The Curse of the Zombie (The Cursed Book 4) by Ray Cluley

Author:Ray Cluley [Cluley, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Hersham Horror Books
Published: 2015-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

Having spent a tense and uncomfortable night in the vehicle, they returned at first light to retrieve their equipment and found a corpse laying next to the empty water container, bone-tipped fingers resting on plastic that had melted into a sunken contorted shape. The body looked much the same, a charred bent shape that had folded into itself. The head and one shoulder had burned to blackened bone. The skull and scapula poked from what little flesh remained on its back.

“Bachir? What the hell was it?”

Bachir acknowledged Johnny’s question with a nod but said nothing.

“Bachir?”

He nodded again and said, “Tenere medden.”

“What?”

“Desert men. Ones who have lost their way.”

“Lost his way. Right. Okay.”

“We have a proverb-”

“Of course you do.”

“Johnny…” Pete shook his head.

“It is a simple proverb,” Bachir continued. “‘Water is life’. What you see did not have this.”

“Water?” Pete asked.

Bachir clucked his tongue but also shook his head.

“The school picture,” Johnny said. He held his arms out to his sides like the chalkboard skeleton man.

“Yes. So others will know and stay away. Tenere den tossamat lat medden eha sahat. The desert is jealous and its men are strong. They are dangerous. Like mines, scattered in the desert.”

Pete pointed at the other Tuareg, bickering at the truck. “Is this why they’re arguing?”

Bachir sighed. “There is always disagreement among the Tuareg.”

“Can’t you just order them to take us?” said Pete. “I mean, this isn’t a democracy.”

Bachir shook his head. “It is not my Toyota.”

Johnny laughed without humour.

“There are people out here who might need our help,” Pete said.

Bachir indicated the body on the ground. “There might be more.”

“Dangerous, like mines, yeah? So we need to warn our friends.”

Johnny took out his cell phone. No signal of course, but he wanted to take a picture of the body. When he raised it to capture the image, though, Bachir slapped the phone away. He hissed something sharp in Tamashek then kicked at the burnt remains of the body. Johnny and Pete stepped back, surprised by the man’s outburst. They were surprised, too, by how quickly and completely the body crumbled. The remains of the shoulder clouded to ash and scattered. The body shifted and the head toppled free, collapsed in upon itself, and dispersed with the wind-blown sand.

“No,” Bachir said. “Nothing to see.”

“What the fuck, man?”

Pete put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder but spoke to Bachir. “Just take us to the site.”

Bachir stared at them. Johnny couldn’t tell if this was the man’s reply, a physical demonstration of refusal, or whether the man was simply reconsidering the request. Never mind that it had been agreed already. Never mind that it was the reason they were out here in the first place.

Pete withdrew his wallet and emptied it of money. He offered the crumpled notes and said again, “Take us.”

Bachir looked at the offered hand. Eventually he took the money and returned to the truck.

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