A Small Zombie Problem Read online

  “Oh?” he mumbled with polite interest.

  Wordlessly, Orchid leaned forward and opened a drawer in the tea table. From it, she retrieved a pamphlet that was about the width and height of a magazine but merely a few pages thick. She handed it to August.

  He wiped his fingers on his napkin, then found himself inspecting a theater program. It was very old, the paper thin and brittle, the faint, brownish color of withered petals. Large text in a curly font read “Croissant City’s own Théâtre-Français presents…”

  Below this was a black-and-white photograph of a man with a twirled mustache emerging through a circular frame. He wore a bow tie with old-fashioned evening clothes and an exotic-looking tasseled hat. He held one hand aloft, fingers spread in a dramatic gesture. The other hand gripped a polished black staff, topped by a large, rough stone or fossil, whose natural shape vaguely resembled that of a human skull.

  But most intriguing of all was the man’s face.

  Although depicted without color, his eyes were clearly pale and piercing, unusually large and round and rendered even larger and rounder by large, round eyeglasses. His nose and mouth were, by comparison, quite small.

  He reminded August of nothing more than a baby owl.

  With a mustache.

  Beneath the portrait, the text continued, “…Orfeo DuPont, Master of Morbid Magic.”

  “You can see, no doubt,” said Orchid, “that he is your ancestor. You’re rather like him, you know.”

  “Am I?” August considered this. “He seems a little…”

  “Theatrical?”

  August nodded.

  “The DuPonts,” said Orchid with a humorless expression, “have a history of”—she paused, searching the ceiling for the right word—“colorful behavior. Our ancestry includes more than its fair share of oddballs and spendthrifts who have, over the years, squandered the family fortune, reducing Locust Hole to its present sorry state.”

  “Aunt Hydrangea,” said August cautiously, “says that…”

  “That some long-dead Malveau stole the DuPont hot sauce recipe?” suggested Orchid with a wry smile. She rolled her eyes.

  “It is a century of poor judgment, child,” said Orchid bluntly, “that has led to the demise of DuPont’s Peppy Pepper Sauce. Not some legendary theft from yesteryear. Generation after generation, the DuPonts have repeatedly pursued their foolish fancies—such as becoming a pageant princess—rather than attending to the family business.”

  Orchid twisted her mouth.

  “How is that swimmy-headed sister of mine, anyway? Still celebrating her bygone victory and sporting that ridiculous pink tiara?”

  August shifted uncomfortably in his seat, caught between loyalty to Hydrangea and a sudden desire to discuss her eccentricities with this woman who knew her so well. He said nothing, but in doing so, said everything.

  “I thought as much,” chuckled Orchid. “And even you, I understand”—she glanced at the butterfly settled peacefully on August’s forearm—“have a certain…uniqueness.”

  She leaned forward and tapped the theater program on August’s lap.

  “Orfeo is the perfect example of DuPont self-indulgence. He was far more concerned with magic and theater than hot sauce.”

  August flushed slightly, feeling chastised. Watching him, Orchid’s expression softened. She relaxed, letting the tension clear.

  “But I didn’t invite you here, child,” she spoke gently, “for a history lecture.” Her gaze intensified. “Here, August, is the interesting thing.”

  She took the playbill and, facing it toward the boy, pointed at the magician’s staff.

  “This stone? The skull-shaped fossil?” She paused for effect. “It’s Cadaverite!”

  August peered more closely.

  “And DuPont family legend would have us believe”—Orchid’s voice was now close to a whisper—“that the thing is secreted somewhere inside Locust Hole. Indeed, when Hydrangea and I were girls, long before our baby sister—your mama—was born, we’d spend many a summer’s day hunting for old Orfeo’s rock in the forgotten corners of the house.”

  August looked up.

  “All right,” he said, unsure what was expected of him.

  “We never found it.”

  August waited, but the woman merely stared.

  “And…you think it’s still there?” August suggested.

  “Why not? It’s exactly the sort of thing that might wind up in a family attic, buried beneath decades of discarded possessions—perhaps at the bottom of a trunk…or in the drawer of some old bureau.”

  An image of the rickety desk in the garret popped into August’s head.

  Orchid finally lowered her eyes and, wafting back into her chair, rested the playbill on the tabletop.

  “It might take just a little digging around,” she suggested, breezily waving her hand, “by, say, an inquisitive, observant young man, to unearth it.”

  “Ah!” said August, a lightbulb turning on. “You’d like me to look for it?”

  “Only if,” said Orchid, once again the very image of tragedy, “you have the inclination to bring some scrap of happiness to a grieving widow…your aunt.”

  What could August—or indeed any half-decent person—say to that?

  “I’ll help however I can, ma’am,” August said with a polite smile, then frowned, struck by a sudden thought. “But even if the stone is still there…wouldn’t it rightfully belong to Aunt Hydrangea? Didn’t she inherit everything?”

  Orchid’s smile remained utterly unchanged for a few moments, as if she had suddenly transformed into a wax replica of herself. Again, August fidgeted uncomfortably, sensing he had touched a sensitive nerve.

  “And what could Hydrangea possibly want,” laughed Orchid suddenly, “with such a thing? It’s nothing but a dusty old fossil, an ugly rock, of value to no one but a silly, sentimental collector like myself.

  “Still”—Orchid fixed the boy’s gaze—“we wouldn’t want to give my…fragile…sister anything more to fret about, now would we?”

  August hesitated, recalling Hydrangea’s cautionary words about the toxicity of certain orchids. And Orchid watched him, dark eyes twinkling like a raven’s.

  “You have doubts,” observed Orchid. “Perhaps”—her voice was low, humming with intensity—“I can offer you some additional…motivation. A return favor. I could, for example”—her rose-colored smile was intoxicating—“ensure that you are sent to school with Beauregard and Belladonna!”

  “School!” August practically shrieked, leaping up and dropping his crawfish sandwich.

  Orchid started back in surprise.

  “Well,” she said defensively, seeming to misinterpret this dramatic reaction, “if you’d rather fester away in a crumbling ruin with that timid mouse of an aunt…”

  “No!” August assured her passionately. He composed himself and sat down. “No, ma’am; I would not.”

  His heart was thundering, his eyes bulging with delight. Could this be true? Might he yet, like Stella Starz, star in his own life?

  Orchid patted his hand.

  “Very well,” she said, mildly amused. “You shall attend the middle school in New Madrid with the twins this coming fall. You are how old? Ten? Eleven? Well, they’ll be a grade ahead, but they can still keep an eye on you.”

  “I’m not sure”—August suddenly looked crestfallen—“if my aunt Hydrangea…”

  “You let me deal with her, August. There are laws about…your sort of situation. I’m sure she wouldn’t want the authorities involved.”

  August’s brow furrowed with concern.

  “It will be fine, child. She will be fine. It’s simply not proper for a young man like yourself to be shut away from the world, to spend his days lurking in the attic like a ghoul. Don’t you agree?”


  August did.

  “Then we have a deal? School in return for the Cadaverite?”

  August contemplated Orchid’s outstretched hand. What could possibly go wrong? He reached out and grasped it. Her handshake was like Beauregard’s: powerful and self-assured. The Malveau handshake.

  There was a rap at the door, and Beauregard’s perfect oval face appeared.

  “Any pralines left?” he inquired optimistically.

  “Come in, child, come in,” urged Orchid, rising and gliding toward him. “Help yourself. August and I have completed our business.” She paused in the doorway before exiting and half turned her head.

  “I am confident, August,” she said, holding his gaze from the corners of her eyes, “that you won’t let me down.” She delivered that hypnotic smile, and August experienced a shiver of apprehension.

  “When you’re ready, Beauregard will show you out.”

  * * *

  * * *

  August was running again, but this time the heat and humidity were nothing to him, and the exertion felt exhilarating and right. The pepper fields streaked by on either side, but August was oblivious to everything except his unbridled happiness. He was flying!

  In one afternoon, he had acquired an aunt and two cousins, a party invitation, and the opportunity to attend school. School! The world of Stella Starz suddenly seemed not only less fantastical, but possibly attainable!

  August wasn’t sure, but he suspected that in Beauregard he might even have found his first—dare he think it?—friend? Someone to high-five. Well, eventua—

  —boom!

  All at once, August’s chin and ribs smashed into the road, and the air was forced from his lungs. It took a moment for the stunned boy to understand that he had tripped, and hard at that.

  He lay facedown, wondering briefly if he was still alive. But his breathing returned with a shaky gasp, and there was pain, so he concluded that he must have survived. Inches from his nose, through his helmet netting, he could see a large fragment of peach marble. Carved lettering stretched from one side to the other: “—orever our angel, Clau—”

  Groaning, August turned his head to the right. There was the cemetery, and the sweet little temple, a jagged black hole now marring its front. The rooftop cherub was gone, but its head—the face still cupped in its chubby hands—lay in the grass a foot or so away.

  Closer still stood two little feet in dainty shoes of white leather.

  One sock had collapsed around the ankle. The other stretched to a grubby knee. Above that was a silk dress, very old-fashioned, like the clothes one might see worn in an antique photograph. The garment was faded, frayed, and generally much the worse for wear.

  And above that was the face of a young girl.

  But there was something deeply amiss about her. Her complexion was mottled and gray. Her ringlets were matted with dirt and rubble. Her head hung limply to one side, and her posture was crooked and awkward, like a leggy foal attempting to stand for the first time. A single strand of spittle drooled from the child’s slack, blue lips.

  It didn’t take a genius to realize, immediately, that this particular little girl…was dead!

  Or rather, the girl was undead, for there she stood, blinking and twitching entirely of her own accord.

  August had no time to even consider a reaction before the child bent over, grabbed the back of his jacket, and yanked him to his feet, as if he weighed no more than a kitten.

  She was strong. Insanely strong.

  The insanely strong, undead, blinky, twitchy girl threw her arms around August, pinning his biceps to his torso. The musty smell of cold stone, mold, and mildew enveloped him. The boy screamed, certain he was about to be crushed to death. But while she held him tightly, the child did August no harm.

  Instead, she gazed up at him; well, sort of. Her clouded eyes sought August’s face but had a tendency to swivel loosely away, in random directions, independent of one another. Her bubbling mouth formed a lopsided grin, more akin to a leer. But it seemed well intended. If August were forced to interpret the girl’s expression, he would have guessed it was one of…adoration?

  August liberated himself from this clammy embrace with considerable difficulty. This child was possessed of the strength, after all, to punch her way out of a solid stone tomb. He raised his palms and took a couple of steps backward, slowly, for fear of startling her.

  The blue lips moved slightly, and August heard a thin, gurgling whisper—the same whisper he’d heard from inside the mausoleum.

  Then suddenly, without invitation, the girl reached up to her face and, with a revolting squelch, removed her left eyeball and offered it to August, as if it were an everyday gumball. The slimy gift was accompanied by an encouraging grin.

  August, staring with horrified awe at the cavity in her skull, shook his head.

  “Um…thank you,” he said, mouth very dry. “But I’m good.” He waved a finger at his own face. “I already have my own.” He backed up a little more. “I should be heading home. It’s late.”

  He turned in the direction of Locust Hole and took a few steps, glancing nervously behind him. The child followed, eyeball outheld.

  “I said no thank you,” called August. “You should stay here.”

  Still she followed.

  August stopped and turned.

  “Go away!” he said firmly. The eye remained obstinately offered forth.

  Not wishing to lead her home, or back to Château Malveau, August headed into the cemetery. He sped up. She sped up. He swerved right. She swerved right. He lunged left. She lunged left.

  August made a dash for it. He sprinted as fast as he could, zigzagging between the tombs, the sound of thrashing grass and weeds all around him. He went deep into the graveyard, almost to the river, then doubled back toward the road, finally smashing through a hedge of buttonbush and hurling himself behind a large tree.

  He collapsed onto his behind, panting, then listening. No sounds of pursuit. Cautiously he peered around the trunk. Nothing but the silent coffers. He heaved a sigh of relief; he’d lost her.

  But on turning back, August screamed again (and, I’m afraid to say, again), finding the glistening eyeball merely inches from his nose, and beyond it the delighted face of his unusual new admirer.

  She retreated a little, with a regretful expression, as if she hadn’t meant to scare him. August pulled himself together and stood, dusting off his pants. He contemplated the girl, wondering what to do next, and realized there was something pitiful about her. She had the air not of some violent monster, but of a lost puppy. August felt a wave of sympathy for this strange creature.

  “Your name,” he said, “is Claudette, right?”

  The girl nodded enthusiastically, clods of dirt dropping from her hair, and again she emitted that wet, whispering sound. It was almost as if she was attempting to communicate.

  Curiously, the noise seemed to come only partly from the child. Some—other—layer of her voice came from a different place, the same place as the half-remembered echo he’d “heard” on his first foray into the cemetery. It was as if the sound came, August realized, from somewhere inside himself.

  It was an unsettling sensation.

  “Look, Claudette,” August explained as kindly as he could under the circumstances. “You can’t come with me. My aunt Hydrangea is a highly nervous person. One little butterfly sends her into a shrieking panic. So I’m pretty sure she would not react well to an unexpected visit from some little dead girl.”

  Claudette blinked.

  “I think it’s best,” said August, wincing sympathetically, “if you return to…um…wherever it is you came from.”

  The girl moved forward with a hopeful look. The eyeball was pressed against August’s chest.

  The boy grimaced and sighed. He took the eyeball. Now, you�
��ve probably never handled another person’s eyeball. I certainly haven’t. But I’m sure we can both imagine how they might feel…perfectly awful!

  “I’m sorry about this, Claudette,” said August with a resigned sigh.

  He swung back his arm and hurled the thing with all his might—plunk!—into the dark, swirling river.

  The table in Locust Hole’s dining room was composed of a closet door supported by two large pepper-curing barrels. The house, after all, was so devoid of contents that closets—never mind their doors—were scarcely necessary.

  August and Hydrangea sat at either end of this makeshift table. From the ceiling hung a naked bulb concealed by a plastic bucket that served as a chandelier. The room was currently illuminated, however, by the jittery light of a single candle in a jelly jar.

  “Our circumstances may be reduced,” Aunt Hydrangea would say, “but that does not mean we must dine like barbarians!”

  And indeed, the forks may have been plastic, the dishes mismatched, and the napkins formed from ripped-up petticoats, but the table was always laid formally, as if the governor himself were expected for dinner.

  “The catfish soup,” said August reassuringly, lifting his spoon to his mouth, “is delicious!”

  “I’m sorry there’s no sausage, sugar,” sighed his aunt. “I’m afraid the loss of so much hot sauce diminished our weekly expenses.” She waggled a finger at her nephew. “But I’ll fix you a cream cheese cake for your birthday. I promise!”

  “That’s all right, ma’am,” August insisted, smiling. “I’m not that hungry.”

  “No doubt,” muttered Hydrangea bitterly. “It’s all well and good, I suppose, if you can afford to dine every day on towers of pralines and crustless sandwiches.”

  August shot his aunt an admonishing look, though it had little effect; she was still simmering with resentment at the report of her sister’s opulent circumstances.