by Won, Mark
In the name of thoroughness I asked, “Wasn’t your standard extortion racket good enough?”
“Not really, no. Sure I could get the occasional woman and some free meals, but it was nothing but work, work, work. Every now and again I’d have to have someone slip somebody some poison.”
“Oh really?” I was actually interested. Poison wasn’t my thing but I’ve always had a professional curiosity. “How does that work?”
“It’s easy enough when everybody’s hungry. Just trade some food for anything, it don’t matter what. Nobody would trust me, of course, so I had one of the boys do it.”
Well, that was interesting, but I still had other questions. “What were you planning to do with the three guys you had eat poison? Once they Changed they would have torn you apart sooner or later.”
“I use cyanide. That’s how I keep the bone zombies down.” ‘Bone zombies’ was his phrase for ghast. I think it was a better name. “All we had to do was hide and wait a little bit, and they would have dropped dead on their own.”
“So, how did you plan on getting the cyanide into them? Would you spray it, or what?” What I was really hoping was that such a simple poison could be used to kill the Changed. That would be a game changer.
“No, no. That was what they took to make themselves die. That was the suicide poison I gave them. Anyone who takes enough cyanide will only last a short time as a zombie.”
I asked, “How the hell did you figure that out?”
He answered, “Experimentation, man. I had a lot of subjects and a lot of poison. There wasn’t enough food to go around, anyway.”
“Did you ever try to use any poison on someone after he became a zombie?”
“Of course! They wouldn’t eat it but I got some in them anyway. After someone turns, the poison’s useless. If you want the cyanide to work it has to be what kills the person in the first place.” I wished Mark was with us. He just loved that kind of thing. I was making sure to record everything.
“Cyanide doesn’t exactly grow on trees. Where did you get it from?”
“I have it left over from before. I got it on the dark web,” he replied. “I still have plenty left back home.”
“Is that on the other side of the river?”
He said it was, so I decided that was where the cyanide was going to stay. At least I wasn’t going to get it.
“How did you clear the area of zombies in the first place? I understand that side of the river had quite a few.”
He answered, “It wasn’t that tough. We had enough bullets to get the job done. A lot of the zombies were super strong, maybe one in ten, and those were the dangerous ones. They were a bit faster, too. Still, once I learned that we had to shoot them in the head it was mostly just target practice. The trick was to take cover in a two story building and break up the stairs, then shoot them from the second floor. Even if they had the strength to tear down the house they didn’t seem to understand how that would help. The strong ones would take forever to finally knock out an important support structure, and by that time someone would kill it.”
“What did you do about the really fast ones? Weren’t they hard to hit?”
“Yeah,” he answered, “but I got my soldiers to handle them hand to hand. Five guys can handle one of them if they’re willing to get in close. My guys who got bit turned into zombies, but that was no real loss. Like I said, we didn’t have enough to go around anyway.”
I said, “I thought you bokor types used natural herbs and such. Isn’t cyanide a bit outside your wheelhouse?”
“No way, man. I learned how to diversify. But I do got a bunch of the other stuff you’re talking about. Drugs, too. Maybe we can deal. I got some premium coke, morphine, meth, H, weed. I got a ton of weed. Set you up like a king. Plus, I got a little field so I can grow more anytime I want. You need me man. I’m indispensable.”
“Maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement, but first I want to know how you could control the transformation of human into bone zombie. In my experience when someone dies the resultant change seems to favor the slowest sort of zombie. Yet you made three people Change into something else. Does the cyanide do that too?”
“No, man, no way. The Loa make cannibals into bone zombies. Only cannibals.”
I said, “That does track with what I’ve seen. Except for the part about the Loa. How did you figure that out? More experimentation?”
“Yeah, man. Let me tell you, that first time was one bitch of a surprise!” I bet it was. He continued, “I was just lucky the chains held.”
I said, “Since most of your men at the house didn’t turn into bone zombies, I assume they weren’t cannibals?”
“That’s right,” he replied, “Those were my best men, so mostly they got fed proper.”
“One last thing,” I said. “Why do cannibals stink so bad, but only I can smell them?”
He looked confused by the question so I knew he had no answers for me. Too bad. What he said was, “The Loa, man, they gave you a gift. You got a power to sniff out the darkness. We can use that.”
“Do you actually believe in the Loa? It’s just you and me here,” and my audio recording app, “and I don’t really care. But, do you?”
He said, “Hell yes, man. Look, I know I got no real power, but that’s just me. The power is out there, just open your eyes. What do you think made the world change?” He seemed to really believe it.
I answered, “I don’t know. Maybe Divine Retribution, or Satan stretching his wings. It could have been some man made attempt at immortality, done in a laboratory and gone horribly wrong. Or a doomsday bio-weapon. Or some naturally occurring virus or bacteria. Or a parasitical infection. Or witchcraft. Basically anything.. Anything except Voodoo magic, that is.”
He seemed smug, quite confident in his position, “You said it yourself. Maybe witchcraft. What do you think Voodoo is? It’s witchcraft.”
I answered, “I suppose it is. But it’s ridiculous witchcraft. If magic were a family then Voodoo would be the red-headed stepchild. If such scatological claptrap had any real magic power then literally every witch, warlock, wizard, sorcerer, alchemist, or whatever, in the whole wide world would have even more magic. And I just don’t see that happening.”
Before Delacroix could respond, a uniformed cop barged into the bus. He looked to be in his mid twenties, clean shaven (no mean feat those days), with a butch haircut. With a furious cast to his features he demanded, “What do you think you’re doing? You have no right to detain a suspect. Is that a hammer in you’re hand? Were you torturing this man?” He made to pull his pistol.
I lurched forward and gave him a nice throat punch. Nowhere near enough to kill him, but enough to take the wind out of his sails. By the time he got his focus back, Gavin (who had really turned his shooting around in the last few months) was in the bus with his rifle pointed at the cop’s midriff.
I reached over and plucked the police officer’s pistol from his holster. Then I had to ask, “What the hell, man? Is something wrong with your brain? Can’t you see I’m trying to work here?”
He replied, “Do you know who I am?” I was sure he’d tell me. “I’m a cop. A cop. You can’t treat me this way. Give me my piece back or I’ll have you flogged.” I toyed with the notion of just shooting both him and Delacroix, and then blaming the shootout on the two of them.
What I said was, “Check with your boss, Chief Martin, you simpleton. He’s already given us permission to bring this man in.”
Gavin interrupted, “Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t flogging some kind of torture? I’m almost sure I heard that somewhere.” He probably heard that in church. Gavin was a very religious man. Still a bit vulgar in his speech, though.
The officer opened his mouth again, “The chief ordered me to find out what was going on in here! And now I know. You’ll be lucky to get out of here with your skin.”
I realized that I had only known Chief Tyler Martin for a few days, but even so, I couldn’t im
agine him being overly upset by anything that I had done. He and I had a deal. Even if the past were dead to him and he had no proper sense of gratitude, he still needed us to come back and trade next year. The chief wasn’t stupid. Unlike officer what’s-his-name.
Which led me to ask, “Hey what’s-your-name, what’s your name?” If the chief and I were going to have words over this matter then I might as well learn the officer’s name.
His chest puffed out, “I’m Police Officer Bernard Fife. Who do you think you are?”
Gavin muttered, “Barney Fife? No shit? Really?” His gun barrel lowered a bit.
I reached over and re-elevated Gavin’s sights, “My name’s Paul, Officer...Officer...Bernard.” I just couldn’t bring myself to call him by his last name. It seemed disrespectful, somehow.
Bernard looked over to Gavin and said, “You’ve heard of me?” He seemed overly pleased by the prospect of notoriety. Then his look clouded over, “What have you heard?”
Gavin replied, “Yeah, we’ve heard of you.” Clearly Bernard, young man that he was, wasn’t a fan of classic television programming. I guess that it was a bit before his time. You’d think his parents would have known better. I was a bit surprised no one had ever commented on it to him before, though. Making fun of people’s names is just puerile human nature.
To Bernard I said, “You weren’t home schooled, were you?” Not that I had anything against home schooling. What passed for education when I attended public school should have been passing through the colon of a horse. It’s just that someone should have teased him about his name, sometime, and that’s what public school is all about. Strange.
Bernard replied, “No. What are you talking about?”
“You were real big for your age, then, right? You know: tall, strong, athletic, a jock. That sort of thing.”
“Well…yeah,” He was obviously confused by my line of questioning. “I was a star football player. Even went on to college.” Bernard’s chest puffed out again.
“But not pro? How could they pass you up? What excuse did they give? I bet they gave you that old ‘can’t remember the plays’ shtick. Am I right? Or maybe some crap about discipline.”
The look of surprise that came over Bernard’s face was priceless. “Yeah! How did you know?” He looked fearfully at Delacroix and then back to me, before crossing himself.
Now it all made sense. I was dealing with an idiot. I should have seen it before.
I called out the window, “Hey, someone get the chief. Tell him Barney Fife is causing trouble and I don’t want things to get strained.”
Max looked in through the door, took in the situation, and asked, “Who should I tell the chief is causing trouble? Who is he?” while motioning to Bernard.
I said, “I told you. Tell him it’s Police Officer Barney Fife.”
Bernard said, “It’s Bernard, actually. And we can leave the chief out of it. I’ll just go. I guess I made a mistake.” He started to get up to leave but Gavin held him in place with his rifle.
Max looked at Bernard and asked, “No shit?”
Gavin, “That’s what I said!”
Sometimes being a leader for my crew was like herding cats. I told Max, “Just get going.”
Jake poked his head in next to ask what was going on.
Gavin said, “This cop’s name is Barney Fife!”
“No shit?”
-
Getting things cleared up with the chief was a snap. The only reason Chief Martin had sent Bernard to check up on us was because he’d been getting underfoot, and the chief had heard a rumor that we had a prisoner. He’d never intended for the man to attempt to draw his pistol on me.
When the chief offered to reprimand his officer I begged him not to. That whole thing was best brushed under the rug. Anyone who knew Bernard wouldn’t hold anything against either my guys or me (since we hadn’t, you know, killed him). There was no reason to encourage any resentment.
I made a point of playing Delacroix’s confession to the chief and anyone else who’d listen. That made setting up an execution a very straightforward procedure. My guys had practice hanging cannibals (although, Delacroix himself was not a cannibal) so I volunteered them for the job of hangman. My guys were extremely nervous about the whole affair.
Jake said, “This guy isn’t going to Change like the last one, is he?”
My reply, “Don’t worry. This is a safe zone. No one changes here.”
I could see Sam feeling his scars. He said, “I thought that the last time we did this.”
“This time it’s different,” I said.
Chloe asked, “How is this different?” She hadn’t even been there the last time! She’d been back in one of the buses.
“Because I can’t smell it on him.” I was pretty sure that’s what they wanted to hear. I could see them all relax.
“Well, that’s good enough for me,” Logan said. Sadly, he wasn’t joking.
In spite of everything I’d said, I made sure that Delacroix was bound with several sets of handcuffs and ankle restraints, just to be sure. He looked so desperate and pathetic behind his gag I had to chuckle, at least until I kicked the barrel out from under him. And that was the end of Delacroix.
You’d think someone in his line of work would know how it would someday end, and be better prepared, whatever his religious beliefs. Spiritually, I mean. How many people had he killed? How many had begged? How many assassinations? How stupid of him to think he’d never get a turn. We all go the way of all the earth. That’s why they call death ‘the way of all the earth’.
After the execution I was glad to get back to the buses. The populous of New Orleans had been acting more and more strange. More than one had called me ‘Reaper’. Not cool. My little mind reading stunt with Officer Fife had also been misinterpreted as psychic or magical or whatever. I even caught people trying to stand in my shadow. The sooner I got out of Superstition Central the better. I know disasters have the common effect of turning people to religion, but why did it have to be Voodoo?
The chief wasn’t quite done with me, however. He said, “After all you’ve done I hate to ask for anything, and I totally understand if you’ve got to be moving on.” Damn, what now?
“Of course I’ll help if I can, Chief. What’s on your mind?”
“I could really use a stash of medicine, especially antibiotics. I know there are a bunch of pharmacies to the northwest, in Gonzalo. I was thinking maybe I could send some of my officers with you to learn how it’s done. Actually that was why we left that one roadblock, the one you met me at, with a gate in it. I’d hoped to send someone, sometime, to get the stuff.”
I’d much rather we just did the job ourselves, but it would’ve hardly been politic to say so. So what I said was, “Sure, that sounds good. This days almost shot. Let’s spend the rest of it picking out those you want to go with us, then we can head out before first light.”
-
“For the very last time, my name is Paul! The next time I hear one of you call me ‘Reaper’, out you go. You can walk home.” I looked intently at my own guys in addition to the officers we were bringing with us, “That goes double for anyone who isn’t a police officer. Especially you, Sam.”
Sam thought it was great fun to make up stories about me to impress the locals. I’m not sure what he thought he stood to gain by it, but it was annoying. By then all the police had me pegged for some kind of supernatural comic book style hero. It didn’t help that Chief Martin had saddled me with all his youngest and least experienced officers. Clearly he was hoping this would be some kind of on the job training exercise.
No sooner had I cast my gaze on the road ahead when I overheard one officer, Jim I think his name was, whispering to Gavin. I couldn’t hear what he said but Gavin replied, “No way, man, don’t be dumb. Paul don’t even believe in Voodoo. You want some real religion try going to church. Real church I mean, not any of that weird shit you’ve got around here.”
Serious
ly, enough was enough, “Okay, everybody listen up. I want operational silence from here on. I only want you talking if you spot a threat or potential mission objective.” I just threw that ‘operational’ in there to help shut everybody up. The guys liked that kind of talk.
The truth was we were about ten miles from the nearest probable danger so we still had plenty of time to chat. I was just sick of it. We were rolling through the same area we had cleared off a few days back. That meant there were probably not too many ghouls or ogres left to bother us. The plan was simple, just in and out, keep quiet, and move on to the next.
Once we got to our initial stop I was the first out of the bus. Everything looked clear, so I went up to the door of the Verdant Palisade drug store and forced it aside. I called to the inside, “Hello! Dinner’s served! Come and get it!” Sure enough, I could hear a few bumbling zombies in the back moving toward me. I backed off and let them show themselves.
I told the guys, “Okay, let the officers show us their marksmanship.” I motioned for Officer Fief to take the first shot. The target was closing quickly. It was an ogre. I brought my own firearm up just in case Bernard missed, but it wasn’t necessary. Bernard hit the thing right between the eyes.
The next zombie in line was an ogre too. What were the odds, right? I motioned for Bernard to finish that one off as well, but he just stared at me with a confused and panicky expression. I shouldered him out of the way and blasted the top of its head off. The skullcap went flying but the damn thing didn’t go down. I hate it when that happens.
It reached out for me and I heard sudden gunfire behind me. Max was calling out the numbers: sixteen zombies coming up from behind led by two ogres. Adam called out a ghoul sighting on a rooftop at the bus’s 3:00. I had my own problems.
