The Horror Megapack. Robert E. Howard

absorb a new impression.

      “Plato, honey, can’t you hear me?”

      Finally, grey and trembling, the woman turned to Connell.

      “Mr. Walt, I can’t do nuthin’. Plato’s dead.”

      Connell realized that Amelia’s persu­asion had made less impression than his own authoritative voice.

      “Untie us, Amelia,” he said.

      She had scarcely reached the chair when Plato’s ponderous hand lashed out, flinging her into a corner.

      “Mr. Walt,” said the woman, as she struggled to her feet, “I’m goin’ to the village to get help. That devil don’t know I’m here, and I’ll get some friends.”

      She stepped into the hall. Connell re­newed his struggles. Once or twice Madeline contrived to jerk her chair a fraction of an inch toward him, but a zombie leaped forward, bodily picked her up, and set her in a corner. They did nothing to thwart Connell’s struggles against his bonds. The orders had not covered that.

      Finally Connell contrived to spread the knotted strands of clothesline.

      “Hang on, darling,” he panted. “I’ll be clear in a second.”

      “But what good will it do?” moaned Madeline. “They’ll block you before—”

      “Maybe I can toss you out the win­dow, chair and all.”

      He knew that he had no chance against his grisly captors, but anything was bet­ter than waiting for that deadly brew to receive the missing ingredients that would make them living corpses. Con­nell heard footsteps and relaxed his des­perate efforts. His blood froze, and a stifled oath choked him.

      It was Amelia. She had a small par­cel wrapped in paper. Damn her, why hadn’t she run to the village like she’d said she would?

      “Plato, honey,” she pleaded, “I brought you somethin’ good.”

      “For God’s sake, go to the village!” shouted Connell.

      “That would be wasted effort,” said a sardonic voice.

      Ducoin crossed the threshold, accompanied by Aunt Célie and several zombies. His sinister pres­ence, and the living dead seemed to freeze Amelia with horror. She had lost her chance to make a break.

      “I guess we’ll have a number three zombie,” murmured Ducoin.

      The living dead now blocked the doorway. Aunt Célie lifted the lid of the kettle, and added a pinch of powder from a small packet. She stirred the villainous potion, and drew off a cupful and held it to Connell’s lips.

      “You might as well drink it,” said Ducoin. “If you don’t—” His gaze shifted to Madeline’s trembling bare body and he resumed, “These zombies will do any­thing I tell them. How would you like to see one of them—”

      His words trailed to a whisper, but Connell knew what would happen to Madeline, before his eyes.

      And then the last remnant of cord that bound his wrist yielded. His freed hand flashed out, striking the steaming beverage from Ducoin’s hand. As the Creole recoiled, Connell’s other hand jerked loose, gripping him by the throat. The sudden move caught Ducoin off guard. Since the master was present, the zombies did not interfere; and Du­coin, throttled by Connell’s savage grasp, could not articulate an order.

      Sock! Connell’s fist hammered home, driving Ducoin crashing into a corner, dazed and numb. Connell struggled with the bonds at his ankles, but only for a moment. Aunt Célie seized his elbows from the rear.

      Once Ducoin recovered his voice—!

      Amelia was free. But instead of run­ning, she approached Plato.

      “Jes’ yo’ taste one, honey,” she crooned, placing a salted cashew nut in the bluish, sagging mouth of her dead husband.

      There was a mumbling and a drooling, a sudden flash of perception as the salty tidbit mingled with the saliva; then an inarticulate, bestial howl.

      Ducoin and Aunt Célie flung themselves forward.

      “Stop her!” yelled Ducoin. “She’s giving them salt!”

      Too late. Burly, powerful Plato had become a raging maniac. Amelia thrust cashew nuts into the mouth of the other zombie. Another incredible transformation. Another slavering, howling brute.

      A pistol cracked, but only once. Ducoin’s weapon clattered into a corner. Plato and his companion closed in.

      The room became a red hell of slaughter. The insensate hulks were pound­ing and trampling and flinging Ducoin and Aunt Célie about like bean bags.

      They hungrily licked splashed blood from their hands, and renewed the assault. Other zombies came from the fields, tasted a salted nut, and joined the butchery. And presently there was only a shapeless, gory pulp that they were trampling and beating into the floor.…

      The zombies desisted for lack of fragments left to dismember. Then they clambered to their feet, utterly ignoring Amelia and the two prisoners. They shattered the window, cleared the sill, and dashed across the field. Against the moonglow, Connell saw them burrowing into the ground like dogs.

      Amelia, sobbing and laughing, was re­leasing him and Madeline.

      “Mr. Walt,” the woman explained, “when I saw my Plato, I remem­bered somethin’ my ole grandmammy told me years ago, about them zombies cuttin’ up that way when they ate salt. Then I remembered the cashew nuts I gave you. Now, praise de Lord, Plato is plumb dead, and all the other zombies are goin’ to their graves like Chris­tians. They always do that, when they get salt. But first they messes up the man what made them zombies.”

      “But how did he do it?” wondered Connell as he helped Madeline into the car.

      “I don’t know anything about it, ex­cept that according to the law in Haiti, it’s a capital offense to administer any drug that produces a coma. And I think that’s the real reason Uncle Pierre de­cided to finish me—he found me reading an old book of Haitian statutes, not long ago, and was afraid of my suspicions.”

      “Mr. Walt,” interrupted a voice from the rumble seat, “you’re goin’ to need a maid for the new missus, ain’t you?”

      “Absolutely,” assured Connell, “but you’d better take a vacation for a couple of weeks before you come to work.…”

      SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SHOUT ABOUT IT, by Darrell Schweitzer

      When Caroline was born (so she was told later), she came out of the womb screaming, and the doctor allegedly remarked, “Good strong lungs. Maybe she’ll be an opera singer when she grows up.” But by the time she was old enough to run around the neighborhood and blast people’s eardrums to near deafness (or at least to the point of angrily slammed windows and doors) it was clear that she might have the volume, but there was no particular beauty in her voice.

      “Christ, that kid is loud,” people said, and what very few friends she had in the early grades asked her, “Why do you make so much noise?”

      That wasn’t to be the last time anyone asked her that, though her mother, by and large, gave up on the point, and when her father took her to the zoo or to the park or celebrated her birthday or otherwise paid attention to her (however infrequently) and managed to keep her quiet, he never ruined the affair by asking such questions.

      But most of the time her father was “away” and her mother was preoccupied with something she said Caroline was too young to understand.

      Father went away for good when Caroline was nine. One night she got up late because she had a sore throat, or a had had a bad dream, or both (details became confused as she was later forced to tell this story over and over) and for all she knew that it was really unlikely that she would get much comfort from either parent, she came downstairs, and knocked gently on the door to her father’s study (which