A Small Zombie Problem Read online

  He thought of the belonging.

  August pulled his arm back to throw.

  But on glancing again at Claudette, he froze. The girl’s face had collapsed into an expression of grief and betrayal. It looked for all the world as if her cold, un-beating heart was breaking.

  “Over here, August!” called Beauregard encouragingly.

  August thought of Claudette’s adoring gaze during her first embrace, the same look she had bestowed upon her brother in that long-ago photograph. He thought about her eagerness to model for someone’s grotesque tattoo. He thought about her patient, agreeable assistance in hunting down the Zombie Stone.

  The boy lowered his arm and extended his hand toward the zombie, and the eyeball was restored to its rightful owner, whose face transformed, like a Christmas tree lit up for the first time.

  Beauregard approached like a slinking coyote, with a small, awful smile. August feared the worst was yet to come.

  “You knew it all along,” Beauregard said in a low, dangerous voice, “didn’t you, August? Laplander, my rear end! You enjoy the company of the undead, August? You like the smell of rot and decay?”

  His nose was inches from that of the boy who had defied him.

  “You a zombie lover, August?”

  Beauregard placed the tips of his fingers against August’s shoulder and shoved, hard, so that August stumbled backward.

  There was a spine-chilling sound, half howl, half roar.

  Like a cannonball, the small zombie shot forward and grabbed Beauregard by the front of his crisply ironed vest. He hadn’t even a chance to scream before he was lifted clear off the ground and hurled, like a limp strand of spaghetti, through the air to crash into the picnic table, which collapsed beneath him.

  Beauregard sat momentarily stunned in the wreckage of crawfish, gumbo, and half-eaten corncobs. But the amazed expression was quickly replaced by something ominous, dark, and hateful.

  “Did you see that?” he cried with outrage, appealing to the surrounding throng. “It’s violent! Zombies are dangerous, unhygienic creatures that have no place in decent society.” He awkwardly scrambled to his feet, unaware that a crawfish claw protruded from the breast pocket of his expensive jacket.

  “It didn’t occur to me for a second,” he seethed at August, “that you were ever—how did you put it?—perfectly normal.”

  Beauregard drew himself to full height, reclaiming his dignity and asserting his superiority.

  “I knew from the moment I laid eyes on your owlish head and ridiculous butterflies that you were anything but normal. Like your demented aunt. Like all the DuPonts, crazier than a forkful of soup: one generation of freaks after the next working toward a well-deserved ruination.”

  He chuckled bitterly.

  “I still can’t believe you bought it. You actually thought that I wanted to be friends, when all I really wanted from you…was this.” He gestured at the surrounding spectators. “A little summer fun with the ghost of Locust Hole.

  “You actually imagined that the likes of you might belong at Château Malveau. A zombie-loving DuPont belong with us?”

  He dropped his voice to a level that only August could hear and hissed like a serpent, “You will never belong. Never!”

  August felt light-headed, and his legs scarcely held him up.

  The open smiles. The shoulder shaking. The arm thumping. The jokes and invitations and promises of camaraderie. It had all been a lie. From the very beginning it had all been one long setup.

  August had been nothing more than Beauregard’s plaything, an ill-fated mouse to an indifferent house cat, ultimately lured to his own doom.

  Beauregard was not his friend.

  There were no friends.

  There was no belonging.

  The surrounding faces confirmed everything, filled as they were with repulsion and derision. They were faces that clearly regarded August as an outsider, an unsavory oddity.

  If you are saddened by the lack of compassion in such a large gathering of people, please take heart. There were, in fact, many expressions of pity and concern in the crowd, but August simply did not see them.

  Sometimes emotions run so high, they affect our vision. August viewed the scene through the filter of his own despair, and it appeared correspondingly bleak. One reaction in particular burned itself into the boy’s memory and came to represent everything August saw around him in that moment. It was the reaction of Belladonna Malveau.

  Her brow furrowed deeply, her jaw jutted forward. Disgust and something close to loathing twisted her pearly mouth into an ugly sneer. He couldn’t hear her, but he saw the word her lips formed.

  “Disgusting!”

  And thus, the boy arrived at another new emotion. As anger had been fiery and forceful, so this one was thick and cold and burdensome.

  It was shame.

  He was, apparently, disgusting.

  August could not bear the sensation for another moment.

  With one hand, he shielded his face and burning unshed tears. With the other, he grabbed Claudette’s arm and, pursued by a gaggle of butterflies, dragged her into the crowd.

  A path appeared before them, as partygoers hurriedly scrambled out of their way. The pair might have even made a full escape in merely seconds, had they not been confronted by an obstacle blocking the route.

  August stopped short before colliding with it and looked up to see a slender figure with honey-blond hair draped from head to toe in a glittering black veil.

  * * *

  * * *

  August obediently took a seat in one of the high-backed chairs, while Claudette wandered aimlessly around the Chamber of Jewels, examining—and occasionally licking—the specimen jars.

  Orchid observed the girl with a strange expression—partly of distaste, but also fascination. She laid down her palmetto fan and leaned forward in the other chair.

  “So, child,” she said in that creamy voice, transfixed by Claudette, “you located the Zombie Stone.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  August was shaken from his misery by surprise.

  “You know,” he said with a puzzled frown, “that Orfeo’s Cadaverite was known as the Zombie Stone?”

  “Everyone knows that.” Orchid delivered a now familiar response.

  “Everyone it seems, but me.”

  “It’s how Orfeo created his infamous zombie act. And I must therefore conclude, from the presence of this…undead creature, that you have found the means of her making: the Zombie Stone. Yes?”

  She turned eagerly to August, the rose lips curving like a crescent moon.

  “Have you brought it with you, dear boy?”

  “Um…well, you see, you already have it in your possession, ma’am.”

  Orchid gave a puzzled chuckle.

  “Now, what on earth could you mean?”

  “The model I gave you,” explained August. “The balloon formed by a marble? It is made of Alligator Eye. Cadaverite. It is the Zombie Stone.”

  There was a pause, and a frown creased the lovely forehead.

  Then suddenly she was out of her chair and gripping August’s upper arms with urgency and surprising strength.

  “That skeleton model?” He could feel her breath and smell the heady fragrance of gardenias. “That contained the Zombie Stone?”

  August nodded, a little frightened by the wildness in the woman’s eyes.

  “Where is it?” August said in a very small voice, unsure if he wanted the answer.

  Orchid straightened, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Do you have any idea of that stone’s worth? Do you comprehend what I have lost?”

  “Lost?” repeated August, wincing in anticipation.

  “Belladonna sold some of her ridiculous pasta jewelry to an equally rid
iculous art dealer from Croissant City. He saw your…sculpture…here, and took an inexplicable liking to it.”

  Orchid looked unsteady and grabbed at the mantel for support.

  “This is a catastrophe!” she said, looking around the room as if it might yield some unexpected solution. “I sold the thing for a pittance.”

  She looked directly at August with a face of unbridled horror.

  “I sold the Zombie Stone!”

  It was a strange and gloomy sort of birthday celebration.

  August, Hydrangea, and Claudette were gathered around Locust Hole’s closet-door dining table, each sporting a paper party hat. A squirming column of smoke rose from a recently extinguished candle, which protruded from a cake of creamy swirls.

  Hydrangea served each diner a slice. They ate in silence until the lady laid down her fork and opened her mouth.

  “I know!” snapped August before she could speak. “Beauregard betrayed me, as Orchid betrayed you, as every Malveau has betrayed every DuPont since Maxim stole Pierre’s recipe. The world is cruel and full of butterflies and betrayals, and you told me so all along.”

  Hydrangea raised her eyes and they were shining. She looked very sad, and August instantly regretted his outburst.

  “I was merely going to wish you,” said Hydrangea quietly, “a happy birthday, sugar.”

  August apologized, and Hydrangea assured him there was no need, that indeed she understood his feelings all too well. And August knew that she did.

  “I hope you like the cream cheese cake, sugar. I sold another crate of hot sauce, so we might celebrate in style. There are only a few boxes remaining, and then…” Her voice trailed off, and she pushed the food around her plate despondently.

  Claudette left her seat, went to Hydrangea, and gently patted her unkempt hair. Hydrangea smiled up at her gratefully.

  “Don’t worry, Aunt,” said August. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Will we?”

  But August was saved from lying by the sound of the doorbell.

  * * *

  * * *

  Now that he was a more-frequent visitor to the outside world, August had persuaded Hydrangea to unbarricade the front door. The boy had installed an unemployed screen door from the kitchen to prevent the invasion of winged insects.

  And so, August was able to greet the visitor at full height—that visitor being, he discovered, Belladonna Malveau.

  She was, as usual, quite terrifying, glaring at him through the screen with quiet ferocity. Fearing another ruthless tongue-lashing, August quickly closed the door. But just before it met the frame, August heard the words “I’m sorry!” And they were said with sincerity.

  August was so surprised that he instinctively opened the door a little and cautiously observed the visitor through the gap.

  “About my brother, I mean,” explained Belladonna. “Beauregard has grown into a vicious snob. I would have warned you. I should have warned you.” She looked contrite. “But he’s so charming, no one ever believes me. At least, not at first.” She sighed sadly. “And to be honest, I didn’t think he would sink so low. His behavior yesterday was disgusting!” She half spat the word.

  Disgusting.

  August’s head spun. Nothing was as he had thought. He realized that he knew even less than he imagined.

  It was at Beauregard that Belladonna’s scorn had been directed, both at the crawfish boil and before that. The eye rolls, the sneers, and the frosty demeanor had never been meant for August. It was her own twin that Belladonna found disgusting.

  August opened the door fully.

  “When there are twins,” he said thoughtfully, “one of them is always evil.” And at Belladonna’s puzzled look: “Just something someone told me once.”

  “Is that your zombie?” Belladonna was peering into the gloom over August’s shoulder. Claudette was lurking protectively in the foyer behind him, growling like a cornered alley cat. Belladonna gave the zombie an unexpected, if reserved, little wave. The snarling ceased.

  “You’ve been experimenting with color,” observed August as Belladonna’s bracelet passed close to his face. The jewelry was predictably black, except for a single piece of orecchiette, which was lacquered in a brilliant, glossy scarlet.

  Belladonna hesitated. “You’re aware that ours is a house of eternal mourning.” She gazed off to one side, contemplating something or other. “One can grow weary of grieving for things lost. Of broken hearts. Of shuttered windows and covered mirrors.” She turned and looked August in the eye. “Of black.”

  She fingered the solitary piece of scarlet pasta.

  “I’m reminded,” said August, looking from the bracelet to its maker, “that you deserve congratulations…on your recent sale.”

  Belladonna brightened a little.

  “The art dealer,” she explained, “was taking a tour of the mansion, and apparently my jewelry caught his eye. He described it as irresistibly depressing.”

  “How wonderful!” August’s brow creased in thought. “Do you happen to recall the name of the dealer’s gallery in Croissant City?”

  “How funny. Mama asked me that very same question. But I couldn’t remember.” Belladonna pursed her lips, clearly racking her brain. “Something to do with macaroni perhaps. Or macramé?” She shook her head. “Sorry; I’m not sure.”

  They fell into an awkward silence. August could not think of anything more to say. Belladonna suddenly produced a letter—which, apparently, she’d had in her possession the entire time—and handed it to August.

  “The Malveaus are a queer bunch,” she said, regarding the boy sadly. “You’re likely better off without us. Good luck to you, August.”

  And with that, she turned and gingerly made her way down the splintered porch steps. And August opened the envelope to see a familiar gold family crest depicting a chili pepper impaled on a fancy-handled dagger.

  Dear August,

  The Zombie Stone remains in the possession of someone other than myself. Despite I’m sure the best of intentions, you have failed to uphold your end of our agreement.

  I feel certain, then, that you cannot expect me to uphold mine. In short, you will not be attending school in New Madrid with Beauregard and Belladonna next month.

  You may take comfort in learning that after yesterday’s grotesque and vulgar incident, I intend, in any case, to save the twins from further embarrassment by enrolling them at an academy far from here, in Croissant City.

  Home tutelage at the hands of your aunt Hydrangea, and a generally low profile, perhaps represents the best option for you after all.

  Sincerely,

  Orchid Malveau

  August and Claudette perched at the edge of the gazebo, their feet resting on the mossy submerged steps. A handful of the braver minnows had ventured beyond the sunken canoe and were considering the zombie’s toes as a source of dinner.

  August’s trampled helmet had been left at Château Malveau, so he was bareheaded, but neither child seemed to even notice the resulting assembly of butterflies. On the canal, where Madame Marvell’s crooked houseboat had rocked just hours before, there now buzzed only a pair of courting dragonflies.

  August fished a limp, dripping sheet of paper from the canal and passed it to Claudette. She cocked her head in an effort to comprehend the notice. August helpfully reached over and turned the paper right way up. The zombie threw him a quizzical look and burbled wetly. August thought he detected a question in the throaty, foamy sound.

  “It’s from the Department of Child Services,” he explained. “It’s addressed to Madame Delfine Marvell. I guess that’s our Madame Marvell’s grandmother. It says they’re dropping by tomorrow to discuss the minor they believe to be living on board.”

  Claudette’s eyes bulged, and August nodded.

  “I d
on’t know how they found her all the way out here, but I guess she moved on. I reckon they’ll never catch up to her.”

  August shooed a butterfly from his nose and gazed down the canal, through a cloud of glittering no-see-ums. For a moment, far off where the canal opened into Black River, he perhaps saw something break the water’s surface—something very long and very pale. Was it the giant reptile of recent report? Or was the rumor nothing more than a titillating fancy, like the ghost of Locust Hole? Likely he—and perhaps everyone else—had seen nothing more than ripples sparkling in the late-summer sunlight.

  “I could have run away with her,” mused August. “Or sailed away, I suppose. To Croissant City, to find that gallery named Macaroni. Or Macramé.” He shook his head. “But how could I do that now, alone?”

  The boy settled his face on his knees, and the weight of his solitude bore down upon him. He’d been returned to the friendless state he’d suffered before the party, before the arrogant Malveaus, before the mysterious houseboat had materialized.

  Even Stella Starz, he realized with a wave of misery, had left him, spirited away in Madame Marvell’s mustard plastic television. No more ill-advised escapades. No more intimate lunches. No more high fives.

  The thought was nearly unbearable.

  “Alone,” he sighed raggedly, in deep despair. “Again.”

  He was jolted rudely from his self-pity by a shove from Claudette. August looked up wearily and was surprised to find the zombie frowning. She jabbed her thumb crossly into her own chest.

  “Oh,” said August, abashed, “of course! Yes. There’s you, Claudette. My apologies; I suppose the undead are people too, right?”

  Smiling sadly, August rose to leave. But Claudette grasped his forearm. He recalled the first time she’d grabbed him and how frightened he had been. Now, that long-ago reaction seemed so unjustified, so silly.