Zombie

"What changes? These are fluorescent lights which flicker rapidly but to the normal naked eye appear static."

"Yes but there are some conditions which are aggravated by them. Autism for example."

"Autistics don't react in this way. No, this is in direct result of suppression of the frontal lobe due to the psychogenics he's been given. I've rarely seen a trance this deep." Dr. Theo looked up to me. "You've been able to communicate with him?"

"Yes, when he sleeps."

"The consciousness is one of the most vital ingredients. A person who has never heard of zombies wouldn't be effected nearly as much as someone who has or has seen one. One who grew up within the world of Voo Doo. The trance would easily be broken and by easily I mean that relatively. It would still be quite difficult depending on the skill of the voo doo practitioner. Perhaps you can allow us to speak to him?"

"I'll try," I said. "But first I have to put him to sleep."

"Very well." Dr. Theo nodded and looked excited as if it were all a great experiment and not the life of a man.

"Ben, go to sleep." I ordered and watched as his eyes drifted shut. After he began breathing deeply, I called his name but he didn't respond.

"It might take some time before his consciousness releases it's hold on him." Dr. Morran assured me.

An hour and a half later we waited but every time I quietly whispered his name Ben wouldn't respond. Dr. Rivera was getting antsy as were the police and everyone else standing there. Dr. Woods came and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry. It'll be all right." He said.

"Thanks."

"How long are we supposed to wait for this?" Dr. Rivera asked.

"As long as it takes I should think." Dr. Morran answered. "But why don't you try it again?"

"Ben?"

"Dylan." He said and smiled. I took his hand and he twined his fingers with mine.

"Hey kiddo." I smiled with pure joy at seeing him back. "How are you?"

"O.k." He shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry about today. I didn't know you were allergic to anything."

"Saffron."

"You're allergic to saffron?"

"Sucks."

"Ben, I'm Dr. Rivera." The doctor said pushing me out of the way and breaking the contact we had. "We need to ask you some questions, is that all right?"

"Where u?" Ben asked, frowning and reaching out for me.

"I'm right here, Ben. Right in front of you." The doctor answered.

"He's not talking to you, doctor." Theo said. "Zombies can only speak to the priest or priestess who made them. I'm surprised he can actually speak with Dylan."

"I'm right here, Ben." I said and pushed back in front of the doctor. "Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital."

"That's right. Do you know that there are other people here with us?"

"No whoopie?" He asked and his grin grew. I laughed and blushed at the same time.

"No, not right now. Do you know who the people are?"

"Doctors?"

"That's right. Ben, I-..." I took a breath to steady my already shot nerves. "Ben, they think I had sex with you against your will."

"No!" He said as forcefully as he could.

"I told them that but in your state they had to be sure."

"Wanted you." He said and pulled my hand up to his chest. "Want you."

I leaned in and whispered in his ear. "I want you too, buddy."

"Well, I'll be damned!" Dr. Rivera said in amazement.

"Are you satisfied?" I asked him.

"Well, I'd like to ask more questions but for the most part... yes, I am. And I apologize sincerely."

"You were doing your job and you were doing it well." I admitted. "This just was out of your experience."

"Far outside my experience." He said.

"If you want to ask him questions you should hurry. He gets tired from talking and will have to sleep soon."

The doctors asked their questions through me and I watched as his face showed more and more just how exhausted he was. Thoughout the discussion we found that his medical history consisted of nothing more exciting than some burns and broken bones. Other than the allergy to saffron he had no special needs. I finally put a stop to it after an hour and asked for some privacy. I leaned in and kissed his mouth gently.

"Gone?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Whoopie?" He smiled.

"No, you horn dog. You're exhausted. It's been a rough day for you."

"You too."

"Yeah, it has. I was so scared at the restaurant. I thought you were going to die. I'm so sorry, Ben." I said laying my forehead on his.

"Not your fault." He answered.

"It was. I'm here to take care of you until you can do it yourself."

"Do."

"I try."

"Smart."

"What?" I asked. "Who is?"

"You."

"Why do you say that?"

"Told not to be allergic." I figured he was talking about me ordering him to breathe through his allergic reaction at the crab shack.

"It was the only thing I had."

"Smart." He squeezed my hand. "Missed you."

"I missed you too. I'm sorry I talked your ear off today."

"Funny. Liked it."

"Well, I'll talk to you tomorrow but for now you should get some sleep."

"No."

"Ben, you're tired and with what you've gone through today you should rest."

"Not tired!" He said but I could see the effort of speaking written on his face.

"Ben, don't give me that shit. I know you are. Stop being stupid!" I waited for him to respond but he didn't and I knew he wasn't sleeping yet. "Ben?" He grinned.

"First fight." He said and I laughed.

"Yeah, it is. But it's ok. I forgive you."

"Make-up whoopie?" He asked.

"Not here. Maybe after we get back to the hotel."

"Fine." He said, dejectedly.

"You can stay up if you want but I know you're tired."

"A bit." He sighed. "Ok. Night."

"Night buddy." I kissed him and felt his tongue slip in to meet mine. He moaned.

"Tomorrow. Nap."

"Ok. We'll try to take a nap tomorrow." I smiled. "Go to sleep, Ben."

It took another five hours to get the hospital to allow me to take Ben home and continue his care. They were worried about his medical treatment of which, Dr. Theo said there was little to be done but he would do what he could. The police were concerned about his lack of identity until they received a fax from the Bayou St. Cyr police station with a name, age and address. He was now 28 year old Benjamin Jourdin of 22 Perkins Rd. He was slowly regaining the identity that had been stolen from him. And I was going to get the rest of him back.

I was beyond beat when I stepped into the motel that morning and looked at the bed with longing. All I wanted to do was crash onto the mattress and sleep for a good twelve hours straight. I bypassed the bed and brought Ben into the bathroom to wash and change from the clothes we had been in for entirely too long. I told him to undress and stripped myself of my own clothes. I adjusted the temperature of the water and stood under the stream, ordering Ben to come in with me. Instead of ordering him to wash himself I took the opportunity to wash him.

"I'm hoping you don't mind," I said as I washed his body. "but knowing you you're ok with this."

A small gleam in his eye and the fact that his cock jumped and thickened every time I touched it told me that he was more than fine. I chuckled.

"I wish buddy, but we have a lot to do today and I couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm exhausted."

We dried off, dressed and hit the road heading into Bayou St. Cyr. It took some doing but I finally found Perkins rd which was a small unmarked lane and shortly after turning onto it we found number 22. It was a cute little house with a wraparound porch that sat on the water. Cars were strewn throughout the yard.

"That must have been where you got your mechanic skills, huh?" I asked Ben.

We walked up to the house and I peered in through the window.

"Too bad you couldn't tell me where the spare key was." I said as I tried the door handle just for the hell of it. To my surprise it opened. "That was easy. Trusting sort of guy, aren't you?"

I had him sit on his own couch as I took a walk around. Finding his bedroom, I was able to grab clothes for him as he was almost done with the ones we had bought from Walmart. He apparently was more of a boxers guy from what was in his dresser. I packed as much as I could, preferring to stay in the motel away from the voo doo Queen that had done this to him, and headed back to the great room.

"This really is a nice place, Ben. It's so cute. You have your fireplace and the view from the sliding glass doors is beautiful!" I said, sitting down next to him. I looked out the glass door which led to the back porch that over looked the water that sparkled as the mid-day sun shone on it.

There was a wall of pictures and I went to take a closer look. It was so nice to see a smiling and active Ben, free to be himself and natural, even if it was just in photographs. Many of them were of him alone, but some were with other people. I recognized the old woman who had given him to me in one of the frames. In a few others, I saw Ben with his arms wrapped around a young, pretty black woman about his age. A sister, I thought. One picture was of him, the young woman and an attractive older woman who bore a remarkable resemblance to her. I didn't like the look of the older woman and wished I could ask Ben about her.

"We should probably go." I said and was surprised to see him stand up immediately. He had never acted unless I had given him an order and I took that for agreement.

I led the way out of the house and stopped short as I saw the older woman from the picture leaning against the car. Her arms were folded and she smirked wickedly at us.

"I told you not to come back here or I make it worse for you, Ben." She said and moved toward us.

"Hello." I said and moved in between her and Ben. "I'm Dylan and you are?"

"You know who I am, cher. Da old woman gave you my name."

I remembered the name from the piece of paper I had been given.

"Sandra Le Clerk."

"Da's me and you da little white boy taking care of poor Ben here."

"Yes, I am. About that, I need you to release him from this."

"You need me to release him? Da's a mighty big favor. What you gonna do for me?" She asked, mockingly.

"What do you want?"

"Let me see." She pretended to think about it. "You know, I can't think of anything that I want just at the moment." She laughed.

"I have some money."

"What am I gonna do with money out here? Don' need money in the bayou." Her eyes gleamed with amusement. "Dere is something I need, now dat I think about it."

"What?"

"I could use me another zombie. I had Ben but den he got taken from me. Now he's back and he's brung me a little friend for himself. I have two zombie and den if one gets taken ain't no big thing." "Don't hurt him, Sandra." Ben said, clearly. His voice free and strong rang out from the porch where we stood to where Sandra was. "You can have me but he doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Seems he's all in dis, Ben. Seems he thinks he come fight for you. Ask for your soul back."

"He's a city boy. He don' know no better." Ben said, his thick creole accent finally detectable now that he wasn't limited to one or two words. "I'm here now. Leave Dylan be."

She tilted her head to the side as if she was thinking about it and then smiled as she looked back at us. "I don' think so, Cher."

Sandra lifted her hand and blew a cloud of foul smelling powder in my face. I'm pretty sure I blacked out after that.

I woke some time later in a strange room as the setting sun shone through the windows. Something was wrong. The color was off. Though I could see the orange of the sun and the bright rose, pinks and lavenders in the sky it seemed as if they were all off, greasy somehow. The shadows of the trees and on the water were a thick oily black as if they were smudged with charcoal. And even the light in the room I was in was at once bright enough to hurt your eyes but dark enough to make it hard to see. The world had definitely changed while I was sleeping.

"Dylan, are you o.k?" Ben asked and I tried to look behind me from where his voice came but I couldn't move.

"Ben, yeah. I'm o.k. What happened?" I asked.

"Dylan, you idiot. You should have left long time ago. Just left me at Claudette's house."

"Who?"

"Da old woman where we met. You should have left me dere."

"I tried. You ran after the car."

"Yeah. I couldn't help it. Claudette told me to stay with you, so dat's what I had to do. If I had my way you would have never been involved in any of dis shit."

"Why can you talk to me now, Ben? Is Sandra still here? Is that why?" He didn't answer for a moment. "Ben?"

"No, Dylan. Zombies can talk to two people. They can talk to their master and they can talk to..."

"To who, Ben?" I asked, but I knew.

"Other zombies."

"So I'm a zombie?"

"Yeah, you're a zombie."

"Well, shit. I can't do a goddamn thing right, can I?" I laughed.

"Don' do dat, cher. You took good care of me and for dat I'll be grateful."

"The only good thing I did when I was taking care of you was sucking your dick."

"I didn't mean dat, but if you want to mention it, yeah you were really good at dat." I heard the laughter in his voice and actually, felt better for a minute. "But you got me clothes and fed me. You were always thinking of me."

"I bought you clothes from Walmart and fed you food you were allergic too."

"You took me to da doctors and da hospital."

"Again, because I fed you food you were allergic to and I almost killed you."

"You made sure I didn't need for anything."

"I forgot to tell you to take a piss and your bladder almost burst."

"You went up against a voo doo queen for me."

"And got turned into a zombie."

"You always saw me as a man and not a zombie. That was what meant da most to me."

"Well, now we can both be zombies."

"I'm sorry, Dylan. I'm sorry you're a zombie cause of me." He said and I knew he felt guilty.

"I'm sorry I failed you, Ben."

The door to the room opened and Sandra sauntered in looking mighty pleased with herself.

"Now don' dis look cozy here? You should have taken me when you had da chance Ben. But I think I like dis better. Now I can have you whenever I want. Dylan too, but he's not really my type."

"Please Sandra, I beg you. Turn Dylan back and let him go."

"You don't be askin' for nothing cause dat's what you both are now. Nothing. Get up both of you and follow me."

The compulsion to move was impossible to ignore as I stood up and followed her into a bigger room of a cabin that resembled Ben's in someways but with obvious differences. The first was that it was a great deal larger. Then there were, what I assumed were the stock and tools of a voo doo priestess, set about the cabin. Dead animals hung from the ceiling, lit candles were placed every where and odd markings were drawn on the wall with white paint. It smelled like must, death and some exotic spice I couldn't quite determine.

"I'm goin' to have you now, Ben and your lil boy dere is gonna watch." She grinned.

"Don' do dis, Sandra. Please, you got to stop dis." Ben pleaded.

"Come here, Ben and take off dem clothes." She ordered and I watched him move toward her.

I heard the door open but since it was out of my line of vision I couldn't even turn my head. Sandra spun toward the door and the intruder and smiled.

"Well, Tante Claudette, this is a surprise." She said and I watched as the old black woman came into view.

"Are you surprised, Sandra? I'm thinkin' it's long passed time we get dis' done and settled with." Claudette answered and Sandra laughed.

"Be careful what you say, Tante. You may be older but my respect only goes so far. 'Sides woman, you ain' got da power to take me on."

"I knew when you was born you'd be up to no good. I tol' my sister, who ain' had the sense God gave a possum not to teach you da ways. But she went ahead and did anyway. So here we are." Claudette chuckled. "And Girl, I may not have enough power to take you on by my lonesome, but I never said I was alone."

A young woman walked through the door behind the older woman. From my frozen position it looked to be Bens sister.

"Hello, mama." The young woman spoke softly. "You're looking well."

`Not Bens sister', I thought confused.

"Margo?" Sandra's hand went to her throat and her face showed her surprise at what she saw was a betrayal. "Claudette been spinnin' stories about me, I know but I never thought you would come to stand against me."

"Ain't no stories I heard that I can't see with my own eyes, mama." The young woman moved and stood next to Claudette. "You turned Ben into a zombie, mama."

"He was no good for you, Cher!" Sandra bit out. "He made passes at me when you wasn't here and tried to get me in his bed."

"Oh mama..." Margo shook her head sadly. "Ben didn't want nothing to do with you then and he sure as shit don't want nothing to do with you now. You overstepped yourself, mama. You taught me the ways yourself but you never taught one thing that Granmere always did; you got to respect the power."

Sandra laughed, coldly. "Your Granmere was a powerful one but a fool and so are you and that old bag of bones you're standing next to. I have the power, I AM the power here in dis bayou!"

"Girl," Claudette began. "dere's power and den dere's power. I been checkin' da bones and dey been talkin'. Dey say it ends tonight. Did you really think none of this would catch up to you?"

"I am Sandra Le Clerk, Tante. I do what I want in any bayou."

"And with whoever you want?" Margo asked.

"Dat's right."

"Funny thing, you made da white boy a zombie." Claudette laughed.

"Anybody can be zombie. Black, white it don' matter."

"Dat's true but da zombie have to believe in zombie. Ben dere's been taught zombie since before he could poke a gator in da eye, so makin' him zombie wasn't so hard. Dylan's a city boy. Ain' no zombie in da city." Claudette smiled and the conversation I had with Theo in the hospital came back to me. Zombification was more about belief than anything.

Once I had realized that, I saw the odd perceptions I had since waking up for what they were, drug induced hallucinations. And the inability to move was just a paralytic which suggested paralysis. I started trying to move my fingers and toes, then working my way up to my arms.

"He under my power now, Claudette. Dere's nothing to be done. He'll be zombie till I say he ain't."

"Dere's where your wrong, Sandra. He'll be zombie till he decides he don' want to be zombie no more." She said and her words seemed to break the spell.

I was still confused and saw the colors of the world as greasy and runny but I was able to move. Sandra spun to me and frowned.

"Stop right dere!" She said and I felt my muscles clench as I froze but it slowly dissipated and I moved another step toward her. "Zombie, arrete ca!"

I kept walking until I was standing in front of her. Claudette laughed.

"You should have picked a zombie who spoke creole." She said.

"You're done, Sandra. It ends now. Ben is free." I said and looked toward him.

His face was dark with confusion as if he were trying to figure out how I had broken free and if he could as well.

"Ben, you are mine." Sandra said. "You are zombie!"

"Give it a rest, bitch!" I shouted. "He's free and you'll never hurt us again!"

"How dare you talk to me like that?!" She screeched. "I am Sandra Le Clerk and no one speaks to me dat way! Especially not zombie!"

Sandra lifted her hand and swung at me but it was caught by another. Ben had grabbed her hand just before it had reached my face.

"You are Sandra Le Clerk but you no voo doo queen anymore. You leave Bayou St. Cyr and you never come back. We don' want your kind 'round here no more." Ben gave her a little shove and she fell back a step.