[Galaxy Of Fear] - 02(24)

That’s where I should have looked for them, Zak decided. Instead of searching in old superstitions, I should have looked inside me. That’s where mom and dad are. That’s where they’ll always be!

But he had realized it too late. Zak blinked as he felt a tear sting his eye.

I blinked!

Zak felt his mouth move. He opened it and closed it experimentally. Then he tried to move his hand. His fingers moved. He wiggled his toes. He couldn’t move his arms or legs yet, but the cryptberry drug was wearing off.

If the drug is wearing off that means I’m alive. I really am alive!

Hope surged in Zak. If he was alive, there had to be something he could do. He filled his lungs with air and shouted “I’m alive! Somebody help me! I’m alive!”

He wondered if the sound would reach up through the ground. He hoped it would. Now that he knew he was alive, he was desperate to get out of the coffin. He would soon run out of air.

“Help! Someone get me out of here!”

Seconds later Zak heard a small scraping noise against the lid of his coffin. At first he thought someone had heard him already, but then he heard a similar noise beneath him.

Then he heard the sound on both sides of his coffin. Zak realized what it was.

The boneworms were gnawing their way in.





CHAPTER 15


Tash, Deevee, and Uncle Hoole walked slowly back to the hostel as another dark Necropolitan day faded to an even darker night.

Tash was devastated. Zak’s death had been a terrible shock to them all.

After her encounter with Boba Fett, Tash had turned back to look for Zak. She soon realized that it was impossible to find anyone among the winding streets of the dark city. She assumed that he’d just gotten bored, or lost, and would make his way back to the hostel as soon as he could.

At the hostel she had waited for an hour, and Zak still hadn’t returned. She began to get a heavy, sinking feeling, as though a black hole had opened in her stomach. It was a feeling she’d had before-the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Despite her feeling, she was at first afraid to tell Uncle Hoole, because she didn’t want to reveal the reason she and Zak had gone out. After all, they were spying on Boba Fett and trying to get information about Hoole himself.

But when another hour passed and the feeling of dread grew stronger, Tash knew she couldn’t wait. She went to Uncle Hoole and told him that Zak was missing.

Hoole reacted in his usual stern Shi’ido way. “What was he doing out? That young man is constantly getting into trouble.”

“Um, this time it was my fault, Uncle Hoole,” Tash confessed. “I wanted to… um… see a few things, and I convinced him to go along. We got separated.”

Uncle Hoole frowned. “Then we have you to thank for this disturbance. Come on, we had better summon the authorities.”

Uncle Hoole convinced the owner of the hostel to help them, and soon they had called the local law enforcement. Zak’s description was sent to all the local patrols, but because he had only been gone a few hours, the authorities wouldn’t launch a full-fledged search.

Uncle Hoole decided that they should search the streets themselves. “Tash, you will come with me. Deevee, you will search on your own. Can you manage?”

Deevee was a droid, but he had practiced long and hard to develop a very humanlike imitation of disgust. He sarcastically replied, “I have calculated the number of colored grains in a Tatooine sand painting. I think I can manage to walk and look for Zak at the same time.”

Deevee quickly began searching for Zak. No matter what the droid said, he was fond of his two troublesome charges.

While Hoole and Tash had searched the streets, Deevee headed directly for one specific location. His computer brain had already formulated a theory, but the conclusion sent a tremor through his servos. Deevee ran his theory through his logic circuits for any sign of malfunction, but found none.

Deevee’s analytical program was extremely sophisticated, and he was almost never wrong.

Which is why it was Deevee who had found Zak lying in the cemetery, with a few cryptberries still clutched in his hand.

Deevee had summoned help, and Zak had been rushed to a medical facility immediately, but it was too late. The cryptberries had done their work.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Tash had said tearfully as she, her uncle, and the droid reached the hostel. “Why would Zak do something like that? He knew those berries were poisonous.”

Uncle Hoole put a hand on her shoulder, “Zak has been rather… distracted… lately. I can’t say I know what he was thinking. We may never know.”

Tash couldn’t accept that. “That’s not good enough for me, Uncle Hoole, and it shouldn’t be good enough for you. Zak would never have eaten those berries on his own. Someone must have forced him, or tricked him. You can’t really believe that Zak was the victim of some ancient curse of the dead!”