The Zombie Stone

by K. G. Campbell

  The replacement engine from Gardner Island, though dented and unsightly, was powerful, and as a result, the clumsy, stern-heavy houseboat was surprisingly swift.

  The unlikely pursuit vessel even began to gain on the fleeing fishing boat.

  The riverboat had swung to the right, its immense bulk heading into the river at a sharp angle. The obvious escape route lay through the opening that had appeared between it and the pier, on the vessel’s left side.

  Leech’s boat was headed in that direction.

  The houseboat was not far behind, and it was gaining.

  August scrambled along the side of the cabin, then threw himself onto the foredeck. On all fours, he clung to the front of the pontoon, bracingly cold water spraying over him as the vessel bounced up and down. Leech, his fist on the tiller, glanced behind him. He and August locked eyes. August thought he saw a glimmer of alarm in the professor’s face.

  The boy had no idea what he would do if they caught the zombie-napper. Yes, August had four zombies. But the professor had the Zombie Stone. But maybe, somehow, they could at least get to Jacques LeSalt.

  August could not shake the image of the pirate’s fear-filled face.

  Suddenly, just as it neared the riverboat’s stern, Leech’s boat veered sharply to the right, plunging across the churning wake created by the riverboat’s immense turning paddle.

  “Hard to starboard!” yelled August.

  But Leech had made a cunning move. Although it lurched dramatically over the foaming ridges, his vessel had a true bow, designed to cleave the water before it. Madame Marvell’s houseboat, in the end, was merely a shed roped to a crudely fashioned raft of empty oil drums.

  In the violently frothing waves and tall, watery ridges, the houseboat could make no progress, but was spun around, tossed up and down, and thrown side to side. Imagine flinging a shoebox into the river just above Niagara Falls and you’ll get the idea.

  The creaking craft rolled and pitched, waves smashing on its cabin walls and surging across its deck. An oil drum popped off, compromising the craft’s stability even further. Marvell clung to the off-center tiller. The zombies clung to and swung from the ropes that secured the cabin to the pontoon.

  But August, kneeling at the very front of the boat, had nothing to secure him. He desperately clutched the edge of the deck, as his knees and feet scrabbled across the boards, sliding this way and that.

  Suddenly Marvell’s wooden deck chair, Delfine the cloth doll, and a powerful wall of foam were all rushing right at him.

  And then August was underwater.

  He fared as any person might fare when tossed into a giant washing machine. His limbs flailed helplessly as he was spun around in a violent vortex, until the boy had no idea of which way was up, nor which way was down.

  Everything around him was obscured, white with bubbles. The muffled, underwater roar of a giant engine and the thrashing of enormous paddles surrounded him. Suddenly the frothy soup was pierced by something horizontal and rigid and enormous and red that descended upon him.

  The next thing he knew, August was falling, slowly. His head hurt a great deal and it was difficult to concentrate. Somewhere high above, he saw a drifting figure—limp, like an old sackcloth doll—silhouetted against the underside of a mighty turning paddle wheel.

  He wondered if he was dreaming. Was he still breathing, he wondered, or was he holding his breath? He saw bubbles drifting from his nostrils. Cold, brown darkness was pressing in around him.

  To his left, he became aware of a shape emerging from the river’s muddy depths. As it grew closer, it grew whiter.

  Above him, he became aware of a second shape descending from the water’s surface. As it grew closer, it too grew whiter.

  The shape on the left was growing very large. Its mouth was opening to reveal rows and rows of sharp teeth and a black yawning gullet beyond.

  The shape above had fingers that were reaching toward him.

  The fingers were attached to a hand that was attached to an arm that was held by another hand on another arm.

  And beyond that lay a familiar face.

  “That’s Claudette,” thought August.

  Everything went black.

  Consciousness returned to August gradually.

  He groggily became aware of voices, then the cool silk fabric of the chair on which his head was resting. An impossibly soft blanket encircled his shoulders.

  A fuzzy image appeared immediately before him: two dark recesses and a lighter protrusion. It slowly formed into eyes and a nose.

  “Welcome back, August,” said an unfamiliar voice. A large hand ran over August’s head, causing the boy to wince. “That’s quite a bump you’ve got there, buddy. Here.” August’s glasses were placed upon his face. “One of your friends rescued these from the river.”

  A young man’s friendly face came into focus.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Three.”

  “And where are you?”

  August swiveled his eyeballs. He saw elaborate moldings, square columns, a harp.

  “Looks like my aunt’s music room.”

  The hand ruffled his hair. “Good job, buddy.”

  The face receded, and as the man moved away his paramedic’s uniform became visible. He was talking to someone, someone in a long black veil. His voice was hushed, but August could make out some conversational snippets.

  “Miraculous he took in so little water.”

  “You say he was rescued how?”

  “And the butterflies are always present?”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like a concussion but watch for these symptoms.”

  Above the quietly conferring adults hung the Malveau family portrait. August gazed at it passively, and suddenly realized what it was about the painting that seemed strange.

  “Aunt Orchid,” he mused, “said her husband died in the Peruvian flu epidemic, the same epidemic that killed my mother…when I was a baby. So, the twins must have been babies too, when their father died.”

  He cocked his head; the children in the painting were around five or six years old. They gazed out of the painting with big, china-blue eyes.

  “Did their father not die of Peruvian flu? Wait. The twins don’t have blue eyes.”

  And then it seemed so obvious.

  “Those two,” he thought, “are not Belladonna and Beauregard.”

  Looming faces abruptly interrupted his view and his befuddled revelation. August identified the concerned expressions of Madame Marvell and Belladonna. And suddenly in front of them popped a familiar pair of loosely swiveling eyes and a slack, blue-lipped, drooling mouth. August smiled weakly.

  “Hello, Claudette.” Drips from the zombie’s wet ringlets fell into his face. “I guess I should thank you for saving my life.”

  “It wasn’t her,” announced Marvell, peering over Claudette’s shoulder and clutching a soggy-looking Delfine.

  August was beginning to recover. He pushed the blanket away and forced himself into an upright position.

  “But I saw her,” he said, gingerly rubbing the bump on his head. “In the water.”

  “It was the alligator,” said Marvell. “The great white one, from the swamp. Dragged you to shore by the collar of your coat, I tell you. I swear I’m not inventing a story. Lots of folks saw it.”

  “It’s true,” confirmed Belladonna. “Look!”

  She swiveled around a laptop computer resting on a small table beside August’s chair. The girl jiggled a mouse across the marble, clicked, and the screen was suddenly filled with movement and jarringly clear sound.

  “…why yes, Dixie, that is so.” A disheveled Cyril Saint-Cyr and Dixie Lispings were holding mics with CCTV logos. “Many passengers aboard the Delta Duchess report having seen an enormous white allig
ator drag the boy to shore.”

  The presenters appeared to remain on location. Behind them loomed the wreckage of the Weepy Widows’ sunken pirate ship and, beyond, a partly crushed iron balcony. Carnival revelers milled around the edges of the shot, still whooping and toasting the camera with red plastic cups.

  “Incredibly, Cyril,” responded Dixie, “there is reason to believe that this same young man and his friends were instrumental in bringing about the catastrophe behind us.”

  A still image filled the screen, one frame, shot by a television camera, that captured the moment of the grand marshal’s dramatic exit from the parade.

  Officer Claw leaped away in horror from a tangle of lunging limbs. Jacques LeSalt was largely obscured by flying doubloons. Claudette was partly visible. However, the figure closest to the camera, blurry but the most discernible, was August.

  “That’s right, Dixie,” confirmed Saint-Cyr. “Some are calling this the worst Carnival in history. I expect our guests here would agree.”

  The camera swung slightly to the right to reveal Farfel Katz, Officer Claw, and Yuko Yukiyama. All wore heavy-lidded expressions of displeasure. Claw’s tiny hat was crushed. Yuko’s jellyfish hat dripped with gooey fluid.

  “But none,” continued Saint-Cyr, “has a stronger opinion about the matter than this young lady, beloved television actress Margot Morgan Jordan.”

  The camera swung farther to the right, and August gasped, initially in excitement, but then in quiet horror.

  For glaring out of the laptop screen with a furious expression was Stella Starz.

  “Now, Margot Morgan Jordan,” said Saint-Cyr, a mic suddenly appearing before the young lady’s face. “Tell us what you—”

  But Margot Morgan Jordan required no coaxing to air her thoughts.

  “Loser!” she snapped. “That’s what I think. The guy’s a loser. No, a monster. Only a monster would traumatize a poor, defenseless cat like our darling Officer Claw!”

  From screen left, the large, disgruntled creature in the crushed tiny hat was suddenly shoved into Margot Morgan Jordan’s arms.

  “Seriously,” ranted the actress, “I’d like to—”

  The camera promptly cut to Cyril Saint-Cyr and Dixie Lispings.

  “Well,” laughed Dixie. “No mistaking Margot Morgan Jordan’s feelings there.”

  August felt nauseous.

  He shrank back into the chair, wishing sincerely it would open up and swallow him whole.

  Stella Starz—world-famous beloved TV star—knew who August was. She had opinions about him. But not in a good way.

  Margot Morgan Jordan considered August a loser. No, a monster.

  And she was telling the whole world.

  August hoped fervently that Cyril Saint-Cyr had not shared his name with Stella Starz, or anyone.

  Elegant fingers gently closed the laptop, and the air was fragrant with gardenias.

  August, feeling very small, looked up at Orchid Malveau, who seemed very tall.

  “I’ll look in on him tomorrow,” promised the paramedic, heading for the hallway.

  But Orchid had turned her full attention to her nephew.

  “The stone?” she inquired simply.

  August lowered his eyelids and shook his head. He felt worse than ever. He was a disappointment to Orchid. He was a disappointment to Margot Morgan Jordan, better known as Stella Starz.

  He was a disappointment to himself.

  “He took it,” volunteered Marvell. “That man in the flowery hat.”

  “Professor Leech, ma’am,” explained August meekly. “He’s using the Cadaverite to make Jacques LeSalt reveal the location of his hidden treasure.”

  Orchid snorted.

  “The greedy fool,” she scoffed bitterly, “clearly has no idea of the gemstone’s value, or he’d have little interest in pursuing some slimy old doubloons. But that is of little consequence to me.”

  She stared intently at August.

  “For me, this means one thing. No Zombie Stone.” Her eyes flickered in the direction of the shabby group huddled aimlessly at the center of the room. “Only, apparently, more zombies.

  “Your undead friends, August,” the woman said gently, pointedly tapping the closed laptop, “are becoming quite the liability.”

  August grimaced apologetically.

  “That’s why,” he explained, “I need to find the Zombie Stone—to send them all back to where they came from.”

  “Ah!” Orchid nodded slowly. “I was under the misconception that the persistence of your search lay in a desire to please your aunt Orchid.” She smiled coldly. “But I suppose one must appreciate your position. Undead guests may not always be…welcome.

  “So, August, what will you do with your dreary friends now?”

  “Take them into the swamp; leave them there!” suggested Beauregard’s resentful voice.

  August noticed his cousin for the first time. The boy stood near the hallway, Langley and Gaston hovering cautiously behind him. Beauregard glowered from beneath his eyebrows with a look of pure animosity.

  He had clearly attempted to wipe away the bubble fluid, but his pirate wig was plastered to his head, his pirate makeup was streaking down his cheeks, and his costume was soaked.

  “This one,” he jerked his thumb at Marvell, creating a tiny flurry of bubbles, “looks like she knows her way around a swamp. She could get you out.”

  Marvell shot Beauregard a filthy glance.

  August, shocked out of his own misery, stood up. “But they would just wander around in there. Lost. Forever!”

  “So?” Beauregard shrugged. “They’re dead anyway. Wouldn’t that solve your problem? Get them out of your hair, and everyone else’s?”

  August could not help but imagine for a moment what it would be like to wake up with no zombies awaiting him with their unsleeping, googly eyes. No zombies constantly dogging his every move. How much easier, he thought, life would be. No more pursuing the Zombie Stone. No more unsavory incidents. Maybe one day, after people had forgotten…friends?

  But there was something in the air.

  It crept into his being from somewhere outside. It was an emotion, not his own, but he could feel it as if it were.

  It was fear.

  He looked at his zombies huddling at the center of the room and knew with certainty that they were the source.

  “Absolutely not!” he responded firmly, staring Beauregard down. “Zombies can get a little confused. And troublesome; it’s true. But they were people once, with feelings, just like you and me. And those people are still in there. Kind of.”

  August stepped protectively in front of his little horde of undead companions.

  “These zombies have nothing to fear,” he announced, throwing Claudette and the others a small but brave smile. “They will not be abandoned in the swamp. They will not be abandoned anywhere.

  “These zombies”—he returned Beauregard’s dark and stubborn glare—“are coming home with me!”

  One hundred and eight miles west of Funeral Street, Hydrangea DuPont lay prostrate on a fainting couch in the parlor of Locust Hole as the local mailman, Mr. LaPoste, poured her a hot beverage.

  “Have some fortified tea, Miz Hydrangea,” he urged the lady. “It will surely restore you.”

  “There is no restoring, Mr. LaPoste,” wailed Hydrangea. “Not this time. Not after this most cruel and unusual piece of correspondence you have delivered to me today!”

  Her arm flailed outward stiffly, and LaPoste extracted a crumpled letter from her trembling fist.

  “It’s from Pelican State Bank.” LaPoste squinted his pale, staring eyes to make out the typeface in the crushed paper. His perpetual toothy smile finally faded. He looked at Hydrangea with a gray, rabbit-like face. “If you don’t make a payment toward your loan,” he
said, “by the last day of June, Pelican State Bank will take possession…of…”

  He bit his lip, unable to say it.

  “Take possession of Locust Hole,” said Hydrangea, sitting up, eyes welling with tears. “Oh, what will become of us, Mr. LaPoste?” The lady’s hands worked her handkerchief. “The bank is going to turn us out of our home, onto the street! Poor, poor August. It is I who should be caring for the child. But I confess, Mr. LaPoste, it is rather the child that has for many a year been caring for me.” She covered her face.

  LaPoste took a seat beside the distraught woman and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “And there really is no hot sauce left?”

  Hydrangea shook her head.

  “I just sold the last thirteen bottles to a buyer in Pepperville.”

  “And there really is no question of reviving production?”

  “Why, Mr. LaPoste, I’m afraid I have not set foot outside this house for…oh…who knows how long?”

  “Thirty-five years.” LaPoste supplied the number.

  Hydrangea nodded absently. “Not since…the incident.”

  “The incident,” agreed LaPoste sympathetically. “I remember. I was there.”

  “How am I to oversee a pepper farm”—she gestured at the boarded-up windows—“from here?”

  “You know,” LaPoste said gently, “I have a little something put away. It’s not much, but…”

  Hydrangea was horrified.

  “No. No, sir! Absolutely not. I wouldn’t hear of such a thing.”

  LaPoste sighed and patted her hand.

  “Well, perhaps,” he half laughed, “you should do a little grave-digging; it seems there might be some profit in it.”

  Hydrangea frowned from behind her handkerchief.

  “What a suggestion, Mr. LaPoste! Whatever can you mean?”

  The mailman pulled a small-format newspaper from his mailbag and, unfolding it, pointed at the front page.

  A good portion of it was filled by a photograph of a dapper gentleman beaming behind a table laden with a stack of large, ragged scrolls.