“Wait! You got more to say, so say it!” the old ranger shook him as he shouted.
Phillip Holmes watched from where he had stayed separate from the others, some yards away with one eye on the fire pit.
“My friend, I must put emotion aside for a time—so you must do the same!” Van Resen said, anger flashing in his eyes. “This is survival. Brawn will be required, but brains are needed to apply it, and apprehension precedes action.”
“Doctor!” Mr. Quarrie bellowed from where he knelt with his wife by Lilly. The drums continued to pound. “Are you certain we cannot remove her bonds?”
“No, Mr. Quarrie! It will not help,” Van Resen shouted, before catching Seward’s eye, pulling him close and saying in his ear: “Captain Seward during your trip here and while incarcerated, have you seen or spoken to anyone—strange—a man with skin as pale as the moon. He would be remarkable to your eyes.”
“Yeah, a long-haired savage came last night—had white skin covered in mud. Weird eyes and I couldn’t understand his jabber.” The ranger squeezed Van Resen’s arm. “Wait! He mentioned Lilly.”
“Mud?” Van Resen’s brow wrinkled.
Seward blanched as a masked-man passed the cage with a basket full of whittled bones, and he was suddenly overcome with his friend’s distress.
“What’s the white man got to do with Lilly?” he growled. “Damn it, Doc, I’ll have his hide if he hurt her!”
The scientist pressed a finger against his lips and took a deep breath. His face was pale and sweat streaked the grime upon his cheeks, but his eyes were lively.
“The ‘white’ man is what happened to Lilly, and I fear the same will happen to the rest of us.” He gestured toward the savages by the fire and butcher block. “What they are planning is nothing in comparison.”
“But the white man spoke as Ginny’s friend,” the ranger insisted, voice lowering to fit a lull in the drumming. “I could tell.”
“He is no friend, but he has offered aid. I have yet to understand his motive, perhaps the processes through which he came to be here have left him...with a child mind, as my colleague classified it in his tale.” Van Resen drew the ranger along the bars near where the imprisoned slaves still huddled. The savages danced as the drums throbbed louder, and the scientist adjusted his voice higher. “I have made discoveries, Captain Seward. We are in danger!”
“So you said...” Seward followed Van Resen’s fearful glance at the other castaways. Jacob and Miss James hovered over Lilly’s unmoving form to rub her wrists.
The scientist brought his face close to Seward’s and said, “You are a former ranger, but a lawman you remain. To you I entrust this knowledge should I not survive. You must escape this place with our friends, and you can protect them with what I know.” He cautiously opened his coat, shielding the action with his body as he withdrew an old leather-bound book. “I found this in a grave near the yurt—the tree house. It is a guide for the revivification of the dead—or undead, rather.”
“Revivi—damn it, what of Lilly, you say she’s...” Seward blurted, wringing his hands together like he was ready to lash out.
“Lilly is like the man you saw. She is dead but not dead...and she will soon be a greater danger to us than he!” said Van Resen resignedly, slipping the book away. “You will not believe me, but had you seen what I have seen.” He absently wiped his hand against a sleeve. “Or witnessed what I saw in the moringa wood...things that cannot be true.”
“Dead...” Seward groaned and they both looked over at the unconscious girl. Miss James knelt there weeping with a palm pressed to Lilly’s smooth forehead. “...and a danger. What could be worse than these cannibals?”
“Our natures, all nature is dangerous a teacher of mine said to me. My mentor was a great-thinker discredited by his own curious and open mind. Like many he suggested that random nature, Charles Darwin’s Evolution, was the engine of our lives...” the scientist went on. “Nature released by death simply leads to new life and a new form. It is the revenge of our primal natures...and explains why religion is such a comforting balm. Nature shapes us, and against this we must always struggle to remain civilized—however, some are overwhelmed and consumed by the primal powers once they are unleashed.”
The ranger shouted: “Your teacher? Sounds like hokum sold at a medicine show. I believe in Heaven and Hell.” He pointed at Lilly. “That girl looks as fit as a fiddle and the white man I saw was no Devil nor force of nature—and he was here to help.”
“I cannot explain his current behavior,” Van Resen said sadly. “Except that anything being reborn must pass through the innocent nothingness of oblivion that might at least offer a new start for the returning life. Tabula rasa. Perhaps he came back a blank slate.”
“So. Look, you got the bit between your teeth, you’re galloping, and I just want off,” Seward started, and then glared directly into the scientist’s eyes. “Yes or no, is there something you can do for Lilly or for the rest of us?”
The scientist shook his head and set a hand on the big ranger’s arm.
“I mentioned the wooden stake. Without it, we are defenseless here,” Van Resen said glumly, “when she rises.”
“Rises?” the ranger hissed. “You said she was dead.”
“And not dead...” the scientist said dismally. “I read an account of this phenomenon. She will soon rise to feed upon us.”
“What are you saying?” Seward gripped Van Resen by the shoulders and pulled him close.
“Nosferatu,” the scientist said quietly. He glanced at the others, but his eyes rested solely upon Miss James. “The only way I can help her now is to spare her the ordeal that is to come...”
“Doc...” The ranger scowled, releasing Van Resen who
