Fablehaven2-Rise of the Evening Star Page 4

  accustomed to it.

  Maybe after your nerves die, Seth said, brushing more

  tears away. What now?

  Errol held up an empty hand. His fingers fluttered, and

  a garage-door opener materialized. Enter through the

  garage, Errol said. You will probably find the door from the

  garage to the house unlocked. If not, force it open. Once

  inside, to the left of the door, on the wall you will see a keypad.

  On top of the protective charms, the funeral home has

  a conventional security system. Press 7109 and then hit

  enter.

  enter, Seth echoed.

  How do you know that? Kendra asked.

  The same way I know Archibald is gone, Errol replied.

  Reconnaissance. I wouldn't send Seth in there unprepared.

  What do you think I've been doing since I first contacted

  You.

  How do I find the statue? Seth asked.

  My best guess would be down in the basement. Access

  it by the elevator adjoining the viewing room. If you turn

  right after entering, you can't miss it. You'll be looking for a

  toadlike statue not much bigger than my fist. Very likely in

  plain view. Look in off-limits areas. When you find the figurine,

  feed it this. Errol held up a dog biscuit shaped like a

  bone.

  Feed the statue? Seth questioned doubtfully.

  Until you feed it, the figurine will be immovable. Feed

  the statuette, pick it up, bring it to us, and I will drive you

  home. Errol handed Seth the garage-door opener and the

  dog biscuit. He also gave him a small flashlight, with the

  warning to use it only if necessary.

  We haven't covered what I do if I run into the living

  dead, Seth reminded Errol.

  You run, Errol said. Reanimated corpses are not particularly

  swift or nimble. You won't have trouble staying

  ahead of them. But don't take any chances. If you encounter

  any undead adversaries, statue or no statue, retreat to the

  van.

  Seth nodded gravely. So just run, huh? He did not

  sound fully satisfied with the plan.

  I doubt you'll have any trouble, Errol reassured him.

  I've scouted this location thoroughly, and there has been

  no hint of undead activity. Should be a snap. In and out.

  You don't have to do this, Kendra said.

  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 an

  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, a

  raccoon, a fox, a beaver, an otter, an owl, a falcon-and, in

  the 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.

  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. He

  had visited a room not too different from this one when his

  Grandma 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

  Seth wondered if it was about to break. Through the gate

  Seth could see the wall of the elevator shaft scrolling by.

  Then the wall of the shaft disappeared. With a final squeal

  the ride came to an abrupt halt.

  Without opening the gate, and keeping one hand near

  the elevator buttons, Seth shone the flashlight around the

  room. The last thing he wanted was to get cornered by zombies

  inside of an elevator.

  It appeared to be the room where the bodies were prepared.

  It was much less fancy than the parlor above. He saw

  a worktable, and a table with wheels that had a casket on it.

  There were multiple storage cabinets and a big sink. Seth

  estimated that the casket would barely fit inside the elevator.

  One side of the room had what appeared to be a large

  refrigeration unit. He tried not to dwell upon what was kept

  in there.

  He saw no statues, toadlike or otherwise. There was a

  door marked Private on the wall opposite the elevator.

  Satisfied that the room was zombie-free, Seth slid the gate

  open. He stepped out, tense, ready to leap back into the elevator

  at the slightest provocation.

  The room remained silent. Walking between the

  worktable and the casket, Seth tried the private door. It was

  locked. The knob had a keyhole.

  The door looked neither particularly strong nor unusually

  flimsy. It was built to open into the next room. Seth

  tried kicking it near the knob. It shuddered a bit. He tried a

  few more times, but, despite the repeated shuddering, the

  door showed no sign of weakening.

  Seth supposed he could use the wheeled table to ram the

  door with the casket. But he doubted he could generate

  enough speed to strike the door much harder than he could

  kick it. And he could picture knocking the casket off the

  table and creating a huge mess. The casket might not be

  empty!

  Another door, this one unmarked, also led out of the

  room. It was against the same wall as the elevator, so Seth

  had not seen it until after he had stepped into the room.

  Seth found that door unlocked. Behind it was a bare hall

  with doors along one side and an open doorway at the end.

  Seth cautiously ventured down the hall. He realized that

  if zombies came at him from behind, he could become

  pinned in the basement, so he listened very carefully. The

  large room at the end of the hall was crammed almost from

  floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. Seth hurried through

  the narrow aisles that granted access to the room, scanning

  for the statue. All he found was more boxes.

  Back in the hall, Seth tried the other doors. One led to a

  bathroom. Behind the other door was a large storage closet

  full of cleaning supplies and various tools. One object among

  the mops and brooms and hammers caught his attention: an

  ax.

  Seth returned with the ax to the private door. So much

  for stealth. If the garage door and elevator had not alerted

  the zombies, this should do the job. The ax was fairly heavy,

  but, choking up a little, he gave it a solid swing, and the bit

  crunched into the wood about a foot away from the doorknob.

  He wrenched it free and attacked the door again. A

  few more strokes and he had chopped a hole in the door

  large enough to reach his hand through. Seth wiped the

  handle of the ax with his shirt before setting it aside, just in

  case vampires knew how to check for fingerprints.

  Seth shone his flashlight through the hole in the door.

  He could not see any reanimated corpses, but a zombie could

  easily be standing off to the side, out of view, waiting for his

  hand to appear. Reaching into the splintery hole, worried

  that clammy fingers might close around his wrist at any second,

  Seth felt the doorknob on the far side and unlocked it.

  Twisting the knob, he pushed the door open. Seth used the

  flashlight to examine the room. It was large and L-shaped,

  so the entirety was not in view at once. Funeral paraphernalia

  littered the room: nameless headstones, caskets lying

  horizontal or upended, easels with colorful wreaths of fake'

  flowers. A long desk with a rolling chair and a computer was

  covered with a mess of papers. Beside the desk stood a row

  of tall filing cabinets.

  Half-expecting slobbering zombies to burst from the caskets

  at any moment, Seth wove through the cluttered room

  until he could see around the corner of the L. He found a

  red felt pool table underneath a ceiling fan
. Inside an arched

  niche beyond the table, a statuette squatted atop a variegated

  block of marble.

  Seth rushed to the recess in the wall. The statue was not

  on all fours like a toad. Rather, it sat upright on two legs

  with a pair of short arms folded across its chest. The figurine

  looked like a pagan idol with froglike features. A polished

  dark green, it appeared to be carved out of speckled jade, and

  stood about six or seven inches tall. Above the statue a sign

  read:

  Do NOT Feed

  the Frog

  The brief message filled Seth with foreboding. What

  exactly would happen once he fed the frog? Errol had made

  it sound like it would simply enable him to carry the statue

  out of the mortuary.

  The statue did not look too heavy. Seth tried to pick it

  up. The figurine would not budge. It felt welded to the block

  of marble, which in turn felt firmly anchored to the base of

  the niche. Seth could not even slide the statuette or slightly

  tip it- Maybe Errol knew what he was talking about after all.

  Not wanting to spend more time than necessary inside

  the funeral home, Seth held out the remaining half of the

  dog biscuit. Would the statuette actually eat it? Seth inched

  the treat forward. When the biscuit was almost touching the

  mouth, the froglike lips began to twitch. He moved the treat

  back, and the lips stopped moving. Holding the biscuit

  closer than ever, he saw the lips pucker outward, quivering.

  Apparently it was going to work! Seth slid the biscuit

  into the eager jade mouth, careful not to let the figurine nip

  his fingertip. The statue gulped down the food, and once

  again sat motionless.

  Nothing seemed to have changed, except that when

  Seth tried to pick up the statuette, it lifted off the marble

  block easily. Without warning, the statue squirmed and bit

  the side of his thumb. Yelling in surprise, Seth dropped the

  figurine and the flashlight onto the carpeted floor. The sensation

  of a jade statue wriggling like a living thing was

  extremely unnerving. Retrieving the flashlight, Seth

  checked the side of his thumb and found a row of tiny puncture

  wounds. The frog had teeth.

  Seth nudged the fallen figurine with his foot. It did not

  twitch. Warily he picked it up, holding it near the base so if

  it tried to bite him again he could avoid the tiny fangs. The

  statue did not move. He tapped it on the head. The statuette