Zombies

by Otto Penzler

  Phil had stopped, and I assumed he had reached the centre. He stood very still and gazed off into the distance, his profile towards me. I remembered the man I had seen standing in the field—perhaps in that very spot, the centre of the maze—when we had first arrived at the Old Vicarage.

  Then, breaking the spell, Phil came bounding towards me, cutting across the path of the maze, and caught me in a bear hug. “Not mad?”

  I relaxed a little. It was over, and all was well. I managed a small laugh. “No, of course not.”

  “Good. Let’s go, then. Phil’s had his little treat.”

  We walked arm in arm back towards the road. We didn’t mention it again.

  IN THE MONTHS to come those golden days, the two weeks we had spent wandering around southwest England, often came to mind. Those thoughts were an antidote to more recent memories: to those last days in the hospital, with Phil in pain, and then Phil dead.

  I moved back to the States—it was home, after all, where my family and most of my friends lived. I had lived in England for less than two years, and without Phil there was little reason to stay. I found an apartment in the neighbourhood where I had lived just after college, and got a job teaching, and, although painfully and rustily, began to go through the motions of making a new life for myself. I didn’t stop missing Phil, and the pain grew no less with the passage of time, but I adjusted to it. I was coping.

  In the spring of my second year alone I began to think of going back to England. In June I went for a vacation, planning to spend a week in London, a few days in Cambridge with Phil’s sister, and a few days visiting friends in St. Ives. When I left London in a rented car and headed for St. Ives, I did not plan to retrace the well-remembered route of that last vacation, but that is what I found myself doing, with each town and village a bittersweet experience, recalling pleasant memories and prodding the deep sadness in me wider awake.

  I lingered in Glastonbury, wandering the peaceful Abbey ruins and remembering Phil’s funny, disrespectful remarks about the sacred throne and King Arthur’s bones. I looked for, but could not find, the café where we’d had dinner, and settled for fish and chips. Driving out of Glastonbury with the sun setting, I came upon the Old Vicarage and pulled into that familiar drive. There were more cars there, and the house was almost full up this time. There was a room available, but not the one I had hoped for. Although a part of me, steeped in sadness, was beginning to regret this obsessional pilgrimage, another part of me longed for the same room, the same bed, the same view from the window, in order to conjure Phil’s ghost. Instead, I was given a much smaller room on the other side of the house.

  I retired early, skipping tea with the other guests, but sleep would not come. When I closed my eyes I could see Phil, sitting on the window ledge with a cigarette in one hand, narrowing his eyes to look at me through the smoke. But when I opened my eyes it was the wrong room, with a window too small to sit in, a room Phil had never seen. The narrowness of the bed made it impossible to imagine that he slept beside me still. I wished I had gone straight to St. Ives instead of dawdling and stopping along the way—this was pure torture. I couldn’t recapture the past—every moment that I spent here reminded me of how utterly Phil was gone.

  Finally I got up and pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans. The moon was full, lighting the night, but my watch had stopped and I had no idea what time it was. The big old house was silent. I left by the front door, hoping that no one would come along after me to relock the door. A walk in the fresh air might tire me enough to let me sleep, I thought.

  I walked along the gravel drive, past all the parked cars, towards the road, and entered the next field by the same gate that Phil and I had used in daylight in another lifetime. I scarcely thought of where I was going, or why, as I made my way to the turf-maze which had fascinated Phil and frightened me. More than once I had regretted not taking Phil’s hand and treading the maze with him when he had asked. Not that it would have made any difference in the long run, but all the less-than-perfect moments of our time together had returned to haunt me and given rise to regrets since Phil’s death—all the opportunities missed, now gone forever; all the things I should have said or done or done differently.

  There was someone standing in the field. I stopped short, staring, my heart pounding. Someone standing there, where the centre of the maze must be. He was turned away, and I could not tell who he was, but something about the way he stood made me certain that I had seen him before, that I knew him.

  I ran forward and—I must have blinked—suddenly the figure was gone again, if he had ever existed. The moonlight was deceptive, and the tall grass swaying in the wind, and the swiftly moving clouds overhead cast strange shadows.

  “Come tread the maze with me.”

  Had I heard those words, or merely remembered them?

  I looked down at my feet and then around, confused. Was I standing in the maze already? I took a tentative step forward and back, and it did seem that I was standing in a shallow depression. The memory flooded back: Phil standing in the sunlit field, rocking back and forth and saying, “I think this is it.” The open, intense look on his face.

  “Phil,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.

  Through the tears I saw some motion, but when I blinked them away, again there was nothing. I looked around the dark, empty field, and began to walk the path laid out long before. I did not walk as slowly as Phil had done, but more quickly, almost skipping, hitting the sides of the maze path with my feet to be certain of keeping to it, since I could not see it.

  And as I walked, it seemed to me that I was not alone, that people were moving ahead of me, somehow just out of my sight (beyond another turn in the winding path I might catch them up), or behind. I could hear their footsteps. The thought that others were behind me, following me, unnerved me, and I stopped and turned around to look. I saw no one, but I was now facing in the direction of the Old Vicarage, and my gaze went on to the house. I could see the upper window, the very window where Phil and I had stood together looking out, the point from which we had seen the dancers in the maze.

  The curtains were not drawn across that dark square of glass this night, either. And as I watched, a figure appeared at the window. A tall shape, a pale face looking out. And after a moment, as I still stared, confused, a second figure joined the first. Someone smaller—a woman. The man put his arm around her. I could see—perhaps I shouldn’t have been able to see this at such a distance, with no light on in the room—but I could see that the man was wearing a sweater, and the woman was naked. And I could see the man’s face. It was Phil. And the woman was me.

  There we were. Still together, still safe from what time would bring. I could almost feel the chill that had shaken me then, and the comfort of Phil’s protecting arm. And yet I was not there. Not now. Now I was out in the field, alone, a premonition to my earlier self.

  I felt someone come up beside me. Something as thin and light and hard as a bird’s claw took hold of my arm. Slowly I turned away from the window and turned to see who held me. A young man was standing beside me, smiling at me. I thought I recognized him.

  “He’s waiting for you at the centre,” he said. “You mustn’t stop now.”

  Into my mind came a vivid picture of Phil in daylight, standing still in the centre of the maze, caught there by something, standing there forever. Time was not the same in the maze, and Phil could still be standing where he had once stood. I could be with him again, for a moment or forever.

  I resumed the weaving, skipping steps of the dance with my new companion. I was eager now, impatient to reach the centre. Ahead of me I could see other figures, dim and shifting as the moonlight, winking in and out of view as they trod the maze on other nights, in other centuries.

  The view from the corner of my eyes was more disturbing. I caught fleeting glimpses of my partner in this dance, and he did not look the same as when I had seen him face to face. He had looked so young, and yet the light, hard gra
sp on my arm did not seem that of a young man’s hand.

  A hand like a bird’s claw . . .

  My eyes glanced down my side to my arm. The hand lying lightly on my solid flesh was nothing but bones, the flesh all rotted and dropped away years before. Those peripheral, sideways glimpses I’d had of my dancing partner were the truth—sights of something long dead and yet still animate.

  I stopped short and pulled my arm away from that horror. I closed my eyes, afraid to turn to face it. I heard the rustle and clatter of dry bones. I felt a cold wind against my face and smelled something rotten. A voice—it might have been Phil’s—whispered my name in sorrow and fear.

  What waited for me at the centre? And what would I become, and for how long would I be trapped in this monotonous dance if ever I reached the end?

  I turned around blindly, seeking the way out. I opened my eyes and began to move, then checked myself—some strong, instinctual aversion kept me from cutting across the maze paths and leaping them as if they were only so many shallow, meaningless furrows. Instead, I turned around (I glimpsed pale figures watching me, flickering in my peripheral vision) and began to run back the way I had come, following the course of the maze backwards, away from the centre, back out into the world alone.

  THE MULTIFACETED KAREN HABER (1955– ) works in numerous areas within the science fiction and fantasy genres. She is the author of nine novels, including Thieves’ Carnival (1990), the four-volume Fire in Winter series (The Mutant Season, 1989, written in collaboration with her husband, noted science fiction author Robert Silverberg; The Mutant Prime, 1990; Mutant Star, 1992; and Mutant Legacy, 1992), which chronicles the struggle between mutants and humans for the fate of Earth; Bless the Beasts (1996) in the Star Trek Voyager series; the War Minstrels trilogy (Woman Without a Shadow, 1995, The War Minstrels, 1995, and Sister Blood, 1996), about an underground mining colony on the planet Styx; and Crossing Infinity (2005), a young adult novel. She has also produced nearly twenty short stories for such magazines as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, as well as anthologies.

  Among Haber’s most important nonfiction work as a writer and editor are as a reviewer of art books for Locus; a writer of artists’ profiles for Realms of Fantasy; editor of Kong Unbound (2005), a collection of essays about various views and elements of the significance of King Kong as a cultural icon; and editor or coeditor of numerous anthologies, including four years of Fantasy: The Best of (2001–2004) and three years of Science Fiction: The Best of (2003–2005). She was nominated for a Hugo Award for editing Meditations on Middle Earth (2001), an essay collection celebrating the life and work of J. R. R. Tolkien.

  “Red Angels” was first published in The Ultimate Zombie, edited by Byron Preiss and John Betancourt (New York: Dell, 1993).

  THE DRUMS.

  They were the first thing David Weber heard—felt, really, a steady pulsing beat—as he stepped from the gleaming seaplane onto Port-au-Prince’s sunny Bowen Field.

  “Passports, please, passports.” The immigration agent chanted his mantra in lilting French-accented English.

  Weber stepped up to the sagging metal table and stared beyond it at the murals decorating the walls, scenes of local frolic and revelry. Probably Philome Obin’s work or Castera Bazile’s, Weber thought, and his heart beat faster. Hadn’t he come to Haiti to buy the best native artwork he could find for his gallery? If it was right here in the customs shed then it was probably all over the island, his just for the asking. The drums beat behind him, through his pale skin, and right into his blood—boombadaboombadaboom.

  “USA?” The agent had a dark, genial face. His smile was ragged, with crooked incisors.

  “Yes.”

  “Welcome. Not many Americans come here anymore. Purpose of your visit?”

  “Business.”

  “Really?” The man looked at him in surprise. “Perhaps you’re a trade inspector from Miami? Looking for smugglers?” He chuckled and Weber forced a smile.

  “How’d you guess?” he said. “My cover story is that I’m a gallery owner from Los Angeles looking for art. For Ti Malice, the famous Haitian artist.”

  The man gave him a sly, knowing glance. Weber’s hopes leaped high: perhaps he would get his first lead here, right now.

  “Ti Malice?”

  Weber nodded eagerly.

  “Ti Malice. Heeheehee.” The immigration agent bent double with laughter. “Ti Malice. Ti Malice. Hoohoohoo. You really came here to find him?”

  “Yeah. To find him and buy paintings from him.”

  The passport-control agent laughed yet again, a quick mocking snort this time.

  Weber began to get annoyed. He shuffled his feet and wondered just what was so funny. Should he ask? He hated being laughed at.

  “Ti Malice won’t want to do business with you, my friend. Trust me.”

  The drums were getting louder now.

  “We’ll see.” Weber shrugged. “Maybe he will, and maybe he won’t. What’s that drumming? Some voodoo thing?” He tried to sound casual, but deep inside he trembled at the thought of actual voodoo rites taking place nearby. Grainy images from ancient movies floated to his mind. He pushed them aside.

  The official was stiff now, even a bit contemptuous. “That’s not vodou. There’s a festival, a combite, someplace. Probably the hill farmers are building a barn up there.”

  “But the drums—”

  “It helps them to work. They sing.” The agent stamped his passport and handed it back without looking at him. “Next.”

  Weber stumbled out into the bright sunshine, dragging his suitcase. He was just trying to make a living but it certainly brought him to some odd places, he thought. Now here he was in the nutty world of voodoo drums, witch doctors, and zombies. It was funny, really, where a guy with a master’s degree in fine arts from UCLA could find himself.

  Suddenly, a small, wiry man was at his side.

  “Taxi?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Hotel Jolly?”

  “No. Hotel L’Ouverture.”

  “You’re not Swiss?” The driver seemed surprised.

  “No.”

  “German, then.”

  “Guess again.”

  “But the blond hair, the blue eyes—all Swiss and Germans stay at the Jolly.”

  “I’m American.”

  “Oh. Good. Big tippers, Americans.” The driver chuckled deep in his throat. “Not many of you here now.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The car was an old gray Ford daubed with pinkish primer paint, sagging on its rusting suspension. It bounced as the driver stowed his bags in the yawning trunk, and again when Weber climbed into the back. The seat was black vinyl patched by red and gray tape whose edges had curled in the heat. He pitched and slid across it as the driver took off.

  Weber grabbed the door handle and braced himself as the cab made the first of several sharp turns away from the empty fields of the airport and into the winding maze of Port-au-Prince’s potholed streets. After the third near-collision, Weber leaned over the front seat and tapped the cabbie on the shoulder. “Can’t you drive any slower?”

  The man barely glanced at him. “You don’t want me to go fast? Americans always do. Americans and Japanese, forever in a rush, in a big hurry.”

  Weber felt a warning tingle of suspicion: his biggest rival for collectors was an aggressive gallery owner in Tokyo, Hideo Tashamaki. “Japanese? Here? What do they come here for?”

  “The puffer fish. And whores.” The cabbie giggled.

  Whores. That was the last thing Weber wanted here. He settled against his seat-back in silence and wondered why anyone would risk his life eating poisonous fish or screwing diseased prostitutes.

  With a squeal of tires and brakes, the cab stopped in front of a six-story wooden building. The upper three floors sported balconies with graceful wrought-iron supports. From the lowest balcony hung a sign in faded gilt that read: “Hotel L’Ouvert
ure.”

  A statue of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture stood nearby the portecochère. It was green with age, surrounded by a circle of dead brown grass. White and gray pigeons roosted on L’Ouverture’s tricornered hat, on his outstretched hand, and along the eaves of the hotel that bore his name.

  Weber stood on the stained front steps holding his suit bag as the taxi roared off. No bellboys swept him up in a welcoming bustle. Well, what did you expect? Weber thought. He elbowed his way past the stiff paint-flecked double door into the dim, cool lobby. His footsteps echoed. A clerk sat behind the wide mahogany desk, head propped on his hand, reading a creased and tattered comic book. He didn’t look up until Weber had put his bag down across the top of the desk. His expression was mildly hostile but mostly sleepy.

  “I have a reservation,” Weber said.

  The clerk didn’t budge. “The room isn’t ready.”

  “When will it be ready?”

  “I don’t know. The maid didn’t come in today.”

  Weber looked around the lobby. Empty, dark, and quiet. “Oh, come on. Do you mean the entire hotel is full? It doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  The clerk shrugged and gazed wistfully at his comic book.

  Weber sighed, pulled out his wallet, and carefully removed a five-dollar bill which he ostentatiously slapped into his passport. “Here, you might want to see this.”

  The clerk perked right up. He took the passport, nodded, and opened the guestbook. “Lucky for you we’ve had a cancellation. Room 37. This way.”