Voices of the Damned

by Barbie Wilde

  “No. The Zulu Zombies will be helplessly attracted to the mirrors, the pins, the nails, and the goat’s blood. And then, the pièce de résistance: the urine and vomit of their enemies.”

  Miss Adendorff packed a small leather doctor’s bag with an ancient revolver, the spirit bottle, a flashlight, the black candle and candlestick, some matches, a white paper bag full of some powder, a machete and a few tools. She adorned herself with some colorful Zulu necklaces and bracelets.

  As soon as the sun’s rays began to peek over the buildings on the east side of St. Eustace Square, the banging on Miss Adendorff’s door, the “whomps” and the “chukkas” died away. John went to the window and saw a stream of people heading north, looking all the while like ordinary Londoner commuters.

  Miss Adendorff and John made their way out of the building and through the empty streets. Within five minutes, they were facing a venerable old Franciscan monastery that had seen better days. They walked down a passageway and came upon a side door that was hanging open. Miss Adendorff took out the pistol from her doctor’s bag and gave it to John, after taking off the safety catch. She pulled out the spirit bottle and uncapped it, placing the stopper safely in her pocket and transferring it to her left hand. Then she took out the flashlight. She looked into John’s face.

  “Are you ready, my friend?” she said.

  John looked into her surprisingly beautiful eyes and thought that he never felt so unready in his life, but what the hell.

  “Let’s go!” John replied.

  “That’s the spirit!”

  They entered the monastery. The door was actually an entrance way into the old chapel, which had been decommissioned long ago—no religious symbols could be seen anywhere.

  John then became aware of a melodic drone-like sound, a chilling “whoooo-whoooo, whoooo-whoooo” that brought up the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Miss Adendorff reassured him, “That’s their sleeping song. Not to worry.”

  Right, thought John. I’m entering a monastery full of Zulu Zombies in the middle of London, but I shouldn’t worry.

  Miss Adendorff calculated where the exact center of the chapel interior was and knelt down. She took all her weapons out of the leather bag, in preparation for the ritual.

  “Keep watch, John,” she said. “If any of them come at you, shoot them in the eyes; that will slow them down.”

  Miss Adendorff began to slowly rock back and forth, joining in the zombies’ “whoooo-whoooo” drone.

  Then she suddenly called out a summons to her ancestor Adendorff, as well as to the zombie spirits:

  AmaDlozi Adendorff, come to me now!

  Help me banish those who you vanquished so long ago.

  Zulu Zombies—be no more

  See these things and end your war

  Mirrors that reflect—reflect your souls

  Pins that prick—prick your souls

  Nails that stab—stab your souls

  Spears that pierce—pierce your souls

  Mirrors and pins and nails and spears

  Reflect and prick and stab and pierce your souls

  So you cannot escape your fate ...

  In reply, the Zulu Zombies’ “whoooo-whoooo”s cut off suddenly and turned into wild and angry chants. John was startled to see ghostly figures slide towards them out of the darkness and they were soon surrounded by growling, drooling zombie Londoners, who stomped their feet, sang Zulu war chants and hammered cowhide shields. (And where the hell had they gotten those, he wondered?) For some reason, the zombies held their position and did not attack.

  Miss Adendorff rose to her feet, holding the white paper bag. She grabbed a handful of the white powder, which John now recognized as salt and threw it in a vast circle, striking as many Zulu Zombies as she could in her first throw.

  Raising her voice to be heard over the war chants, the “whomps” and the “chukka, chukka, chukkas,” she screamed:

  Consume the salt that purifies ... purifies your souls

  Salt that freezes—freezes your souls

  Salt that traps—traps your souls

  I banish you to the place of dreams

  To this umuzi, I send your screams

  Zombie spirits of ’79

  Bother us not another time!

  At the last line, Miss Adendorff threw the bag up so the contents flew above all their heads. The Zulu Zombies screamed as one and metamorphosed into white powder.

  Miss Adendorff yelled, “Hold your breath, don’t breath them in!” then dropped to her knees and grabbed the bottle, crying out another spell in Zulu. The zombie spirit powder, for a moment suspended in the air, was sucked into the bottle as if it was an ectoplasmic vacuum cleaner. Miss Adendorff promptly plugged the bottle with the metal stopper.

  “Bloody hell, that was fucking fantastic,” John said. Miss Adendorff turned to him and smiled triumphantly, but it was short-lived, as a spear suddenly thrust through her belly from behind. She looked down in surprise and then dropped to the ground, revealing the last remaining zombie who had somehow escaped her spell. John, furious, fired the gun repeatedly into its eyes, which exploded in a most satisfactory manner. Then he grabbed the machete and chopped the creature’s head off in one blow.

  John glanced around but he couldn’t spot any more zombies. He ran over to Miss Adendorff, who was still alive. He cradled her in his arms.

  She opened her big blue eyes, smiled, and said, “We got them, didn’t we, John?”

  “Yes, Miss Adendorff, we did. You were magnificent.”

  “Call me Della, please.”

  “Of course, Della.”

  “One more thing, John. Never in my life ...” (Della paused for a minute, time was running out for her, John could tell.) “Never in my life have I been kissed by a man. Would you kiss me, John, before I go and join my ancestors?”

  Tears popped into John’s eyes. “Of course, Della. It would an honor to kiss the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”

  John gently kissed Della’s lips. A little sigh escaped from her mouth and when he looked up into those extraordinary blue eyes, he could tell she was gone.

  He gently lowered her body to the ground and gathered up her accoutrements, taking special care with the spirit bottle. He took the candle and dripped black wax around the stopper, so it was sealed tight. Never again would these angry spirits of death and destruction escape their prison.

  John looked around carefully. Except for the decapitated zombie and dear Miss Adendorff, the chapel was empty. He resolved that the best thing to do was to leave them there and call the police anonymously from a phone box. There was no way he could explain what had just happened, without incurring unfortunate repercussions. He just thanked his lucky stars that Miss Adendorff had captured all the Zulu Zombies in the spirit bottle for good, before anything really horrible had happened.

  * * *

  Not all the Zulu Zombies, of course. As we know, some of them managed to catch the train. The 01:34 to Milton Keynes, in fact. Arriving Platform 2 ...

  American Mutant

  “The Hands of Dominion”

  As humans dance their merry, destructive way through time, they pretend to know the difference between Good and Evil. They think of Good and Evil as intoxicating outpourings from deities that are as crazed as they are. God, or the Devil, or whatever they believe in, lives on in their minds. But I am the physical manifestation of both. Good and Evil live within me and are separate from any ruling divinity.

  I have now been reborn in the light from the darkness. I will carry on the work of my father and it will be good.

  —The Gospel According to Mikey (aged 13 and a half)

  The Reverend Billy Bob Bannon was smooth all over: smooth-talking, smooth looking, even his outfits were ... well ... smooth. He dressed
smart casual in gleaming white: white jeans, white long-sleeved shirt, white tie (decorated with discreet little silver teardrops symbolizing the suffering of Our Lord), white linen jacket, white leather belt with a silver buckle, white patent leather loafers with little silver chains and white socks—all of which matched his pearly (and not so natural) white teeth and glowing bleached blond hair. All this gleaming whiteness set off his tan perfectly. And no orange, sun-bedded, George Hamilton skin tones for Billy Bob. No, his tan was real honest-to-goodness (no pun intended) exposure to the sun.

  Billy Bob was a dauntingly charismatic individual. He rose from revival tent poverty to owning his own cable TV company in just over five years—admittedly, not a major one, but “big oaks from little acorns grow,” as Billy Bob was fond of saying in his fake southern accent. His views—religious, political or otherwise—were ridiculous and overblown, but his flock adored him as much as liberals avoided him. His weekly Sunday morning TV show, Billy Bob on the Box!, was a modest hit in Southern and Mid-Western states, and the gullible would send him their crumpled, grimy dollar bills in smudged envelopes whenever he demanded it of them, which was on a day-to-day basis. (And don’t forget Billy Bob’s daily radio show, On the Air with Billy Bob!)

  Billy Bob was a success, but it was lonely at the top. His wife Susanne left him for a vacuum cleaner salesman during the lean years and it was tough to find a woman who wasn’t either: a) a religious maniac, b) a rabid fan, or c) a prostitute. Not that he had an aversion to fallen women, on the contrary, he had a great appreciation for working gals, but he had to keep his distance. After all, he didn’t want to go the way of the Swaggarts and the Bakkers—having it all and then blowing it to Kingdom Come just because he couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants.

  Of course, deep down, in his shriveled, blasted, hockey puck of a soul, Billy Bob was about as religious as a mongoose. It was all showmanship to him and if his parents had any real money, he would have gone to Juilliard, studied to be an actor and gone on Broadway. But thanks to Jesus & Co., he still got to act a little.

  All was going swimmingly if it hadn’t been for that one fateful night when he was in Biloxi doing a diabetes telethon. The telethon had gone like gangbusters and he’d pocketed his usual fat fee. After a rewarding stint at the hotel bar with a few ice-cold vodka martinis, he nestled into the nice, cool, cotton-rich sheets of the Holiday Inn’s best king-sized bed.

  Billy Bob closed his eyes and conjured up the last call girl he’d been with. Years ago it was—after Susanne and before the crazy success had kicked in. Her name was Tiffany and she was a hot little redhead that some hotel concierge in Kansas City had summoned after a desperate 2 a.m. plea from Billy Bob. Tiffany was a nightly guest in Billy Bob’s mind ever since and over the years, her boobs had grown bigger and her juicy smile wider. Man, she was sweet and Billy Bob imagined her diving under those cotton-rich sheets and enthusiastically gobbling up his Johnson. A little groan escaped Billy Bob’s lips and he grabbed said Johnson, fully intent on rubbing his chubby into acquiescence and himself into a sound sleep.

  Then he heard a little noise, like a dry cough. One eye squinted open and all activity under his sheets ceased. A woman was standing at the foot of his bed.

  Holy Roller levitation was not Billy Bob’s speciality, but it almost looked like it as he leapt out of the bed.

  “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my room,” he sputtered, before noticing the boy standing next to the woman.

  “Language, Billy Bob, language. There is a child present,” the woman gently scolded.

  Billy Bob, his mind befuddled by the martinis, tried to take in the scene. There was something familiar about the woman. She was as redheaded as his dream girl Tiffany, but she looked plum worn out. Attractive, but frumpy at the edges, not like the hard-bodied little number of years past. He looked at the boy, who was ginger-haired, blue-eyed and freckled, obviously her son. The kid smiled at him and he felt a chill. He knew that smile, having seen it too many times in the mirror. Oh yes, a smile of infinite charm and absolutely zero sincerity. Billy Bob felt trouble brewing: child support payments, scandal, his wonderful, cushy life draining down the plughole. Damn it to hell.

  “What do you want?” Billy Bob demanded.

  “What do you think I want?” Tiffany replied. “I saw the look in your eyes. You know who I am and you know the boy is yours. Easy enough to prove nowadays with all that DNA stuff.”

  “Thought you were on the pill, girl. You were a professional.”

  “Oh yeah? And you should have worn a condom, like I asked you,” she shot back.

  “Why now? It must have been over twelve years ago, Tiffany.”

  “Thirteen, actually. Well, I stuck it out as long as I could—all that parenting shit—but I’ve had enough of this kid. He’s yours now. I don’t want anything to do with the demonic little fucker. Maybe you can exorcise him in the bargain.”

  “Whoa, mamma,” Billy Bob protested. “If we do the test, and he is mine, I might consider child support, especially if we can keep this on the sly, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to keep and raise the boy. I don’t do kids.”

  “That’s what nannies are for, numbnuts,” Tiffany spat back. “Send him to an island, bustle him off to some hoity-toity English public school. I don’t give a damn. I don’t want a dime. I just want him off my hands.”

  “That’s not very maternal of you, Tiffany.”

  “Excuse me, may I have a say in this discussion?”

  Billy Bob and Tiffany turned to look at the boy, who was regarding them with what Billy Boy could only describe as scorn.

  “Mother, why would you think that I’d want to live with this insincere, bible-bashing moron? He’s an embarrassment, not only to himself, but to his religion.”

  Tiffany said, “Mikey, listen to Momma. This so-called moron makes at least two mill a year from the other morons who believe in his trash.”

  “Oh, I see.” Mikey turned away from his mother and walked over to Billy Bob and said, “Hi Dad, when can we go home?”

  Billy Bob was flummoxed. This woman could make big trouble for him. His whole empire could vanish if she made a fuss. Maybe there was some way to make his unexpected son work to his advantage.

  * * *

  On the flight home, Billy Bob and Mikey sat together without saying much, enjoying the perks and comforts of First Class. The kid seemed happy enough just to stare out the window. With all the other things on his mind, Billy Bob hadn’t noticed before this moment that Mikey was wearing fine leather, flesh-colored gloves, at odds with the rest of his outfit, which was pure JCPenney. “Oh, great,” he thought. “The kid’s got some kind of skin complaint. What do you want to bet that it’s an expensive one?” He asked Mikey what the problem was with his hands and the boy smiled that spooky smile again.

  “I have to wear them because if I don’t, people might get hurt.”

  “Hunh?” Billy Bob was astounded. “What do you mean ‘might get hurt’? What are you talking about, boy?” On top of the skin complaint, did the kid have mental problems as well? Fabulous.

  “I channel things from other things. If something bad wants to come out, then a person could get hurt, is all I’m saying. It happened when we were living in Kansas City. They nearly put me away in some prison for nutty kids. If Mom and I hadn’t done a midnight flit, we’d both be in the hoosegow.”

  “Jesus save me, you mean you’re a fugitive from justice?” Billy Bob hissed.

  “Nah, they eventually dropped the charges. They couldn’t prove anything. The autopsy results were inconclusive, but not every nine year old dies from a heart attack, so you could understand their concern.”

  Billy Bob couldn’t help but pull back a bit, which was difficult considering he was strapped into an airplane seat. “What do you mean by ‘channel,’ anyway? Who’s channeling what
?”

  Mikey sighed and spoke slowly, as if he was talking to a retarded child. “I don’t know who or what is doing this through me. Could be aliens, angels, demons, the government, the French—it’s a crapshoot. All I know is that from the moment that I could string two sentences together, I had the power of what I call ‘The Touch.’ Do you want to see?”

  Billy Bob pulled back again, straining his seat belt and almost wishing he hadn’t started the conversation. But his curiosity got the better of him. Just as Mikey was in the process of peeling off one of his gloves, the stewardess came over to ask them if they wanted any complimentary drinks or snacks. They both answered in the negative and Billy Bob waited impatiently until she moved out of earshot.

  Mikey asked, “Do you want to see ‘The Good Hand,’ or ‘The Bad Hand’ first?”

  “Dealer’s choice, kid,” Billy Bob replied.

  Mikey smiled and slowly took off the glove from his left hand, his “Bad Hand,” as he called it. Billy Bob had seen some messed up people in his time on the road, when his revival tent tour would dredge up some of God’s more unfortunate-looking believers, who hobbled into his tent praying that Billy Bob might cure their hideous afflictions. Unfortunately, all he was really good at was giving them a smidgen of hope and taking their money. But the hand on this kid, it was something. It was evil. (Not that Billy Bob believed in evil, or even in the devil, but if anything could be described as evil, it was his son’s hand.) It was nasty, shiny bluey-black and satanically insectile. Just looking at it gave him the creeps and turned his guts to ice water.

  Billy Bob told Mikey to put his glove back on his “Bad Hand,” toot sweet. The kid obeyed, pleased that he’d managed to freak out his dad in such a short space of time.

  “Shit, boy, can’t the doctors do anything about that? I mean, cutting it off would be better than walking around with that thing on the end of your arm.”