The Awakening

by McBean, Brett

  Then I was sucked back, out of the small, colorful hut the old man was dancing in, through the night, over rugged mountains and flat plains. I started falling, I feared I would crash into trees, or land in a deep, rocky ravine, but I just kept on falling. Darkness swooped down on me. On and on I fell.

  I started having trouble breathing. It felt like I had inhaled a mouthful of dirt. A burning sensation tore through my chest, up my throat and out my mouth. I was left with a sick feeling and my head feeling light. And through it all I could still hear the old man chanting softly, and the sound of the small caco’s laughter echoed around in my dizzy head.

  When I awoke, it was night. I sat up and thought I heard the sound of hooves galloping away, but it might’ve just been my heart thumping.

  I was having trouble drawing breath, like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. But that feeling soon went away and I was able to breathe normally again.

  I could just make out the dim shape of Mangela sleeping nearby. She hadn’t woken. Good, I thought. I lay back down, musing on the dream.

  As I drifted back to sleep, I felt the beginnings of a headache, but I was too tired to worry about it. I soon fell asleep.

  The next time I woke it was still dim outside, but not quite the pitch-blackness of earlier. I guessed the time to be around three or four in the morning.

  I usually didn’t wake so early. I usually woke at six on the dot, but it seemed the headache had grown progressively worse in my sleep, enough to wake me. I sat up, tired, lethargic, but my head pounding. I rubbed my temples, but that only made things worse. Not wanting to wake Mangela, I lay back down, closed my eyes and tried to sleep. But sleep was impossible. The throbbing in my head wouldn’t cease—it was like a large maman drum at a rada ceremony—thump thump thump. An hour passed, the headache remained, squeezing my head like it was trapped in a vice. I began to feel ill.

  As the roosters crowed, I staggered outside and vomited. Unfortunately, doing so didn’t ease the pain in my head. When I staggered back inside, Mangela was up, a look of worry across her face. “Jacques, what’s wrong? You sick?”

  “I have a bad headache,” I said and flopped back down on my mat. “It’s nothing.”

  Mangela walked over, crouched and placed a hand across my forehead. “My God, you’re burning up.”

  I hadn’t noticed. If anything, I felt cold.

  “You’re shivering,” Mangela said, concern growing in her voice. She drew the blanket over me. “When did you start feeling ill?”

  “I woke up with a bad headache,” I murmured, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly tired. “I think it started during the...” I fell asleep.

  The next time I awoke it was daytime. I lifted my head with difficulty and saw that I was alone. The door was open and there was a warm breeze blowing in.

  I laid my head back down on the mat. I still felt sick. But instead of feeling bitterly cold, my skin felt like it was on fire. I was sweating, my muscles ached, and I had a foul taste in my mouth—like I had just eaten some rotten food. I threw off the blanket.

  I admit, I was scared. I knew I was terribly ill and last night’s dream still haunted me.

  Someone entered the hut.

  “You’re awake,” Mangela said. She came over to me. Her luminous face appeared over me. “Are you feeling any better?”

  I think I shook my head, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Mangela frowned.

  As she bent down to feel my forehead, someone else walked in.

  “How’s papa?”

  “He’s...” Mangela swallowed, straightened. I could tell by the look in her eyes she was scared. I don’t ever remember seeing fear so deep in her big brown eyes.

  “Want me to get some water? Rum?” Felicia said.

  “No,” Mangela said. She turned around. “No, I want you to go and fetch Papa Louis.”

  Felicia was silent for a bit. “You think it’s that serious?”

  “I don’t know what to think, but I know he’s the only one who can help my Jacques. Go, I’ll look after Rachel.”

  Quick footsteps pattered away.

  I swallowed, felt fire run down my throat. I opened my mouth. “Rachel,” I breathed. It hurt to speak. “Bring Rachel.”

  Mangela nodded. “Okay darling.”

  Mangela left and all of a sudden I began to feel icy cold. I started shivering uncontrollably. I was dying. I knew it. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  I couldn’t tell them about seeing the men in the hills yesterday, nor the dream that I suspected wasn’t a dream, nor that I was sure a bocor’s curse was behind my sudden illness. I didn’t have the strength to tell anyone these things, and I was afraid. Afraid of dying, but more than that I was afraid of what waited for me beyond death. For what purpose had the bocor cursed me?

  I had my suspicions, but they were too terrifying to contemplate.

  Soon Mangela came back with Rachel. My darling granddaughter knelt down beside me and took my hand. She looked worried, tears were trickling down her cheeks. “Little one,” I muttered. I could feel my throat starting to constrict. Soon I wouldn’t physically be able to talk.

  “Papa, you’ll get better,” Rachel whispered. “I prayed to Loco and Ayizan to protect you and make you better.”

  I squeezed her hand ever so gently. I loved her for wanting to help, but no loa would be able to help me now, nor Papa Louis; not even God Himself could help me now.

  I closed my eyes.

  Over the next couple of hours—I say hours because that’s how long it felt, though I don’t really know how long it was—I slipped in and out of consciousness. One moment I would be lying in the hut shivering, the next I would startle awake to find myself burning up.

  The pain became almost unbearable. Every fiber of my body seemed to be alive with fire—even my tongue hurt.

  Soon I began hallucinating. There were times I thought I was home, with my long-dead mama by my side stroking my head and smiling. Other times I thought I could see pointy-headed monsters with little wings and horns flapping around the hut, grinning.

  One time—and I was sure this was real, not some delusion—I awoke to see two people standing over me. One was Papa Louis, the houngan, the other a young woman, probably his hounsis, his assistant.

  I didn’t stay awake long enough to hear what they were saying.

  I slipped into darkness.

  This time I stayed there.”

  Mr. Joseph stood up from the table. “You want another glass of water, Toby?”

  “No thanks.” Toby watched Mr. Joseph walk over to the cupboard under the sink, open the door and pull out a bottle of rum.

  He filled a glass with the clear liquid, downed it in one shot, then bringing the bottle and glass with him, sat back down.

  “This must be hard for you?” Toby said.

  Mr. Joseph nodded. “But you know, in some strange way, it feels good to tell someone about my past.”

  “Facing your fears?”

  Mr. Joseph chuckled softly. “Yeah, maybe.” He poured another glass, took a quick nip. “I think Mangela would’ve liked you. Rachel too.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. You’re honest, kind. Not many people would have kept my secret to themselves. Most would have gone straight to the police, or stayed as far away from me as possible.”

  “Do you have any pictures?”

  “Of Mangela and Rachel? No. Nor of Felicia. We couldn’t afford things such as cameras.”

  “Didn’t Jean-Philippe bring any when he came?”

  “No. Like I said, he never spoke with them. Just looked out for them.”

  Toby drew in a solemn breath. “Would it really have been so bad if they had known? Maybe they would have understood. It wasn’t your fault, right?”

  Mr. Joseph gazed into the glass of rum. “They would have turned away in horror if they had seen me, Toby. To see your loved one turned into a zombi is the worst possible thing imaginable. Worse than death. Som
e people in Haiti take measures to assure their departed loved one isn’t brought back as a zombi.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for example, cutting off the head, or dismembering a part of the body, so it won’t be of any use as a slave. Or they might lay heavy stones on the coffin so the soulless creature can’t leave the grave. I’ve even heard of family members throwing handfuls of rice into the coffin.”

  Toby frowned. “Rice?”

  “So when the zombi is called forth by the bocor, the zombi will see the rice and instead of answering the call, thus being enslaved forever, will instead see the hundreds of grains and want to count them, forgetting about the bocor’s instructions.”

  “And that works?”

  “Well, I’ve never actually seen it myself, but I’ve heard from people that it does. So as you can see Toby, the idea of a loved one becoming a zombi is a fate worse than death. At least in death, the soul is free to return back home; which in Haitians’ case, is Guinée, or Africa, if you like. But a zombi’s soul is trapped forever, controlled by his master, and not only is that a frightening concept in of itself, but it also brings back bad memories of our ancestors. They were brought over to Haiti by the French to work as slaves, similar to what happened in this country. They weren’t zombis, but they were just as enslaved. Being turned into a zombi reminds Haitians of those dark days, and so the idea of being without thought or will or freedom for eternity, well, that’s too awful to contemplate. I couldn’t put Mangela and Felicia and Rachel through that. It was best they thought I was dead, my soul free. You understand?”

  “But you’re not a zombi. Well, not really. Couldn’t you have gone back to them after...?”

  “My awakening?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I am a zombi savane, that is true, but I’m still a zombi. My soul is still trapped, I’m still trapped. That fact doesn’t change. I couldn’t imagine going back to my wife and children, even as a savane, and living with them, knowing I wasn’t really alive, that I would live long after they had gone from this world. It would’ve been too hard for all of us.”

  “But at least you would’ve spent time with them.”

  Mr. Joseph smiled at Toby. It was a sad smile. “That’s what I love about youth. They always see the world in the simplest, purest way. You’re right, I could’ve spent time with them, but it would’ve been too hard for them, knowing what I had become, imagining the pain I was going through. No, it was best that I left Haiti altogether. That way, there was no chance of them finding out about me. Also, it was less dangerous. There were people constantly on the look-out for stray zombis, like dog-catchers, but for the undead. If they caught a zombi, they would put it in an asylum, or, if it was in good enough condition, sell it to another master. But a stray zombi savane was considered most undesirable. They were rarer, so not many were captured, but nobody wanted a savane on the loose.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re aware of what they are. At least a zombi is essentially brain-dead, unaware of what they are, just blindly obeying orders. A savane is a thinking zombi, a talking zombi, and that’s incredibly dangerous to the establishment. If I had been captured, I would have been sent to jail, my family would’ve been in danger. Jean-Philippe stayed, knowing the risks, but he laid low, kept to himself, and fortunately, he was never captured.”

  “What about your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Don’t you want to see them? Maybe things have changed since you were there, maybe they won’t care that you’re a savane.”

  “Ridiculous,” Mr. Joseph huffed. “Of course they’d care. Besides, I can’t go back after ninety years, and suddenly show up, a grandfather they thought died a long, long time ago. Imagine their horror and shock at finding out what I was. No, there’s no way I could go back to Haiti and see them. Not now, not ever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Toby said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Then let’s drop it, okay?” Mr. Joseph finished off the glass of rum, poured himself another. He downed that in one gulp. “So,” he said, wiping his mouth. “You want to hear some more of my story?”

  “Only if you’re up to it,” Toby said.

  “What time do you have to go?”

  “Well, I’m meeting Gloria at her house at around four.” Toby glanced at his watch. It was just after three. “We’ve got time.”

  “Okay, so where were we? Right...”

  “I of course don’t remember dying, but I must have. The funeral would have been a small affair, carried out either the day of my death or the next day—bodies don’t stay fresh for long in the tropical heat, and peasants can’t afford things like a mortician and embalming.

  I knew Mangela, Felicia and Rachel would’ve been there, as would Papa Louis, his hounsis and friends from neighboring villages. I can only imagine what would’ve been said, the prayers spoken, but one thing I can be sure of was that my family didn’t take precautions against my coming back as a zombi. Either they thought my death was natural, simply old age running its course, or they knew it came about due to an evil bocor’s spell, but Mangela couldn’t bear to cut off my head or put a knife through my cold dead heart.

  Whatever occurred in the days following my demise, the result was the same. There was only darkness, a deep black nothing, and then someone spoke my name.

  The voice was as loud and clear as if the person was lying next to me.

  The first time he called my name I felt the sensation of being awakened, like I had been asleep and was slowly waking up.

  He called my name a second time, and it was like the gears in my body had been switched on. My mind began swirling about and I could start to feel sensation in my limbs. I didn’t know what was happening to me, nor did I care. I couldn’t think at all.

  He called my name a third time.

  I opened my eyes, sat up and answered, “Yes.” Then I waited for instruction.

  I saw a face appear above me amid the nighttime sky, though I was looking at him at a strange angle. An old man wearing thick heavy beads around his neck. In some distant past he seemed vaguely familiar, like I had met him in a dream, but I couldn’t think where I had seen him—and I didn’t particularly care. The old man had in his hand a small clay pot, its lid off, and this he passed under my nose.

  It was as if somebody had replaced my mind, my awareness, my soul with dead air. My movement had been revitalized, but that was about it.

  I was suddenly aware of my surroundings, that I was in a shallow hole in a wooden box with dirt all around me; aware that I was present in whatever reality I was in, but other than that, I did not think of where I was, why I was there, or who I was.

  “Rise,” the old man said.

  I did as I was told.

  I crawled out of the shallow grave. When I was out, the old man with the beads tied a piece of rope around my neck, leaving a piece dangling down my back.

  “That’s what you are,” another man said to me. “An animal. Worse than an animal, a zombi.” He laughed. “And a deformed one at that. Hell, look at you.”

  This small man, a rifle slung over one shoulder, was more familiar to me than the old man, but the thought stopped there.

  Also familiar was the small graveyard I was in. I didn’t have the capacity to think about it, but if I did, I would have known that I was in a local cemetery about two miles from my habitation; a small country graveyard near the base of a hill, full of cheap wooden crosses.

  “What’s the matter with him?” another man cried. This man, a man somewhere in age between the other two, looked upset. I had never seen him before. “What happened?”

  “Don’t worry,” the old man said. “He will be fine. The coffin was a little small for him, that’s all. They had to fit him in somehow. He will still be able to work, that I can guarantee.”

  “Yeah, those imbecile peasants made the coffin too small,” the younger man said. “We saw it all from where we stood on the hill. They were panicked, but eventually the
y had no choice—either bury him in the dirt, or break his neck to fit him in the coffin. I just wish I could’ve been the one to snap it. I would’ve enjoyed doing that.”

  “And he’s also bleeding,” the man continued. “Look, there on his cheek. What are you two trying to pull on me?”

  “Must’ve happened when those imbeciles nailed down the coffin lid,” the small man said with a chuckle.

  “Don’t worry,” the old man said. “It won’t get infected. It will leave a nasty scar, but it won’t get infected.”

  “It better not,” the man said. He sighed. “Well, I guess he looks good and strong, despite his age and the broken neck. He will be useful.”

  “He was hauling rubbish the day Emmanuel took me to him. He was a strong human.”

  The man looked at me. “Okay. I will take him and see how he goes. I didn’t come all the way down here for nothing.”

  The old man turned to me. “Close the coffin lid, then pick up that shovel and fill in the hole with dirt.”

  I followed the old man’s instructions. I may have been a zombi, but I could still process basic information. I still retained innate mental and physical capabilities. I could understand instruction on a basic primitive level, even if I didn’t consciously think about what it was I was doing, or why I was doing it.

  While I busied completing the job, the three men sat on the ground, smoking cigarettes, the smaller man laughing every so often, muttering things like, “Look at the animal work,” and, “This is for Marcel.”

  When I had finished filling in the hole, the old man collected the shovel, as well as a few other tools and candles, placed them in a sack that was slung over one of the mules, then said, “Okay, come on. We’d better get going while it’s still dark.”

  The old man grabbed the rope around my neck and pulled me towards the old brown mule. I followed blindly, like I was in some kind of a trance.

  “Not me,” the small man said. “I saw what I came to see. Make sure you work him hard, Silva.” Stopped by the mule, the small but mean looking man with the rifle walked over and whispered to me, “Oh, and I just want you to know that your wife and daughter are being taken care of real good, zombi.” He chuckled, then hopped on his gray mule and trotted away.