As they entered the kitchen, Hydrangea was turning on the television.
“You didn’t,” she said, looking up with vague alarm, “permit any butterflies—”
“To enter?” interrupted August. “No ma’am. The butterfly buffer zone is functioning just as intended.”
“Clever boy.” Hydrangea smiled with pride. “Ah, Grosbeak’s has delivered. Did they include the things you asked for, the materials you need for those funny models of yours?”
“They did, thank you,” responded August. “I have enough now, I think, to finish the pirate ship.”
“Pirates, hmm. That’s nice, sugar.” Hydrangea was only half listening as she lowered herself onto a wooden settee, plumping a threadbare cushion behind her. “Hush now, my favorite educational show is starting.”
The room immediately filled with the melodic voice of a television presenter, who introduced herself as Dixie Lispings and welcomed the audience to…
“…another envy-inducing episode of Absurdly Opulent Homes of the Very Rich and Even Richer.”
“Educational show?” questioned August wryly, throwing Claudette a discreet smile.
“One can, you know, learn a great deal about history and architect—aaaaaargh!”
August nearly dropped his paper sack when Hydrangea let out a sudden, strangled howl. He spun around to see her slack-jawed, one hand gripping the arm of the settee, the other pointing a shaking finger at the television.
“This week,” Dixie cheerfully informed her viewers, “we’re in the charming Old Quarter of vibrant Croissant City. This sumptuous townhouse behind me at 591 Funeral Street is the pied-à-terre of the Malveau family. And yes, I do mean Malveau, as in world-famous Malveau’s Devil Sauce.”
“The Malveau family?” muttered August, depositing his bag safely on the counter and wandering toward the television.
“The Malveau family?” repeated Hydrangea with shrill outrage. “That house belongs to us! It has done, for generations.” Then, more quietly, “At least…it used to.”
“To us?” August inquired, baffled.
“Another chunk of the family legacy,” lamented Hydrangea, gesturing at the screen with her handkerchief, “stolen away by our archrivals. Stolen by those who would see the DuPonts and DuPont’s Peppy Pepper Sauce wiped from the earth. Stolen by the Malveaus!” She glanced at August’s skeptically arched brow. “Well, bought,” she admitted reluctantly. “But for a shockingly low sum.” She turned again to the television and gave the hankie a vigorous twisting.
“Given Orchid’s designs on the DuPont treasure, you know, Orfeo’s Cadaverite, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she acquired the property solely in the hope of discovering the thing somewhere inside.” She lifted the remote and turned up the volume.
“Oh look, sugar, they’ve re-papered the entry hall. I suppose it was growing quite shabby the last time I saw it. But the chandeliers are a bit much, don’t you think? And so much gold. How vulgar.”
Hydrangea was clearly lost now, to the show and to her own resentment. So, August quietly lifted some items from the grocery bag, nudged Claudette, and nodded toward the kitchen door.
* * *
* * *
The sun was setting and the temperature dropping as the boy and the zombie pushed past the cluster of spiky palmettos behind the old, ruined gazebo.
On a narrow strip of sandy mud at the edge of the canal, hidden from the house by the plants and garden structure, rested a canoe. The wooden vessel was peppered with square patches, hardened goo peeking from their edges.
August removed his bulky gloves and rummaged in his pockets. He turned to Claudette, holding up the bag of fiberglass patches and a tube of marine epoxy.
“Finally, Claudette,” he whispered with a grin, “this will be the last one. After all these months of smuggling it in, bit by bit. Aunt Hydrangea believes it’s all just supplies for my sculptures.” He raised his eyebrows. “She thinks I’m building a model ship for a crew of pirate skeletons. Imagine if she knew we’re repairing the sunken canoe you rescued from the bottom of the canal.”
Crouching down, the boy shook a wafer-thin square from the bag, placed it on the ground, and squeezed the special glue around its edges.
“I reckon it would have been quicker,” he considered, “to take the bus.” He shook his head, applying the patch to the canoe, pressing it gently around the edges with his index finger. “But that takes money, and Aunt Hydrangea doesn’t have much to spare. I don’t want to take a penny more than we absolutely need.” He sat back to admire his handiwork. A shadow of concern passed across his face.
“I do hope she’ll be okay, Claudette,” he said with an air of uncertainty.
He pulled an envelope from his pocket and glanced at the zombie.
“You know she’d never give us permission to go. I wrote her this note to explain. And I wrote another one to the mailman, Mr. LaPoste, asking him to take care of her while I’m gone. I left his in the mailbox today. Because, Claudette, we’re leaving tonight. After I’ve glued on this last patch, we’re going to find the Zombie Stone.”
And so it was that August and Claudette DuPont came to arrive at the place we found them: in a sinking canoe, upon a canal piercing Lost Souls’ Swamp.
This less-than-perfect situation was indeed a disappointment, as the day had started out rather well. Claudette was an uncommonly vigorous rower and had propelled the vessel without interval from early morning to early evening. Such was the sight of a small girl powering a canoe faster than a fan boat that the voyage had been drawing looks of openmouthed amazement from passing pelicans and fishermen.
“We’re making excellent progress, Claudette,” said August encouragingly from the front of the canoe, glancing over his shoulder. The boy took a bite from the Mudd Pie he held in his left hand and consulted the foldout map in his right. “Black River is long behind us. This is, let’s see, Channel Fifteen B. Only a few more miles to Pirate’s Pier, then through the lock and we’ll be on the Continental River.
“Hey! Why are my feet wet?”
August realized suddenly that water was collecting in the bottom of the canoe, and that several of his handcrafted patches had sprung leaks.
Leaning over the side, he could see that Claudette was powering the craft with such speed that the adhesive was no match for the rush of passing water, and the thin fiberglass veneers were being peeled away from the hull like old Band-Aids.
“Stop rowing! Stop!” cried August, grabbing his knapsack and hurriedly unearthing a tube of epoxy. But his efforts to repair the leaks were in vain. The fresh glue would not adhere to the wet wood, and several of the patches were, in any case, below the water line, where the epoxy was useless.
August splashed about the canoe, frantically squeezing and pressing. But the dribbles were growing into trickles. The trickles were growing into rivulets. Suddenly one patch popped a spout that arched across the benches and struck Claudette right in the face.
You have already heard what happened next. In her attempt to stop up the offending hole, the zombie, miscalculating her own strength, forced not only her finger but her entire fist through the canoe’s brittle shell.
Even a thick blanket could not stem the breach, and water was rapidly filling the vessel.
“Bail!” yelled August, whipping off his helmet and desperately scooping water from the boat. Claudette, panicked and confused, stumbled about with cupped hands, attempting to assist, but with highly limited results.
As he felt cold wetness around his knees, August straightened, and his predicament was immediately clear.
The front of the canoe was completely submerged. One oar was floating several yards away and out of reach. Nearby, the boy’s knapsack was sliding beneath the canal’s surface.
“The canoe is done for, Claudette,” announced the boy. “Zombies can sw
im, right?”
But before Claudette could respond, something in the river beyond her caught August’s eye. It was jagged and glittery, and moving swiftly through the ripples.
In one horrifying millisecond, August realized that the swift, jagged, glittery thing represented the back of an alligator.
But this was like no amphibious reptile August had seen in the informative game shows like Win It or Lick It that had constituted his education.
He could see the ghostly form of the beast beneath the water’s surface. It was pure white. And it was immense: the width of a fishing boat, the length of a train car.
And it was getting even bigger. Quickly.
For the behemoth was headed directly for the foundering canoe.
A sudden piercing, high-pitched sound jerked August’s head around.
Speeding toward him, engine sputtering and blue smoke spewing, was a very familiar, crudely built, perilously pitched houseboat. As it swung around, a scrawny, barefoot girl with a tangle of unbrushed hair came into view. She was manning the tiller and blowing fiercely into a long, elaborate brass whistle.
“Madame Marvell!” cried August, surprised and greatly relieved to see the girl who had spent the previous summer moored in the canal behind Locust Hole, the girl he had called the wild child before learning her name (or at least the name she went by, having forgotten her own).
But Madame Marvell was still yards away, and the alligator was closing in. August’s head snapped frantically back and forth as he gauged the distances of rescue vessel and giant predator, approaching from opposite directions.
Only the canoe’s stern was now visible, and August, farther forward than Claudette, was now thigh deep in water.
Three yards away, the alligator’s rough-skinned snout broke the surface, close enough that August could see vapor snort from its nostrils and two yellow, reptilian eyes staring directly into his own. And, for the briefest of moments, August experienced some vague sense of recognition, as if he’d gazed into these eyes before.
Madame Marvell killed her engine, and the houseboat’s pontoon glided close to the half-submerged canoe. Within seconds, the young pilot was hanging over the water, one hand clutching a rope for support, the other reaching out for August. But the girl was small, and the boy was lower than the houseboat’s deck. The rapidly sinking canoe provided August with no static surface from which to push off.
As August’s fingers wiggled merely inches from Marvell’s, the boy saw something in the girl’s face that made his stomach lurch; it was terror.
And in that same moment, from the corner of his eye, he spied massive jaws opening to reveal a shockingly pink interior with a flexing black gullet at its center.
Sunlight sparkled upon a horror show of dripping, razor-sharp teeth, each the size of an ice-cream cone, and August was enveloped by hot breath, rank with the stench of river swill and rotting fish.
The boy was wondering what it was going to feel like to be swallowed whole, when, with an otherworldly howl, Claudette the zombie hurled herself from the canoe’s stern right into him, propelling him up and out. August felt Marvell’s hand close around his wrist, and then the rough, hard planks of the deck beneath his knees. The whole world lurched with a deafening roar and splintering crash, as an immense flat head smashed through the houseboat’s pontoon, missing August by mere inches.
The boy scrambled across the deck to brace his back against the houseboat’s cabin (which, in a previous existence, had been a garden shed), preparing for a second assault.
But none came.
Wide-eyed, heart pounding, August stared at Madame Marvell, who clung to the generator with a similarly shell-shocked expression.
As the wild rocking subsided, August cautiously stood, recovered his helmet, and, grabbing whatever he could to steady himself, scanned the canal for the attacker.
But in the water beside the houseboat, only ripples remained.
The alligator was gone.
So was the canoe.
And so was Claudette.
“Did you see that thing?” cried Madame Marvell. “You were lucky I came along just then; what would have become of you? Where has it gone? How could it just disappear? Are you okay?”
August did not respond but gazed down at the quieting waters.
“Claudette?” he called, almost fearfully.
Marvell joined him, and the pair stood in silence. Nothing appeared.
The children heard the plaintive scree of an osprey one hundred feet above them and the tranquil lap of water.
“You did want to be rid of her,” suggested Marvell helpfully. “And she was dead already.”
“I wonder,” August speculated, “if it ate her. If so, I expect it might well get an upset stomach; she was very old.”
August was visited by a sudden rush of guilt.
“She sacrificed herself for me,” he said, glancing at Marvell. “But she was…inconvenient.” He experienced a sense of relief, immediately followed by more guilt about feeling relief.
August was thoroughly confused about what he felt, when suddenly from the murky depths popped a dismembered arm, instantly recognizable by its unsavory, mottled hue as Claudette’s.
It was followed by a violent eruption of bubbles, and the rest of Claudette.
* * *
* * *
Golden light from the setting sun illuminated the illusionists, magicians, and wizards who peopled the walls of the houseboat’s cabin in posters and playbills.
“Can you please keep your arm to yourself?” wondered Marvell crossly.
She fetched the dripping limb from where it had rolled beneath a cluttered table and handed it with a grimace to Claudette.
August and Marvell watched with pained expressions as the zombie repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) attempted to restore the arm to its socket.
“She had some stitches,” August explained, “up around here.” He pointed to his own shoulder. “Guess it pulled away pretty easily, like overcooked chicken.”
Abandoning her attempts at self-repair, Claudette cradled the dismembered arm in her other, sought out its thumb with her mouth, and began to pensively suck.
August shivered, tugging a blanket more tightly around himself, and watched as Madame Marvell placed another around the zombie’s shoulders.
“I can’t imagine,” suggested August, “that zombies suffer much from the cold.”
“It’s not to keep her warm,” retorted Marvell shortly, “but to keep my couch dry!”
The girl lit the burner beneath the kettle.
“Your pants should be dry by morning. You want some chicory coffee? We should warm you up.”
August nodded.
“Thank you. And for saving my life, by the way.”
He watched as the girl poured ground coffee into the upper container of a two-part coffeepot.
“Where,” August wondered, “have you been all these months?”
“Keeping a low profile.” Marvell shot August a grin. “After those child services folks got wind of me at Locust Hole, I knew I better get gone real quick.”
She poured hot water from the kettle into the coffeepot.
“Round here’s as good a place as any to stay invisible. It’s remote, you know? Lost Souls’ Swamp stretches for miles and miles all around. And there’s hardly anyone that’s using Channel Fifteen B—just some of those tugboats headed out for the oil rigs.
“Lucky for you it was market day at Pirates’ Pier; I went in to sell some crawfish. Otherwise I’d be tucked away at the edge of the swamp somewhere.”
August reached out to receive a steaming tin mug.
“I see,” said Marvell, eyeing the air above August’s head, “you still have your butterfly condition.” She glanced at Claudette. “And your small zombie problem.”
/>
August smiled ruefully and explained that the Zombie Stone, the only means of returning Claudette to her true home, had been sold in error to an art gallery in Croissant City, and that they were on their way to recover it.
“But,” observed Marvell, “you say the Malveaus left for Croissant City months ago. Seems like plenty of time for your aunt to have found that gallery and get her hands on the stone.”
“Even if she has,” August speculated, “it doesn’t stop me from using it, right? Besides, it really belongs to the DuPonts.”
“You did technically give it to her.”
August shrugged.
“It hardly matters,” he said glumly, “now that our canoe is somewhere down there.” He cast his gaze downward, at the floor. “We have no way to travel to Croissant City.”
“Of course you do,” said Marvell. “I’ll take you.”
“You will?” August was concerned. “You’re not afraid of getting caught?”
“Nah. If we keep moving and stick close to the swamp, we won’t attract attention. On the Continental River near the city, there’s so much water traffic and so many folks, no one would even notice us. There’s just one little hitch.”
August raised his eyebrows. “Hitch?”
“That monster gator bit off a chunk of the pontoon.”
“But we’re still afloat,” observed August. “We’re not sinking.”
“We are afloat,” admitted Marvell, “and we’re not sinking. But we won’t get very far. We lost an oil drum. And…um…the whole darn engine. We’ve got no motor. We’re stranded.”
Through a scattering of butterflies, August watched the world revolve around him as the lame houseboat slowly spun. A riverbank of towering trees and dense undergrowth was followed by an arrow-straight, empty stretch of canal headed east. The other riverbank of towering trees and dense undergrowth was followed by an arrow-straight, empty stretch of canal headed west.
The Zombie Stone Page 2