A Gentleman's Privilege : A Zombie Tale from the Old South by Hatchell Dane

Author:Hatchell, Dane [Hatchell, Dane]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Mind Hemorrhage Press
Published: 2012-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The drums beat low in the background. Two men sat on opposite sides of the cabin, facing the wall. Their eyes closed, pounding in rhythm with bare hands. Their backs were to the dead body of Puri lying in the middle of the room. Her eyes were closed, and despite her ravaged face, reflected the peace of death.

An old man walked through the door, small burlap bags dirty from the earth that hid them held tightly in his arms. He approached an old woman kneeling by Puri’s side, showing the utmost of reverence. The woman’s face was devoid of emotion. Her spirit was no longer in the world where her body existed.

He waited until her head jerked back and for her eyes to open before he spoke. “I have it for you, Alma. Everything you asked for.”

She went to speak, but her mouth would not move, and waited until the control returned. “I must hurry,” she whispered. “Her spirit has not moved to the next world. There is still time.”

The old man set the bags down.

Alma hurriedly untied the thin cords freeing the contents. She unrolled a soft leaf from one and pinched four different powders from the others. She spread them out on the leaf forming lines next to each other; powders of red, green, black, and white. Her wrinkled, gnarled fingers carefully rolled the leaf, encasing the powders. “Did you find what they have done with my daughter?”

“She is in irons. In the slave’s prison cell by the barn,” he said with reservation. The cell by the barn housed instruments of torture.

Alma held the rolled leaf in one hand and waved a black feather from a crow in the air above the body with the other. Her lips moved without letting any sound escape. The drum beat continued.

The old man said a silent prayer; not for Puri, but for himself.

Alma dragged the end of a match across the floor. Its flame burst orange and yellow, sending the smell of sulfur into the air. She put the rolled leaf between her lips and inhaled as she lit the other end. It burned with an acrid odor and gave off thick, black smoke.

Alma inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the mystic amalgam of burning powders. She placed her lips on Puri’s and exhaled.

Puri’s chest rose from her expanding lungs. Alma moved away as the old man placed his hands on her chest and pushed down. Alma inhaled from the leaf again, and filled Puri’s lungs two more times. The old man pushed down on the chest after each.

One last time she breathed into Puri. When the old man pushed down a blast of black smoke puffed from her nostrils.

Puri’s eyes opened.

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