Help! My Brother's a Zombie! (2 page)

When someone tells me not to do something, it usually makes me want to do it even more.

That's how it was with the attic door.

I used to sneak up there when I was supposed to be doing my homework.

I would press my ear against the door and fiddle with the locks.

I thought I could hear a draggy, floppy kind of sound every now and then, and once I was almost sure I heard a groan.

But the door was very thick.

I could have been imagining it.

The next thing was, the pets in our neighbourhood started to go missing.

First, next door's dog disappeared. Then Mrs. George's streetwise cat, Ragamuffin.

Everyone was worried about it, because you couldn't know whose animal would be next.

For once, I was glad Mum and Dad hadn't let me get a dog of my own. I used to ask for a dog every Christmas, but Santa never brought one.

He must have known something about my family that I didn't know.

One cold, dark night, I woke up frightened.

I'm too old to creep in beside Mum and Dad like I did when I was little, but that was what I felt like doing.

I kept hearing weird squeaks and thuds – sounds that were not like normal night-time sounds at all.

Like ‘bumpbumpbumpbumpTHUD!'

Or ‘SQUEEEEEEEEacckkkkk'.

I decided to go out and see what the noise-maker was.

If it was something silly, like a radiator, I could go back to sleep.

If it was something like a dinosaur, I could run for my life, but at least I'd know about it. I would not like to be surprised by a dinosaur in my bedroom late at night.

I know that they're extinct and not all of them even ate meat, but still …

Sometimes when the lights are out and everything is dim and full of creaks, I forget everything from my big bad book of facts and start thinking with another bit of my brain.

Dinosaurs seem possible and so do vampires and demons and cat-eating monsters with claws where their fingernails should be and bright red flickering tongues.

That's the thing about the night-time.

I didn't get very far that night.

You see, when I tried the handle of my bedroom door, it was locked.

I was trapped inside my own room.

I lay on my tummy on the floor and I squinted through the chink between door and carpet.

It's small, but you can sometimes see quite a bit if you squeeze your eyes in just the right way.

I lay there for what seemed like ages, and I think I might have just begun to doze off when Dad's big feet tramped past me in their slippers.

Someone else's feet were there too, in black socks with lots of holes in them.

It looked like Dad was dragging the other person past, because their feet were all limp and pointy, like they were being lifted and pulled at the same time.

There was another ‘THUD!' and then I couldn't see anything for ages because something was dropped beside the door.

It smelled of dog-slobber and leather. But of something else as well. Something tinny.

I tried to fit my finger through the chink but it wouldn't squeeze through. I don't know why I didn't shout for someone to please let me out.

Something told me that it wouldn't be a very good idea, I suppose.

After a while, the thing got lifted up, then Dad's feet went up the stairs, shuffle, thump.

Then came the sound of locking doors, and Dad's feet went past the other way.

I went back to my bed, hid under the duvet and closed my eyes.

In the morning I tried to pretend it was all a dream.

Even when Dad was so tired that his head tilted right down into his cornflakes.

What was going on?

I mean, was my dad the pet thief?

Or my mum?

Or was it Mr Black Socks?

And why?

Who
was
Mr Black Socks anyway?

Was it Stephen?

But Dad couldn't drag Stephen.

Stephen was too strong for that.

Way too strong.

Unless he was unconscious or something. Like, if someone knocked him out.

He was supposed to be away at school anyway.

Not that I believed a word of it.

I wanted to make sure that my bedroom door wasn't going to be locked from the outside again.

So I filled the keyhole with Play-Doh and hoped for the best.