Read The Zombie Next Door for Free Online

“I’m sorry about your yard,” Leo managed to squeak out.
    Mr. Smith just nodded. “Me too,” he said evenly.
    For the first time ever, Leo heard his neighbor’s voice. A scratchy, whispery voice. The sad voice of a living person—not a zombie.
    Mr. Smith sat silently for a long time. “Son,” he said at last, “would you mind taking down that post about me on your Web site?”
    Leo felt all the blood in his body rush to his face. His ears burned like glowing coals on the sides of his head. He nodded. “Um, yes. Yes, Mr. Squi—.” He looked up at his father, who was maybe even redder than he was. “Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Smith.”

CHAPTER 3
CURIOUS INDEED
    Back in his room, Leo flung open his closet door. He stepped over a pile of fake dinosaur fossils and kicked away some dried-up markers. Leo found the familiar button hidden behind his bathrobe. S woosh. The back wall of his closet slid open.
    “Are you kidding me?” Leo couldn’t help yelling a little bit. He looked around the familiar room. It was the secret laboratory he shared with his good friend Roger. Like Leo, Roger was a twelve-year-old zombie scientist. Roger also happened to be half-zombie. Which was why Leo was so disappointed at what he saw.
    Roger was asleep, curled up on a pile of lab coats. He was dreaming about a zombie antidote, most likely, because his greenish face was smiling a little.
    Leo plopped down on top of a crate of beakers and waited. Roger only slept about an hour a week. But when he did, it was impossible to wake him up. “Like rousing the dead,” Roger would joke in his fake British accent.
    Roger would know what to do about Mr. Smith, Leo thought. Or about how rotten Leo felt about Mr. Smith. Was it really his fault those vandals came? His parents said his “actions had played a role.” They called him “insensitive.” Then, for some reason, his mother called Chad’s mother and told her everything. Leo’s mother kept saying, “Un-huh, un-huh, un-huh.” Then she agreed that “those boys bring out the worst in each other” and hung up.
    “No screens for two weeks,” Leo’s father said. His mother kept saying, “How could you? How could you?” That made Leo cringe.
    Roger would help, though. Roger was so cool. Not cool-kid cool. But cool-as-a-cucumber cool. Roger had faced so many of his own problems that he wasn’t fazed by most things anymore. For one thing, Roger’s whole family had been wiped out by a zombie attack four years ago. And Roger became half-infected himself when one of the zombies licked him. Problems like that put things in perspective.
    Leo remembered when he’d met Roger the summer after second grade. It was during a T-ball game outside the Rotfield Rec Center. Leo could sense there was something different about Roger, especially when his ear fell off with a big gust of wind. The floppy thing had fluttered through the air like a zombie butterfly. It landed practically right on top of Leo’s sneaker.
    Leo didn’t know anything about zombies at the time. But he didn’t freak out. Even then, he was a zombie scientist at heart. That day, he brought Roger home and glued his ear back on. That was also the day they broke ground on their secret lab, and Roger moved in.
    Roger felt safe in the lab. He and Leo both worried about what would happen if the wrong people found out about him. He could be locked away—or worse. So Roger barely ever left his cozy home. He spent ninety percent of his time doing experiments, anyway. He was “this close” to finding the cure to his own half-zombiehood, he said. “Any day,” he’d been saying for the past four years. Talk about problems, Leo thought.
    “Why hello, old sport.” Roger must have woken up while Leo was deep in thought. Roger looked as refreshed as a half-zombie could. “Ahhhh,” he sighed, stretching and making all kinds of cracking noises. “Ooops,” he said as one of his fingers thudded on the floor. “Will you give me a hand with