A Zombie Christmas Carol (8 page)

“Have I ever sought release?”

“In words. No. Never.”

“In what, then?”

“In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end.In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,” said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; “tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!”

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, “You think not.”

“I would gladly think otherwise if I could,” she answered, “Heaven knows! When
I
have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl—you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.”

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

“You may—the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will—have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!”

She left him, and they parted.

“Spirit!” said Scrooge, “show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?”

“One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost.

“No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!”

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw
her
, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll’s frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

“Belle,” said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, “I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.”

“Who was it?”

“Guess!”

“How can I? Tut, don’t I know?” she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. “Mr. Scrooge.”

“Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner, I do not know his name, had been killed in the violence in the city. I considered going inside but it was so dark and miserable and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe. Many of the buildings nearby are empty, I fear their occupants were killed by the creatures or, and I sincerely hope this, they may have simply abandoned them, perhaps in the hope of returning soon.”

“Spirit!” said Scrooge in a broken voice, “remove me from this place.”

“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “That they are what they are, do not blame me!”

“Remove me!” Scrooge exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!”

The ground shook and darkened around the group before they were replaced by the dark wall of some building.  Scrooge at first assumed he was back at home until he recognised Marley, exactly as he had been seven years ago. 

“No, not this!” exclaimed Scrooge as he looked feverishly from left to right.

“Why do you recoil from the sight of your old partner?  Are you not joyful to see him once again and in such good health?” asked the Spirit.

“Of course not!” answered Scrooge with barely concealed anger. “His death wasn’t my fault, how could it be?” he cried.

“Yet you show regret and remorse over this place.  Watch!” said the Spirit, as it stretched out its arms towards a slightly younger Scrooge and Marley in the Bank.

  The two men were making their way out of the Bank when a great cry came from the street outside.  As Scrooge and the Spirit moved out into the open, they could both clearly see the front of a massive crowd coming up the hill.  In front of the crowd were small numbers of panicked citizens, some carrying children and others armfuls of possessions.  Screams and shouts came from them as they rushed past the front of the Bank and disappeared off into the distant streets.

“Watch carefully, who are these people?” asked the Spirit, as it pointed to a group of about a dozen scruffy children and a handful of adults that ran inside the Bank.

As they watched, the younger Marley and Scrooge rushed inside after them.  The Spirit beckoned to the horde coming up the hill and Scrooge watched in despair as they entered the square.  The group were the filthy, blood dripping undead and they all made their way around the Bank.  As the closest drew near, Scrooge lifted up his hands to protect himself yet they moved through him.

“This is what has past, this cannot be changed,” said the Spirit.

As they watched, the crowd of undead surrounded the building as though it were some kind of sacred site.  Their movement was as though they were a great wave or flood that engulfed a mountaintop so that it became an island.  In moments the entire building was surrounded by a thick mass of them, so that no living soul could enter or leave the safety of the old building.

Once fully encircled, those closest to the Bank turned their attention to the windows and doors as they forced their way inside through any part of the building able to be damaged or torn open.  A small number of firearms were discharged, presumably from guards or citizens, though the number of shots was pathetically small and had no effect on the great number crashing inside.

“Why did they do this?” asked a quivering Scrooge, “I never understood why they wanted to control that place of all things.”

“Because there is something there that controls them,” said the Spirit, pointing to the floor of the Bank. 

“This building stands upon the ruins of something much older, darker and more evil than even you can fathom. It was built many centuries ago and has a power even I cannot fathom or hope to influence. Whoever controls the artefact and this evil place will be able to control the walking dead,” continued the Spirit.

The two entered the Bank, watching the swirling melee as the monsters attacked and tore apart any living person they could reach. The violence was horrendous as the creatures used their hands, nails and even teeth in a battle that reminded Scrooge of some of the accounts of the End of Days. In the middle of the room stood Marley and the younger Scrooge, both holding their sticks and fighting like demented mad men as the creatures tried to get nearer to them.

“Impressive, I see your swordsmanship came in useful after all.  Pity you never kept it up,” said the Spirit wryly.

Scrooge watched for a moment, surprised at the skill he showed with such a simple weapon. He almost started to replicate the movements before he noticed a man dragged to the ground, his throat bitten into by an undead thing. As he stopped, he turned around to see the slightly younger Scrooge almost knocked to the ground but a cunningly concealed pocket pistol, with half a dozen tiny barrels, appeared from inside his coat and discharged a cloud of lead pellets that blasted back the two closest assailants.  He followed up his shot with several strong strikes with the cane that cleared a few feet of space around him.

Somewhere outside came a multitude of cracking sounds that Scrooge instantly recognised as gunfire.  Hints of white smoke washed inside from the volley of musketry followed by a dozen men in bright uniforms dashing inside. They were the local yeomanry, a mounted city militia and well capable of fighting the undead.  From outside the sound of more gunfire heralded the arrival of more soldiers.  As the fighting continued unseen outside, the group of sword and pistol-armed soldiers fought their way inside.  Several of them were dragged to the ground by the creatures, while the remainder emptied their flintlock pistols into the horde whilst hacking and slashing away with their curved swords.

 A strange group of foreign looking men in red cloth and carrying a metal case were trying to make their way discreetly to a side door.  They had come from outside the Bank and looked like no men he had ever seen before or since in England. The undead ignored them as though they were one of their own, though they were unmistakably different in both clothing and movement, as well as the fact that they were alive.  They had a look that reminded him of the tale he had heard of the Thuggee in India but he had never met one in person.  One of the soldiers managed to make his way to them and was instantly attacked with a savage looking curved sword.  The soldier succeeded in defending himself with his own sword, only to be attacked from behind by a small group of the undead.  As they dragged him to the ground, the group in red continued towards the doors at the back of the Bank.

Scrooge covered his face as the scenes of horror around him filled him with dread.

“Who are they, I don’t remember them?” asked Scrooge.

“Well, you were somewhat preoccupied,” said the Spirit with a smile, as it pointed to Marley and Scrooge who were fighting their way out to the soldiers.

“They were trying to take the artefact below the Bank.  If it were not for what happened next you would have suffered the same fate as those outside,” said the Spirit.

Though the two men were hardly young soldiers they gave a surprisingly vigorous defence, each of them being responsible for toppling four or five of the creatures.  The group of four men in red approached Marley and Scrooge, looking to move past them and into the bowels of the building.  One struck Marley with his fist, knocking the old man to the ground whilst the others pushed past.  Scrooge swung his cane and smashed the man in the temple, sending him to the ground making the other three lose control of whatever they seemed to be carrying.  As the artefact fell, it struck the ground, chunks of old metal tumbling from its insides.  A volley of musketry struck two of the men leaving just one wounded and another still fighting Scrooge.  As the soldiers overpowered the undead and reached the centre of the room, they formed a defensive position around the artefact, keeping the remaining men in red away from it.  By some miracle, none of the undead attacked those who were in close proximity of the artefact or its remains and the soldiers were able to carry it safely from the Bank and towards the doors whilst more soldiers rushed in.  With the tide turning, Marley and Scrooge both made for the door, looking to get as far away from building as possible.