses in Green Hill, and just you and me to search them. Oh, and we can’t fly, so we’ll be doing it all on foot. And we’re not fully qualified yet, so we can’t even do time‐slipping.’

  ‘Time‐slipping?’ asked House.

  ‘Don’t you remember? We’ll learn about it when we get to Level Three – how angels can zoom all over the place, be in two places at once and do loads of stuff really, really quickly. It’s pretty cool.’

  ‘But we can’t do that now?’

  ‘House, we can’t even fly in this place. We need another plan. And this is it.’ Cherry pointed across the road.

  ‘Your plan is to buy one Burger Shack burger and get another one free?’ asked House, staring at a huge poster on the far side of the street. ‘I’m up for that, but I don’t see how it’ll help us find Mr Kowalski. Unless he’s at Burger Shack too.’

  ‘No!’ said Cherry, resisting the urge to whack House over the head. ‘Next to the poster – the phone box!’

  ‘I don’t think people live in phone boxes,’ said House solemnly. ‘In fact, I know they don’t.’

  Cherry opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, she grabbed House by his sleeve and hauled him over the road like a parent dragging a small child away from something dangerous.

  ‘You’re quite rough for a girl,’ said House as Cherry pushed him into the phone box. ‘Aren’t Cherubs supposed to be gentle and happy and fun‐loving?’

  ‘You’re thinking of puppies,’ said Cherry. ‘Now look –’ she picked up a thick book hanging from a rope next to the phone – ‘I’m going to use this. It’s a phone book and it has the numbers of everyone who lives in Green Hill.’

  House watched as Cherry flicked through the pages. She had some difficulty doing so. Inside a phone box, House didn’t leave much room for anything else.

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘Look!’ House glanced down to see what Cherry was pointing at. ‘See? Only one Kowalski! How easy was that? It would’ve taken ages to find the right address going door‐to‐door.’

  ‘Do you ever get tired of being right?’ asked House.

  ‘Nope,’ smirked Cherry. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Do you know what I don’t like about this plan?’ asked Spit, turning to Alex.

  The pair had just left number 92 Eccles Road and were now on their way to the newspaper archives.

  ‘No,’ replied Alex. ‘What?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘So, do you have a better idea?’

  ‘Even if I did, it wouldn’t make any difference,’ grumbled Spit. ‘It’s only your plans that we ever end up trying.’

  Alex stopped. ‘Right, out with it. What’s really bugging you?’

  Spit turned and scowled. ‘I just want to get back to Heaven,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t think I want to stay here, do you?’ asked Alex.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder,’ said Spit, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. ‘I mean, your plans have a habit of backfiring.’

  ‘This one won’t,’ argued Alex.

  ‘You don’t know that for sure,’ said Spit. ‘We thought we’d done well last time, defeating Dante and everything, but it still got us into trouble. And I don’t want to get into trouble again. I just want to go home!’

  ‘Look,’ said Alex in exasperation, ‘I want to get back too. And I know Cherry’s right about us not being demon hunters, but there’s something suspicious about that hospital. And it’s not like we’re doing anything bad in trying to find out what it is. That’s not against the rules. It’s not like with Mr Dante when we knew he was a demon and didn’t tell anyone. We don’t know who or what Adonis is. That’s what we need to discover.’

  Spit gave a grudging nod. ‘So what makes you think we’ll find anything useful in these old newspapers, then?’

  ‘Adonis’s ego,’ said Alex. ‘It’s huge. He loves to talk about himself so much that he’s bound to have let something slip. If he has, we might find hard proof that he’s up to no good.’

  ‘You sound like you actually want Adonis to be evil,’ replied Spit. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we found out that he was just normal? You know, a human, but with a screw loose?’

  Alex turned to Spit. ‘Ye‐es,’ he admitted with a smirk, ‘but it wouldn’t be as much fun…’

  Pulling on his dressing gown, Inchy hauled himself upright on a small pair of crutches. Looking right and left to make sure there were no nurses in view, he scuttled over to the door of the ward.

  In the corridor, he paused. Where to begin? Inchy racked his brains for any trace of a clue as to where Mr Kowalski and Jim could have disappeared to, but no answers came.

  ‘In that case,’ murmured the diminutive angel, ‘I’ll just start by looking around.’

  For the next two hours, Inchy roamed the corridors looking for leads. Everything seemed normal. Every ward, every floor, every staircase. The waiting rooms were quiet, the reception efficient and busy, the lifts happily whizzing people up and down between levels. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all.

  Inchy limped from ward to ward until he was thoroughly hot and bothered and his arms ached with the effort of dragging himself around on his crutches. In each one the patients were happy and calm. Some were playing cards with each other, others were chatting to the nurses and everyone was talking about Brain Dead.

  It all came back to Brain Dead. It was clear that the radio show was somehow responsible for keeping the patients in their unnatural state of happiness and contentment. That meant that Adonis had to be behind it. But behind what? Why was he doing it?

  Inchy growled with frustration. The gang were depending on him for inside information, but he’d discovered almost nothing. The hospital’s dirty secrets were eluding him… and that was when he noticed it.

  Dirt.

  It wasn’t much, but it was there – and it was in the strangest of places: mud under the otherwise immaculate fingernails of a nurse, a smudge of grime on a pure white bedsheet, and, right next to Inchy, a single grubby footprint on the floor.

  Inchy had just turned towards it to have a closer look when a middle‐aged lady patient strolled by, happily listening to an iPod. It was only when she’d passed that Inchy noticed the remains of a thistle tangled into her bright orange hair.

  Inchy reached up to rub his eyes. Nothing was making any sense. Hospitals were supposed to be clean places, weren’t they? So where was the dirt coming from? Before Inchy could work out a plausible explanation, though, something caught his eye that almost made him gasp aloud.

  Because as he lowered his fingers, he noticed that his own fingernails were clogged with mud. And he had no idea how it had got there. No idea at all.

  10

  Danger Signs

  ‘Call me old‐fashioned,’ said Cherry, ‘but I think that people usually only answer the door after someone knocks.’

  House turned to her, his hand hovering in mid‐air in front of the door – as it had been for the past two minutes.

  ‘I’m about to knock,’ he said. ‘I’m just working out what I’m going to say when whoever lives here answers, that’s all.’

  Cherry sighed. ‘They won’t be expecting a witty speech, you twonk,’ she said. ‘Just say who you are and ask if Mr Kowalski is in.’

  ‘Right.’ House turned back to the door. Then a second later he turned back to Cherry again. ‘Why am I doing this?’

  ‘Because you said it was your job,’ Cherry replied. ‘You said how if anything was going to happen then you’d rather it happened to you first. It was all very brave and heroic.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said House with a not‐very‐convincing smile.

  ‘Well?’ said Cherry.

  House turned back to the big red door. Without giving himself time to think, he rapped his fist once against the painted wood and immediately turned
to go.

  ‘That’s it, no one home.’

  Cherry glared at him. ‘Let’s give them more than a microsecond to get to the door, shall we?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said House. ‘I was just, well, you know –’

  ‘Yes? Can I help?’ a voice interrupted.

  Standing in the doorway was an old lady. She looked like the kind of person a company would use to advertise comfortable chairs. She gave the two angels a big warm smile, and her eyes seemed to twinkle with years of experience and wisdom.

  ‘Er, hi,’ spluttered House. ‘I, er, well, we…’

  Grinning, Cherry came to the rescue. House got flustered so easily that it almost took all the fun out of watching him. Almost.

  ‘Hello. I’m Cherry and this is my friend House. We’re doing a school project on the history of the town and wondered if –’

  ‘Would you like to come in for some tea and cake?’ the old lady interrupted. ‘Two young people like you need plenty of food to keep you going, I’d say.’

  House’s face lit up and he miraculously found his voice again. ‘All right! Come on, Cherry!’

  As House took a step through the door, Cherry grabbed his arm. ‘What happened to being careful?’ she hissed.

  House turned and looked at her with an incredulous smile on his face. ‘Are you serious? She looks about a hundred and seventy! Besides, she has cake.’

  Cherry unleashed a glare that could have skewered an elephant. Then turned to the old lady, all sweetness. ‘We just came to ask you some questions, that’s all,’ she said.

  ‘Well, questions can be very tiring,’ said the old lady, ‘so why don’t we do the questions over cake?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ said Cherry as politely as she could, acutely aware that, next to her, House was practically drooling.

  ‘Take a seat. I’ll only be two minutes,’ said the lady as House and Cherry edged through the door to find themselves in a small cosy living room. They sat down on a tired but comfortable sofa as their host disappeared into the kitchen.