by Steve Perry
They were drawing nearer their destination, and Boukman was ready to survey the situation, see what he needed, then to order his slaves into position.
He sent two of them to look.
There was a break in the rain. The wind continued in fits, but it was no longer pouring like a waterfall. For a while—the rain would return soon enough. Maybe by then, he would have his prize and be on the way home.
While he was waiting for them to report back, his horse began to buck—
Boukman frowned. What was this? He could feel the âme of the slave rising, trying to reassert control of the body they shared.
Go back to sleep!
Who are you? Get out of me!
Boukman felt a surge of anger. I will kill this body! Go back to sleep!
But—no. The man who had lived here until Boukman’s potion had taken his will and submerged it so deep it was nearly extinguished had, somehow, broken free of the chemical bindings.
Of a moment, Boukman realized how it had happened: This slave had been too long from maintenance—he had not drunk of the potion in some time, perhaps weeks, and the effect had begun to wear off. Somehow, this one had been left on his own and the drug not administered when it should have been.
Boukman had his regulations in place, he had a method he’d used ever since he had developed the powers of a bokor and first mixed the potion and used it. Somehow, this one had slipped through the normal net.
It happened. Not often, but a man as busy as he was sometimes lost track of minor things—
Out! Out of me! Leave, demon!
The horse’s owner began praying.
This was the wrong time, the worst moment for a minor mistake to show up. The man’s spirit was strong—too strong to squash from inside the same body without the Potion to help. Boukman would have to leave, find another host, but his strength had not returned fully, and he could not risk trying it and failing. He would have to depart, retreat to his own form, regather his strength, and come back!
Damnation! Why did the gods task him so?
The prey would leave with his prize, and he would have to find them again!
In that moment of weakness, being pressed by the owner of the horse he rode, Boukman made a choice. It was not the patient and considered decision he would normally have made, but he deemed it worth the risk.
“Attack them!” he said. “Go, kill them, collect the box, and bring it to me! Now!”
It was not so much a risk. The odds were in his favor. Chances for success were good, based on numbers alone—
And with that, he leaped free of the chemically bound horse he rode. What the man who regained control would do didn’t matter. He meant nothing. He would find and deal with him later.
Boukman flew, cursing to himself as he went.
They came out of the jungle just after the rain got cranked up again, and the panicked yell of one of the bearers alerted Indy and the others to the danger:
Zombis! A dozen, fifteen—more—!
Indy pulled his revolver.
Head shots were difficult, but Indy had spent enough time practicing with his Webley that he knew what it would do. The .455 round wasn’t a tack driver—you weren’t going to be knocking walnuts off a fence post at a hundred yards—but at close range, a few yards, he could hit a head-sized target most of the time. And it was faster to reload than his old Smith Hand Ejector II had been.
Even in a pouring rain, you didn’t need to be a crack shot when the head-sized target was shambling in a straight line right at you and only a few yards away—
Indy fired, and was gratified to see the approaching zombi’s head splatter, followed by a boneless collapse onto the wet ground.
More of them headed at him. He fired, two, three, four, five, six—
Three more collapsed—
Some of the bearers were shooting, some using machetes. They were making a lot of noise, screaming loudly. Men fell. More zombis did, too—
Next to him, facing the other way, both Mac and Batiste were shooting their weapons to similar effect. Of the score or so attackers who had swarmed them, at least eight or ten were down—
Indy’s gun was empty. He snapped the top-break weapon open, which automatically ejected the empties. They seemed to fall in slow motion to splash into a puddle at his feet . . . Quickly he began to reload the cylinder. He managed to drop one of the replacement cartridges, but hurriedly fished another one from his jacket pocket and jammed it into the chamber—
He noticed in the middle of all the ado a rivulet run down the brim of his hat and onto his nose. How odd that he would focus on that . . .
Marie, next to him, mumbled some kind of invocation. Indy couldn’t tell if it was doing any good, though—
He snapped the revolver closed, swung the gun around, and fired at another attacker—
Just as he pulled the trigger, the creature lurched, slipping on the soaked earth, and Indy’s shot missed—
He stroked the trigger again—this time the shot found its mark, and the thing fell—
Here was another one—Indy fired twice more, got it—
Behind him, Batiste said something that sounded like a curse, and added, “Bloque!”
A jam. His rifle had jammed—!
To Indy’s right, a zombi fell on one of the bearers. More screams. A second bearer leaped at the fallen pair, swinging his machete—
Indy’s field of fire was, for the moment, clear. He spun as Batiste dropped the rifle and drew his machete—
Why not the handgun at his hip? Indy had time to wonder.
Indy couldn’t get a clear shot at the things charging from that direction. “Mac! Move over!”
Mac took a step to his left, continuing to fire his little pistol. That move gave Indy an incoming target. He lined up the sights—
Batiste yelled and charged the two attackers closest to him, but his body blocked Indy’s target. Indy jerked his weapon down to point at the ground—
“Batiste! Move—!”
But Batiste was in a full sprint. He swung the machete and caught one of the attackers just above its left ear. The zombie was a large fellow, but the cut took off the top of his head as if it were a cantaloupe, and the zombi fell, no blood from the cut, none—
Unfortunately, the thing’s fall was not straight down. It had enough momentum that it slammed into Batiste. It wasn’t a threat, but its weight was enough to knock the guide down. As Batiste struggled to get up, one of the remaining bearers panicked. The man yelled and pointed his rifle at the fallen pair.
“Don’t—!” Indy yelled. “The zombi is dead!”
Well, yeah. It was, but that’s not what Indy meant—
The bearer fired. Worked the bolt of his weapon, fired again—
The first bullet hit the zombi in the back.
The second bullet hit Batiste as he struggled to his knees. The round took him dead-center in the chest. Batiste fell—
A zombi leaped on the bearer and bore him down, teeth sunk into the man’s throat—
Mac ran closer, pointed his pistol down, fired off the remainder of his magazine into the zombi’s head. It released the bearer, but too late for him, his throat gushed red—
“I’m empty!” Mac yelled. “Cover the left—!”
Indy turned and saw three more zombis coming in, a tall, thin, pale-skinned male with red hair; a shorter, heavyset darker one, a female; and one in such bad condition that he couldn’t tell what it had been in life, man or woman—
The tall one was closer. Indy got a quick sight picture, stroked the trigger—easy, easy, don’t jerk it!—and the redhead fell.
He lined up on the woman . . . fired—got her!
He swung his revolver to cover the last one, still twenty feet away—squeezed off the shot—
Click!
It really was the loudest sound in the world. Either a dud or it was empty—how many had he shot?
Never mind! Indy dropped the gun, grabbed the slip-knotted cord hold
ing his whip to his belt, and pulled it free. He cleared the coiled leather to his right and whirled the plaited whip overhead at the zombi as it moved into range—
The lash caught it across the face, sliced it open as if the tip had been a knife. Got its attention—it turned its head to look at Indy as he pulled the whip back for another strike—
This time he didn’t try for a cut, but twisted his wrist and came at the thing horizontally—
The end of the whip wrapped around the thing’s neck—
Indy jerked, hard, and it stumbled forward and sprawled into the puddles facedown—
Indy ran to where it was trying to get up. Pulled his machete, aimed for the middle of its head, and swung as though he was trying to split a log with an ax—
It made a sound like a hollow gourd being hit with a baseball bat—
Mac fired his pistol again, one-two-three-four-five! and Indy turned to see the last of the attackers collapse.
They had stood them off, but at a great cost. All the bearers were down, gone or dying, Batiste among them.
Only Marie, Mac, and Indy were still standing.
He unwrapped the end of his whip from around the motionless thing’s neck. Coiled the leather absently as he looked around.
This was bad. Could be worse, but still bad.
In the stone house on the highest part of the island, Boukman awoke, still cursing. Had he been able to stay on his mount, he could have directed the attack, could have taken them!
But without his guidance, the slaves had simply charged en masse, no attempt at stealth. Of course. They had no fear.
A mistake.
Now he could feel that most of his force was down. The True Risen who had fallen would not be able to stand again; the potion-slaves might be useful, some of them who weren’t too badly damaged, but he would have to animate them. He could not manage that now, given his current state. He would have to do something to give himself power—risky, but it must be done. Even so, he would have to turn all his energy in this direction, focus it, and everything else in his realm would suffer. There was no help for it. It must be done. Must be.
“Did you hear?” Yamada asked.
“Yes,” Gruber answered. “Gunfire.”
“It must be the Englishman and American’s party.”
“Shooting at our spies?”
Yamada shook his head. “I think not. Too many shots. The things in the forest. The gaki.”
Gruber nodded. Yes, that was possible. But—what did it mean? What did those things want?
“We should go and see. The situation might have changed materially.”
Yamada nodded.
TWENTY-SIX
INDY LOOKED AROUND, and they quickly took stock—wasn’t much to that chore:
The three of them were the only ones left alive.
Were there more of the zombis, real or chemical, around? Had they gotten them all?
Marie could not say. She had been trying to control them, but Boukman had protected them. She did not have enough magic to break through his wards.
Mac moved about and collected odds and ends, including a coil of rope, and more food and water. He picked up one of the rifles, hefted it, then put it back down.
Indy got that—if pistol bullets to the head would do the trick, then a rifle was just one more item to carry. Rifles were superior weapons, no question, but better to leave it and haul something more useful—whatever that might be in this particular situation . . .
The rain and wind started and stopped, pouring, then not, then blowing and raining again, and the breeze was definitely getting stronger. They needed to find somewhere else to shelter—this place was marked. If there were still zombis about, they would probably show up here. And there were the Japanese and the Germans. If they had heard the shooting over the wind and rain, they might be thinking about dropping by, too.
They were on the southeastern end of the island, and they needed to head north and west to get back to the village. If they followed the shore and kept it on their left, that would handle the western part, and that would mean north would be to their right. But if they didn’t keep within sight of the ocean, which was already the case and going to stay that way as they started north, the heavy cloud cover wouldn’t let them use the sun or stars for reckoning.
Indy dug into his backpack, fishing for something he knew was there somewhere . . .
Ah.
He came up with a small compass. Showed it to Mac, who nodded.
“We want to head that way,” Indy said, pointing. “And find us a big tree or something to block the wind!”
Marie had moved to Batiste’s fallen body. She knelt and spoke a few words over it, made the sign of the cross. A final blessing, Indy figured. A shame, he had been a good man. Best they got moving so they didn’t join him . . .
Yamada, sword drawn, followed the two scouts, Suzuki next to him, his own blade bared.
They came into the sheltered area, which partially blocked the wind and rain because there was a slight rocky rise on the west side.
The place was littered with bodies. More than a score of them.
It did not take long to determine that none of them was the Englishman, the American, or the woman.
Suzuki said, “They know the trick to stopping them.” He pointed with his katana’s tip.
Yes, the downed gaki had been shot or cut on the head.
Gruber said, “Helmets.”
It took Yamada a moment to understand it. Ah, yes. If their soldiers took this drug and were able to protect their heads from attack, they would be virtually immune. Yamada had always wondered why Achilles had not worn stout boots, with the heels sheathed in iron. It would not have taken a particularly bright man to come up with that thought. Perhaps if you were spear- and sword-proof, you didn’t have to be particularly bright . . .
“The three we want aren’t here,” Gruber observed. “They cannot have gotten far.”
“But which way did they go?” Yamada said. “We cannot find a trail in this.” He waved his sword at the driving rain.
“Northwest,” Gruber said. “If they want to reach the place where their boat came ashore, they must eventually go that way.”
“Eventually is not now,” Yamada said.
“If we cannot catch them from behind, then we might be able to get there before them,” Gruber said.
Yes. That was true—but: “We are not the only ones after them.”
“There is nothing to be done about that. Besides, it looks as if they have dealt with that problem.” He waved at the corpses.
Gruber had a point.
A tree behind them creaked in the wind. The tree gave up the fight and fell, ripping the ground up as the root-ball tore loose.
“It is still dangerous!” Yamada yelled. “We should find shelter.”
“Agreed!”
They moved out of the battlefield, leaving the dead behind them.
Twenty minutes away, the three of them found a big tree that offered some respite against the wind and rain. The tree seemed to be some kind of tropical hardwood, gnarled and sturdy looking, a baobab tree, maybe, but Indy couldn’t be sure. Did they even grow here?
Well, whatever the species, it had been here for a couple of hundred years and was still standing. Maybe it would survive this.
They tucked themselves in close to it, and it stopped enough of the weather so they weren’t under constant bombardment by the wind and rain.
This couldn’t go on forever. They’d wait it out if they had to, or at least until it slackened some.
Of a moment, the rain seemed to ease up. That was good—
There was a sudden silence, only a heartbeat or two long, and then an ominous roaring noise.
Mac said, “What is that? Sounds like a bloody train!”
Indy shook his head. No trains in the jungle. “A tornado!”
They didn’t get many of those in England, Indy knew, but he had seen a few connected to thunderstorms in th
e United States, and he knew that hurricanes and typhoons often spawned the whirlwinds as they made landfall. Smaller but fiercer versions of the big storm that birthed them. A hurricane might flatten some of the trees and blow houses down, but a tornado was like a sickle through dry wheat—it mostly cleared a path—
The rain returned with a vengeance, and the terrible sound of what had to be a tornado was getting louder fast.
There was no place to go.
“The rope!” Indy yelled. “We have to tie ourselves down!”
That was a danger, being plucked up from the ground and carried away. Indy had heard stories of people being snatched from the ruins of their houses and tossed half a mile by the spinning winds. More of a danger was being hit by debris inside the tornado, where even a straw could, with enough velocity, be turned into a deadly spear—
Lightning flashed, a sudden blast of brightness against the gloom, and thunder crashed half a second behind it. Close—
The wind began to blow harder, leaves and branches spinning past.
The tree’s trunk was too big for their rope to go around and leave them enough to work with, but there were a couple of thick roots that arced free of the soil, there—
Quickly, Indy looped the rope through the larger of the roots, as big around as his leg. He ran one end through his belt and passed it to Marie. “Tie it around yourself!”
Mac was already working with the other end.
The roar of the tornado blotted out anything else they might have said, but Indy waved them down. Lying prone, they would present less for the wind to catch and lift.
The world turned black and the noise grew even louder.
Facedown in the mud, Indy wondered if this was the last thing he would feel in this world. He gripped his hat to his head with both hands. If he survived and he let the wind take the fedora, he’d probably never find it again . . .
It was like being next to a plane’s propellor, only worse.
Small objects smacked into Indy’s back, pocking like popcorn. Something slightly larger bounced off his hip, ow! that hurt!
He felt himself starting to slide along the ground, moving in little hops as he bounced like a ball, the wind catching him, losing him, catching him again.