The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

Carrefour knew she could not go there.

I must not let her pass.

Accompanying the medicine-woman was another white female. This one moved more slowly, but with a strangely regular rhythm. Though Carrefour could not discern the features of her face, he noticed the strong line of her eyebrows, arching gracefully like the countenance of a white owl. There was something curiously regal in how she bore herself, as if she were the exalted lady of a great estate. No sooner had the thought formed in his mind than Carrefour knew she was the one, the wife of the plantation owner, and the object of the damning passions of that planter’s brother.

This woman was dressed only in ivory-hued silks, as if she had just risen from her bed. She smelled strongly of oils and powders, along with something else.

And then he knew.

She is one like me.

The second woman was, like himself, a zombie.

There was no stink of the grave about her. Unlike Carrefour, this one had never lain immobile with her heart stopped by the strange paralysis of the island magic, nor had she felt the first shovel full of earth tossed onto her chest, followed by another and another, until it seemed the weight of the whole island was atop her.

Neither had she known, some nights later, the sudden horrid jolt of awakening to an unholy and maddening afterlife, bringing with it the strength to claw oneself up from beneath the thick carpet of dark, wormy earth, through thick yellow roots and heavy veils of rough, tooth-like rocks and, finally, to walk once again in the moonlight.

This one’s fate had clearly been much different. Doubtless her passage had taken place in a big house, on a soft bed, with palm fans and silken curtains. But she was just as dead. And, sadly, just as alive.

Is it I alone who see this?

Carrefour stepped forward. The healer’s light beam illuminated his face, causing her to stop short. She gasped and covered her mouth in horror at the sight of him, stifling a scream; but her silent white companion remained expressionless and unmoved.

Since the night of his resurrection, Carrefour had been assigned many tasks by the houngan priest and even by the Great White Mother, but all these chores had involved only the use of his massive size and matching strength. None had required thought and reasoning. Tonight’s task was simple, to guard the crossroads and let only the faithful pass by. These two were not of the faith, and by the command with which he had been charged, he should drive them away. Yet there was a purpose driving them here, a purpose which was not his to deny.

The planter’s wife wore a small patch pinned to her gown, indicating she had been approved to attend the hounfour tonight, but the healer did not.

Carrefour hesitated only briefly before stepping aside.

The healer will see, at the hounfour, and tonight she will learn of our ways.

They moved past him, the healer giving one nervous glance back, her expression a strange mix of fear and gratitude, before pressing on toward the sound of the ritual drums.

Carrefour stood for a moment, alone in the crossroads, listening to the wind howl through the holes in the dangling ceramic jar.

Then, slowly, he turned and followed them.

Flickering torchlight reflected off the long, gleaming steel blade as the sabreur danced to the hammering of drums within the sacred circle. The air was hot and musky despite the wind, for the hounfour was hidden down in the low ground, its edges ringed by tall benu trees whose branches were heavy with fruit. The faithful watched the sabreur’s sacred dance, enraptured, from the periphery of the circle. The whiteness of their fine linen suits and cotton gowns contrasted starkly against their dark faces, black skin sparkling with perspiration.

The two white women emerged from the darkness and stood at the edge of the circle. The healer nervously beheld the scene, but her companion was expressionless and unmoved. Carrefour stopped a short distance behind them, concealing himself back in the shadows.

Many of the worshippers clutched offerings of live hens and wicker baskets of eggs which they brought as offerings to the serpent-spirit Dumballah Wedo. Others had already placed their gifts around the central post, beside the tall black top hat and the cigarettes that had been laid out for the exclusive use of Papa Ghede, brother to the Patron Spirit of the Farmers, should he care to make his appearance tonight. Nearby stood a tall clear glass bottle filled with first-distillation rum, into which a dozen large red-orange Cuban peppers had been inserted, crushed, and mixed. One sip from this vessel would sear a mortal man’s throat and force his eyes to close shut in choking agony.

It was Ghede’s favourite drink.

The sabreur slung his huge sword left and right, and then stopped and held it proudly aloft as the faithful cried out joyfully. The drummers increased the speed of their rhythmic pounding on the tamboulas, and a row of dancers strutted into the circle. They were half a dozen young women of the island, chosen for their beauty and the magnificence of their swelling bosoms, which they bared proudly as they danced. Smiling, they leapt in unison left and right, necklaces of bead and bone swinging to and fro between their naked breasts while, down below, their white skirts twirled to the rise and fall of the drummers’ beat.

From a group of faithful seated near the two strangers, a small dark-skinned boy suddenly leapt into the circle. His arms flailed as if he were a marionette shaken on its strings, and it was immediately evident to Carrefour that the little one’s mind was not his own. Less than ten years in age, this child was now the helpless puppet of a loa, come to join the festivities.

The boy lurched to a stop at the central post. Quickly donning Papa Ghede’s black silk hat, which would have slipped down and covered his head completely if not for his wide ears blocking its descent, the child poked several cigarettes between his lips and lit them all almost simultaneously with the flame from a dripping crimson wax candle. Puffing pungent white smoke, he hoisted the rum bottle and flicked the cork from its aperture before darting into the line of dancers.

The drummers quickened the pace of their rhythm yet again, excited to have such a prominent loa here in their midst, even if the human body he had chosen to inhabit was hardly much larger than a monkey. The worshippers applauded and swayed eagerly with the music, confident that if Papa Ghede had joined their ceremony, the spirits of Zaka and Dumballah must be nearby as well. This would bode well for their harvest.

Hopping about and then undulating as if engaged in intense copulation, the small boy passed down along the row of dancers. He briskly pinched each one on her buttocks as her skirt rose with the beat. After leaving his mark in this manner upon the whole company, he stopped at the far end of the circle and, taking the cigarettes from his mouth, threw his head back and opened his jaw wide.

How the oversized top hat remained atop his head through this was impossible to determine, but even more astonishing was what followed. The possessed child tilted the bottle of fiery pepper-infused rum and poured nearly a quarter of it straight into his mouth, gulping it down eagerly and without pause. Even from the far side of the circle, the stinging aroma of that fiery spiced rum burned at Carrefour’s nostrils.

Carrefour noticed the healer-woman react to this event, reflexively turning to the planter’s wife in alarm. Seeing that her silent companion was still unmoved, the healer moved forward as if to intercede between the boy and the bottle. Carrefour extended one arm and held her back, restraining her from entering the circle.

Her shawl was soft under the coarse husk of his hand, her body warm and yielding beneath it. Briefly, a dim vision of his own long-ago woman flickered somewhere in the fading grey pools of memory inside Carrefour’s mind.

He released the healer. She turned and looked up at him with an expression he was unable to interpret as either terror or relief.

The drums continued their relentless pounding. At the edge of the circle, the possessed boy laughed shrilly and began to dance in place, again joyfully following the beat. His high-kicking steps never faltered as he alternated each long drag on his smouldering cigarettes with a deep gulp from his incendiary bottle. When all the rum was