The zombies were knocking on the castle doors relentlessly. Chet, who was sitting at the entrance to the castle, started to wonder who – or what – was outside. The candy people started to wonder, too.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ Finn lied, trying to sound convincing in spite of the evidence quickly building against him.

‘I hear something that I don’t understand, and it makes me scared,’ Chet continued as he started to shiver.

‘What?’ Finn asked the little candy treat, remembering with horror that the candy people would explode if they were frightened. ‘What noise? You mean this noise?’

Finn blasted some music from the radio to mask the sound of the banging. Chet smiled. He liked the music and quickly forgot that he’d heard any other noise.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Finn yelled out as the candy people started to dance. He happily encouraged their willingness to ignore the threat and return to their partying. ‘Dance! Bust it up!’ he shouted. But just then, Finn saw a zombie trying to get in through a back door. He ran, taking a bench with him, and used it to block the entrance.

‘What is this game you are playing now, Finn?’ Chocoberry asked when she saw him hammering the bench to the door.

‘Um, it’s called blockado – the game of barricades,’ Finn answered hastily. ‘Come on. Let’s block all the entrances and windows.’

‘Yeah!’ the candy people yelled back enthusiastically. ‘Blockado!’

The candy people took all the furniture they could find and began covering every possible entrance to the palace.

‘All right, this is not a permanent solution,’ Finn said to himself as he watched the candy people go to work.‘Think, Finn!’ he whispered to himself. ‘How can you keep everyone from finding out?’

‘Find out about what, Finn?’ Manfried called down from the ceiling.

‘Manfried! The talking piñata!’ Finn yelled up. ‘Your convenient appearance gives me a great idea. Everybody grab a stick. New game. We’re going to smash some piñatas.’

Manfried cried back in terror.

‘Except for you, Manfried,’ Finn assured him.

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Manfried sighed in relief.

‘Now, everybody, take a blindfold,’ Finn instructed as he tore off pieces of taffy from Taffy Girl to use as eye coverings. ‘Thanks, Taffy Girl.’

‘All right,’ Finn continued once he was sure the candy people were completely in the dark. ‘I’m hanging the piñatas. They are all around you. Smash piñatas!’

Just then, the zombies burst into the castle. The sightless candy people started swinging at what they thought were piñatas. Zombie guts spilled onto the floor and were quickly gobbled up by the citizens, who assumed that the piñatas held tasty treats.

‘Yeah! You guys are on fire!’ Finn yelled out in encouragement as the candy people continued eating the candy insides of the zombies. ‘We did it! My improbable plan worked!’

‘Seven minutes up yet?’ Jake asked, as he and Lady Rainicorn emerged from the closet.When Jake saw all the dead zombies and all the candy guts lying all over the castle, he was flabbergasted.

he said. ‘What the nuts happened here?’

‘Oh, we killed all the zombies that Princess Bubblegum and I raised from the dead,’ Finn told his friend. It sounded weird, but it was the truth.

‘Really?’ Jake asked sceptically. Suddenly, a strange glow came over the room, and Princess Bubblegum emerged from her lab.

‘What? Finn! Did you break your royal promise?’ Princess Bubblegum asked with wide-eyed horror.

‘Yeah,’ Finn admitted,‘but all the zombies are dead. The candy people won’t freak out. What’s the big deal?’

‘This is really, really bad, Finn,’ Princess Bubblegum quivered. ‘You can’t break royal promises. Never ever. Never. No matter what – forever! The guardians of the royal promise are coming for us!’

The very foundations of the castle began to shake. Finn and Princess Bubblegum looked up in terror. They had killed the zombies, but breaking the royal promise had opened the kingdom up to another threat.