Zombie Eyes

Leonard continued, stopping at one point to place a finger on one word of the parchment that looked to Stroud like the tail feather of a bird. 'This creature has the power to blow storms into the minds of men, and to become a parasite in the brain.'

Stroud wondered for a moment if Dr. Leonard had gone mad. He didn't know how much of Leonard's spiel he could believe. 'Whoa, wait a minute, Dr. Leonard. Are you trying to say that the Etruscans understood the physiological mechanisms that this demon used against them, and is now using against us? That they had the capability to assess--'

'Apparently the author of this did,' said Leonard, poking his finger in the direction of the document under the magnifying glass. Stroud stared at it for some time and then a word on the page leaped out at him:

Mysterious Photograph

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The word seemed to have some meaning for Stroud, but he wasn't sure why. It was the last word on the document. He asked Leonard to translate it.

'That is the name of the author, a soothsayer or some such.'

'I see.'

'Not very often do we get such a document signed,' said Wiz.

'What is the name?'

'Well, it lines up like this,' said Leonard, showing him the written translation, which read:

ESROUD

Stroud stared dumbstruck at the name: Esruad. 'Are you sure? There's no mistake?'

'It would seem the name has significance,' said Leonard.

'You might say so. Weitzel spoke the name just before he died. He called me Esruad. You also, Dr. Wisnewski, when I first came to you in the psychiatric ward. Do you recall?'

Wisnewski shook his head vigorously. 'Not at all.'

'There seems to be something important in the name. Does it say what this man Esruad did during the plague time?'

'He speaks of despair, that no one would listen to him. He had been something of an alchemist, it appears,' said Leonard.

'What about the monster itself?' asked Wiz impatiently.

'A dreadful thing to behold, it says. Esruad calls it the Ubbrroxx; describes it as life-eating, life-draining, diabolical ... unleashed ... uninhibited ... disease-carrying.'

'Sounds like our creature,' said Wisnewski.

'Remarkably so,' agreed Stroud.

'And this fellow Esruad ... He sounds familiar to me, too,' began Leonard. 'I must go over some old notes of my own. If memory serves, he was a kind of prophet, soothsayer. Very little is known about him, but recent archeological breakthroughs in Tuscany have provided a few rays of light.'

Wiz added, 'No Etruscan literature other than funeral inscriptions survives, which makes this little piece of paper priceless.'

Pulling at his tie Leonard continued, 'Until recently it was near impossible to understand all but a few words, but the alphabet is a mix of Roman, Phoenician and an unknown tongue--very likely the Etruscans' ancestors. They traded with the Greeks and the Phoenicians, and most of what we know about them is told us by these other peoples.'

'Right at the moment, I think it more prudent to understand the creature,' said Wiz. 'We can play history games later. What does it say about destroying the thing?'

'Esruad was unsuccessful.'

'Obviously.'

'It took 500,000 lives in the year 793 b.c. There was no stopping it.'

'Just as I said, 500,000 lives,' replied Wiz.

'But not the lives of the zombies. They lived on after with the guilt of thousands of others on their hands. They--the diseased ones--herded the healthy ones into the pit. When the creature was sated Esruad convinced his people that it must be removed. Using mostly slave labor, this was accomplished. It had gone into a dormant phase, during which time Esruad removed it and placed it on a ship. It was buried in the ship, packed in its own earth ball, and literally sent off into what was then space. It was buried months later, far beyond the seas, still inside the belly of the ship, along with the bones of those sacrificed to it.'

'The land beyond the sea ... here and now.' Stroud began to pace the room wondering if this was some kind of eschatological rite of passage for the creature, the 'last thing' to come. Every religion had a last coming, a last end to history, a final conclusion to the grand pageant of mankind on earth. He began to wonder if the lives of 500,000 were not a small price to pay. Wisnewski and Leonard were quiet, perhaps with the same thoughts, Stroud guessed.

'I wonder if 500,000 lives will be enough for it this time,' Wisnewski said, as if reading Stroud's mind.

The three archeologists looked again at the strange Etruscan lettering as if an answer lay somewhere in the writings of an ancient. 'We sure as hell can't do what Esruad did,' said Leonard. 'What? Give up hundreds of thousands of lives to it, pray it goes dormant again? Attempt a removal? Send it off into ... into outer space or to the bottommost realms of the deep?'

'No, it must be housed in earth,' said Stroud.

'What?'

'We don't know what kind of evil would be unleashed on the planet if it were to come into contact with salt water or even the vacuum of space. If Dr. Cline's experiments told me anything, it is that we must keep it away from water. Water only makes it airborne.'

'What do you suggest, then?' pleaded Leonard.

'Esruad constructed a stone enclosure around the ship,' said Stroud, 'in what was an uninhabited land.'

'Environmentally sound thinking,' said Wiz.

'The best he could do in his day,' continued Stroud. 'We've got an obligation to do better, we with all our modern technology.'

'Meanwhile,' Wiz said acidly, 'it's back and it's waited a long time for a meal.'

Stroud nodded. 'And it looks like we're it, unless we can find a way to beat it.'

'Esruad couldn't find a way.'

'I still have some yet to decipher,' said Leonard. 'Just thought you two ought to know what I've learned.'

'Good work, Samuel,' said Wiz.

Stroud agreed. 'Yes, very good work.'

Leonard went back to work. A worried Wisnewski took Stroud aside and asked, 'How much of this do you think men like Nathan and Perkins and our Bill Leamy are going to buy? Before it is too late, I mean.'

'Wiz, my friend, it may already be too late. If what Sam says is true, this army of comatose people will soon awaken to rise up against the rest of us, and we'll be forced to either destroy them or be destroyed.'

'Imagine a sentient, diabolical being with the power to exact such tribute from the human race.'

'Sentient, yes. Diabolical, yes, to every degree. And the worst of it is that it will turn us against one another, Wiz. That it will feed on humans is only the tip of the iceberg; that it will set in motion evil working through mankind for eons to come, this makes this thing from below satanic.'

'We've got to find a way to fight back.'

'Couldn't agree with you more.'