Samurai and Other Stories (6 page)

“Shit.”

We’re trapped.

Outside, footsteps thudded as the undead came up the stairs.

I threw my weight against the door.

“Find something to wedge it. Quick.”

I locked out my legs and leaned into the door, trying to put my weight just over the handle. Something heavy hit the other side, hard enough for the door to open by two inches then slam shut again.

Behind me I heard clattering and smashing.

“If you’re going to do something, now would be a good time,” I shouted.

The door slammed against my shoulder, opening almost three inches this time.

“Let it open further next time,” Duncan shouted.

“Open further? Are you mad?”

“Trust me. I have a plan.”

The next time the door slammed against me I let it open slightly wider.
 

Duncan stepped forward and threw something through the gap, something that smashed in the hallway beyond.
 

I put my shoulder to the door and slammed it shut. This time Duncan helped me.

“Okay,” the older man said. “Now I need your lighter.”

I managed to dig inside my jacket, came up with the Zippo and handed it to Duncan.

“If I say duck, don’t ask ‘Where?’” Duncan said.

The door slammed hard on my shoulder. My feet slid on the floor as the door opened, six inches, then nine. A long dry hand at the end of an arm clad in thick blue serge gripped the inside edge and pulled. A head followed, grey hair hanging lankly over a face further obscured by a full salt-and-pepper beard. The blue serge was a heavy jacket, done up with silver buttons.

A naval man.

I heard the distinctive sound of a Zippo being fired up.

“Duck,” Duncan shouted.

I ducked. Something flew past my ear, something that burned yellow.
 

The hall beyond the door exploded into flame. The blue-serge clad figure fell away from the door. I slammed it shut and Duncan wedged a chair under the handle. Even though the door was firmly closed the smell of cooking meat seeped through the gaps.

“Good plan,” I said when I’d caught my breath. “What did you use?”

He looked sheepish.

“A bottle of Smirnoff. Blue Label. I hid it up here so the missus wouldn’t catch me at it.”

That was the first I’d heard of a Mrs. Duncan. I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask, but I had to. “And where is she now?”

He waved at the door, fresh tears in his eyes. “Out there for all I know. I put her out in the garden nearly a year ago now. But if I know her she’ll be up and about—she never missed a chance to give me a hard time.”
 

My phone rang, saving me from having to get deeper into the conversation. It was Doug.

“How’s it going?” he asked. In reply he got a thirty-second diatribe on the merits of not splitting up text messages. I may even have used several words my mammy wouldn’t have liked very much. Even then, he wasn’t particularly contrite, but I couldn’t afford the satisfaction of hanging up on him—Doug was our only chance to get out of this.

“Come on then,” I said when he showed no signs of replying. “I know you. You wouldn’t have phoned if you didn’t have something for me.”

“McLeod was a naval officer,” Doug began.

I didn’t have time for the long version. Something had started pounding on the door again, rattling it in hinges that looked old and rusted.
 

“I know,” I said. “I’ve met the man. Very sprightly, considering he’s been dead these many years.”

I heard Doug’s sharp intake of breath.

“And have you seen the collection?” he finally said.

“Seen it? I’m standing in the middle of it.”

I didn’t have to see him to know he was smiling.

“That’s good,” he said. “You need to find her hair.”

“Her?”

“Mrs. McLeod. He had her scalp and hair made into a headpiece after she died. There was a great scandal and...”

“Enough,” I said, feeling as if I’d just kicked an excited puppy. “Just get to the point Doug. The undead are at the door, and they’re worse than the bible-thumpers.”

The pounding at the door got louder as if to emphasize my point. The top hinge squealed, the screws starting to loosen in the sockets.

I sensed his smile had faded, but he did speed up.

“It’s a talisman,” he said. “Part of a Zulu necromancy ritual. It’s used in conjunction with...”

“Let me guess... a map written on human skin?”

“Right first time. And now that you’ve burned one, you have to burn the other. If you don’t all those affected by the curse will arise and walk the earth and...”

“Yadda yadda yadda. I’ve seen the movie,” I replied. “Anything else I need to know? Like why this is happening now?”

“Well old McLeod has been in the ground a while now. Maybe this is a last attempt at bringing his wife back before he is too far gone?”
 

Just at that the door decided it had taken enough of a beating and gave way beneath the assault. The first thing to come through was an arm clad in blue serge—badly singed, still smoking, but unmistakably belonging to McLeod.

“I’ll get back to you on that one,” I said. I threw the phone aside and tried to put my shoulder against the door. “Find a wig,” I shouted at Duncan. “It belongs to his wife.”

Then I was too busy to talk for a while.

*
   
*
   
*

It felt like someone was hitting me on the back with a large lump of wood... in fact, someone was. McLeod’s hand gripped at the edge of the door and
tugged
. I had to slam my weight back against the door, hard, to keep him out.

Too far gone my arse.
 

“What exactly am I looking for?” Duncan called.

“How the hell should I know? Just burn anything that looks like hair.”

The weight behind me pressed even harder and I buckled. A withered hand grabbed at me, and I had to leave a clump of hair behind as I pulled away. The door fell in with a crash.

“I’ve found it,” Duncan shouted at the same moment.

I had to back away as McLeod came through the doorway, those who had paid for his obsession shuffling close behind.

“You’d better be right, wee man,” I said. “Quick. Where’s the Zippo?”

That was when I remembered.

He threw it out into the corridor.

But hardened nicotine addicts aren’t stupid enough to be out without a backup plan. I held McLeod off with one hand and fished a box of matches out of my inside pocked with the other.

McLeod’s teeth
clacked
perilously close to my fingers.

I threw the matches in Duncan’s direction, hoping he was quick enough to catch them.

Then I was in a fight for my life. McLeod showed no sign of being too far-gone for a fight. He took my best punch, right on the point of the jaw. His head rocked and a split appeared in the skin of his neck, gaping bloodless and gray. It didn’t slow him any. He came inside my swinging arm and grabbed me. He forced my head to one side and exposed my neck. Then he sniffed, twice, close together, as if checking my after-shave.

“Where is it!” he said.
 

His voice was rough, harsh, almost a bark.

I tried to speak, but the grip around my throat was so tight that all I could manage was to keep breathing.
 

“Where is it!” he said again, almost shouting this time. His breath smelled, of stale food and stagnant water, but I guessed now wasn’t a good time to tell him.

With his spare hand he went through my pockets; fast and methodical, like a pro. When he didn’t find anything, the hold on my throat tightened further still. I tried to break the grip, but my strength was going fast. I punched him, hard, just below the heart; he didn’t even wince.

He laughed in my face.

“Is that all you’ve got, lad?”

He threw me away, like a discarded rag. His hand barely moved, yet I flew, a tangle of arms and legs, crashing hard against the far wall and falling to a heap on the floor. Something gave way in my lower back; a tearing pain that I knew meant trouble.
 

I hoped I’d live long enough to see it.
 

I turned to see him coming for me again. I held up an arm, but in truth I had no fight left in me. McLeod came on, teeth
clacking
.

*
   
*
   
*

Duncan saved my life.

Just as McLeod reached for me, his minions right behind him, a forest of arms my only view, I heard Duncan shout.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

McLeod turned away from me, and I had a clear view across the room as the case came to its denouement.

Duncan had what looked like a long wig in his left hand, and a burning candle in his right.

“Burn it,” I shouted.

But it looked like I was in no immediate danger. The undead were all focussed on Duncan. Nobody moved, the only sound the sputter of the flickering candle.

“Burn it!” I shouted again.

Duncan had other ideas.

“I know how you feel,” he said to McLeod. “Every day, I want her back. Every day I miss her. But look at yourself, man. Do you want her back like this? Could you stand it? Here...”

“No!” I shouted, but couldn’t stop him handing the wig to McLeod.

“Let her go,” Duncan said softly. “Set both of you free.”

McLeod didn’t move, just stood there stroking the hairpiece as Duncan put the candle under, first the wig, then the navy man’s long beard.

He went up like a piece of dry paper, consumed to ash in less time than I would take to smoke a cigarette. At that point I expected the others with him to fall to the ground, or wither and turn to ash themselves.

That’s how it works in the movies.

But this was Largs, on a holiday weekend. Things didn’t work like in the movies around here. The undead milled around the room, seemingly devoid of purpose, maybe twenty of them in various states of decomposition.

“We should burn these too,” I said, but I knew already my heart wasn’t in it, and I was glad when Duncan disagreed with me.

“Just leave them to me,” he said. “I’ll take care of them, like I’ve always done.”

By the time I left he had them all in the dining room, sitting over cups of tea that would never get drunk, fancy teacakes that would never get eaten.
 

That’s Largs for you.

TURN AGAIN

She walked down to the Promenade most days to check on progress. The wind-farm was going up fast, despite all the protests and hot air in the local press. After an initial flurry of excitement at the start of construction the townspeople
harrumphed
and went back to their more mundane concerns, leaving Patty as one of the few still interested in the new forest rising offshore.

In recent days she had noticed the older man. He was always on the same bench and never spoke, just nodded as she passed.

It was on the day that the fifth propeller was lifted into place that he did more than nod. He touched the brim of a battered hat, lifted it several inches, and bid her a good morning. That was enough to get them started.
 

Over the coming weeks she found Mr. Tullis to be an excellent conversationalist and a keen student of local history. Indeed, he had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of so many subjects that she thought him to be a retired academic.
 

They never spoke of their own situations, for which Patty was grateful, but they did become friends, of a sort, and Patty found herself hurrying to the promenade each morning for her newest flash of enlightenment.
 

On the fiftieth day their talk finally turned to Mr. Tullis’ personal history. Patty knew that this was a turning point. Soon she would have to speak of herself, and at that point, their relationship would be changed forever. But for now, she was content to sit and listen to the old man.
 

He started in his usual round about way, by drawing attention to the wind farm.
 

“The last one goes up today,” he said. “Bringing our little meetings to a conclusion. I have grown fond of you, lass. And I owe you an explanation.”

She did not ask the obvious question, afraid to break his flow.

“I have been sitting here these past weeks, watching the farm grow, and considering the metaphors. As I have watched these shores all these years, so shall these wonders of science watch, drawing their circles in the sky in much the same way that I began, with my circles on paper.”

He turned and took her right hand in his. After all these days of polite distance there was something faintly erotic in the act and Patty felt her cheeks flush.

“I am not what I seem,” Mr. Tullis said. “Then again, what is?”
 

He smiled sadly, then took a small leather bound book from his pocket. He opened it and showed her an illuminated diagram done in red, black and gold in a precision worthy of Durer.

It was titled
MALAGMA
, and showed a fiery red serpent eating the world which was depicted as a shining golden disc.

“Strictly speaking,” Mr. Tullis said, “this isn’t part of the process at all, rather, this is a symbolic representation of the whole.
Malagma
is Latin, meaning
Amalgamation.
The whole process, the quest if you like, is to amalgamate the soul, the
microcosm
, with the universe, the
macrocosm
.”

“Sorry,” Patty said, trying a smile. “You’ve lost me already.”

Mr. Tullis laughed. “I thought I might. Fourteenth century symbolism was obscure even then.”

He thought about it for a short while. “Do you know anything about Zen?”

It was her turn to laugh.

“Only from re-runs of
Kung Fu.”

“Well, grasshopper,” Mr Tullis said. “Everything is one, and one is everything.”

“
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together?”
Patty said.