Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead (31 page)

“For small favors, you make small offerings. For something this big, it must be more.”

“Are we talking human sacrifice?” Indy asked.

“Yes.”

“One of us?” Mac asked.

“More likely all of us,” she said. “I have some small power, and the loa enjoy the taste of that. You are white men, and not usually on their menu around here. The German and the Japanese are also rare in these lands. Boukman will offer us and as many of the locals as he believes necessary to attain his desire. If he can absorb and contain but half of the force in the black pearl, he will truly become a heart of darkness himself. More powerful than any bokor, as powerful as some loa, maybe even approaching some of the minor gods.”

She paused. “As evil as he is, such an infusion will be catastrophic for the world. He could raise thousands of
zombis,
an army of the dead, and woe to anybody who tries to stand against him.”

“I really don’t like the sound of that,” Indy said.

“It would seem as if we are cooked,” Mac said.

Marie hesitated a moment. “There is a small chance,” she said. “When he removes the pearl from the warded jar, the energy will spill out in all directions. I might be able to collect part of it. I have been somewhat . . . attuned to the talisman. If I can siphon off a bit before Boukman takes it all, it might be possible to use this to help you escape.”

“
Us
escape? What about you?”

“I am doomed, no matter what. Boukman cannot keep the power without feeding the loa—or the gods. If he cannot do it now, he might be able to put them off for a time, but he will come for me. He must. And I cannot allow him to obtain this magic and live if there is even the smallest chance to stop him. My life would be a small price to pay for that.”

“Not so small,” Indy said.

She smiled at him. “Would that things might have been different, Indy. That we could have had more time.”

The German, in good English, said, “This romantic moment is touching, but would it not be better to turn our attention to escape?”

Indy stared at him.

“I am Dr. Gruber, this is Dr. Yamada.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t say it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances. My experiences with Nazi Germany and imperial Japan haven’t been among the highlights of my career so far.”

“Would you rather be sacrificed to some pagan god here in this tropical hothouse than work with us?”

Indy shrugged. Gruber had a point. Then again, he didn’t see what help they were going to be—they were as helpless as Indy was. He said, “You aren’t exactly bringing a lot to the table, are you?”

“I have a knife in my boot,” Yamada said, also in good, if accented English. “It might be useful at the right moment.”

“So would a Sikorsky R-4 helicopter. I don’t think a knife is gonna do us much good against a small army of
zombis
.”

“Well, it
would
be easier to run if we weren’t tied up,” Mac allowed. “If we could get to a boat and off this island . . .”

“If Boukman gains the power held in the pearl, that won’t help,” Marie said. “His reach will be farther than we could run, swim, or fly.”

Indy shook his head. Whatever. He wasn’t going to let Marie die if he could possibly help it, no matter what she said.

Boukman worked, setting up more torches in the circle he would need to help ward the talisman’s power once he began the ritual. They must be placed precisely, else they would offer a way for the power to escape when he took it from the jar.

When the torches were done, he had to prepare himself. The magic smoke, the call to Papa Legba, the invitation for the creator of the talisman. Once invocations were done and the loa or god arrived, the blood would have to flow for him—or her—and the petition be offered with the proper prayers. The principle was the same, but the desire was bigger than any Boukman had ever sought.

Even so, it would succeed—else why had he been given the talisman? It had been delivered into his keeping, and there could only be one reason: The gods were now ready to transfer its benefits. He would step precisely, toe the line perfectly, observe the forms, that was necessary . . . but he would have his reward.

He did not doubt it for a moment. His time had come.

Gruber watched the witch doctor walking around inside a small circle of torches he had just erected, smoking something from a pipe that looked suspiciously like a human’s thighbone. The blue cloud wreathing Boukman was dense; even thirty meters away, he could smell the sharp and spicy odor of it.

Gruber didn’t believe in magic, but obviously this Boukman character did, and he was ramping himself up into some kind of trance to do whatever it was he was planning to do.

Gruber didn’t care about that. What he needed was that wooden box lying there on the damp ground, not ten meters away. If he could get loose, if he could snatch the box up and run, if he could attain the jungle and then a boat? All the rest of this would be a bad memory he would leave behind him.

He might need the wooden jar, too—that had more carved symbols on it, and those might be key—but if all Boukman wanted was the pearl, then let him have it. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. If Gruber returned home in triumph, he could find other ways to get rich.

Yamada had a knife. Good. There would come a moment. He was certain of it.

Indy watched as Boukman sat cross-legged on the earth, the wooden jar on the ground in front of him. Boukman’s eyes were closed, he’d finished smoking whatever had been in his pipe, and he was chanting softly.

Around him, the chemically created
zombis
began to chant, their voices joining Boukman’s. The other ones, the dead, did not make a sound, but they swayed back and forth like a captive elephant, rhythmically, in unison—all to the left, all to the right, as if joined at the hip.

“He calls upon the Gatekeeper,” Marie said. “And once the Gate is open, he will call for the creator of the talisman. When he comes, even you will feel it. Boukman will take the talisman out of the jar for its creator to examine. The circle of torches will keep most of the power warded, but some of it will escape. I will try to catch what I can.”

The chanting, more of a wordless drone now, increased in volume. It had a lulling, almost hypnotic quality to it . . .

Yamada felt a chill sweep over him, like a wind from a glacier, a sensation he never expected to feel in the jungle. It was as if some alien presence had arrived and settled nearby.

He nodded to himself. Demons and hungry ghosts. He was not a deeply religious man, he was a scientist, but he knew what he was feeling. This place was imbued with the spirit of something inhuman. A wrong move at the wrong moment, and this thing would consume a man as a wolf would a mouse. A single crunch of otherworldly teeth and that would be the end of you.

Yamada sat very still.

Indy felt something, no question, but what it was, he couldn’t say. Whatever it was, it smelled of evil.

It wasn’t something you wanted to notice you if you were tied hand and foot nearby. Indy found himself holding his breath . . .

For a moment Gruber thought he was hallucinating. He
saw
something settle down inside that ring of torches, some ethereal, translucent
something
that assumed a vaguely man-like shape and sat on the ground facing the witch doctor Boukman.

Must be whatever the man was smoking. Some kind of drug, and some of it drifted this way to affect my mind. That has to be it . . .

This was no loa sitting across from Boukman. It was some Maldye godling, full of arrogance, reeking of power. It spoke not, but waved what looked like a hand made of fire at the jar. Boukman felt its thoughts:

Show me,
it demanded.

Boukman unscrewed the wooden lid, removed the talisman, unwrapped it from the silk covering it. He had slitted his eyes almost completely closed, yet even so it was like looking into the noonday sun. To stare directly at it was to go blind, so he shifted his gaze to one side—

Mine, yes.

Next to him, Marie moaned. “It is so bright! Come to me—!”

Indy didn’t see anything, but he felt the air stirring around him as a wind that was hot and cold at the same time.

The
zombis
that could speak were in full voice now, and all of them swayed together, as precisely as a machine. Boukman had taken the pearl out, unwrapped it, and set it on the ground—

Boukman felt the Maldye’s smile more than saw it. The god was shifting fires, reds, blues, greens, yellows, swirling and contained, like nothing natural could possibly be.

Yesss?
it seemed to say silently inside his head.

Aloud, Boukman said, “I importune thee. Grant me thy favor.”

What do you offer in return?

Boukman stood, rising up effortlessly, filled with the radiant energy that shined from the talisman, stronger already than ever before. The potential was astounding.

In the graveyards on the island, anyone dead within the last year began to stir, hearkening to his unspoken call.

Across the miles of sea passage, on the south coast of Haiti, graves rumbled as the dead strove to leave, digging free of rotted coffins, shoveling away earth with their hands . . .

Amazing! And this but a
reflection,
like the sun in a mirror!

Time passed, how much Boukman could not say. Hours? Eons?

Eventually, Boukman drew his knife from his belt. The polished steel glittered in the torchlight. “Bring her,” he said.

Four
zombis
headed to where Indy and the others were tied up.

“Not yet,” Marie said. “I am not ready yet.”

“Now would be a good time to get your knife out,” Indy said to Yamada. “Hurry!”

The four
zombis
arrived. They picked up Marie and carried her back toward Boukman.

“Yamada!”

“Almost . . . almost . . . here—”

He managed to toss the knife toward Indy. It fell two feet short. Indy fell forward, extending his tied hands toward it—

His slaves laid Marie on the ground in front of him. Boukman squatted, raised the knife, offered a Word—

Wait. I will see her dance first.

Boukman frowned. Well. It was the god’s sacrifice, he could do with her what he wished.

Boukman laid the edge of the knife onto the ropes. In a moment Marie was free. She rose up, as if to run, but the living fire gestured and she stopped.

Dance,
it said.

Marie leaned her head back. Shook her hair out. Began to dance, under the Maldye’s control—

Indy managed to saw away the ropes holding him, cutting himself a couple of times, but that didn’t matter. Quickly he cut Mac’s hands loose and handed him the knife. “Cut yourself loose,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to give Boukman something to think about!”

But as Indy gathered himself to go, he noticed something.

Around the periphery of the clearing, forms began appearing and moving toward the center. It took a second for him to realize what they were, what he was seeing.

Zombis.
And some of them little more than skeletons—they had to have been buried for weeks, months, maybe years—!

“Oh, damn,” he said. “Okay, Mac, listen—I’m going to get their attention. Try to get to Marie, okay?”

Mac nodded. “What about them?” He nodded at Gruber and Yamada.

“His knife, we owe him. Cut them loose, they get the same chance we do.”

“Good luck, Indy!”

“Yeah. You, too.”

Indy stayed low, halfway between a crawl and a duckwalk, and made his way to one of the torches nearby. He grabbed the stick, worked it back and forth a bit, then jerked it out of the ground.

One of the swaying
zombis
noticed him.

Indy swung the torch like an axman trying to split a log and slammed the torch down onto the top of the
zombi
’s head.

It screamed. Ah. One of the
live
ones—

Gruber saw the American attack one of the men with a torch. The man took fire as some of the fuel splashed onto him and lit.

The man screamed.

Others turned to see, and the American began flailing like a baseball player, back and forth, back and forth—

As soon as his feet were free, Gruber got up and hurried to the wooden box. Nobody was paying him any attention.

It would have to do—the jar was too far and there were too many people between it and him.

Yamada appeared next to him.

“Time to leave,” Gruber said.

“Hai!”

But both men were scientists—and transfixed enough by what they saw that they stood there watching . . .

THIRTY-EIGHT

I
NDY DODGED
, ducked, and kept swinging the torch. Kerosene spewed, igniting as he slung the thing back and forth, making strings of flaming liquid that arced into the night.

Zombis
came at him, and he jinked to the side, avoiding their grasps. Too many of them, he’d never beat them all, but if he could get them chasing him, Mac might have a chance to save Marie—