Zombie Eyes

'They're hospitalized now in something like a sleep or coma,' said Leonard as he twirled what remained in the bottom of his glass, staring at it.

'Like a pair of zombies,' said Wiz. 'We theorize--and it's only a theory--that when the seal to the crypt in which the ship was encased was broken, something leaked out.'

'Leaked?'

'Spores, a germ perhaps,' said Leonard. 'We can't be sure yet, but we are working on this assumption at least, aren't we, Wiz?'

'It's not uncommon for a sealed crypt to leak deadly gases, germs or spores, no,' said Wiz, 'and in the end it was ruled a deadly spore that got the Tut people, as we've explained to Nathan here. Of course, we can't rule this possibility out, and I have lab technicians searching for this.'

'I presume, then, that all safety precautions have been taken?' asked Stroud.

'Presume away.'

'Are you taking me to the site now?'

'I presumed that it would be your first choice. We can show you slides later.'

Stroud and Wiz continued their discussion as if the other two men were not present.

'Photos?'

'Photos, yes, and film.'

'All the mapping has started?'

'Only at a snail's pace. We haven't many volunteers. The press has played up the 'zombie curse' aspect of the find, and the families of the two men are suing the construction company as though that might help.'

'So you're working with a skeleton crew?'

'I tell you, Stroud, even the lab people are fearful of this thing. If it is a bug, any one of us could contract it.'

'You seem skeptical that it is a bug.'

'I was born skeptical. Force of habit, occupational hazard. How on earth did an Etruscan ship get to America in the first place? Why did it sail here? We know nothing. Only that the ship predates Greek and Roman culture! Was it set adrift with the body of a king inside it? No, for it was deliberately brought here and encased in a crypt of stone below the earth in what would have been, by all accounts, an unknown and unpopulated land. Why? How? Who did the ship belong to? Why were his remains encased here instead of Etruria? Why? This is all we know so far, and so, we know nothing.'

Stroud mentally ran the gamut of what he knew of Etruria. The origins of the people known as Etruscans remained obscure. No Etruscan records or literature had ever been found, but no lack of speculation existed about the mysterious race that did battle with Greece and Rome, teaching the peoples of these great cultures the art of war and statesmanship. The speculation on the Etruscans began with ancient records and documents of the Romans and the Greeks that told of a place called Etruria, an ancient place of great power on the Italian peninsula.

'At the time of the Etruscans' greatest power, about the seventh to fifth centuries b.c., Etruria embraced all of Italy from the Alps to the Tiber River,' said Wisnewski, as if reading Stroud's thoughts. 'Etruria as a name derives from the Latin version of the Greek name Tyrrhenia or Tyrsenia, and the ancient Romans called the stocky, olive-skinned people Tusci.'

'Present-day Tuscany,' added Leonard.

'Of course archeology has shed some light on the Etruscans from discoveries along the coastal land of Tuscany.'

'The first settlements, Vetulonia and Tarquinii, have been dated as ninth century b.c.'

'They were eventually overcome by war with Rome.'

'Anything new on their religion?' asked Stroud.

'Some of the names of their gods survive, but the exact functions of each remains unknown. Many were adaptations from ancient Mesopotamian countries,' replied Leonard.

Wiz cleared his throat and added, 'Certain late-Roman writers believed--or tried desperately to believe--that certain of their deities were counterparts to their own, such as Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, by calling attention to Tinis, Uni and Menrva respectively.'

'Tinis being Jupiter,' said Stroud, nodding. 'Uni being Juno, Menrva Minerva.'

'Guesswork at best,' said Wiz. 'Sethlands was Vulcan, Fulflans was Bacchus and Turms was Mercury,'

'Catha was the sun-god, Tiv the god of the moon,' added Leonard, on the edge of his seat now, 'and Thesan the god of dawn.'

'Of course Apollo to them was Aplu, and Venus was Turan,' finished Wiz.

'Oh, please, get on with it!' said Commissioner Nathan.

'In any event,' continued Wiz, ignoring Nathan, 'above these deities resided a group of nameless powers, personifications of Fate, and quite likely the very first chthonian.'

'What the hell's a chthonian?' asked Nathan, getting irritated.

Outside the limo the noise of New York's traffic must have been deafening as it squeezed through the seals all around the car, trying to get in. Stroud saw that they were crossing into Manhattan.

Stroud said, 'That would be the original chthonian?'

'Yes! Don't you see, the first evil deities of the netherworld and the underworld,' said Leonard. 'Original evil.'

'Primeval evil,' quipped Stroud.

'We know that the Etruscans practiced divination; we know they practiced sacrifices to underworld deities; we know they foretold the future from bones cast into a pit; we know they slaughtered animals and sometimes humans to offer up their entrails to such things as wights and lichs.'

'Wights? Lichs?' asked Nathan.

'Creatures of the underworld, Commissioner,' said Wiz. 'At any rate, Stroud, this ship ... this find?'

'Yes?'

'We've only seen the beam of what appears the bow, but the thing is ... well, enormous; two, perhaps three city blocks long, encased in a stone pyramid. The stone has been torn away at the beam, so it's below the earth yet, and it is definitely Etruscan in origin, which means it was sailed across the Atlantic, then was intentionally buried and encased by an army of men. Fantastic ... beyond reckoning.'

'And something of a curse,' added Leonard. 'For one thing, there is no possibility whatever we can raise the thing.'

'Not without taking out several city blocks of skycrapers, no!' shouted Nathan. 'Out of the question. You have a month before the injunction says you're finished there, and then construction resumes, gentlemen. As for this curse, these two men hospitalized ... well, the reason my office is involved, Stroud, is that ... the number has risen to four.'

'Four?' Both Leonard and Wiz stared at the commissioner.

'The two police officers who took them in later came down with something unusual, and are ... wasting away ... their bodies rejecting all food, even intravenous, I'm told.'

'Sounds like some sort of a plague organism,' said Stroud.

'That's why we've flown in a an investigator from the CDC in Atlanta. You'll meet her at the hospital,' said James Nathan. 'Now, as for you, Stroud, you're bound to draw a lot of attention, and it goes against my better judgment to draw any more attention to this thing than necessary, but you came highly recommended and Leonard and Wisnewksi here want you on the case. But no one's asked you how you feel about endangering yourself in this manner. Are you certain you are up to it?'

Stroud thought for only a moment and then said, 'It would take your entire department to keep me out of it, Commissioner.'

'Good luck, then. Here we are.'

The limousine pulled to a stop outside a barricade and beyond this was the huge construction site. Stroud, getting from the car, felt a shiver move with the tendrils of a tarantula up his spine. He sensed evil in the air that was being only weakly contained by the light drizzle that had turned the bottom of the construction site into a mud hole.