Astrid and the others were now trapped in the dining room with the zombies, and the zombie bear rug swung its paw right through the wall. Astrid quickly raised the sword in order to block the strike with all her strength and pushed it back.

"Let's move!" Fishlegs yelled.

They quickly dashed to the side back into the dining room.

"That was way too close," said Snotlout. "We've got to get to a different room; anything beats this."

"Not so fast," said the zombie portraits.

They then quickly dived down towards them, and they screamed. Astrid quickly swung her sword, pushing the zombies back.

"Get your filthy mitts off them!" she snapped.

"Oh, what a tough little girl you are," said the bear rug, who had recovered from Astrid's blow.

Astrid barely had time to block his giant paw preventing her from getting the perfect footing. The rug struck her with so much force that she was sent flying and crashed into the others into the fireplace. Zombie portraits then pounced on them while they were down, and they screamed.

"This isn't the way out; it's just a fireplace!" Chopper screamed.

"We're dead; there's nowhere else to run!" Snotlout cried.

"Somebody help us!" Fishlegs pleaded.

"Will you guys shut up," Astrid snapped.

Then just as they leaned back against the fireplace, they felt the entire thing move, and they found themselves in a secret corridor behind it.

"Where the heck are we?" Snotlout asked, looking around.

The zombies on the other side were deeply annoyed.

"Damnit, what happened? They disappeared all of a sudden!"

"Not quite; there is a secret passageway behind the fireplace."

"If we don't capture them, they're going to make it to Doctor Hogback's research lab."

"Push!"

The zombies then attempted to push the fireplace open, but Astrid and the others were pressing against the secret entrance themselves preventing them from opening it.

"It's no good; they must be blocking it from the other side."

Astrid felt someone pressing against her. "Fishlegs, could you give me a little bit more room to push?"

However, she soon discovered that it was not Fishlegs standing next, but another zombie, and she screamed, as did the others when they saw it. They quickly dashed off as more portraits came to life and began chasing after them.

In the dining room, the zombies could hear their screams.

Oinkchuck laughed. "Run and run where ever you like, little humans; you'll find that the mansion is full of Surprise Zombies at every turn."

Sure enough, they were running down a corridor filled with zombie portraits that sprung to life as they ran by. Fortunately, they couldn't stretch the bodies out too far, but that was a small comfort considering the number of portraits in the corridor.

"This hallway is bad! Anywhere with paintings is bad!" Fishlegs cried.

"There has to be room here somewhere," said Astrid and saw a door right in front of them. "Over there!"

They quickly jumped at the door wide open, and the moment they were inside, Chopper uploaded behind them. All of them took very deep breaths; they had been running non-stop for the past five minutes.

Snotlout looked up and saw the room they were in was littered with pictures. "Paintings!"

Everyone expected the paintings the come to life an attack, but they didn't move.

"Relax, the just photos," said Fishlegs giving a sigh of relief.

Astrid looked at the photos, all of them showing the same woman, who so happened to be Cindry. "Wait a minute, it's that girl from before. The one who hates plates so much… Cindry."

The others looked around, and sure enough, all the photos were of Cindry, but the Cindry in them was quite different from the one they met. Additionally, the room felt more like a shrine than anything, and most of the photos looked as if they were from photo shoots or something.

"It's weird; what is this room?" Astrid frowned and examined them even more deeply. "Now that I get a better look, she is really pretty, isn't she? Though she doesn't look like a servant, more like a supermodel or something."

"But wait, you don't think this place is her room, do you?" Snotlout asked.

"That would be a little odd; I mean, who would have so many photos of themselves in their own room unless they were really shallow," said Astrid.

"Also, there doesn't seem to be a bed," Fishlegs noticed. "To be honest, this place feels more like a shrine."

"And what about all those big stitches she's got? They aren't in any of the photos," Chopper noted.

Chopper was right, none of the photos of Cindry had any stitches, and she was smiling in them.

"You're right, and look at that smile," said Snotlout. "She's like a completely different person than the one we met. Maybe these are old photos, and she had some accident. I mean, it's got to be her."

"That might explain why she is with Doctor Hogback; perhaps he's treating her," Astrid frowned.

Fishlegs then found some sort of diary on the desk and looked through it. "Let's see… Cindry Victoria. Evidently, she used to be a real popular actress…" He then showed them the book, which was filled with different articles. "…look at these articles; they're all about her."

"Huh? She was an actress?" Snotlout frowned. "I thought Doctor Hogback said she got into trouble for breaking a bunch of plates or something."

"Or at least that's what the good doctor told us; sounds like that was another lie," said Astrid suspiciously.

"You mean that she wasn't a servant after all?" Snotlout blinked.

"On the contrary, this says that she came from an aristocratic family," said Fishlegs as he kept on reading. "She had a successful career on the stage, and even as a child, she had a lot of fans." He then read the next article, in his eyes widened in horror.

"What is it?" Astrid asked.

"These articles are old," Fishlegs gulped. "10 years ago, she fell from the stage and died in an accident."

Astrid stood there shocked while Snotlout and Chopper screamed.

"T-that can't be right," Snotlout stuttered. "We saw her ourselves! I mean, she's kind of creepy, but she's totally alive."

"Like everything else we've seen on this island?" Astrid questioned.

"So if what that article says is true after all, she must've come back from the dead," Chopper gulped. "There's no other answer! All of the zombies we saw weren't some kind of weird monsters; they were people and animals. Who had died and had been brought back to life."

All of them screamed except for Astrid, who was still trying to make sense of all this.

'Even if they did come back to life, Cindry's personality is quite different from the one suggested in those articles,' she frowned. 'Additionally, all the creatures we been seen on this island had terrible stitches, as if someone had sold them together. No, there's something else going on this island other than the dead being brought back to life, and Hogback must be the centre of it.'

"I don't like this at all; I don't even want to think about it any more," said Snotlout as he slowly backed away. "Let's just forget that we ever came here and run away."

He then tripped over something.

"What now?" Fishlegs whimpered.

They all turned and saw a crate sitting there.

"That looks like a treasure chest," Astrid noted.

"Well, maybe this entire ordeal was not so terrible after all," said Snotlout as he approached with greedy hands. "Let's take a look inside."

Astrid had a terrible feeling about this. "No, wait!"

Too late, Snotlout opened the Kraken shooting out of it was a giant real-life Jack in the box.

"Sorry, suckers, but there's no treasure in this room," he said.

Once again, the boys screamed upon seeing the giant Jack in the box.

"It's a Jack in the box!" they screamed in unison.

"Here we go again," Astrid sighed as they dashed towards the door. "I'm getting sick of this running; if I had my gear, these zombies wouldn't know what hit them."

"I think our idea of running for our lives is still the best solution!" Snotlout yelled.

"Same here!" Fishlegs cried.

"Thirded!" Chopper yelled.

They ran down the corridor the portraits came back to life again.

"There you are!"

"Painting zombies!" Snotlout screamed and immediately ran in the opposite direction.

While the boys were screaming their lungs off, Astrid remembered what that Jack in the box had said earlier.

'He said there was no treasure in that room; they must be hiding something somewhere else,' she said.

The paintings immediately stopped what they were doing when they heard footsteps and turned as a zombie samurai walked out of the shadows.

"It's the bodyguard."

"It would seem some lost lambs have wandered into the mansion," he said.

"Oh, you're just in time."

"But never fear, I shall herd them up," the samurai assured them.

Outside in the forest, Hiccup's group were still searching for Astrid and the others, which wasn't easy, thanks to this thick fog.

"Why can't we take those creatures back to the ship?" Tuffnut asked.

"Yeah, they could have joined our crew," Ruffnut nodded.

"The skeleton was bad enough; we don't need trees or unicorns on the crew," said Ragnar bluntly. "We already have a reindeer and a cyborg; that is a little messed up as it is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eret asked.

"Just saying there were not exactly a normal crew as is," said Ragnar.

"Personally, I'm wondering what was going to run into next," said Hiccup.

"There is something I couldn't help but notice about that tree man and the unicorn earlier," said Heather.

"What's that?" Toothless asked.

"Just like our doggy friend here, all of the creatures in this forest seem to have heavy injuries; big stitches are numbers written on them somewhere," said Heather as she scratched one of the three-headed dog's heads.

Toothless looked, and sure enough, he could see the number 82 on the three-headed dog's body. "That's true, I didn't put much thought into it myself, but are you saying all these things are working for someone?"

"Something like that, yes."

They kept on walking, and they started to hear a noise deep in the forest.

"Negative… Negative… Negative…" the voice sang repeatedly.

"Do you guys hear those noises?" Hiccup asked.

They all stopped in their tracks, and soon enough, they saw a ghost emerging from the trees. It looked exactly like the one they encountered on their ship.

"It's that ghost!" Tuffnut pointed.

The ghost then multiplied into there were about three of them while dancing, and all of them kept on singing negative over and over again.

"It's doing a dance and splitting into three; that's awesome," said Ruffnut.

"It is a bit annoying that they keep saying negative over and over," said Ragnar.

"We're catching them and keeping them as pets!" the twins yelled as they jumped off the dogs and swung their nets.

To no one's surprise, the nets went straight through the ghosts, but that didn't stop the twins from swinging their nets around, trying To capture them.

"Looks like it really is a ghost, huh?" said Eret and then began taking a deep breath. "All right, Fresh Fire!"

Eret unleashed a burst of flames at the ghosts, but they were totally unaffected.

"Well, guess that didn't work," said Eret.

One of the goats then passed right through him, and a split second later, he became very depressed.

"I totally suck," he said. "Everything I did this week totally sucks. Everything that I've ever done totally sucks. I might as well lie down and die. They should make me into a ceiling fan."

"A bit of an overreaction," Ragnar blinked.

"Okay," said Tuffnut.

"Let's try this," said Ruffnut.

The two of them tossed their nets to one side and jumped at the ghosts trying to grab them, but they merely went right through them. The two of them then fell to the ground looking as depressed as Eret, if not more.

"I want to die and be reincarnated as a clamp; I can't cut it as a human," said Tuffnut.

"Why was I even born? I'm useless. Just leave me here," said Ruffnut.

"I've never seen anyone that depressed before," said Ragnar.

"It happened the moment those ghosts went right through them," said Hiccup.

Heather looked at the ghosts curiously as they continued singing negative again and again. "It would appear that when the ghosts pass through someone's body, they become depressed."

"And how does that make any sense?" Ragnar asked.

"How could anything on this island make any sense?" said Hiccup.

"They just merely lack discipline; they had a stronger will. They wouldn't fall to pieces by a mere ghost barely touching them," said Toothless.

A ghost then went right through him, and seconds later, he felt his hands and knees utterly depressed. "I'm not even fit to be dog food."

"So much for discipline," said Ragnar scratching his chin.

"Looks like Heather's theory turned out to be spot on," said Hiccup as he looked up at the ghosts, which had multiplied, making a total of seven.

"None of our attacks can harm them, but if they pass through our bodies, we will be rendered helpless," said Heather. "They might prove troublesome if we have to fight."

"Especially if we're in a fight already," Hiccup agreed.

"What a strange island?" said Heather.

The ghost then flew away laughing.

Fortunately, their negative effect seemed to be temporary, so in no time at all, Toothless, Eret and the twins were back to normal. However, all four of them were rather angry at the ghost at the moment.

"You know what? Screw those ghosts; I don't want to make them pets any more!" Tuffnut yelled angrily.

"Yeah, I just wanna crush them!" Ruffnut yelled.

Eret cracked his knuckles. "Whatever their weak point is, I'll find it. Just you wait!"

Hiccup, Ragnar and Heather were sitting on the back of the three-headed dog and found the entire situation rather humorous.

"That's the first time I've heard someone say they're not fit to be even dog food," Ragnar chuckled.

Toothless glared at him. "I was under the compulsion of those ghosts!"

"After you said that it only takes discipline to overcome their negative waves," Hiccup teased.

The three-headed dog laughed, which only infuriated Toothless even more.

Joking aside, the ghosts were a genuine threat.

"Patchwork creatures may look frightening, but they seem easy enough to defeat," said Heather. "The ghosts, on the other hand, seem to be exactly the opposite."

"There was one of them on the ship earlier; they show up and vanish," Ragnar observed. "It seems to me they're watching us. If that's the case, the question is who is pulling the strings."

They soon exited the forest and found themselves in a graveyard.

"I'm not surprised that after we leave the mist-covered creepy forest, we end up in a graveyard," said Hiccup.

"Not to mention the creepy mansion we saw on the ship," said Ragnar.

They then heard a noise and saw a zombie emerge from the ground next to a headstone. Everyone just stared at it until the twins walked up to it and tried to push it back into the ground.

The zombie didn't appear to like that and sprung back out. "Hey, don't put me back into the ground, jackass!"

"It's an old man with serious injuries," said Tuffnut.

"Are you nuts?" everyone yelled, apart from Heather. "It's a zombie!"

"Don't make fun of me!" the zombie yelled, jumping at the twins.

Moments later, more zombies shot out of the ground and looked rather energetic.

"Zombies usually this energetic?" Ragnar asked.

"Don't know, this is the first time I've seen zombies," said Hiccup.

"I'll show you how dangerous zombies can be!" said one of them.

The zombies then shards of them in a massive swarm.

"Looks like these guys want a fight," said Hiccup as he took up a fighting stance. "How about we still you just how dangerous pirates can be."

Everyone took up their fighting stances and immediately engaged the zombies, easily overpowering them. Hiccup didn't even need a transform as he punched a zombie that came close by; Toothless cut them down with his blades, Ragnar knocked them back with his powerful kicks, Eret overpowered them with his metal-covered fist, Heather strangled them with her powers, and the twins showed some real teamwork by cutting them down with their blades.

Meanwhile, Astrid and the others were still in the mansion, and they soon heard laughter that sounded an awful lot like Hogback.

"That's Doctor Hogback's laugh for sure," said Chopper, somewhat excited.

The others looked at one another grimly and made their way to the door, which was open slightly. They looked inside in what appeared to be Hogback's laboratory.

"So, is this his secret lab?" Fishlegs asked.

"I sure hope it is," said Chopper excitedly.

They could definitely see Hogback standing over an operating table, but he was not operating on an ordinary patient. They could see that resting on top of that was a zombie or at least someone's court that had been strung together with the number 741 stamped on its left arm.

"My work is almost finished," he said joyously. "At last, my beautiful marionette! Behold Cindry, this is a true work of art, the work of a genius."

"I hope the stupid thing blows up and burns your face off," she said bluntly.

"Why would you even say that?" said Hogback looking very hurt. "Cindry, please. You make me anxious with all those unnecessary and frankly hateful remarks of yours."

"I've prepared you a midnight snack for you," she said dryly, holding out a bag.

"Oh, wonderful. What is it tonight?" he asked curiously.

"I call it spaghetti soup," she said and poured the contents onto the operating table, which spilt over and landed on the floor.

"Wait, you're spilling soon all over the place! Be careful!" Hogback yelled.

"I wish every last plate in the world—"

"Yes, yes, I know," said Hogback tiredly. "But considering your hatred for plates, perhaps you should choose a different menu? How about some roast beef or turkey, a piece of land or some sort of sandwich. You know, solid foods?"

Astrid looked at Cindry curiously. "Did she really die in an accident, like the news article said? No, I can't be true."

"You won't eat the spaghetti?" Cindry asked a frustrating Hogback.

"No, no, it's fine. I'll eat it; it's too late now," said Hogback. "I'll look it off the table and lick it off the floor as well."

Snotlout then saw the zombie on the operating table. "What is that thing?"

"I don't know, but judging by the injuries, he must be dead already," said Chopper. "He has a number on him, too, just like the zombies in the graveyard."

"And Hogback said he was almost finished," Fishlegs added.

"That settles it then," said Astrid. "What we're about to see here is the creation of a new zombie, and that means Doctor Hogback made all the other undead creatures on the island as well. There's no other explanation."

"Yeah, but even if he is a genius, it can't be that easy to bring people back," said Chopper. "You saw there were tons of those things. You don't think that he made all those himself, do you?"

Astrid had to agree; there was still a piece of the puzzle they were still missing.

"Regardless of what we think or see for ourselves, they're really is some kind of secret of bringing the dead back to life. Then this has got to be it, right?" said Snotlout.

Chopper nodded.

Then suddenly, they heard footsteps and then heard laughter. For a brief moment before that, it was Skull, but when they turned their heads, they saw another zombie.

"Good evening," he said, sounding exactly like Skull. "What's the matter? If you're going to stand there and stare, you might as well go inside."

"That laughter…" said Snotlout.

"That isn't Skull, is it?" said Chopper.

The zombie merely laughed.