The Curse of the Zombie (The Cursed Book 4)

by Ray Cluley

  The Curse of the

  ZOMBIE

  Written by

  RAY CLULEY

  Hersham Horror Books

  Hersham Horror Books

  Logo by Daniel S Boucher

  Cover Design by Mark West 2015

  Copyright 2015 © Hersham Horror Books

  Story copyright Ray Cluley 2015

  All rights belong to the original artists, and writers for their contributed works.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Cursed Series No. 4

  First Edition.

  First published in 2015

  Also from

  Hersham Horror Books:

  Alt-Series

  Alt-Dead

  Alt-Zombie

  PentAnth-Series

  Fogbound From 5

  Siblings

  Anatomy of Death

  Demons & Devilry

  Dead Water

  The Cursed Series

  The Curse of The Mummy

  The Curse of the Wolf

  The Curse of the Ghost

  Series Foreword

  I love monsters. There I’ve said it. As an author, editor and publisher I love a good story with a monster in it. I’m not saying I don’t like other types of horror, but the fear of something under your bed; in the wardrobe, or shuffling across a misty graveyard fills me with equal measures of fear and glee.

  Where did this love spring from? Firstly from old horror films, before I got heavily into reading at twelve. I feel sorry for my boys who don’t know the names Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr, Elsa Lancaster and James Whale. I used to stay up to the wee hours with my portable telly turned down, so my mother would not hear it. Waiting for a double bill of horror, headed by the RKO Radio Picture logo.

  This is where my love began, before moving onto the colour pleasures of Hammer films.

  This series of six little books will take you back to the time of the mummy, werewolf, ghost, zombie, monster and vampire. Where nothing sparkled in black and white, and the odd child got thrown into a lake. The local villagers had a bountiful supply of pitchforks and flaming brands, and the vampires never came out until after dusk.

  The graves are empty, the tombs open wide, and the moon is full and high. Prepare to shiver.

  Peter Mark May

  Series Editor

  December 2014

  .

  The Curse of the zombie

  Louisa pushes her way through the crowds, eager to reach the hotel. They don’t have very long before they have to set up again, next time outside the Ketchaoua Mosque, but it’s long enough for a drink and something to eat back at the hotel. Maybe even a shower. She had expected Algeria to be hot but it still takes some getting used to, and although Algiers is a little cooler than the rest of the country thanks to its position on the Mediterranean, it’s still a large overpopulated city. Ninety percent of the country’s people live along the coast but it feels to Louisa like all of them are in Algiers, adding their own oppressive heat to the city. She feels sorry for Dean every time he has to heft the camera to his shoulder.

  Glancing back, she sees him pushing his own way through the crowd behind her. He’s grimy with sweat, and Louise can feel her own clothes clinging to her skin. “That way!” he calls, doing his best to point as he’s crushed between a group of Arabic men carrying baskets. “Lou? There!”

  Louisa raises her hand in an OK gesture and presses forward.

  The Grand Oasis Hotel. It just sounds so… trite. Hardly befitting a city as old as Algiers, where history reveals itself in every crumbling wall, every mosque, every leaning statue. Well, in certain areas anyway. Algiers, so old that its name predates the country’s. She loves the Arabic name for the city – Al-Jaza’ir – far more than the French nickname, Alger la Blanche, possibly because she fears ‘the white city’ will one day mean more than simply the colour of the buildings. Old but very much alive, the city’s vitality is evident in the very overcrowding that stifles it, lively children playing or begging in the streets, people selling, people buying, people hurrying to be somewhere else. And now all the press descending upon them because Asianne Sahnoun has come ‘home’ to get married. Bringing the rest of her extensive Sahnoun family with her, of course, each of them somehow famous for being famous.

  The wedding had gone well. Asianne had looked as beautiful as expected, with irises in her hair to match those in her bouquet. Despite saying several times publicly that this was about returning to her Algerian roots (never mind that this was her first visit to the country) she forwent the traditional wedding garb for a simple slinky Vera Wang. She could have made a statement in merging old with new, but no. Louisa was pretty sure the woman knew little about her country of origin except how to use the exotic good looks it gave her to model clothes, launch perfume, and marry wealthy knighted business men. A man who had paid for several hotels surrounding theirs just to keep the press at a distance.

  And so, to the Grand Oasis Hotel. It’s a vulgar looking building, shiny and new and far too sleek. A bit like the Sahnouns, Louisa thinks. She’s glad of its cool interior though as she steps in from the hot bustling streets, bathing in its air conditioning and enjoying the pleasant chill that seems to emanate from the marble floor. The hotel is one of the newer European buildings that has grown around the ancient Casbah, its position on the outskirts allowing it some space to show off its wealth. Such as by boasting a large swimming pool, for example; Louisa can see the dazzle-sparkle of its chemical-clean blue reflecting off the many mirrors behind the bar. Stretching out around the pool there’s even a modest garden, lawns maintained by an expensive sprinkler system no doubt. Something to make foreigners like herself feel more at home while the rest of the city collapses upon itself, dilapidated buildings crumbling into the narrow streets, adding their dust to the surrounding sands.

  “What’re you having?” Louisa asks, fanning herself with her hand. Dean pulls at his damp shirt and jokes about alcohol though he knows they’ll have to settle for the usual fruit juice or strong black coffee. She heads to the bar to order while Dean finds them seats.

  The place is busy for late afternoon. Most of the clientele are men, she notices. Some look to be from the African interior, with dark brown skin and short tight black hair, but most have features more typical of the Mediterranean, wearing European-style clothing albeit accompanied by something more traditional. A burnous cape over the shoulders, perhaps. A group of Arab men in djellabas sit laughing at some shared joke. As for the few women she can see, each is clad head to foot in a haik, only their eyes visible. It makes Louisa hot just looking at them, as well as self-conscious about her own clothes, short shorts and a once-white t-shirt clinging to her skin. She pulls the material away from her chest, worrying that the sweaty ‘v’ running down from her neck draws too much attention to her breasts.

  “How may I serve you?” a smiling man asks, his accept clipped and precise. Louisa’s impressed by the sharpness of his eyes, sparkling topaz shining from a dark face. He’s wearing the traditional gandoura, pristine in its whiteness, and a clean cotton shirt. She orders, risking the water by asking for ice in her
fruit juice but feeling cooler as soon as she hears the soft clink of the cubes against the glass. She’s parched, and drinks half of it down as soon as its ready, sighing with relief afterwards.

  “Nothing like a good drink,” someone says beside her. There are a few men gathered at the bar but it’s obvious which one is the American. The baseball cap and round sunglasses he wears has her wondering briefly if he’s another celebrity, here for the wedding maybe, though perhaps it was simply much brighter in the hotel earlier. Then she notices the scars. He has a line across his face, down to his jaw, and pale lines criss-cross the otherwise deeply tanned skin of his arms. In fact he’s so deeply tanned that Louisa thinks the colour is probably as permanent as the scarring. He’s looking down at a dark drink in his hands, a glass of coffee maybe or something stronger hidden in cola.

  “Feels good,” she agrees. “It’s pretty hot out there.”

  “You’re British.”

  “Yes. With the BBC.”

  He nods, then points at the array of drinks behind the bar. “What’s your poison?”

  “Oh, I’m good,” she says, despite already contemplating another. “Thanks.”

  The man says nothing else but raises a hand from the counter as if to say fine, okay, I won’t bother you. It makes her feel like she was rude.

  “I’m Louisa.”

  The man swats at a fly that alternates between landing on his hands and on the rim of the glass between them. There are quite a few of them buzzing quietly in the room actually, as if they, too, are eager to escape the heat outside. Barfly, she thinks with a smile, and turns some of that smile to the man when he says, “I bet everyone calls you Lou.”

  “They do. But I don’t like it much.”

  He smiles a little at that, down at his drink, but faces her afterwards. “I’m Johnny,” he says.

  “Hello Johnny.” She offers her hand but both of his stay by his drink. Refusing to take it as any kind of slight, she asks, “What brings you all the way out to Africa?”

  He answers as if there could be no other explanation: “I’m an oil man.”

  Of course he is. Algeria is the second largest country in Africa, second only to Sudan, but with the Sahara covering most of it and only something like two, three percent of the land suitable for crops, its main export is oil. She’s still surprised, though. She’s come to think that everybody out here has come for the stupid wedding.

  “Sonatrach?” she asks. She’s done her research. Sonatrach holds the monopoly on Algeria’s oil production and distribution, but they also operate with foreign companies.

  Johnny makes a noncommittal noise and says, “Turning our attention away inland, swapping sea for sand.”

  Louisa makes noise enough to show she’s listened and is about to wish him a good afternoon but he seems to be in a conversational mood now. “Lots of oil out here,” he says. “The desert was an ocean once, did you know that? Water, water, everywhere. And all the creatures that lived in it died in it, and their bodies settled on the seabed, turning into beautiful carbon-rich compounds over the years. Essentially, their dead bodies became oil.”

  Louisa glances back at Dean. He offers her a thumbs up and tilts it down before up again, asking if she’s okay. She shrugs, worried she’s encouraged a drunken bore (oil man, bore: there’s a pun there somewhere for a lesser journalist). Dean shrugs back at her then turns the action into a few rotations of his shoulder. He’s carried a camera all over Africa and has to massage himself often.

  “The sedimentary layers,” Johnny continues, miming the layers with his hands, “gives us the high quality crude oil everyone’s so keen to get hold of. Very low sulphur and mineral content.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah.” He rubs at his mouth and jaw. Louisa hears the rasp of his stubble against his palm. “All this land was once wet,” Johnny says, “but now it’s bone dry,” and Louisa wonders if this is a hint for another drink, though the one in front of him looks untouched. “Unless you know where to look,” he adds. “Then you can put in a pumpjack and bring that oil to the surface. Suck the land even drier.”

  “I’m here with a friend,” Louisa says, meaning to excuse herself from the conversation. “And I better -”

  “You out here for the missing aid workers?”

  She frowns, and leans against one of the high chairs positioned at the bar. “Aid workers? No. We’re here for the wedding. Asianne Sahnoun?”

  He makes a face to show he has no idea what she means, or that he doesn’t care for it. The latter she can understand. Algeria has only recently, relatively speaking, come out of a vicious civil war, the government having annulled a general election in won by an Islamic party, and ever since it has been in state of emergency. The level of violence has died down a little, but not much, and in 2012 there was the In Amenas thing. Islamic extremists took an entire gas field complex hostage. It was a big story. A proper story.

  “What aid workers?” she asks. “What happened?”

  “People go missing a lot out there,” Johnny says.

  “What’s going on? Can you tell me?”

  He shakes his head and sighs. “To understand this place properly, the Sahara I mean, you need to be Tuareg.”

  Algeria’s population is something like eighty percent Arab and twenty percent Berber, with the Berbers dividing into four main groups: the Kabyles, the Chaouias, the M’zabites, and the Tuaregs. “Nomads,” Louisa says. “Traders.”

  “They’re the eyes of the desert, you know.” He smiles, but it’s not very pleasant, putting a kink in his facial scar. “Spent their whole lives crossing back and forth over the sands, trading salt, spices, slaves. Taking their herds to grazing areas only they could find. Even now, several generations down the line, some of them know the landscape simply by the colour of the sand, or the way the winds shape it, or the coarseness of the grains.” He shakes his head and says, “I’ve seen a Tuareg put a pinch of desert dust to his mouth to taste the location.”

  Louisa can’t tell if he’s joking. “And the aid workers?”

  “Happens a lot, more and more these days,” he says. “Couple of years ago, there was a team of geologists went missing. It’s a big country out there, a lot of ground to cover. But a lot of oil, too. The companies have to put eyes on the ground, small teams scattered across the Sahara, looking for it. Identify possible oil traps, evaluate the land features, the rock, things like that. They used to look at promising surface features, core samples retrieved from shallow drilling. These days they have satellite images to help, a load of data about magnetic fields and gravity and radiation, but it’s still the geologist who points and says, ‘there’.

  “Anyway, this group, they were meant to be running a seismic survey of a very promising site, but when no one heard back from them a friend and I were sent to find out what had happened.” He licks his lips but says nothing more for a moment.

  “And what had happened?” she asks.

  Johnny takes a moment to think and then nods. It’s a gesture entirely for himself, as if he’s agreed with some interior dialogue, made a decision as to how he’ll answer.

  “Tenere medden,” he says.

  “Sorry? What’s that?”

  “Lots of things buried out there.”

  Louisa asks the barman if he’ll take Dean’s drink over for her, then asks Johnny, “What things? Out where? The Sahara?”

  She can’t see his eyes, but she sees his frown easily enough.

  “Yeah,” he says. “The Sahara.”

  The Sahara is a great sea of sand. Its tides are fierce, sudden winds changing the shape of the terrain so that there are few fixed landmarks to navigate by. The sun, however, is constant. In the few times Johnny had removed his cap to wipe the sweat from the stubble of his shaved head it had burned his scalp pink. The skin around his jaw was also pink but that was from the way his calloused hands wiped across his mouth, rubbed the stubble of his chin and neck: Johnny’s thirst was as constant as the sun a
nd even more relentless. It had him reaching frequently for a flask that was no longer there. He did have his canteen of water but he wasn’t that desperate. He spat from the back of the truck as if to deny his thirst, defy the desert, and watched as his saliva darkened the sand for only the briefest of moments before vanishing completely. “I’m drier than Ghandi’s sandals,” he said.

  “This is Africa,” said Pete. “Pick someone African.” He tipped his canteen to his mouth, guzzling rather than sipping. One of their Tuareg companions shook his head at the indulgence.

  Ahead of them, the dunes cast their sand up into a rosy pink sky. Each shape looked like a cresting wave, their dust a dry ocean spray. It was beautiful, but they hadn’t stopped for the view. Below them, at the bottom of a slope that was part dune and part rock, the roofless walls of a ruined building cast broken shadows across the ground. Drifts of sand had been cast against the walls and collected in the corners but otherwise it appeared empty.

  “Are we there yet?” Johnny joked.

  Pete smiled, but the Tuareg merely exchanged a few words in Tamashek as the engine idled.

  There were four Tuareg travelling with them, each wearing the green fatigues that marked their profession as soldiers but did nothing to camouflage them against the sand. Each was turbaned according to their custom, heads and faces wrapped in long lengths of material. Out here it was the men who covered all but their eyes, though even these were concealed behind sunglasses. Pete had dressed similarly but Johnny wore his cap instead. Bud, it said, with a little beer bottle on the front. Pete had given it to him as a joke when he first quit drinking.

  “Only ninety six degrees,” Pete said with mock joy. “It’s getting cooler.”

  The man named Bachir glanced at them but said nothing in reply. He was the only one of the Tuareg not wearing sunglasses. Maybe, as the translator, he knew how difficult it was to communicate with someone when you couldn’t see their eyes. Nothing spoke louder than somebody’s eyes.