The Zombie Stone Read online

  ALSO BY K. G. CAMPBELL

  A Small Zombie Problem

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by K. G. Campbell

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-101-93159-2 (trade) — ISBN 978-1-101-93160-8 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-1-101-93161-5 (ebook)

  Ebook ISBN 9781101931615

  The illustrations were created using watercolor and colored pencil.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.

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  To Debbie and Rick, who inspired the whole thing

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by K. G. Campbell

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter 1: The Foundering Vessel—Part 1

  Chapter 2: Outside the Butterfly Buffer Zone

  Chapter 3: Inside the Butterfly Buffer Zone

  Chapter 4: The Foundering Vessel—Part 2

  Chapter 5: In the Jaws of an Alligator

  Chapter 6: A Dismembered Limb

  Chapter 7: Save Our Souls

  Chapter 8: A Watery Graveyard

  Part II

  Chapter 9: Croissant City

  Chapter 10: Upon a Pirate’s Knee

  Chapter 11: A Symphony for Skulls in G Minor

  Chapter 12: The House of Zombies

  Chapter 13: The Guild of Weepy Widows

  Chapter 14: The Oraculum Never Lies

  Chapter 15: The Chamber of Music

  Chapter 16: Recruited and Perfected

  Chapter 17: Nightmare

  Chapter 18: A Secret Passage

  Chapter 19: A Melted Face

  Chapter 20: RUN!!!

  Part III

  Chapter 21: Five Zombies Too Many

  Chapter 22: The Strings of a Broken Heart

  Chapter 23: Sad Celeste and Batiste Baguette

  Chapter 24: The Camera Botanica

  Chapter 25: Armadillo People

  Chapter 26: The Sea Hag

  Chapter 27: Saint-Cyr’s Wax Museum

  Chapter 28: A Sunken Pirate Ship

  Chapter 29: The Grand Parade Begins

  Chapter 30: The Grand Parade Ends

  Chapter 31: The Makeshift Periscope

  Chapter 32: Under the Azalea Bush

  Chapter 33: Follow That Boat!

  Chapter 34: Zombies Are People Too

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  It had become apparent that the canoe was sinking.

  The opaque brown water, which had moments before been sloshing around the boy’s shoes, had now reached his ankles.

  “Claudette!” cried the boy urgently, pointing toward the largest of several spouting holes. “Stop that up with your finger!”

  The girl named Claudette, however, must surely have been stronger than she realized. For while attempting to plug the gushing water, she promptly forced her entire fist through the vessel’s hull, dramatically worsening the situation, as you might imagine.

  The boy scrambled across the canoe to stuff the jagged gash with a plaid blanket. But within moments the wool was a saturated lump, the “repair” worthless, and, in the meantime, more leaks were appearing. Indeed, with every second, there was more and more water, and less and less canoe.

  As wet coldness reached his knees, the boy finally came to understand that the boat was doomed.

  Yet even then, he did not fully appreciate the dire nature of his predicament.

  There was, however, someone who did.

  One hundred feet above the foundering vessel, an osprey was headed back to its nest and family with a freshly caught bass. The bird observed the splashy drama far below with a detached curiosity, as you or I might observe some feathery calamity in the sky above.

  The male human, just visible through a cloud of tasty-looking butterflies, had removed his oddly netted helmet and, for some reason, was using it to toss around water. The female human—who moved like a thing living, but to the bird above smelled like a thing dead—was with cupped hands, awkwardly attempting to do the same.

  Humans, the osprey mused, were an odd bunch. What the frantic pair were trying to achieve he could hardly imagine. But what he spied next, the osprey understood only too well; for every creature of the swamp is hardwired to recognize the most dangerous of predators.

  Through the watery channel, just beneath the surface, moved the pale shadow of a white beast. So enormous was it that the osprey dropped its family’s dinner in shock. The thing was wider than the vessel was long, and its powerful, snaking tail created a wake like that of a shrimp boat.

  And the white, enormous, snaking beast with a powerful wake was rapidly advancing upon the sinking canoe.

  But before we discover the fate of August and Claudette DuPont (for such were the names of the children in that ill-fated craft), we must return to the previous day, when the events leading to this remarkable situation began in a pretty unremarkable way.

  August DuPont popped his head around the kitchen door, where his aunt Hydrangea was counting bottles of DuPont’s Peppy Pepper Sauce as she placed them into a cardboard box.

  “Eleven, twelve, thirteen,” muttered the wide-eyed lady in the pink tiara. She cast about the kitchen table, then, skirts rustling, turned entirely around, scanning the room. “That can’t be all. It surely can’t be all. I could have sworn…”

  “I’m just heading outside, Aunt,” August announced, “to fertilize the pepper plants.” Hydrangea, distracted, was conducting a recount.

  “Is it,” she inquired absently, “the right time of year for such a measure, sugar?”

  August slid a book into the lady’s line of sight.

  The volume was rather old, of the hard-backed variety that was printed before the invention of dust jackets. Its elaborate title and cover decoration were embossed and gilded, but the edges were fraying, the leaf wearing thin, and the pages were scarcely held together by the spine.

  “It is the right time,” August assured his aunt, donning long, bulky gloves and a netted beekeeper’s helmet, “according to Lo
uLou Bouquet.”

  Wistfully, Hydrangea placed her fingers on the book.

  “Now, where,” she wondered, “did you ever find this old thing?”

  “It’s been helping to prop up my desk,” responded August. “The one with the broken leg. I noticed it a while back, when I was looking for a pushpin on the floor.”

  Hydrangea lifted the volume.

  “The Capsicum Compendium,” she read. “A Practical Pocket Guide for the Professional Pepper Planter.” She looked up. “You know, sugar, that in over one hundred years, no one has produced a more learned or reliable manual on pepper farming? Or so my papa would say. He regarded Miz Bouquet’s authority on the subject as absolute. So did his papa. And his.”

  She handed the book to August, a faint crease in her brow.

  “And now you pick up the torch, the last of the DuPonts. Perhaps you, August, can one day revive the family hot sauce empire. Have I ever told you that DuPont’s Peppy Pepper Sauce was once the most highly regarded—”

  “—hot sauce in the world?” August had heard this speech so many times before, he could finish it verbatim. “From Croissant City to Paris, France. Fiery yet sweet. Like a dragon’s kiss.”

  Hydrangea laid her hand on the boy’s cheek and smiled sadly.

  “I’m glad to see at least,” she said, “that LouLou Bouquet is being put to more fitting use than supporting broken furniture.”

  Awkwardly, as he was holding a book in his gloved hand, August heaved a generously-sized sack of fertilizer from the kitchen floor.

  “Now remember, sugar,” said Hydrangea. “No further—”

  “I know, ma’am,” interrupted August shortly. “No further than the gate.”

  “Can’t you content yourself, child, with the yard?” Hydrangea’s voice had an injured air of appeal. “It’s true that Locust Hole is not the place it once was, but it is by no means a small property. There is fresh air, a canal to fish, trees to climb.”

  The lady pursed her lips.

  “You may well roll your eyes, August. But let us not forget that your last misadventure into the cruel world has left us with ongoing”—lowering her voice, she glanced at the ceiling—“consequences.”

  In the foyer, August stopped to slide LouLou Bouquet’s compendium under his bag-wielding arm, thus freeing a hand to open the front door. As his gloved fist slid over the smooth brass, he paused, recalling the very first time he ever turned it, eight months before.

  Only eight months had passed since the boy had stepped beyond the threshold of his house for the first time. He glanced at the wood plank barricades resting redundant against the foyer wall, and recalled lifting them from their brackets, gingerly so as not to alert his high-strung aunt.

  So petrified was the lady, of butterflies and betrayals and almost everything else in the world beyond Locust Hole, she had sought to keep her nephew safely sheltered within its walls.

  Sliding through the front door and closing it firmly behind him, the boy crossed a screened-in porch and navigated voluminous net curtains to arrive at the crisp spring air and sunlight beyond.

  The bag of fertilizer landed with a dull thump in the dirt of a planter, beside some weedy green shoots, the yard’s only living plants. The circular flowerbed lay at the center of a geometric pattern that had once represented an Italian garden. But the small hedges defining the paths had long since perished, the gravel was thin and scattered, and the Grecian urns lay prone and broken.

  Swatting aside three butterflies that had immediately fluttered into orbit around him, August crouched and examined a seedling, lifting a limp leaf.

  “No fruit yet, you guys?” he sighed. “I know it’s only March, but I’d really hoped to surprise Aunt Hydrangea today with some tiny babies. But you’re looking sadder than a catfish in a soup pot. Maybe LouLou Bouquet can tell me what I’m doing wrong.” The boy placed the book on the bag of fertilizer. “But I’m afraid that she will have to wait.”

  August straightened, glanced toward the house, then strode quickly toward the yard gate. To the left of it, atop a crooked post, perched a mailbox. The rusty arch-topped receptacle had a door at either end, to deposit or retrieve its contents from yard or street.

  In a single, swift movement, August removed an envelope from his pocket and placed it inside. It was more of a struggle, however, to raise the tin flag that indicated the presence of outgoing mail; clearly many years had passed since the thing was moved.

  “I hope,” thought August, “that Mr. LaPoste notices the flag. He usually picks up our mail from the porch, but I think it should catch his eye.”

  The boy shot another glance over his shoulder. Nothing. He rubbed his palms on his thighs. “She didn’t see,” he thought. “Good.”

  Mission accomplished, the boy’s shoulders relaxed, and he was about to turn back toward the fertilizer and LouLou Bouquet when a sound stopped him short. It was the weak, crispy-crunchy roll of bicycle tires.

  “Grosbeak’s!”

  Holding the pointed ends of the pickets to shield his ribs, August leaned over the gate, craning to catch a glimpse of the approaching rider. He wondered if it would be the same girl as last time. August had enjoyed the way her long, bony legs stuck out every which way, making him think of a grasshopper on a bike.

  But it seemed unlikely. No one ever delivered to Locust Hole more than once. At least, not since Gaston.

  August couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for the sturdy red-headed delivery boy who had, with well-devised bait, lured him out into the world beyond Locust Hole for the first time.

  The trap had launched a tumultuous period, filled with problems large and small. But it had also been a time of great happiness; a time when August had believed himself to have friends. He revisited the heartwarming sense of belonging he had enjoyed when, very briefly, his life had resembled that of his favorite TV teen, Stella Starz.

  But, with a sickening lurch of the heart, he forced himself back to reality.

  In the end, he thought, he’d been wrong. There were no friends. Only deception and betrayal. He ran his fingers over the dent in his helmet, a battle scar from the catastrophe that had smashed his newfound joy to bits.

  But August was, like his helmet, only dented, not destroyed. He was young and resilient and, despite all his misfortunes, filled with hope.

  “Perhaps,” he contemplated, brightening at the prospect, “grasshopper girl watches Stella Starz (in Her Own Life). I wonder if she’s seen the cat litter commercial with Officer Claw, Stella’s cat. Maybe she likes Mudd Pies.” Armed with these compelling questions, August braced himself to open a conversation.

  The bicycle’s rider, however, was not the grasshopper-like girl, but a smallish, wiry boy. He dismounted, his uneasy, bulging eyes glued to the house. So engrossed was he that he didn’t even notice August’s beekeeper gloves, nor his dented helmet, nor the five butterflies circling it.

  “Did you bring,” asked August, “the fiberglass patches and glue that my aunt ordered?” Without removing his gaze from the front porch, the boy wordlessly handed two brown paper bags over the gate.

  “Yep! Here they are,” said August with satisfaction, discovering the desired items near the top of one bag. He looked up with a forced smile.

  “Have you,” he launched in brightly, “by any chance, seen the commercial for Kitty Clumps with Stella Starz’s cat, Officer Claw?”

  But before any discussion could commence, August heard the front door slam behind him, the swish of net curtain, and dragging, heavy footsteps on the porch steps.

  He watched the delivery boy’s expression turn from apprehension to undisguised horror. August’s shoulders slumped; he sighed and closed his eyes, awaiting what he knew would happen next.

  It happened every time.

  The boy opened his mouth, pointed at something over August’s shou
lder, and screamed, “Zombie!”

  “Take these,” grumbled August, shoving the grocery bags into Claudette’s arms. Claudette was August’s great-great-aunt who had died many years ago at nine years old. Much more recently, she had happened to become undead, and had proved to be problematic ever since, particularly when it came to August’s quest to make friends.

  “Do something useful,” snapped August, “rather than just scaring off kids, would you?” Upon seeing the zombie’s doleful expression, the boy regretted his irritated tone. “I know you didn’t mean to,” he said, offering up a conciliatory smile.

  Passing back into the screened-in porch, August unhooked a butterfly net from a nail on the wall and launched into a bizarre dance, darting about and swiftly spinning around to capture the confused insects within the net. Having caught and released two of them through the screen curtain, August glanced around the porch.

  “All clear,” he announced, propping open the front door and catching a carton of eggs as Claudette lurched indoors.

  “We need,” August hissed, taking one of the bags from the zombie, “to find that Zombie Stone. I still can’t believe Aunt Orchid sold it. Although to be fair, she didn’t know it was the marble in my skeleton model. But then, neither did I when I gave the model to her. Somehow, though, we have to track it down; it’s the only way to return you to the land of the dead, where you belong. It will be best,” he added reassuringly, “for everyone.”