Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [65]
Biko said, “So if they smell funny, don’t breathe, don’t sweat or bleed, and so on, they should be easy to identify, right?”
“Oh, yes,” Max said. “Under normal circumstances, I would think so. Keep in mind that Esther’s brief encounter with the zombie last night occurred in very frightening and confusing conditions. If, by contrast, the creature simply walked into this room right now . . .”
We all looked toward the door, as if afraid of seeing the late Darius Phelps suddenly enter it.
“It would be much more obvious that Darius is no longer a normal man,” Max said. “As is often the case with reanimation of the dead—”
“Often?” Jeff repeated. “How often do you meet dead people, Max?”
“Not now, Jeff,” I said.
Max continued, “His skin would probably be sunken and dull, his eyes glassy and unblinking, his expression blank. His movements would be clumsy and unnatural, his speech slow and slurred.”
“Since zombies have no thoughts or will, they don’t speak unless spoken to, and they don’t move or do anything unless ordered to,” Puma added. “And if you try to talk with a zombie, it will seem confused and disoriented, because it has no memory and no normal cognitive functions.”
“Most of that describes the, uh, individual that I met last night,” I said. “I thought his disorientation was because, you know, he had just lost a hand.”
“Okay, time out. I believe that you saw something really weird last night, but it’s time to get off this zombie train to nowhere,” Jeff said to me. “How about this theory instead? You did see Darius on the street last night, but he wasn’t a zombie. He was reanimated by technology, not by voodoo.”
“What sort of technology animates a three- week-old corpse?” I said with a frown.
“Let’s say someone dug up his body and installed robot parts inside him.”
“But how did he answer my questions when I spoke to him?”
“Computer programming.”
“And how did he manage to struggle against the baka?”
“Remote control.”
“And what about the baka?” I said. “What were they? Robots with bad breath, drool, and dirty claws?”
He thought it over. “They were mutant dogs.”
“Good God, Jeff,” I said. “Were all your brains in your hair when they shaved it off?”
He looked self-conscious and ran a hand over his bald head. “You don’t think this look works, do you?”
I said to Max and Puma, “Okay, now there’s something else I don’t get. If zombies are just tools, serving the will of the bokor, then what was Darius doing wandering the streets by himself?”
“That is a puzzle,” Max agreed.
“It’s also kind of surprising that he could tell you his name,” Puma said with a frown. “Zombies are supposed to be empty inside, with no . . . Oh, wait! I’ve got it!” In her excitement, she leaped out of her chair, startling us all. She looked at Max, “When is a zombie most dangerous?”
“When its bokor commands it to commit violence or mayhem,” Max said promptly.
“No, I mean, when is it most unpredictable?”
Max looked puzzled for a moment, then his expression cleared and he rose to his feet, too. “When it is awakened!”
“Yes!”
“Whoa! How do you awaken a zombie?” I asked. “You’ve just said they’re the living dead, with no will or soul.”
“There are various ways to awaken one, in theory,” said Max. “If the zombie tastes salt or meat, for example.”
“But I thought they don’t eat or feel hunger?” I said.
“If it makes them unpredictable,” said Biko, “I’d say that’s a good reason not to feed a zombie, hungry or not.”
“Another way a zombie may awaken is if it hears someone it knew in life calling it by name. But again, that’s a theory,” said Max. “I have never actually seen a zombie or studied with a bokor.”
“The essence of it is,” Puma said, “that the zombie has an experience that reminds it of being alive. And so it awakens.”
“In much the way that a specific taste or smell can evoke a powerful memory within a living person, so that the person feels transported back to the place or event in question,” Max said. “Alternately, something may go wrong with the bokor’s spell, and so the