A Plague of Zombies

A certain amount of scornful hooting ensued, and Accompong let it go on for a few moments before lifting his hand. He sat down, carefully, sighing as he settled.



‘You say so? Why you think I have anything to do with these young men?’



‘I do not say that you do. But I know a great leader when I see one—and I know that you can help me to find my young men. If you will.’



‘Phu!’ Accompong’s face creased into a gap-toothed smile. ‘You think you flatter me and I help?’



Grey could feel some of the smaller children stealing up behind him; he heard muffled giggles but didn’t turn round.



‘I ask for your help. But I do not offer you only my good opinion in return.’



A small hand reached under his coat and rudely tweaked his buttock. There was an explosion of laughter and mad scampering behind him. He didn’t move.



Accompong chewed slowly at something in the back of his capacious mouth, one eye narrowed.



‘Yes? What do you offer, then? Gold?’ One corner of his thick lips turned up.



‘Do you have any need of gold?’ Grey asked. The children were whispering and giggling again behind him, but he also heard shushing noises from some of the women—they were getting interested. Maybe.



Accompong thought for a moment, then shook his head.



‘No. What else you offer?’



‘What do you want?’ Grey parried.



‘Captain Cresswell’s head!’ said a woman’s voice, very clearly. There was a shuffle and smack, a man’s voice rebuking in Spanish, a heated crackle of women’s voices in return. Accompong let it go on for a minute or two, then raised one hand. Silence fell abruptly.



It lengthened. Grey could feel the pulse beating in his temples, slow and labouring. Ought he to speak? He came as a suppliant already; to speak now would be to lose face, as the Chinese put it. He waited.



‘The governor is dead?’ Accompong asked at last.



‘Yes. How do you know of it?’



‘You mean did I kill him?’ The bulbous yellowed eyes creased.



‘No,’ Grey said patiently. ‘I mean do you know how he died?’



‘The zombies kill him.’ The answer came readily—and seriously. There was no hint of humour in those eyes now.



‘Do you know who made the zombies?’



A most extraordinary shudder ran through Accompong, from his ragged hat to the horny soles of his bare feet.



‘You do know,’ Grey said softly, raising a hand to prevent the automatic denial. ‘But it wasn’t you, was it? Tell me.’



The captain shifted uneasily from one buttock to the other but didn’t reply. His eyes darted towards one of the huts, and after a moment he raised his voice, calling something in the maroons’ patois, wherein Grey thought he caught the word “Azeel.” He was puzzled momentarily, finding the word familiar but not knowing why. Then the young woman emerged from the hut, ducking under the low doorway, and he remembered.



Azeel. The young slave woman whom the governor had taken and misused, whose flight from King’s House had presaged the plague of serpents.



Seeing her as she came forward, he couldn’t help but see what had inspired the governor’s lust, though it was not a beauty that spoke to him. She was small but not inconsequential. Perfectly proportioned, she stood like a queen, and her eyes burned as she turned her face to Grey. There was anger in her face—but also something like a terrible despair.



‘Captain Accompong says that I will tell you what I know—what happened.’



Grey bowed to her.



‘I should be most grateful to hear it, madam.’



She looked hard at him, obviously suspecting mockery, but he’d meant it, and she saw that. She gave a brief, nearly imperceptible nod.



‘Well, then. You know that beast’—she spat neatly on the ground—‘forced me? And I left his house?’



‘Yes. Whereupon you sought out an Obeah man, who invoked a curse of snakes upon Governor Warren, am I correct?’



She glared at him and gave a short nod. ‘The snake is wisdom, and that man had none. None!’



‘I think you’re quite right about that. But the zombies?’



There was a general intake of breath among the crowd. Fear, distaste—and something else. The girl’s lips pressed together, and tears glimmered in her large dark eyes.



‘Rodrigo,’ she said, and choked on the name. ‘He—and I—’ Her jaw clamped hard; she couldn’t speak without weeping and would not weep in front of him. He cast down his gaze to the ground, to give her what privacy he could. He could hear her breathing through her nose, a soft, snuffling noise. Finally, she heaved a deep breath.



‘He was not satisfied. He went to a houngan. The Obeah man warned him, but—’ Her entire face contorted with the effort to hold in her feelings. ‘The houngan. He had zombies. Rodrigo paid him to kill the beast.’



Grey felt as though he had been punched in the chest. Rodrigo. Rodrigo, hiding in the garden shed at the sound of shuffling bare feet in the night—or Rodrigo, warning his fellow servants to leave, then unbolting the doors, following a silent horde of ruined men in clotted rags up the stairs … or running up before them, in apparent alarm, summoning the sentries, drawing them outside, where they could be taken.



‘And where is Rodrigo now?’ Grey asked sharply. There was a deep silence in the clearing. None of the people even glanced at one another; every eye was fixed on the ground. He took a step towards Accompong. ‘Captain?’



Accompong stirred. He raised his misshapen face to Grey and a hand towards one of the huts.



‘We do not like zombies, Colonel,’ he said. ‘They are unclean. And to kill a man using them … this is a great wrong. You understand this?’



‘I do, yes.’



‘This man, Rodrigo …’ Accompong hesitated, searching out words. ‘He is not one of us. He comes from Hispaniola. They … do such things there.’



‘Such things as make zombies? But presumably it happens here, as well.’ Grey spoke automatically; his mind was working furiously in light of these revelations. The thing that had attacked him in his room—it would be no great trick for a man to smear himself with grave dirt and wear rotted clothing …



‘Not among us,’ Accompong said very firmly. ‘Before I say more, my colonel—do you believe what you have heard so far? Do you believe that we—that I—had nothing to do with the death of your governor?’



Grey considered that one for a moment. There was no evidence, only the story of the slave girl. Still … he did have evidence. The evidence of his own observations and conclusions regarding the nature of the man who sat before him.



‘Yes,’ he said abruptly. ‘So?’



‘Will your king believe it?’



Well, not as baldly stated, no, Grey thought. The matter would need a little tactful handling …



Accompong snorted faintly, seeing the thoughts cross Grey’s face.



‘This man, Rodrigo. He has done us great harm by taking his private revenge in a way that … that …’ Accompong groped for the word.



‘That incriminates you,’ Grey finished for him. ‘Yes, I see that. What have you done with him?’



‘I cannot give this man to you,’ Accompong said at last. His thick lips pressed together briefly, but he met Grey’s eye. ‘He is dead.’



The shock hit Grey like a musket ball, a thump that knocked him off-balance and the sickening knowledge of irrevocable damage done.



‘How?’ he said, short and sharp. ‘What happened to him?’



The clearing was still silent. Accompong stared at the ground in front of him. After a long moment, a sigh, a whisper, drifted from the crowd.



‘Zombie.’



‘Where?’ he barked. ‘Where is he? Bring him to me. Now!’



The crowd shrank away from the hut, and a sort of moan ran through them. Women snatched up their children, pushed back so hastily that they stepped on the feet of their companions. The door opened.



‘Anda!’ said a voice from inside. Walk, it meant, in Spanish. Grey’s numbed mind had barely registered this when the darkness inside the hut changed and a form appeared at the door.



It was Rodrigo. But then again—it wasn’t. The glowing skin had gone pale and muddy, almost waxen. The firm, soft mouth hung loose, and the eyes—oh, God, the eyes! They were sunken, glassy, and showed no comprehension, no movement, not the least sense of awareness. They were a dead man’s eyes. And yet … he walked.



This was the worst of all. Gone was every trace of Rodrigo’s springy grace, his elegance. This creature moved stiffly, shambling, feet dragging, almost lurching from foot to foot. Its clothing hung upon its bones like a scarecrow’s rags, smeared with clay and stained with dreadful liquids. The odour of putrefaction reached Grey’s nostrils, and he gagged.



‘Alto,’ said the voice softly, and Rodrigo stopped abruptly, arms hanging like a marionette’s. Grey looked up then at the hut. A tall, dark man stood in the doorway, burning eyes fixed on Grey.



The sun was all but down; the clearing lay in deep shadow, and Grey felt a convulsive shiver go through him. He lifted his chin and, ignoring the horrid thing standing stiff before him, addressed the tall man.



‘Who are you, sir?’



‘Call me Ishmael,’ said the man, in an odd, lilting accent. He stepped out of the hut, and Grey was conscious of a general shrinking, everyone pulling away from the man, as though he suffered from some deadly contagion. Grey wanted to step back, too, but didn’t.



‘You did … this?’ Grey asked, flicking a hand at the remnant of Rodrigo.



‘I was paid to do it, yes.’ Ishmael’s eyes flicked towards Accompong, then back to Grey.



‘And Governor Warren—you were paid to kill him, as well, were you? By this man?’ A brief nod at Rodrigo; he could not bear to look directly at him.



“The zombies think they’re dead, and so does everyone else.”



A frown drew Ishmael’s brows together, and with the change of expression, Grey noticed that the man’s faced was scarred, with apparent deliberation, long channels cut in cheeks and forehead. He shook his head.



‘No. This’—he nodded at Rodrigo—‘paid me to bring my zombies. He says to me that he wishes to terrify a man. And zombies will do that,’ he added, with a wolfish smile. ‘But when I brought them into the room and the buckra turned to flee, this one’—the flick of a hand towards Rodrigo—‘sprang upon him and stabbed him. The man fell dead, and Rodrigo then ordered me’—his tone of voice made it clear what he thought of anyone ordering him to do anything—‘to make my zombies feed upon him. And I did,’ he ended abruptly.



Grey swung round to Captain Accompong, who had sat silently through this testimony.



‘And then you paid this … this—’



‘Houngan,’ Ishmael put in helpfully.



‘—to do that?!’ He pointed at Rodrigo, and his voice shook with outraged horror.



‘Justice,’ said Accompong, with simple dignity. ‘Don’t you think so?’