Zombiefied! by C.M. Gray Page A

for a pile of bricks in one corner where part of the wall had collapsed.
    â€˜Come on!’ hissed Sophie impatiently.I closed the door and we kept walking until we rounded another corner.
    A pair of big metal doors stood in front of us. They were tightly closed, but on one door, about halfway up, was an enormous old latch with a key jutting out of it.
    Above the doors was a sign.

    â€˜What does Rattus mean?’ asked Sophie.
    â€˜I’m not sure,’ I said, feeling pretty certain I didn’t want to find out. Then, before I could stop her, Sophie reached out and turned the key.

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    She pushed the doors open.
    The sound and smell hit me at the same time. It was like we had walked into a sewer filled with howling ghosts. I tried not to be sick, although I couldn’t stop the hairs on the back of my neck from standing upright.
    â€˜It’s OK,’ said Sophie. Her face was stark white. ‘They’re in cages.’
    Even though every instinct in my body told me to run away, I edged forward.
    Through the doorway was a big room. I shone my torch around; the walls were made of stone, just like the tunnels, andthey were lined with cages stacked two or three high. Inside these were rats.
    Now I haven’t seen that many rats in my time, but these were nothing like the friendly white rats that are sold in pet stores. These guys were huge and grey and covered with patchy fur. Their eyes were bright red and some of them had bits missing; a leg here, an ear there. As the beams from our torches swept over them, they snarled and turned away from the light.
    We crept further into the room. I noticed that every cage had a plastic water dispenser attached to it. Most of the dispensers were full.
    â€˜Who put these animals here?’ I asked.
    â€˜And how did they do it?’ said Sophie. ‘I wouldn’t be game to try to catch rats like these.’
    The rats sniffed the air as we walked past, and began flinging themselves at the bars of their cages. Some of them ripped at the metal with their teeth or tried to squeeze through the gaps.
    â€˜They can smell us,’ I said, watching a rat that seemed desperate to get at us. We’d get eaten alive if they managed to get out of their cages!

    â€˜I think they have rage issues,’ agreed Sophie. ‘Hey, look at this.’
    She pointed the beam of her torch above the cages. Scrawled in chalk on the stone wall opposite us was the word ‘half’. On the wall nearest us was the word ‘full’. ‘The “full” ones look way scarier than the “half” ones.’
    I gazed at the rats. She was right. The ‘half’ rats looked almost normal. I mean,they were still freaky and their eyes were still red, but they weren’t quite as big and ragged. And they didn’t look as vicious.

    I shone my torch across to the far end of the room.
    â€˜Look!’
    In the middle of the back wall was another set of doors, like the ones we’d just walked through. Then I noticed the sign above them. I walked over to the doors and peered upward. I could just make out the words:

    â€˜What does that mean?’ asked Sophie, her voice shaking.
    I didn’t answer. Surely it couldn’t be worse than the rats, could it?
    I turned the key this time. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly move my fingers. I slowly opened the doors.
    The hairs on the back of my neck leapt straight up; inside the room, it sounded like a thousand zombies were screaming for brains! The smell was just as bad as the rat room, but this time the cages were bigger — and so were the animals in them.
    â€˜Dogs,’ breathed Sophie.

    They were snarling and growling and pacing around their cages. Like the rats, their eyes glowed bright red. We edged inside.
    â€˜They’re bulldogs,’ she said. ‘My next-door neighbour used to have one.’
    â€˜Do they like bulls?’ I asked.
    Sophie smiled nervously.