Good Night, Zombie

by James Preller, Iacopo Bruno (Illustrator)

Overview

A spine-tingling, heart-pounding tale of students trapped in a school with a mysterious janitor and dark, shuffling shapes outside.

Welcome. Have a seat. Ignore the shambling undead outside. Let us tell you a story. But be warned. Good Night, Zombie isn't just any tale. This is a Scary Tale.

Meet Carter, Esme, and Arnold, three students accidentally locked together inside an almost deserted school. They are not friends. They scarcely know each other. But in the basement, a mysterious night janitor waits. And outside, moving in the mist, dark shapes shuffle closer…

James Preller knows his audience: "It's what so many students, on every school visit, tell me that they want. You guessed it, scary stories for grades 2-4, 80 page chapter books. And by scary I mean . . . spine-tingling, heart-pounding scary."

Perfect for young readers who love spooky stories, ghost stories, and tales of monsters, Good Night, Zombie delivers chilling thrills in a kid-friendly format. Prepare for a night of fright with this spine-chilling addition to your children's book collection!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250050342
Publisher:	Feiwel & Friends
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Series:	Scary Tales , #3
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

JAMES PRELLER is the author of Six Innings, Bystander, and the Jigsaw Jones series. He lives in Delmar, New York, with his wife, three kids, two black cats, and a not-so-scary dog.

IACOPO BRUNO is a graphic artist and illustrator who lives in Italy.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

TRAPPED

Carter Novack pulled hard on the school front doors. He pushed, tugged again, and pounded on the door with the side of his fist. "What the heck?!"

Thick chains were wrapped around the handles. A heavy Master Lock sealed the deal. Carter was locked inside — trapped in Buzz Aldrin Elementary on a Friday night. He yanked again on the front doors. The clatter echoed in the corridors, bouncing off pale green walls and tiled floors.

A girl in jeans and a North Face jacket stood watching him. Her name was Esme. She was tall and string-bean thin and wore a frown.

Esme cleared her throat. Carter turned his head to look at her. "What?"

"You'll break it," Esme said.

"Are you my mother?" Carter asked.

"I ... what?"

"I asked, 'Are you my mother?' Because if you're not, then you can stay out of my business," Carter said.

Esme's lips tightened to a narrow line. She didn't know Carter, but she knew his type — boys who made rude jokes and interrupted in the classroom.

Carter vibrated with frustration. He suddenly kicked out at the lock, hard, three times: WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! The violence frightened Esme Millstein. But it also made her heart quicken, pitter-pat. He was very strong.

Footsteps approached from the east wing of the building, coming from the music room. A small, gum-chewing boy named Arnold Chang soon arrived. His baseball hat was screwed on sideways.

Esme knew Arnold from her fourth-grade class last year. Arnold was very clever, but strange. Most boys were. At least, that's the way Esme figured it.

Now, three fifth-grade students paused in the main hallway.

"It's locked?" Arnold asked.

Carter shot him a look. "Ya think, Sherlock?"

"So, we're trapped?" Arnold asked. He looked to Esme.

"I guess," she mumbled.

"There's got to be another way out," Carter announced. He stormed off in the direction of the library and the K-2 classrooms.

Esme sucked on a strand of hair. "Do you have a phone?" she asked Arnold.

"At home," he answered. "You?"

"I'm not allowed, I mean —" Esme corrected herself, "I don't have a phone, not at the moment."

A smile snuck across Arnold's face. "Not at the moment?" he repeated.

Esme ignored Arnold's tone. "Where are all the teachers?"

Arnold glanced at the wall clock. "It's nearly six o'clock on a Friday night. They're probably all home by now." With a dip of his left shoulder, he let his backpack drop to the floor with a thud. The top part of a skateboard poked out of it. "I cruised by to get some books," he said. "I was surprised the place was even open."

The sound of rattling chains came from around the corner, followed by a scream.

Arnold didn't wait. He scooped up his backpack, leaped on the skateboard, and pushed off down the hallway.

CHAPTER 2

NO WI-FI

Esme caught up with the boys outside the library.

"Locked!" Carter fumed. The muscles in his neck twitched. "Every door, it's the same thing. Chains and locks."

"Chill, dude," Arnold said, laughing. "We'll figure it out."

Esme tried the library door. It opened. "Don't worry. We can use the phone."

Carter nodded. Arnold rolled forward on his skateboard.

"You know those aren't allowed in school," Esme said. "Skateboards are against the rules."

A look of disbelief passed between Arnold and Carter. Was she for real? Esme extended a long arm across the doorway, blocking their path.

"Seriously?" Arnold asked.

"This is the library," Esme whispered with a slight quiver in her voice, as if talking about a sacred place. "No skateboards."

Carter ducked under Esme's outstretched arm. But Arnold stood at the threshold, thinking it over. He finally said, "I remember you from Mr. Hotaling's class. We called you 'Little Miss Perfect.' You used to remind him when he forgot to give us a homework assignment."

Carter looked at Esme in astonishment. He laughed out loud.

Self-doubt weakened Esme's resolve, but she stood firm. A rule was a rule was a rule. At last, Arnold surrendered. He left his skateboard in the hallway. Esme stepped aside.

Carter tried the phone on the desk. "No ring tone," he said. "It's dead."

Arnold sidled up to a row of new iMacs, dropped his pack onto a chair, and started punching keys on one of them. He read the message on the screen aloud: "Sorry, we have failed to connect to the Internet. Please try again."

He tried again, and again on different Macs. Nothing worked. "That's strange," he said. "Wi-Fi's out."

Esme drifted toward the main windows, which offered a view of a small interior courtyard. She watched as crows alighted on the ground, one after the other. The black birds seemed agitated. They screeched and nipped at each other with sharp beaks. Fog hung in the air, as thick as soup.

"We could smash one of these windows," Carter suggested. He picked up a chair, as if ready to hurl it.

"Dude, hold up!" Arnold said. "Let's think about this a minute. The chains were put on from the inside, right? Somebody has to be in the building."

"A night janitor!" Carter agreed.

"Yeah, he probably didn't realize we were here," Arnold reasoned. "Nobody saw me come in, I know that much."

Esme now counted thirty-seven crows — cawing, calling, screeching in high-pitched shrieks. It gave her a nervous feeling, as if the world had somehow gone wrong. "Guys, come look at all these crows."

"Um, no," Carter replied. He turned and led the way out the door in search of the night janitor. Arnold followed at his heels. Esme cast one last worried look out the window, sighed, and hurried after the boys.

They explored the dark, empty corridors until they stopped at a stairwell that lead to the basement.

"I've been in this school for five years, but I've never seen these stairs before," Arnold said.

Esme had no memory of seeing the stairway either. "It's bizarre. I don't think —"

"What's the big deal?" Carter interrupted. "It's a stairway. So what?"

A faint

TAP-

TAP-

TAPPING

came from below. It was followed by a rumbling, hacking cough. A cold draft rose from below and brushed up against Esme's legs like a cat. She shivered, as if touched by something evil.

Carter took a couple of wary steps downstairs, then stopped. Perhaps he felt the same chill in his bones. He looked up to Arnold and Esme, who remained rooted where they were. "You coming?"

CHAPTER 3

LIGHTS FLICKER AND DIE

The stairs led to a metal-plated door. Behind it, Esme heard what she imagined to be the shuffling of boots, the jingling of keys, and a man sitting heavily in a chair. Carter knocked twice and, receiving no reply, pushed the door open.

An ancient man sat in the corner of the room at a gray metal desk. He stared at his visitors through red-rimmed eyes. His skin was grayish-yellow, and his sunken, narrow cheeks gave off a skeletal appearance. Thin hair grew from his otherwise bare skull in wisps, like odd tufts of white grass. He wore blue workingman's trousers and a red flannel shirt.

He looked half dead, and Esme stifled a gasp at the sight of him.

The ancient man did not appear happy to see three students appear in his small, cramped office. He held a glass jar in one hand, and a fork in the other. He stabbed at a blood-red cube of meat from the jar and pushed it past his lips. He never moved his eyes from the uninvited guests.

"Venison," he spat with a gruff voice. He speared another cube of meat and held it before his face. "Deer meat. Kill it and butcher it myself. Care for a taste?"

No one accepted his offer.

"Didn't think so." He chomped on the bloody flesh. A trickle of blood dribbled down his chin.

"Are you the guy who locked us in?" Carter finally spoke up.

The ancient man leaned back in his chair, reached to his belt, and splashed an enormous key ring on the desk. There had to be fifty keys of every size and shape.

"Are you going to tell us which one?" Carter asked.

The ancient man wiped the grease from his lips with the back of a sleeve. "No," he replied.

"Excuse me?" Esme asked.

"You don't want to go out there," the night janitor said. "Not tonight, no." He rose painfully and shuffled toward the heavy door, which he shut behind them with a firm hand.

Arnold grew alarmed. "Ha! Well, yeah. I'm not sure you understand, Mr. —"

"Van Der Klemp," the old man said.

"Mr. Van Der Klemp," Arnold repeated. He helplessly pointed a thumb toward the ceiling. "We accidentally got locked in the school, see, and —"

The old man didn't seem to be listening. He rubbed a large hand to his stubbled chin, noted the time on his wristwatch, and closed his eyes as if waiting for something to pass. He counted in a dry whisper, "Three, two, one."

The lights flickered and the room went dark.

CHAPTER 4

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. VAN DER KLEMP

Esme shuddered. Carter reached for her arm, pulling her near. Arnold started muttering, "Um, yo, guys? I'm like, not into being here right now with this super freaky old guy and —"

"Silence," Van Der Klemp hushed them. "Wait for it."

In the next moment, a battered generator kicked on. It clanged noisily in the corner until achieving a steady drone. Then the lights came back on, though dimmer than before.

"My backup generator," Van Der Klemp smiled. He leaned his frail body against the desk, dabbed a handkerchief to his mouth, and coughed into it.

It left red dots of blood.

"Please, I have to get home," Esme said.

"Not tonight," Van Der Klemp replied darkly. "It is too dangerous."

The kids exchanged worried glances.

The night janitor continued. "You will wait until morning light. It is your only hope."

"Okaaaaay," Carter replied. He looked to Esme and Arnold. Gave a slight nod. Then he moved, fast. Carter snatched the keys off the desk. He bounced on his toes, ready for action. "Listen, we are outta here. I'm borrowing your keys. And we're going home."

The ancient man did not move. "Unwise," he stated. There was a trace of sorrow in his eyes. "They already gather outside."

"Come on, guys. I'm not listening to this guy," Carter ordered. Following Carter's lead, they flew up the stairs, feet barely touching the ground. The old man did not try to stop them. The three students had nearly reached the library when Arnold slowed to a halt. "Hold on, I've got to catch my breath," he said. "Besides, I left my pack in there."

Arnold went into the library for his pack, while Esme sagged to the floor. Carter was still energized. He paced the hallway, pumping his fists. "What a fruitcake!" he shouted. "Can you believe that guy? Crazy as a loon — and creepy, too!" "I feel like I've seen him before," Esme said.

"From school?" Carter asked.

"No, that's not it." Esme tried to recall where she'd seen Van Der Klemp's face before. She drew a blank, as if a memory had been wiped clean.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Carter said. "He seemed familiar to me, too." He rattled the heavy set of keys. "One of these babies is going to get us out of school free, so we might as well get started. I don't want to be here in case Van Der Klemp starts creeping around."

"Guys?" Arnold called from the library. "You better come see this. Now."

CHAPTER 5

WALKERS IN THE MIST

"What?" Carter snapped, annoyed. "We don't have time to mess around."

"I'm serious!" Arnold said. There was urgency in his voice. And fear.

Arnold stood by a window at the far end of the library, from which vantage point he could observe the grounds behind the school. Through the mist, he could see the baseball diamond and basketball courts, the swing set and monkey bars, and the jungle gym that looked like an old pirate ship.

The wind was still. Not a leaf stirred. High above, a full moon appeared like a cloudy eye that stared, unblinking, through the mist.

"I wanted to check outside," Arnold told them. "After what that old guy said about, you know, it being dangerous."

"Yeah, so?" Carter asked.

"Take a look," Arnold said.

Esme gazed out the window. "It's hard to see anything."

"There!" Carter put a hand on Esme's back and pointed with his free hand.

As Esme's eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to make out shapes moving across the grounds. Men and women dressed in clothing from olden times and others in tattered rags, all drifting aimlessly through the school playground.

A murder of crows flapped and bickered near the figures, landing on heads and shoulders. None of the dark shapes seemed to mind.

"Their clothes seem so old-fashioned," Esme said. "Like they dressed up for a fancy party or a dance or —"

"— a funeral," Carter said.

Arnold hesitated, uncertain. "Those people don't seem normal." His breath smelled like spearmint gum. He cracked the gum loudly and chewed.

"Nooooope," Carter agreed.

Could this be real?

Esme saw, or thought she saw, through the fog, a crow peck at the face of one of the figures. Again and again, the black scavenger plucked at the man's eyes.

Yet he shuffled along as if he were just a sad, pathetic scarecrow in a cornfield. Couldn't even scare away a crow.

CHAPTER 6

THE FACE AT THE WINDOW

"How come they're out there," Carter wondered, "just wandering around in the dark? It's freaky."

No one dared to guess. But it didn't look right, they all felt it.

Dozens of figures ambled through the grounds. Listlessly, aimlessly, like school-children at recess without the energy to play. Some wore puffy dresses, others were dressed in suits and ties. They walked with arms at their sides, heads pitched forward, as if led by their noses.

"They don't seem awake," Carter said. "Like they are sleepwalking or —"

"Zombies," Arnold said.

Carter snickered, "Zombies. Yeah, right."

"The zombie bash," Arnold muttered. He popped a fresh piece of gum into his mouth and cracked it loudly. Pop. A burst of spearmint sweetness floated from his lips.

The figure nearest to the building sniffed. He lurched forward from the right, moving with surprising swiftness. He, or it, passed not five feet from the window, head lolling in every direction. He lifted his nose to the sky and sniffed like a wolf on a mountaintop. He howled, an inhuman cry, and stood with his back to the window.

Then slowly, awkwardly, the creature turned around. His face appeared normal, yet every muscle was lax, dull, and unexpressive. There was no emotion in it. A face without anger or joy, happiness or sorrow.

Lifeless.

But it was the eyes that terrified Esme. One eye was rolled back into the man's head, so that only white showed. An empty cloud, unseeing. The other eye was missing entirely, just an empty socket and a trail of blood.

Catching a scent of spearmint, the zombie's nose wrinkled. He drew a step closer. And let out another moan from deep inside his body, a pitiful sound of longing and pain and great hunger.

OOOOOAAAAANNNN,

OOOOOAAAAANNNN.

Two hands shot out with lightning speed, thundering against the Plexiglas window.

BOOM, KA-BOOM!

The pane shook from floor to ceiling, but didn't shatter.

Arnold leaped back, stumbling against a table. Carter quickly pulled Esme away from the window.

"I — I —" Esme stammered. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't talk. Her heart hammered in her chest.

"Shhh," Carter said. He whispered with surprising calm and gentleness, "Shhh." Softly into Esme's ear. "Shhh."

He guided them farther away from the window.

Away from the thing with dead eyes.

CHAPTER 7

CARTER GOES FOR HELP

Half an hour later, they had a plan.

And Esme hated it.

"It's too dangerous," she argued. She listed all the reasons why it was a terrible, horrible, stupid idea. "We don't know what those zombies will do," she concluded. "You can't go out there."

Carter stood with his arms crossed, half listening. His mind was made up. He glanced impatiently at Arnold, who was methodically trying key after key in an exit door at the northwest corner of the building.

"How you doing with that lock?"

"Working on it, dude," Arnold replied.

Esme placed herself in front of Carter. "This is crazy," she reasoned. "Somebody will come for us. We just need to sit tight."

"We've already been over this," Carter said. "My parents don't know I'm here. Same with Arnold, same with you. We all came here without telling anybody." He said the next words slowly, patiently, firmly: "Nobody knows we're here."

Carter began to pace. "I don't want to stick around with that janitor downstairs. Besides, I'm not like you," he confided to Esme. "I can't sit around and wait. I get this boxed-in feeling, like I'm claustrophobic, you know?"

"No, I don't know," Esme pleaded.

The key slid into the Master Lock.

"Got it," Arnold whispered.

He unwrapped the chain.

"I'll be careful," Carter promised. "No worries. I'll walk out nice and slow. Remember, I live only two blocks from here. Piece of cake."

"Maybe we should go with you?" Esme offered.

Carter shook his head no.

"Wait a sec," Arnold said. He pushed off on his skateboard and glided down the hall. Two minutes later, he was back again — this time, carrying a field-hockey stick. He tossed it to Carter, who caught it with one hand. "You might need a weapon," Arnold said. "I found it in the gym closet."

"Sweet," Carter said, as he slashed the stick through the air like a ninja.

Esme peered into the night. "There's a few of them wandering around. What do they want?" she asked.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Good Night, Zombie"
by .
Copyright © 2013 James Preller.
Excerpted by permission of Feiwel and Friends.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

TITLE PAGE,
COPYRIGHT NOTICE,
DEDICATION,
PROLOGUE,
1 TRAPPED,
2 NO WI-FI,
3 LIGHTS FLICKER AND DIE,
4 THE MYSTERIOUS MR. VAN DER KLEMP,
5 WALKERS IN THE MIST,
6 THE FACE AT THE WINDOW,
7 CARTER GOES FOR HELP,
8 OOOOOAAAAANNNN, OOOOOAAAAANNNN,
9 "THEY'RE COMING!",
10 THE UNDEAD CANNOT BE STOPPED,
11 "THEY WILL COME",
12 AND THEY CAME,
13 SUNRISE,
14 STRANGERS AT SCHOOL,
EPILOGUE,
TEASER,
COPYRIGHT,