Case File 13 #2 Page 4

  “But what if we do?” Carter said. “We’d be on the news. We’d be famous. They might even give us a parade and, like, a year’s worth of hot dogs at The House of Wieners.”

  “Right. I can see it now,” Nick said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “The annual Dead Body Parade. Coming soon to a graveyard near you.”

  “Speaking of the cemetery . . .” Angelo chewed on his lower lip. “Do you think it might be a good idea to, maybe . . . invite the girls?”

  Nick stopped halfway across the street. “Are you kidding? Why would we want to bring them?”

  Angelo ran his fingers through his hair. “You have to admit, Dana knows a lot about body snatching. I never thought she was all that smart until last night.”

  “Who cares?” Nick fumed. Bring the girls. What kind of lame idea was that? “What, do you like her or something?”

  Angelo’s face went white. “Take that back!” he said. The two of them tried to stare each other down.

  Carter stepped between them. “Repeat after me, neither girls, nor killer shape shifters, nor horrendous body odor shall ever come between the Three Monsterteers.’”

  Nick chuckled and got back on his bike. “You’re the only one who needs to worry about body odor.”

  “Of course,” Carter admitted with a wide grin. “Why do you think I threw that in? Now let’s forget all this girl talk.”

  Unfortunately, that plan only lasted until they reached the cemetery. Angie and her friends were waiting outside the gate.

  “What are you doing here?” Nick growled.

  “We figured you boys would show up. Once it was safe. Too bad the groundskeeper has already cleaned everything up.”

  Darn! Angelo was right. They should have come the night before.

  “And by the way, two more bodies were stolen last night,” Dana said.

  “Another cemetery break-in?” Angelo asked, whipping open his notebook.

  “No. The hospital this time,” Angie said. “I overheard my mother talking about it. Two bodies disappeared between one and three in the morning.” Something about her tone made Nick suspicious. Why was she spilling the beans so easily this time?

  “Too bad you won’t be able to check out the scene,” Tiffany said, keeping well away from Carter. “Angie’s mom is going to let us into the mortuary when she works the night shift tonight. I bet we’ll discover a ton of juicy clues while you play video games or root through garbage cans. Whatever it is boys do.”

  Nick ground his teeth. He looked at Angelo, unable to believe what he was about to say. “Fine,” he muttered. “We’ll work with the three of you.”

  Angie burst into laughter. Not exactly the response Nick had expected. “Are you crazy?” she said. “Why would we want to work with you? We have the pictures from the cemetery—before it was cleaned up. We have access to the hospital morgue. And any one of us is smarter than the three of you combined.”

  “So you’re just telling us to rub our noses in it?” Nick felt his face growing hot.

  “Pretty much,” Tiffany agreed. “I can’t wait to post about it online.”

  Angelo grabbed Nick’s elbow. “We need to tell them,” he whispered. “Angie’s right. They have no other reason to help us.”

  Nick’s first impulse was to tell the girls to get lost. But he knew Angelo was right. There was something really weird going on here. A couple of bodies stolen from a cemetery might have been teenagers pulling a gruesome prank. But breaking into a hospital morgue was big time. Besides, he really liked the idea of adding body snatchers to their movie. And adding a mortuary scene would make it that much cooler.

  “Fine,” he spat, his voice so low he could barely be heard. “You take us into the hospital and I’ll tell you what happened to us a few weeks ago.”

  Angie considered his offer for a moment before shaking her head. “No dice. Whatever happened in the past is old news. We’re onto something big.”

  Nick balled his fists. Were they trying to make him beg?

  “Nick can find out what happened in the cemetery,” Angelo said. “He knows some . . . friends who probably saw the whole thing.”

  “Is that true?” Angie asked. Now she was the suspicious one.

  Nick nodded reluctantly. “I’m not even sure I can talk to them anymore. But if I can, Angelo’s right. They probably saw what happened. They spend a lot of time around here.”

  “A lot of time,” Carter said with a nervous-sounding laugh.

  Angie whispered something to Dana and Tiffany. Dana whispered something back. They seemed to be disagreeing. “I don’t know. What kind of people hang out in cemeteries? For all we know they’re the grave robbers.”

  “Trust me,” Angelo said. “They aren’t the grave robbers.”

  Angie appeared unconvinced.

  “Besides, I’ve got something that can help us at the mortuary. Something I made.”

  Dana nodded her head ever so slightly.

  “Okay,” Angie said. “But if you’re lying, the hospital is out.”

  At the end of the street someone rode by on a bicycle. Nick thought the figure looked familiar. But before he could make out who it was, the bike was out of sight. He turned back to Angie.

  “And if I’m not, you admit we know more about monsters than you could even dream of.”

  Angie sneered. “Fat chance.”

  “Bringing the girls is a bad idea,” Nick whispered to his friends as they walked through the big metal gate.

  Angelo tapped a pen against his knuckles. “What choice do we have?”

  “We could always lead them inside, shove them into an empty grave, and run,” Carter said. “Kind of a trade-off. Someone stole a couple of bodies. We put some back.”

  “Seems pretty mean,” Nick said. “To the ghosts.”

  Angie stepped up beside the boys and sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

  Nick opened his pack and pulled out an old pair of dress shoes he’d taken from his father’s closet and the sandwich he’d bought at the deli. The pastrami was still so hot it steamed.

  “Phew, that stinks,” Tiffany said, waving her hand in front of her face. “I can’t tell which smells worse, that sandwich, the shoes, or Carter.”

  Carter nodded. “Unfortunately, we’ll never know for sure since your perfume is so strong it immediately kills the sense of smell of anyone who gets a whiff.”

  “Let’s get on with this.” Angie folded her arms. “Where are these so called friends of yours?”

  “Follow me.” Nick climbed off his bike and wheeled it into the cemetery. The rest of the kids followed. The last time he was here, the ghosts had shown up fairly quickly, somehow understanding that Nick was the only person who could see or hear them. They had looked more or less like regular people, except for the fact that he could see straight through them. Unlike movie ghosts, who wailed or screeched, these ghosts just wanted to talk about what they missed most from the real world—things like shoes and sandwiches.

  The thing was, the only reason he could see the ghosts was because he’d been a zombie for a while. Angelo and Carter hadn’t been able to see or hear anything. And as far as Nick knew, seeing the dead might be something that wore off over time. The farther he walked into the cemetery without seeing a single ghost, the more he began to worry his ability might be gone.

  “Well?” Angie demanded as Nick circled the same group of headstones a second time.

  “I told you it wasn’t a sure thing.” Nick searched the graves for any flicker of movement.

  “He’s lying,” Tiffany said. “We can’t trust them.”

  Something rustled in the bushes to their left and the kids spun around. Dana picked up a stick and peered into the foliage. It was probably just a squirrel or bird. Ghosts didn’t move bushes.

  Nick was just getting ready to admit defeat when a familiar voice said, “Is that pastrami I smell?”

  A round-faced man in an old-fashioned suit drifted out of the ground almost directly beneath Nick�
�s feet.

  “Alabaster!” Nick cried, relief flooding through him.

  Angie and her friends looked around, confused, as Nick pulled the hot pastrami from his bag. He held out the sandwich and the ghost leaned over to inhale the spicy aroma. The last time Nick had been here, Alabaster Wellington confided that the thing he missed most was hot pastrami. As a ghost, he couldn’t eat it. But that didn’t stop him from smelling it if he tried hard enough.

  “Merciful heavens,” the ghost moaned with delight. “Pastrami! It’s been so long.”

  Nick couldn’t help smiling at the spirit’s obvious pleasure. “I ordered it with spicy mustard and extra pickles.”

  “You, my friend, are a saint,” Alabaster said.

  “What’s he doing?” Angie asked.

  Carter rubbed his hands up and down his arms as though trying to warm himself. “Nick can talk to ghosts.”

  “Is this supposed to be funny?” Angie’s lips tightened. “Did you bring us here as some kind of joke?”

  “It’s not a joke,” Angelo said.

  Another spirit materialized. This one was tall and sad looking. He too was dressed in a suit, but his shoeless feet poked through a pair of shabby socks. “Stenson, look what I brought you.” Nick pulled his father’s old dress shoes from the bag. The ghost had explained how he was buried without shoes, which meant that his toes were always cold.

  “Oh-h-h.” The man’s eyes opened wide and he almost smiled. “You remembered.”

  “This is priceless,” Tiffany said. “You expect us to believe he’s talking to a ghost with a thing for sub sandwiches and old shoes? You guys must be really desperate.”

  “Not one ghost. Two,” Nick said, reaching inside the shoes and removing a pair of thick black socks.

  Stenson choked back a sob and a long silver tear ran along a transparent cheek past his bushy mustache.

  Tiffany pulled a brush through her hair. “I can’t believe you thought we’d fall for this!”

  “I understand how it looks,” Angelo said. “And I’m not surprised by your disbelief. But despite what you think, Nick is actually communicating with the undead. It seems to be a side effect of the fact that on Halloween he turned into, well . . . a zombie.”

  Angie snorted. “Of course. Why didn’t you say so? How could I not have realized that the three of you weren’t wearing costumes at all? You actually were zombies. You aren’t desperate. You’re crazy.”

  “Technically, Nick was the only one who turned into a zombie,” Carter said. “Which is kind of a rip-off if you ask me.”

  Tiffany checked her reflection in a small mirror and put her brush back in her bag. “Let’s go.”

  Dana gave Angelo a disappointed look. “I expected more out of you.”

  Stenson ran his hands lovingly over the shoes, although Nick knew the spirit couldn’t actually feel them. For that matter, he wasn’t sure how a ghost could have cold feet when he had no actual body. “Would you mind?” the spirit asked, gesturing toward a worn headstone.

  Nick set the shoes on the grass in front of the stone. Slowly, as if by magic, the shoes and socks sunk into the grass, until they disappeared completely.

  “All I can say is don’t ever expect . . .” Angie’s words dried up, her expression going from anger to confusion as the shoes lowered into the earth. “How did you do that?” she asked.

  Dana went to the spot where the shoes had disappeared and tugged at the grass. She checked Nick’s bag as if she thought he’d slipped the shoes back inside and shook her head. “They’re gone.”

  A moment later Stenson arose from his grave, his transparent feet now wearing a pair of transparent shoes.

  “How do they fit?” Nick asked.

  The ghost shifted his feet left and right admiringly. He brushed away a tear. “They’re perfect.”

  “It has to be some kind of trick.” Angie stared at the grass where the shoes had been. But there was no way to explain what had just happened. She turned to her friends, completely speechless for once. Dana and Tiffany seemed just as bewildered.

  “No trick,” Angelo said sympathetically. “I wouldn’t have believed it myself. But it’s all true.”

  Nick turned back to Alabaster Wellington, who appeared to be drooling a little. “Can you do the same thing if I put the sandwich on your grave?”

  “Alas, no,” the spirit said with a sniff. “I fear the damp and worms would have a rather unsettling effect on the meat—turning an aroma of pure bliss into something more like a moldering foot. But I do thank you for your kindness. I shall return to my grave a happier man, dreaming of cured meat and crunchy pickles.”

  “Wait!” Nick shouted as Alabaster began to fade away. Angie jumped at his voice.

  “I . . .” Nick glanced over at his friends. Now that it was time to ask the questions they’d come here for, he wondered if it was going to be all for nothing. What if the ghosts hadn’t seen anything? Or what if his asking offended them? “I was—I mean, we—were . . . wondering if you happened to see whoever broke into the cemetery the night before last?”

  Alabaster scowled and Stenson made a pained face.

  “Horrible, just horrible,” Alabaster said. “They desecrated the graves, leaving the spirits with nowhere to call home.”

  “Three of them,” Stenson added. “The pale one and two un-men.”

  “What did they say?” Angelo asked, his notebook ready. Carter moved back a step as if afraid of catching something from the invisible specters. The girls still looked suspicious, but even they were paying attention.

  Nick held up a finger, in a wait a minute motion. “What do you mean, un-men?”

  Both of the ghosts looked extremely uncomfortable. Stenson tugged at his mustache. “Living but not living. Neither here nor there.”

  “Well?” Angie asked.

  “They say there were three of them,” Nick said. “A pale guy and two men who aren’t alive or dead.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tiffany said.

  “Z-zombies?” Carter stuttered.

  “Vampires?” Angelo asked, scribbling frantically.

  The two ghosts looked at each other and shook their heads. “I don’t think they know.” Creatures that even ghosts didn’t recognize? The idea both thrilled and frightened him. And he didn’t think he was alone. He actually thought the ghosts were scared too.

  Angie stared at a spot a few feet in front of Nick, squinting as if she might be able to see the ghosts if she tried hard enough. “Where did they take the bodies? We need to track them down.”

  Alabaster and Stenson both shook their heads at once with expressions it took Nick a moment to place. The spirits were not just frightened. They were terrified.

  “You must not go after them,” Alabaster said. “The pale one is dangerous in the extreme!”

  “Stay as far away as possible.” Stenson tugged at the ends of his mustache so hard Nick was afraid he might pull it right off. “There are things worse even than death.”

  That night after dinner the five of them followed Angie to the back of the hospital. “Shouldn’t we go around the front?” Carter asked, glancing at the gray metal doors dimly illuminated by a buzzing fluorescent light.

  “Live bodies go through the front entrance,” Angie said. “Dead bodies enter here.”

  Nick imagined zippered bags being rolled up the ramp in front of him, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “What exactly does your mother do?” he asked.

  “She’s a pathologist,” Angie said. “She performs autopsies.”

  Angie’s mom cut open dead bodies for a living. That explained a lot.

  Carter pulled a Tootsie Pop from his jacket pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Maybe we should just let the police handle this, huh, Nick?” he muttered around the candy. “You said those ghosts were pretty specific about staying away from whatever’s going on here.”

  “Go ahead,” Angie said. “Then we’ll know for sure that you’re all a bunch of co
wards.”

  Nick wasn’t sure. The ghosts had freaked him out. And the idea of poking around a mortuary at night was more than a little frightening. On the other hand, what kind of monster hunters would they be if they backed out at the first sign of danger?

  “It’s not like whoever took the bodies is still around,” Dana said.

  Angelo took a small metal box out of his backpack, attached a handle, and began fiddling with a pair of dials.

  “Metal detector?” Nick asked.

  “Something a little more helpful,” Angelo said.

  Dana raised an eyebrow.

  “Make up your minds already. It’s cold out here.” Tiffany rubbed her hands together.

  “Not as cold as the bodies in there,” Angie said ominously. When it was clear none of them were backing out, she led the way through the double doors and down a green-tiled hallway. Angie pointed to a window covered from the inside by a curtain. “That’s where they let people look in to identify the bodies.”

  Past the window was a door with a round metal grate and a card reader beside it. Angie pushed the button and spoke into the grate. “Hey, Mom, it’s us.”

  Angelo reached into his bag and handed Nick the video camera. “Get as many shots as you can. You never can tell when we might need to splice in a good morgue shot. Especially if there’s anything gruesome.”

  “Who said you get to take pictures?” Angie asked.

  “It’s for the Building a Brighter Tomorrow contest,” Nick said.

  Angie gave him a suspicious glare.

  Nick wasn’t sure what he’d expected Angie’s mom to look like. Tall, with glittering eyes, a bloody apron, and a scalpel maybe. So he was surprised when the woman who opened the door was short with red hair and a warm smile. She wore a dark blue pantsuit and stylish glasses attached to a beaded chain. Mostly she looked like an older version of Angie, except without the attitude.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” she said. “What are you kids doing here?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Angie said. “You told me you’d give us a tour for our career report?”