The Quickening of Tom Turnpike

by W E. Mann

“So how does the picture fit in?” asked Reggie.

  Samson shrugged and shook his head.

  “Do you think,” continued Reggie pensively, but without conviction, jabbing the page with a finger, “that the Bokor stands in the middle... between one man and one woman?”

  “But,” said Freddie, “then what are these arrows for? Look, this circle on the right is black; the one in the middle is half black, half white; and the one on the left is white and much bigger than the other two...”

  “Yeah,” interjected Reggie, “and it’s got no arrows next to it...”

  “I reckon,” added Freddie, looking at Reggie, “I reckon it’s the Solar System or a simple diagram of the...”

  “That’s it!” exclaimed Samson suddenly. “I knew there was something else. Lisa and Mawu are the gods of the Sun and the Moon.”

  “Oh, so this picture,” I said, still not grasping any implication, “shows the Sun and the Moon...”

  “That’s right,” said Samson, in the tone of a parent encouraging a child who is learning to read.

  “...And...um...”

  “And the Earth in the middle!” said Freddie excitedly, looking at Reggie and me in triumph. “This diagram, look: it’s an eclipse of the Moon!”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Didn’t Wilbraham teach us this in Geography a little while ago? A lunar eclipse is when the Sun is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Moon. So the Earth throws a shadow across the Moon and the Moon can’t reflect any sunlight. Look, the one on the right is the Moon. It’s black because no light is reaching it. The one in the middle is the Earth. The right hand side of it is black because that is where it is night. And this big one is the Sun.”

  “So,” I said, “when it says “they wake up”, it must mean that the zombies come to life; and “the time when the night is darkest”, I suppose that might mean midnight? Now all we need to do is find out if there’s a lunar eclipse any time soon. That’s when the zombies are going to come back to life.”

  Reggie rolled his eyes at Freddie and Samson chuckled. “You know, Tom. For a clever fella, you’re pretty slow off the mark, aren’t you?” said Reggie.

  I smirked at them. Freddie slapped me on the back and said, “Come on, chaps. We ought to get to Prayers. We can check the newspapers on the way.”

  ***

  Empty chairs were really beginning to show in the Orangery now, like gaps in a tramp’s grin. And perhaps I was overly sensitive, but there seemed to be a disquieting silence over the congregation at the beginning of Prayers. There even seemed to be an absence of teachers. Barrington, Ludendorff and Boateng, notably, were not present. Saracen was there though, haunting the back of the room.

  Wilbraham was droning on about some area of the Basement that should now be considered out-of-bounds on account of exposed wiring and damp.

  On our way over, Reggie had torn the weather page from the Sunday Times when nobody was looking. On the other side of Freddie from me, he was dragging it out of his pocket whilst pretending to cough in a vain effort to mask the noise of the newspaper’s rustling.

  Wilbraham was now praising the efforts of the 1st XI during yesterday’s match: “...Marvellous to have the clean sweep over Pinewood... ...Particular praise due to Smith for his six for forty-one, Bartholomew-Crump for his sixty-two not out...Wonderful season so far...Unblemished record...Only three matches to go...Strawberries and whipped cream all round...”. This last notion raised an unsolicited cheer from a number of boys – something which I thought was reserved only for Wilbraham’s annual declaration of Shirt-Sleeves Order on Mayday, weather permitting. It seemed to please Wilbraham though, confirmation that strawberries and whipped cream still work.

  “...Best behaviour next weekend, boys,” continued Wilbraham, “as the choir from St. Katherine’s Ladies’ Academy will be here...”. This announcement brought about a further flutter of excitement amongst the Juniors and some boisterous prods and knowing winks amongst the Seniors.

  Freddie gave me a nudge. He pushed the newspaper cutting into my hand and gave it a tap just underneath the weather map, where there was a brief column entitled “Night Sky”:

  “Tomorrow night a meteorological marvel will be visible over Britain, when a total lunar eclipse will turn the Moon a deep blood red. It is expected that the most spectacular views will be over southwest and central England.

  The period of total eclipse will be between 9.36pm and 11.10pm. The eclipse will reach its height at 10.23pm. The full duration of the eclipse, from the Moon’s entry into the outer part of the Earth’s shadow to its exit, will be from 8.38pm until 00.08am on Wednesday.”

  Jesus! This gave us just one and a half days to come up with a plan to stop Colonel Barrington. I folded the paper cutting and put it into my back pocket with the page that had fallen from Barrington’s book.

  eighteen

  “Okay,” I said. “So what we need is hard evidence. Any ideas?” We were on our way from the Orangery to Lunch (toad-in-the-hole today, so hopefully my bit would actually have a sausage in it).

  “How about the Science Labs?” said Reggie. “There must be evidence there. Bottles of zombie-poison and stuff.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You never know. But what do we do if we do find any evidence? I mean who is going to believe us? A bottle of fluid from the Labs could be anything. I find it hard enough to believe in zombies, so I haven’t a clue how we’re going to convince a teacher too.”

  Freddie and Reggie shrugged or shook their heads.

  “Well we’ve got to try, I suppose. So who wants to do it?”

  “It’ll have to be you boys,” said Reggie, nodding towards me and Freddie. “I’m in Detention all bloomin’ afternoon! But I heard that Barrington’s supervising, so that means the Physics and Chemistry Lab will be safe.”

  ***

  “Have you done this before?” I whispered.

  Freddie had wedged two bent paper-clips into the lock on the door to Colonel Barrington’s Physics and Chemistry Lab and he was trying to force the screwdriver attachment on his Swiss Army knife in after them. At first, he had affected the calm and precise air of an experienced safe-cracker. But by now his frustration had taken over and he was rattling the paper-clips for all he was worth.

  “This is seriously out-of-bounds!” I added.

  “You’re not helping!” he hissed and removed his tools, putting his hands on his hips and tutting like a plumber with bad news.

  The Physics and Chemistry Lab was in the East wing of the school building and, like the Orangery in the opposite wing, had recently been rebuilt. As a result, it was equipped with brand new doors with brand new locks. Far less easy to pick than the clunking old ones in the middle of the building. One benefit of these doors though was that they had a pane of reinforced glass, so that I could peer through and see that there was nobody in the Lab. There was also nothing out on the work surfaces – no bubbling red fluids or body parts in tanks.

  “To be honest, Tom, I’ve no idea,” admitted Freddie, “and this screwdriver is way too thick.”

  “Let me have a go,” I said, grabbing the knife and the paper-clips. “I saw this thing in the Knockout Annual about how locks work. Apparently the only reason why you can’t turn a lock with just any old piece of metal is that there are pins inside it in certain places that stop it from turning. What a key does is it pushes the pins up and stops them getting in the way of the lock when you turn it. So all I need to do,” I said, nudging the bent paper-clips around inside the keyhole, “is find the pins, push them out of the way with these paper-clips and... Hey, could you get the tweezers out of the penknife for me?”

  Freddie passed me the tweezers. I pressed them together and pushed them into the keyhole. They just about managed to squeeze in without disturbing the paper-clips, which I held firmly in place.

  Amazingly, unbelievably, my makeshift key turned smoothly and the lock clicked open. I looked up at Freddie smugly.

  “You’re so a
nnoying!”

  We closed the door behind us and Freddie strutted straight towards Barrington’s desk. The Lab seemed so much larger when it was empty. I was used to seeing it in lessons when it was cluttered with thermometers, burettes, pipettes, tripods, beakers, gauzes, clamps and bungs. But now the work surfaces were so clean and smooth that you would never guess that it was just there that Freddie had recently ruined a jumper with sulphuric acid, or that over there Peregrine Trout had last year burnt his left eyebrow off with a blue bunsen flame.

  “Come on, Tom! We’ll get expelled if we’re caught. We need to be as quick as possible. Have a look through those drawers,” he said, pointing to the ones at the other end of Barrington’s desk from where he was kneeling, rifling through Barrington’s notes.

  The top two drawers on my side of the desk contained nothing of interest – just chalk boxes, rulers, set squares and so on. But the bottom drawer contained a very strange looking item. At first glance it looked like a misshapen lump of wood, like a knot on a monkey-puzzle tree. But, on closer inspection, it seemed to be crafted roughly in the shape of a person.

  “Look at this,” I said, grabbing it. “It looks sort of like a woman with long hair.”

  Freddie looked at it and shrugged.

  “Hang on,” I said, realising that there was something familiar about it. “Boateng showed us a picture of these sorts of things. I think he said they were called Fetishes, remember? He said they were like Voodoo religious dolls and something about them representing gods or dead people or something. And the encyclopædia said that they are used for trapping the souls of people who are turned into zombies.”

  I peered at its face, wondering if it was looking at me. It was so roughly shaped that it was difficult to see where the eyes were, but that made it all the more mesmerising and the longer I stared at it, the longer I wanted to stare at it.

  “Well,” said Freddie, “I’m not really sure it’ll be good evidence though. Think you’d better put it back. It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies just looking at it.”

  Just as I was closing the drawer, I heard the faint clicking of footsteps. Freddie looked at me, startled.

  “Quick! Underneath the desk,” I whispered.

  We crouched there as the footsteps became louder and louder. I was searching my memory frantically to satisfy myself that we had left no clues that anyone was in here: We hadn’t turned on the lights, we hadn’t left the door ajar, and, I realised as I became acutely aware that they were digging into my thigh from inside my pocket, we can’t have dropped the paper-clips. In fact, the only way of finding out that someone was in here would be to find out that the door was unlocked, and that would mean trying to come in. Surely the only person who would do that was Barrington. And he was supervising Detention.

  Just keep walking, I willed the footsteps as they became louder and louder. Please just keep walking.

  Just as the footsteps seemed like they could get no louder, they hesitated by the door and then, finally, clicked on by in the direction of the Modern Languages rooms. Freddie sighed with relief, but I couldn’t bring myself to emerge from beneath the desk just yet. It was too soon to take the risk. What if my ears were deceiving me?

  “Hey, what’s that?” I whispered. Freddie was still clutching a sheaf of papers from Barrington’s desk drawer and amongst them was a leather-bound book. Freddie pulled it out and opened it onto the page where, in Barrington’s unmistakeable blue-black scrawl, it said “Research Log”.

  Freddie began to flick through slowly. Most of the pages at the beginning contained diagrams and text which had been angrily crossed out. But then it began to get interesting.

  “Quickening minus Ten:

  Further study of Witchdoctor’s text has revealed the following stages in the process of Z-production:-

  1. After being given Z-poison, subjects enter death-like state. Subjects best preserved in damp, cool, but insulated conditions. Soil ideal;

  2. Subjects remain in death-like state until beginning of lunar eclipse. For best preservation, shortest time possible is required between administration of Z-poison and stage 3 as decomposition continues;

  3. On night of lunar eclipse, full effects of Z-poison begin to take hold as subjects rise from dead. Bokor at this point enters violent trance in order to perform Invocation of Loa;

  4. Loa possesses Bokor and controls risen subjects, using subjects’ eyes and ears as his own and controlling subjects’ movements. Crucial Bokor is not disturbed during possession by Loa and before Z-poison has taken hold as may result in immediate and permanent death of subjects;

  5. Z-poison takes full effect by end of eclipse. By this time, subjects are beyond point of no return – to use language suggested by text, “Quickened”, and subjects’ souls, according to text, are trapped in Fetishes [scientific basis unclear – perhaps hypnosis results in some kind of psychological dependence];

  6. Subjects reaching Quickening may from then be raised as Zs at any time by Bokor. Quickened subjects have no blood-circulation and little independent thought. Severe damage to the brain is only way of neutralising Quickened subjects. Bokor does not control every aspect of subjects’ behaviour, but dictates what subjects are to achieve. Bokor communicates orders merely by will. Subjects therefore effectively have a psychic link with Bokor [again, scientific basis requires further research];

  7. Eventual death of Bokor leaves subjects in permanent state of death unless new Bokor is chosen by means of a ritual to which text refers as “the Summoning”.”

  “I can hardly believe what I’m seeing,” whispered Freddie. “So unless we do something by the end of the eclipse on Tuesday morning, Milo and the others will be zombies forever. I just can’t understand why Barrington would agree to do this!”

  I was speechless at the horror of what was going to happen.

  Freddie shook his head and flicked to the next entry.

  “Quickening minus Eight:

  Finally, a breakthrough. Traditional understanding of operation of Nitrous Oxide scientifically flawed. Though Nitrous Oxide well-known for sedative effects, those effects are, in fact, opposite to those required to bring about Z-like symptoms. Research required.

  Z-poison should therefore require no more than mixture of poisons extracted from puffer fish livers and deadly nightshade berries. Administration of Z-poison may thus be a one-stage procedure.”

  “Quickening minus Eight,” I said. “Do you reckon that means that he wrote this entry eight days before the Quickening?”

  “Yeah,” said Freddie. “So, if the Quickening is Tuesday morning, that would mean... last Monday. So that’s not very long after boys started disappearing.”

  “This is odd. Look!”

  The entry continued, but in a hurried scrawl: “JDS suspects. Absolute discretion required.”

  “Those are Doctor Saracen’s initials,” whispered Freddie. “But Saracen’s a Party member, so why would Barrington worry about that?”

  “Who knows? And why would he write this down?”

  I looked at my watch. “Oh no, Fred! Look: Detention ended ten minutes ago! Barrington could be back any moment!”

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” he said in a panic. We hurriedly scrambled out from beneath the desk and Freddie stuffed the sheaf of papers back into the drawer.

  “Shouldn’t we keep this as evidence though?” he said. “That is why we came here, after all.”

  “Yeah, keep hold of the logbook,” I said. “I can’t see what it proves though. I mean he doesn’t even use the word “zombie” once in what we read.”

  “Come on. Let’s get going. I’ll hang onto it and we can look at the rest of it later on to see if there’s anything we could show to a teacher.”

  We hurried over to the door. I looked out through the glass to check that nobody was coming.

  We crept out and clicked the door shut behind us. Then, just as we were walking confidently away and breathing sighs of relief, I felt a hand grab me firmly
by the back of my collar.

  nineteen

  It was one of those horrifying, bowel-weakening moments when you think that you have just destroyed your whole life. The Physics and Chemistry Labs could not be any more out-of-bounds and we all knew that. I would do literally anything to avoid Behavioural School: whinge, lie, burst into tears, blame it all on Freddie, play dead... anything!

  “I’ve got you now, haven’t I, you snivelling little turds?”

  It was Vanderpump still clutching our collars, and, judging from the moronic sniggering behind him, he was not alone.

  “Angus, you take this one,” he commanded, pushing Freddie roughly away. One of the Bearbaiter twins took hold of him and wrestled him into a stiff headlock. “Amos, you hold this one still for me.”

  I was jerked backwards. A pair of huge, hairy arms looped through mine from behind me and thick meaty hands pressed on the back of my head. I couldn’t move my arms at all, my legs were dangling off the ground and I was wincing from the pain in my neck.

  “What were you doing in there then, eh?” hissed Vanderpump.

  “None of your business,” I groaned through the discomfort as Amos Bearbaiter gave me an extra squeeze.

  Vanderpump didn’t like my defiance. He thumped me heftily in the midriff. I wanted to crumple to the floor to try to regain my breath, but, unable to move, I dangled there, gagging, desperate to get some air into my burning lungs. But it was impossible. I began to panic. I flapped my legs around wildly. My head was pounding and I was just beginning to think that I would never breathe again, when I managed a shuddering half-breath.

  Vanderpump leant in close to me as I gulped in precious air, water welling unwelcome in my eyes. I could smell his breath. A foul mixture of burnt rubber and rancid meat.

  “What even are you?” he spat, flaring his nostrils as if the sight of me was causing him nausea. “Are you a Romany? Look at these dishonest eyes. They look Romany to me. Or maybe you are Tartar. Or are you...” he screwed his face up in disgust, “...a Jew?”