Restless Dead

by Cave, Hugh

  THE RESTLESS DEAD

  By Hugh B. Cave

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2012 / The Estate of Hugh B. Cave

  Copy-edited by: Melanie Skipp

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  Cover images courtesy of:

  http://evelivesey.deviantart.com/

  http://riktorsashen.deviantart.com/

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Hugh Barnett Cave was a prolific writer of pulp fiction who also excelled in other genres. Over his entire career he wrote more than 1,000 short stories in nearly all genres. He is best remembered for his horror and crime pieces. He wrote approximately forty novels, and a notable body of nonfiction. He received the Phoenix Award as well as lifetime achievement awards from the International Horror Guild, the Horror Writers Association, and the World Fantasy Convention.

  Book List

  Novels

  Black Sun

  Disciples of Dread

  Drums of Revolt

  Fishermen Four: An Outdoor Adventure Story

  Isle of the Whisperers

  Larks Will Sing

  Legion of the Dead

  Lucifer's Eye

  Run, Shadow, Run

  Shades of Evil

  The Cross on the Drum

  The Dawning

  The Evil

  The Evil Returns

  The Lower Deep

  The Mission

  The Mountains of Madness

  The Nebulon Horror

  The Restless Dead

  Uncharted Voyage

  Story Collections

  Bitter/Sweet

  Bottled in Blonde: The Peter Kane Detective Stories

  Come Into My Parlor: Tales from Detective Fiction Weekly

  Death Stalks the Night

  Escapades of the Eel

  Long Live the Dead: Tales from Black Mask

  Murgunstrumm and Others

  Officer Coffey Stories

  The Corpse Maker

  The Door Below

  The Lady Wore Black, and Other Weird Cat Tails

  The Witching Lands

  YA Fiction

  Conquering Kilmarnie

  The Voyage

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  Visit our online store

  Subscribe to our Newsletter

  Visit our DIGITAL and AUDIO book blogs for updates and news.

  Connect with us on Facebook.

  Prologue

  January 17, 4:25 A.M.

  Aboard Barracuda II, inbound off the east coast of Florida, a small white man with a pimply face thrusts his head up from the boat's engine room and says in a whine, "Joe—jeez—I can't find out what's wrong with this thing!"

  His gaze takes in the seven dark-skinned passengers huddled on deck, then fastens in desperation on the big, bearded white man at the wheel. "We ain't gonna make it before daylight, Joe!" The same shrill whine. "We just ain't gonna do it!"

  The craft continues its erratic crawl toward a string of lights a mile or so distant.

  The lights of a coastal highway are giving the man at this old fishing boat's wheel something to aim for. But there is something not so good in this part of Florida these mornings. There is a small army of Immigration watchdogs on the lookout for craft like Barracuda II.

  The bearded man peers angrily at the luminous hands of his wristwatch—an expensive one with the words LOUVAN, PARIS, on its dial. A Haitian on one of the many trips before this gave it to him, probably after stealing it from some elite home in Port-au-Prince. They are always grateful, some with their emotions pouring out in a flood of tears, when he delivers them safely to the forbidden land of freedom and opportunity.

  What the watch tells him now brings a look of panic to his long face. "You sure?" he snarls at Pimples. "You sure you can't fix it?"

  "Jeez, Joe, I dunno what's wrong with it!"

  Knowing what must be done, Joe really studies the passengers now: an old man, three younger men, a woman of thirty or so, a woman of seventeen with a baby girl hungrily sucking at her breast. All are probably peasants, but they proudly wear their Sunday best in anticipation of meeting old friends or relatives in the "Little Haitis" of Fort Pierce or Miami. How any of them managed to scrape together the five hundred U.S. dollars he charges for this Bahamas to Florida powerboat run is more than he can understand. Even more puzzling is how they ever made it from their homeland to the Bahamas in a rub-a-dub sailing tub that should have tipped over in the first gust of wind.

  They have been talking in their native Creole, but the old man speaks English as well. He's a voodoo priest, it seems, and already knows a little about Florida. He was once employed in the Panhandle for a few months, legally, as a farmworker. At all times he carries what they call a cocomacaque—a light, tough stick about the length of a cane that has something to do with his voodoo.

  "Hey, you, Lelio," Joe calls to him. "Come here a minute, will you?"

  Lelio takes his time about walking over. "Yes, M'sieu Joe?" You never let any of them know your full name, of course. If they get caught after you land them, they might blab it.

  "You see those lights over there, Lelio?"

  "Yes."

  "We should be putting you ashore there right now, but the engine's been giving us some trouble. You understand?"

  "Yes."

  "So you and your people will have to swim the rest of the way. Otherwise it'll be daylight when we land you, and we'll all be caught and arrested. I guess you know what that would mean. You people would be sent back to Haiti after all it's cost you. My partner and I would end up in jail."

  Except for the wheeze of the engine and the slapping of the dark sea against the boat's sides, there is silence for a few seconds. Then the old man says in a loud voice, "No! These others cannot swim! Even Lucille and I swim only a little."

  "Hell, you can make it, all of you," Joe says. "It's only half a mile." Times two, he mentally adds.

  The old fellow speaks to his companions in Creole, and a babble of that Haitian peasant tongue follows. It stops abruptly when Joe, visible to all of them in the glow of the cabin light, bends down and picks up an M-1 Enforcer he always carries on these trips. That nifty little automatic weapon, made in Florida, is only nineteen inches long but can fire thirty rounds of 30-caliber ammunition before it needs reloading. After all, this is a risky business, and a guy has to protect himself.

  "Wait, please," the old man says then. "We beg you, m'sieu—all of us beg you—let me ask the loa to help us."

  "Ask who?"

  "The loa. The mystères. I am a houngan, m'sieu, as I told you. Please!" Though little more than a whisper, his voice quivers with emotion.

  Joe is not amused. It was kind of fun talking to the old guy before, about voodoo. Something to pass the time. But this is different. "No way," he snarls. "What we need is a mechanic, not a cackle of crazy chanting that could bring Immigration or the Coast Guard down on us." He levels the Enforcer. "Move, now! Clear out of here and swim for the lights!"

  Lelio's bony right hand closes more tightly around the cocomacaque, as if he might dare to risk using it as a club. "There are sharks in these waters, m'sieu!"

  "Hell, they won't bother you none. Move, now!"

  "No!"

  "Lelio, I'm telling you f
or the last time, move or I shoot!"

  "No! We paid you to put us ashore. We will not be forced to swim! We—"

  With no other boat in sight, Joe can risk a little hard persuasion. Aiming a little to the left of the old man's head, he squeezes the trigger. The blast fills the darkness and races out over the dark sea like a stone skipping from wave crest to wave crest. The old man sucks in a huge breath and stands there like a statue, returning Joe's gaze.

  "Go!" Joe yells in a rage, lurching from the wheel and wildly brandishing his weapon. "All of you! Go, goddamn it!"

  They know they must obey him or die. The two women go first, sobbing as they stumble to the side and commit themselves to the sea, one with the baby in her arms. The men, with forlorn last looks at their voodoo priest, as if they are disappointed in him, step off the boat in a silence of fatalistic resignation. Only the old man is left. Joe lays the M-1 down and takes him by the shoulders, drags him to the side and, despite the Haitian's attempt to hang on to him, hurls him after the others. As he goes, though, Joe's voice follows him in a yell of angry surprise.

  "What'd he do, Joe?" the man with the pimply face asks.

  "He tore the watch off my wrist, for Christ's sake! He was clawing me and it went with him!"

  "Gee, that's a shame, Joe. That was a real good watch. You suppose he still has it and we could find him?"

  They stand side by side, peering into the darkness. The boat's engine still wheezes, and the craft continues to creep erratically through the water. There is no sound from the Haitians in the sea behind them. Presently the engine coughs and gives up the ghost.

  "Now what do we do, Joe?" whines Pimples.

  "We radio the Coast Guard for help, dummy. But first we make sure those creeps didn't leave any of their junk behind to give us away."

  The old man was close to exhaustion when he reached shallow water. He stood up, staggered a few steps toward the beach, and fell to his knees. He finished the last few yards by crawling.

  In the water he had long ago discarded his shoes and jacket, so he came ashore barefoot, in an undershirt and black trousers. But while side-stroking his way slowly through the water he had never once relaxed his grip on the cocomacaque.

  As he trudged along the water's edge, hoping to learn that he was not the only survivor, the early light showed him only a deserted beach littered with seaweed and dead jellyfish. There were no houses here, no people. He had been walking back and forth for more than an hour when a wave deposited a small, black body almost at his feet.

  He knew the child was dead even before he knelt and put his ear to her chest. Lifting her from the water, he carried her to a place where the sand was soft and dry and laid her down. Then he covered her with seaweed in case the gulls here, already noisily inquisitive, were carrion eaters like the turkey buzzards of his native Haiti.

  Soon afterward he found the baby's mother, also dead, and dragged her to a place beside the child and covered her, too, with seaweed. Then the other woman.

  But she was alive. Still clad in the black dress she had worn when she stepped off the boat, she called to him as she rose like a dark shadow from the surf.

  After embracing, they stepped back to look at each other. "We seem to be the only ones left, Lucille," Lelio said. "I think we had better call ourselves man and wife."

  She gazed at him in bewilderment.

  "Because, of course, we must stay together," he went on, speaking in Creole. "First, let's be sure we are the only ones."

  No one else from the boat had come ashore, it seemed.

  "What probably happened," Lelio guessed aloud, "is that the men fought harder not to drown and made a commotion that attracted sharks. I swam very slowly and drew strength from this." He raised the cocomacaque. "You were wise enough to let the sea bring you here. The mother of the child spent her strength trying to save her infant."

  Lucille showed her agreement by nodding. "How old are you, Lucille?"

  "Thirty-four."

  "I am past seventy. Nevertheless, as I say, we had better be man and wife if anyone questions us." They had stopped walking the beach and were facing each other close to where Lelio had covered the mother and child with seaweed. "Are you prepared to walk a very long way?"

  "In Haiti everyone walks, Lelio."

  "Yes, of course. Well, I know where we are, but I know too little about this part of Florida for us to remain here. When I was in this country before, I worked on a farm near the town of Clandon, in the Panhandle. There I will know better what to do about us."

  "Yes, Lelio."

  Turning to the mounds of seaweed, he touched them with his cocomacaque while softly breathing words Lucille had heard other houngans use at certain voodoo ceremonies. Then, with a strange fierceness in his voice, he said slowly, "Farewell for now, unhappy ones. Lelio will see that you are avenged. Never for a moment doubt it!"

  To Lucille, as he turned away, he said more gently, "Come now. We have far to go, and even with the loa helping us it will not be easy."

  Chapter One

  Just before seven P.M. the sweltering June rain stopped at last, and with a grunt of relief Jeffrey Gordon shut off the car's windshield wipers.

  This was still part of Florida? It certainly was not the Florida pictured in the travel folders. For miles now the landscape had been empty except for scattered clumps of scraggly pines and gnarled, moss-draped trees whose names he did not know. All under a smothering blanket of gray sky.

  Were these ominous surroundings trying to tell him something? That he shouldn't have come all this way when he was probably not wanted? Everett Everol, after all, had not replied to his letter. Only after two phone calls had the old fellow reluctantly agreed to an investigation.

  Ah, well. College profs who got involved in this kind of research should expect to do stupid things at times. It went with the territory.

  Ahead, where the road looped to the right to circle a dark glitter of swamp, a figure stepped from the misty background of trees to flag him down.

  He hesitated. A hitchhiker here, with no disabled car in sight? Swinging his foot to the brake pedal, he tensed himself for possible trouble. Then, as the car slowed to a stop, he had another surprise. Though wearing gray slacks, a nondescript shirt, and a floppy hat, the hitchhiker was a young woman. A most attractive one, too.

  With a hand on the car door she frowned at him and seemed to hesitate, as he had. Then in a none too steady voice she said, "Hello. Thanks for stopping. Can you give me a lift to Clandon, please?"

  Clandon. It was the next town, Jeff Gordon knew, and he was not going that far. The Everol clan lived this side of it. But he leaned over to open the car door. "Trouble?"

  Without getting into the car, she said, "My car's in the pond. I nearly went in with it."

  "In the pond?"

  "Well, half in. What bothers me is that I'm absolutely certain I left it in gear, with the hand brake on. It couldn't have rolled, unless—" She tried to smile but only partly succeeded. "Sorry. I'm not trying to get you involved. If you'll just drop me in Clandon, I'll be grateful."

  Jeff peered at her again. In spite of her pallor and the way her mouth trembled, she was indeed a most attractive young woman. About twenty-five, he guessed. He was thirty-one, himself.

  "Where is your car?" he asked. "Can we have a look at it?"

  Her dark blue eyes appraisingly studied his face, and after another slight hesitation she apparently made up her mind about him. Or about his intentions. "All right. Maybe you'll see something I didn't." Getting into the car at last, she clicked the door shut. "Turn right at the thicket of swamp rose there, this side of the live oak."

  When he looked at her with an exaggeratedly blank expression, she laughed. "Oops, I'm sorry. With that New England accent you're probably a stranger here. Turn right at that clump of bushes with the pink blossoms, this side of the big gnarled tree. Okay?"

  "Thank you, ma'am." Her delight made him grin.

  The side road her directions
took him down was no more than a pair of ruts in what seemed to be dark gray sand, and he had to drive at a crawl until they reached a small lake so dark it seemed bottomless. And, yes, her car was in it. Or somebody's car was.

  He stopped, and a large, glossy black crow rose flapping and cawing from the solitary red fender protruding from the water.

  "I left it over there," his companion said, pointing to the open lower slope of a wooded knoll some forty feet from the pond's edge. "They don't like people prowling around, so I went the rest of the way on foot. Not trespassing, you understand. This is state land and I have permission. Just to make sure they wouldn't think I meant to trespass. Then, when I came back and got into the car, it began rolling backward down the knoll before I even got the door shut."

  There was nothing he could do, he decided. Even if he were to wade into the pond for a closer look at the car, he was not likely to learn anything. He certainly couldn't get the machine out of there.

  Quizzically, he turned to her. "They don't like prowlers, you say? You mean you think your car was tampered with?"

  "Well, I don't know. I mean, yes, of course I do!"

  "Who?"

  "I don't want to accuse anyone. I can't be that specific. But this is the Everol property—at least, just over there beyond that bayberry thicket is—and the Everols have a thing about strangers. And I left my car in gear; I know I did. I left it in gear, but when I tossed in my knapsack and tools and slid in after them, it started rolling and I almost went into the pond with it."

  "Knapsack and tools?"

  "I'm from the university. Verna Clark. An assistant professor, sort of. Paleontology."

  Jeff gazed at her with even more interest. She certainly didn't look like a collector of old bones and such. "You didn't try to stop the car?"

  "Yes, I tried. But the brake pedal didn't seem to work right. It felt mushy. And I panicked, I guess. I did manage to turn the wheel a little before throwing myself out the door. If the car had gone straight, it would have rolled into the pond over there"—she pointed—"where the bottom's supposed to be quicksand."