There was a soft grunt and the sound of Ambrose hitting the floor.
“Catch,” he said, and as I turned he tossed a box of shells in my direction. Wasting no time, I reloaded the Colt. “The shotgun?” I asked hopefully.
“Gone.”
Ambrose walked out of the bedroom, donning a belt that was half filled with giant shells that looked about right for the gun he had chosen to carry, and half loaded with something that looked like bayonet spikes. He looked like an extra from Blade.
“Ready to kick some zombie butt?” he asked.
“Hell yes,” I lied. We didn’t have much choice. If they had gotten into Ambrose’s reinforced cottage, nothing on the island was safe. My best hope of survival was to stick with the zombie-butt-kicker and hope he could kill Saint Germain’s handpicked army before I got eaten or had a heart attack.
I knew that before the day was over, I would use the gun again. This didn’t fill me with as much dismay as it should have.
Body-snatcher, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. The hyena.
Grave, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Some thought that being last thrown over the [gallows] and first cut down, and in full vigour, and not much earth placed upon him, and lying uppermost [in the grave], and not so ready to smother, the fermentation of the blood and heat of the bodies under him might cause him to rebound and throw off the earth.
—Lord Fountainhall, recounting the hanging and subsequent resurrection of a gypsy at Greyfriar’s Kirkyard in Edinburgh
Chapter Eight
They say that sex sells, but I think fear is an even greater motivator. What do you think convinces healthy adults with functioning taste buds to eat plain oatmeal for breakfast when doughnuts are readily available? I’m not saying that light doses of fear don’t have some good uses; it can keep us out of a lot trouble when temptation is whispering lo. But too much fear is crippling. For me, that is in both the figurative and literal sense, but our enemy seemed to have none that bothered him. Saint Germain—or his golem—had faced down that monster crocodile and never even blinked. Nor did zombies or ghouls back off from guns or spikes or any weapon we had so far used against them. And that really sucked.
Some people grow incoherent when frightened. Others incontinent. I was neither—so far—but then I’d spent most of my time worrying that I would pass out and get eaten. I had a worthy distraction. Still, just in case, I used the bathroom before we left the cottage. There was nothing to do about possible incoherence, except to rely on statistics that said two writers would never run out of pertinent things to say, especially when every word might be our last.
We searched the guest cottages first. They had all been gone through, including mine. There were slimy trails on the floor and rot in the air. Most of the buildings had their doors ripped off. This was unnecessary, because none had been locked. I would also not be wearing my pareu again. I don’t think ghoul slime ever washes out. Fortunately, my computer seemed unharmed.
I had a moment of epiphany as we were searching for bogeymen under the beds of the last cottage. I had willingly left the comfort of my known life to chase a bloodthirsty maniac who would let his ghouls eat me, and though terrified and hating every moment, I wasn’t going back to my old life when this was over—assuming it ever was over. We might win this one battle, but what about the war? That was less certain. I was needed in this fight and I would answer the call, however ill-suited to the task I might be.
To this day, I still find it somewhat astounding that I mentally walked away and left it all behind without even a pang of regret. That’s what rage and determination—and, I’ll admit it, growing lust—will do for you. Like a migrating bird, I headed south for warmer climes and a better choice of mates. This was doubtless because Ambrose was near and his presence kept the worst of my terror at bay. Thanks to him, fear had me energized and wary, but not paralyzed. And, I’ll be honest: Dread of confronting zombies wasn’t as great as my secret fear that I was a damaged person and would never have a normal life with any normal person. The walking dead I could deal with as long as I had a gun. Relationships were trickier. A shadow of doubt would always precede me when it came to dealing with the opposite sex.
“What are you thinking?” Ambrose asked. That, and Are you ready? seemed to be his favorite questions. The latter is normal for a guy; the former is not.
“Things seem a bit…” I searched for a word. “Sticky. A bit tight. But you’re very calm. Heroic even. It gives me hope.”
“You poor deluded woman. A hero must do more than fight. He must be wise and capable of compassion.”
“And your point is?”
“I’m neither of these things. My life has been nothing but rocks and hard places for the last century. Most of them of my own making,” Ambrose answered. “I’m almost used to it by now. But you…” The dark eyes turned my way. I had gotten to a point where I could feel their weight whenever they were on me.
I pushed open a bathroom door, gun at the ready. It was a matter of form. Had there been anyone in there I am convinced that Ambrose would have heard them—or smelled them. There is a reason that no one markets zombie-scented aftershave or ghoul-flavored Jelly Bellies.
I said: “I understand. I’ve also had my share of choices between devils and deep blue seas. Only, my devils were emotional ones. This is the first one I’ve faced that has actual teeth. They’re nasty, but at least I know what I’m grappling with. I can see it. All things considered, I think we’re doing rather well.” I sounded so brave, so calm and logical, when in reality I presently had all the will of a sock puppet and was keeping erect because Ambrose willed it. Newton’s proverbial apple falling on my head had left me with a concussion. Personal detachment, the friend and constant shield of the nonfiction writer, was gone.
Perhaps running away from my old life would prove to be an epic misjudgment, but there was nothing I could—or would—do about it. Ambrose and I were in this together. Leaving aside my growing feelings for him, and that was an awfully large thing to ignore, the situation was beyond being dealt with by local authorities. Or any authorities. There was no legal reprisal—no human reprisal—that could set this situation to rights. Saint Germain was raising the dead and forcing them to do murder! What could the police do about this? Even if they believed us—which they wouldn’t—no human laws were going to stop this madman before it was too late. The innocent had no protection I could see beyond Ambrose and me.
I have never felt myself to be called by a higher power to any particular life choice. But I felt a weight of responsibility that day and understood for the first time what it meant to be your brother’s keeper—or at least his guardian at the gate.
I didn’t kid myself that all could be put right by us in this most horrible of situations. There was no way to make up for the horror I now believed Saint Germain had caused untold blameless people. We’d probably never even know all those he had hurt. This man was the alpha asshole of all time…and almost no one knew about him! This was stunning to me. Evil was the foundation on which he had built his house, his corporations and charities for which he was lauded as a hero and benefactor, with not one word on CNN of his evil deeds. There was a deep abyss in Hell that already had his name on it, if we could ever kill him. Yet still he walked among the living, and had for over a century, doing evil at will.
No, we couldn’t make up for the past. All that could be done now was to stop him so that he never had the chance to hurt anyone else with his sick diablerie. That meant Ambrose, because he was able, and little old me, because I was there and not going to pass the buck and refuse to help do what clearly needed doing. Not when Ambrose was in danger and needing backup. Not when I had a chance to finally do something that really mattered to another person. I was frightened and thi
s would be hard and dangerous, but it was the right thing to do. I believed this with a conviction that bordered on religious faith.
“Unfortunately, the sea has some fangs too,” Ambrose remarked, looking toward the shore through a broken window. He smiled, but his dark eyes didn’t agree with his mouth’s lighthearted perjury. Not too surprisingly he added: “I should have sent you away whether you wanted to go or not. I never suspected it could be this bad, but I should have guessed. After all, as the saying goes: if I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” He paused and turned my way. “Of course, you’re damned stubborn.”
“And that’s why I’m here?”
“It’s certainly contributory.”
“And that is the pot calling the kettle black.” My verbal defense mechanism was kicking in, but the counteraccusation only amused him.
“Okay,” I continued. “I admit that self-preservation says I should have gone. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. And neither could you. You know what’s at stake. So here we are. The last of the great patriots, at least on this island.” I looked out the window. Clouds were thickening. We were going to have a severe storm, and soon. I added seriously: “Even if we come to a bad end, I don’t regret staying. My life was…just a lot of nothing. I haven’t felt truly alive for a very long time.”
There was a bit of silence. I hoped I hadn’t sounded melodramatic. This urge to confide in anyone was new and confusing.
“And now?” he asked. I could tell that he wanted the truth, and I was certain he would know if I lied. There is a scientific name for this ability. It’s called Hellstromism. It’s the art of muscle reading, the study of small muscular giveaways that tell a body reader if you are lying or nervous. But was that how he did it?
I settled on saying: “And now I recall why I want to live. If we get out of this I am going to be making some changes.”
I turned and looked back at Ambrose. I wanted to say something else but courage failed me. I was more afraid of his rejection of this mild declaration of newfound affection than I was of being killed by ghouls.
He nodded as he dropped to the floor. Again, checking under the bed was strictly for form’s sake; we had yet to run into any monster that chose hiding over attacking. I think he just wanted a moment to think.
“Me too,” he said at last. “You have made me recall why people seek out companionship. There is a powerful allure in being with someone who knows your history and all your flaws and accepts you anyway. I’ve been reluctant to get close to anyone for a long time. My changed nature was just too unpredictable. Too violent.” He unfolded his limbs and rose in a fluid movement. He reached for me and I took his hand, knowing that I would feel the strange life current flowing through his body. In a very short time I had become addicted to that feeling.
“But now?” I wanted to ask about his past and what had happened to his last “companion”.
“I hope—believe that my control is better. And we are a fair way from a full moon.” He said abruptly: “It’s probably pointless, but let’s check the kitchens, dining room and lobby of the main building next. They’re on the way, and I’d like to know we don’t have something creeping up on us from the rear.”
“Sounds good.” It didn’t, but what were the options?
We stepped outside and turned abruptly toward the shadowy mangroves where an unnatural wind blundered in and out of trees like a drunk with staggers, flinging handfuls of stinging sand at us from time to time. I set my jaw. We had a rendezvous with a rising storm and the evil creatures crawling underneath. Darkness could hide danger, but it also induced wariness. I wasn’t worried about Ambrose being careless if dark fell; he would never underestimate this enemy. And my nerves were amped up enough to give off electrical charges, so exhaustion wasn’t a problem. Not yet. We were ready.
“I’m not a patriot, you know,” Ambrose said suddenly. “Not one of the new kind, anyway. Perhaps I used to be, but the definition has changed. I don’t understand the recent breed of media darlings cast as heroes. Sometime in the last century the meaning of patriotism distorted.”
I nodded. “I am often baffled by who is chosen for the cult of ‘patriotic personality’ Their recent poster boys have seemed like self-interested jerks to me. These days it is politics that is the last refuge of scoundrels.”
He nodded. “Most of our leaders seem to have decided that capitalism rather than invention should be America’s defining trait, and they value it more than the personal freedoms that countless soldiers have fought and died for from the very beginning. Washington—and much of the rest of the world—is filled with narcissistic cowards who send the deluded to fight for them. Bah! To willingly do battle for these selfish men is idiocy, and as far as I am concerned, spreading their kind of social disease to the rest of the planet is just plain immoral. And what of the poor fools sent off to die for whatever economic plan the politicos have cooked up?” He snorted. “Maybe it is just that this is a young man’s game and I got it all out of my system years ago. It took a while, but I finally figured out that, for me, there was more power in the pen than any weapon I used while soldiering. Words and not bullets will most often carry the days that matter.” He paused. “This situation is an exception.”
I wasn’t certain what Ambrose was thinking of, but the war in Iraq was on my mind. In some ways, it was easier to handle than zombies and ghouls.
“I know the kind of person you mean,” I said slowly. “Personally and morally cowardly, unwilling to go and fight their own battles, they still think they’re patriots because they wave flags and have lots of pictures of dead presidents on the hundred-dollar bills in their pockets, and they have lots of political stickers on their SUVs.”
“They don’t want to expend any great effort comprehending any other point of view—”
“—but they hate and fear everything they don’t understand and are just as happy when the government sends someone to bomb it.” I stopped as I finished his sentence, shocked that this much vitriol was inside me. Was Bierce’s bitterness contagious? Or had I always felt this and kept it hidden because there was no one to share these thoughts with?
He grinned. It wasn’t a smile so much as a baring of teeth in a kind of snarl. “And they’re busy high-fiving one another over the fact that there is fast food in the Forbidden City in China and on Princes Street in Edinburgh, and that Wal-Mart is a dominant global power where they can buy cheap socks and DVDs—and they are not at all distressed that a quarter of our nation’s children live in poverty because our jobs have gone overseas, or that their cheap goods are being produced by slave labor imprisoned in other countries for having differing political views. They are consumers and not citizens, not neighbors, not caretakers of the only planet we have to live on. They feel entitled to everything and feel no requirement to ever pay anyone back for the privileges they enjoy.” His voice had grown softer, sadder.
I nodded. “So, okay, we’re not that kind of patriot. I don’t think either of us is personally or morally cowardly.” This was a bit of stretch. I was a dreadful coward, but I had chosen to stick around for this fight, so I was giving myself some bonus points. “Not that I’m looking to die for the cause of stopping Wal-Mart’s conquest of the world or anything. I believe in free trade and so forth. We’ve just gotten unbalanced.”
“Thank God—and I mean that sincerely. The world has enough martyrs. One needn’t die to demonstrate that one has principles and feels answerable to a higher power than wealth. Sometimes living and speaking the truth is the bravest thing we can do. And the most powerful. It may be cliché but it is also true that, even in this day and age, the pen can be mightier than the sword.”
I nodded, thinking of the small statue of Lazurus I’d seen in Ambrose’s room “The pen can be mightier than the sword—if it writes for television.” I was thinking sadly of the number of people who chose to watch television instead of reading.
“And it may be time to start doing that,” he muttered. “I
think it is time for a new career.”
Ambrose stopped me as we neared the rear entrance of the resort kitchens. I had been so distracted by our conversation that I hadn’t realized we were there already. Sand slithered down the leeward slope of the rocky outcrop where we waited—or rather where Ambrose waited and I cowered with splayed fingers that were trying to become one with the up-thrust stone.
The wind was blowing hard now and it hurt to face it. Suddenly my thoughtless, greedy body couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen. No matter how my lungs bellowed air in and out, there wasn’t sufficient oxygen. I wasn’t near fainting, but I felt like it had been hours since I had been able to fully catch my breath.
I put my back to the wind and swiped at my tender face. I noticed that the world had a funny red glow about it. I would have said that there was a fire somewhere, but I smelled no smoke. Maybe my brain had just started wearing Hell-colored glasses all the time so I wouldn’t keep being surprised when new devils appeared before us.
There’s something inside. This time I was watching Ambrose’s profile and was certain that his lips hadn’t moved. Either he had one hell of a bent for ventriloquism or he was somehow managed to speak to me inside my mind.
The thought was disconcerting, but not entirely impossible given everything else. I decided that there were better moments to ask about this, though, and kept silent.
We sidled up to one of the shuttered windows and took a peek through the slats. The room seemed as empty as the rest of the buildings, but Ambrose remained alert, his posture tense, so though suddenly exhausted, I stayed focused too. We didn’t discuss a strategy but that was fine. I never get hung up on the whole Plan B thing. If I thought things through, nothing would ever get done. Ambrose seemed to be of the same school of action. The situation was fluid; we would have to be extemporaneous and think on our feet.
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