The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) (9 page)

“Who
are you?” asked Ang
é
lique.  Her voice sounded
like a distant whisper as if it was coming from someone else.

The
girl answered slowly and carefully as if it was difficult for her to remember
how to use words.  Her voice came out dry and flat and seemed to echo and hang
in the air like a whisper in a dream: 

“I
am Maude.  I am dead.”  

And
she lifted her arms from her sides, with the palms of her hands facing the sky,
to show that her wrists, with gaping wounds, had been slashed wide open.  Ang
é
lique
was horrified.  But she could not move.

“You
are my sister!” Ang
é
lique rasped with tears
streaming down her face.  “What happened to you?”

The
girl stared at her as if she was trying to remember.  And then she said, “Bokor
made me a ghost.  Bokor will make you a ghost.  And your daughters.  And their
daughters.  Unless you run. 
You must run
!”

***

Freddie
gulped loudly. 

Samson
added, “Ang
é
lique told me that Maude
didn’t use the French word for ghost,
F
antôme
. 
She used the old African word,
Jamby
.” 

He
looked at us, waiting for a reaction. 

“
Come
on, guys!” he said when he realized that we did not know what he meant.  “You’ve
heard this word in English before haven’t you?”

I
shook my head.

“
Zombie
!”

thirteen

I
just had to get out of there. 

All
of a sudden, when Samson said the word “zombie”, the delight of being in an
underground hideaway, far away from Vanderpump, Barrington, Saracen, the
Gestapo, the
Führer and everything else that haunted my
dreams, drained from me.  Suddenly I was buried alive and I panicked. 

By
the time I knew where I was, I was standing breathless, knees quivering, by the
Watchtower, near the boundary of the 1
^st
XI cricket field, where
they had just begun their match against Pinewood College.

Sunlight
and the soothing crack of bat on ball would, under normal circumstances, have
calmed me and organised my thoughts.  But circumstances were far from normal. 

Today
was hot and muggy and the air seemed to sit stiffly and heavily upon the
ground.  The droning of bees and wasps and the fidgeting of crickets floated on
the more hesitant growlings of a distant lawn-mower and seemed to press
themselves into my ears just as the mingling scents of heady pollen and
freshly-cut grass permeated my sinuses.

So
could that really be it? 
Zombies
!  Surely that is just ridiculous; a
thing of children’s stories.  Really, could Barrington be attempting to
zombify
all of the sick boys? And what about Doctor Boateng?  He would probably know
more about it than anyone.  But why would they do it?

Boateng
and Barrington must be acting under orders, I thought as I sat and tried to
distract myself with the cricket.  They could not do this alone.  And if
Boateng had been sent all the way from the Frankfurt Ethnology Laboratories,
the orders must have come from high up.  Who knows?  Maybe all the way from the
top.  So, what could we do about it?  Nobody, not Wilbraham or Ludendorff even,
could defy those kinds of orders.

I
shook my head and forced a chuckle as the Talltrees opening bowler was loping
towards the crease.  Zombies, honestly!  That’s just ridiculous!

Barrington
had said that Miss Prenderghast and Head Matron were under the spell.  That
could only mean one thing.  I didn’t know much about zombies, only silly
stories in comic-books and sometimes films, when we were allowed to watch
them.  But it occurred to me that aside from brain-eating and obvious signs of
decomposition, Prenderghast and Head Matron did seem to behave in a very
zombie-ish way.

 “Turnpike! 
There he is.  You alright?”  It was Reggie.  Freddie was with him, but was
wearing a dark expression.  Samson was hiding just behind him amongst the
bushes so as not to be seen with us.  I looked down at my hand and saw that it
was still shaking.

“Look
here, Tom,” said Freddie solemnly, “I think we ought tell them.”

I
paused, wondering what, if anything, I could tell anyone.

“Tell
us what?” laughed Reggie, looking from me to Freddie.  His smile faltered. 
“What’s going on?”

“Hey,
Tom,” added Samson solemnly, “I swear I...we won’t tell a soul.”   Reggie
nodded in silent agreement.

“Tom,”
said Freddie.  “Tell them.  It’s not as if we’ve got any bright ideas.”

I
started from the beginning and Freddie chipped in whenever I neglected some
detail or possible interpretation.  I began by telling them about how Freddie
and I had been followed into the Dungeon by Barrington and that it still
disturbed me that while we were down there, he had shone his torch straight at
me, but hadn’t said anything.  I explained that Barrington hadn’t been
following us at all, but had obviously been down in the Dungeon for some other
purpose.  I told them about the horrendous groaning which I had thought we’d
heard in the dark. 

I
looked around to make sure that nobody else was within earshot.  “So, Freddie
and I found this secret room behind the Library, you see...”

“Crikey!”
exclaimed Reggie.  “I’ve heard about the Hidden Library.  You’ve got to show us
how to get into it.  What’s back there?”

 “Reg,
shut up!” said Samson.  “Let the man finish!  He can show us some other time.”

“Sorry,
Turnpike,” said Reggie.  “Go on.”

“Well
we found this book in there.  It was laid out on a lectern like someone was
planning to come back to it.  This book was written in a strange language,
which we realised later must be a language which is spoken in the Gold Coast.” 
I paused to look at Samson.  “Do you think you would be able to read it?” 

 “Well,
obviously my main language is English,” he said.  “But I still know a bit of
the
E’we
language because of the songs my mum used to sing.  If that’s
what it is, I might be able to read it, I suppose.”

 “Well
it’s worth a try.  We should try to get back in there and see if we can find
out more from the book.  But anyway,” I said, resuming the story, “what
happened was that Freddie and I hid because the Colonel and Doctor Boateng came
in.”  I explained how the two of them were having a quarrel about Voodoo and
that Barrington had said that the strange book had been given to him by a
Witchdoctor in Africa.

I
was beginning to feel slightly less shaky now.  The more I told them, the more
real and the more bizarre what I was telling them seemed.  But it still felt
good to be involving other people, people I was sure I could trust, like I was
offloading part of the problem onto them.  “Now look, you must swear on your
mothers’ graves that you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to say.”  I wasn’t
really sure why, but mothers’ graves were always the touchstone for solemn
promises at Talltrees, even if your mother was still alive.

“I
swear,” said Reggie.

“I
swear,” repeated Samson.

Each
having sworn the oath, I told them the story that Pontevecchio had told Freddie
and me about what happened to Barrington in Africa, the kidnap of his wife
whose photo we had seen, and his own decline into madness and witchcraft.

“So
you see,” I said, “what we saw was really just part of a long argument which
Barrington and Boateng have been having for years.  Barrington showed Boateng
the book.  We couldn’t hear much, but he said something about a
Bokor
and something about preparing a poison to bring all the boys under a spell.  He
even said that Head Matron and Miss Prenderghast were already under the spell
and something...”

“Wait
a sec,” said Reggie.  “What’s the
Bokor
?”

“Well
we didn’t know until Samson just told us when we were down in the Burrow,” said
Freddie, looking at Samson who seemed, amazingly, to have turned rather pale.

Samson
gulped and said, “A Bokor is an evil priest, a
Necromancer
.  He can cast
spells and... and...”

“Tell
him, Samson,” I said.

“...he
can raise people from the dead...”

“What? 
Come off it!” exclaimed Reggie.  “Raise people from the dead?”

“Yes,”
replied Samson.  “You know... it was what I was just telling you about...
zombies
!”

Reggie
looked at each of us with his mouth hanging open like a goldfish at feeding
time.  Then he burst out laughing.  “Oh sure, fellas.  Very good.  Very good
indeed.  You really ‘ad me going there.  Did you plan this one when you were in
the War Committee Room?”  He looked at each of us again and registered that
none of us was sharing his mirth or poking him in the ribs whilst shouting
“gullible!”  His laughter was abruptly stifled and he said, “But
surely
you’re kidding... aren’t you?”

“Not
this time I’m afraid, Reggie,” I said grimly.

And
then he gasped and said, “So, the boys who’ve fallen ill...you don’t think...”

Freddie
and I nodded.  “Well that’s
exactly
the point,” said Freddie.  “It’s a
bit suspicious, isn’t it, that all these boys have been taken to Sick Bay, not
one
of them has come back and some have been there for over
two
weeks
? 
And, what’s more, nobody’s allowed to see them, not even the Masters.” 

“So,”
said Reggie, “the only person who ever sees them is...  Head Matron...”

“Exactly!” 
I added.  “And, like the Colonel said, Head Matron and Miss Prenderghast are
already under the spell...”

“God!”
said Reggie.  “That really makes sense.  Both of them
are
really
zombie-like.  I can’t believe I never noticed that before.  I wonder if that
means that now they have to do whatever Colonel Barrington tells them to do.”

“Which,”
I said, “could include helping him to turn everyone
else
into zombies.” 

“So
do you think Doctor Boateng was trying to stop Barrington?” asked Reggie.

“I
don’t know,” I said, thinking it through.  “At first, it sort of sounded like
he was, but, thinking about it, he can’t have been.  I mean, if he’s been given
a travel permit to come all the way here from Frankfurt, it must be for
something more important than just giving a talk to some schoolboys, don’t you
think?  He’s come from the Ethnology Laboratories.  Isn’t this the sort of
thing they do?” 

“But
if he’s an honorary Aryan,” said Freddie, “he can probably get any travel
passes he wants.”

“Well,
maybe,” I said.  “But think about it:  You don’t get to be an honorary Aryan
for doing nothing.  No.  He must be important to the Party for some reason or
other.  And he
is
an expert on Voodoo.  I’ve got this nasty feeling that
the orders come all the way from the top...”

“What?”
said Reggie incredulously.  “You mean all the way from... the
Berghof
? Unbelievable!”

“Who
knows?” I said.  “But it is a bit odd that Doctor Boateng has been sent all the
way here
now
.  It must be an experiment...”

“God,”
whispered Freddie in horror.  “They’re planning to create a race of
Nazi-Zombies!”

There
was a silence when this thought sunk in.

I
shook my head.  “If it does come from the top, we can’t tell anyone, not even
Mr. Wilbraham.  So we’ve got to deal with this by ourselves.”

“Hang
on a second, boys.”  It was Samson from the bushes.  “It may come from the top,
but it must also be top secret.  So that means if it got out, it would be a
huge embarrassment for the Party, wouldn’t it?  I mean, we’d need evidence.  We
need real, solid evidence for everyone to see. 
And
we have to make sure
everybody could see it without knowing it was us that found it.”

“He’s
right,” said Reggie, obviously starting to believe us by now.  He looked
distracted, thinking it all through.  “And we don’t know who else is involved or
when all these boys are going to come back as zombies or, most importantly of
all, what we can do to stop all this and save them, right?”

“Exactly. 
So,” I said, “any ideas?”

As
it happened, Reggie did have an idea.

fourteen

Later
that afternoon, Reggie, Freddie and I were waiting, huddled, in the disused
Green Bogs on the First Floor opposite the Junior Bathroom.  We remained
completely silent, with Reggie holding up a hand like a conductor.

The
Green Bogs were disgusting.  In fact, I was trying to focus my attention upon
my scuffed brown sandals because everything else in the room made me retch. 
The air was cold and bore a squalid stench.  The urinal which spanned the wall
was thick with what looked like mucus.  The radiator, which had presumably once
been white, was actually growing fungus.  Literally toadstools.  And not, I
imagined, the edible kind.  This room had obviously been neglected for a long,
long time.  The only signs of maintenance were that the forty watt bulb that
hung listlessly from the ceiling still shed its reluctant light upon the vomitous
filth below.

But
it was a good hiding place close to the Surgery and the Sick Bay, a place so
disgusting that nobody would ever think to look in here.  And we needed a
hiding place because just as Freddie and I had been about to walk into the
Surgery as Phase One of Reggie’s strategy to get into the Sick Bay, we saw the
silhouette of Colonel Barrington through the frosted glass panel on the Surgery
door.  He was in there with Head Matron.  His voice was raised in anger.  “For
God’s sake, woman!” he shouted.  “Can you remember
nothing
?” 

Perhaps,
I thought to myself grimly, she had forgotten the necessary dosage of poison
for the latest boy to succumb to the zombie-‘flu epidemic.

After
a few minutes longer in the Green Bogs, and just as I was beginning to wonder
if it’s possible to die of disgust, the Colonel stomped briskly past the door
behind which we waited.  When we could no longer hear his footsteps, Reggie
lowered his hand.  Then he indicated to me and Freddie with two fingers – less
like a bishop and more like a commanding officer – by pointing at each of us
and then towards the Surgery, that we should “deploy”. 

Phase
One: Diversion.

Freddie
put an arm over my shoulders and lent heavily on me.  I helped him to limp down
the Upper Corridor, past the stairs up to the Sick Bay to our right, and
through the Surgery door.

Head
Matron seemed not to notice our entry and continued with whatever it was that
she was doing, tinkering with bottles of who-knows-what in the far corner by
the window.

I
watched her for evidence of zombiness.  She was a very strange woman who seldom
spoke – certainly never when not prompted.  She was tall and thin with slender
fingers and elegantly groomed fingernails.  In spite of the fact that her
equally carefully groomed hair was bright white and that her skin looked
paper-thin and brittle, like the wings of a dead moth, the rumour was that she
was actually fairly young.  In fact, the rumour was that she had nearly died in
a house fire years ago and that the terrible burns she suffered had made her
look much, much older than she really was.

Nobody
had ever asked her about it, but I found it hard to believe.  In fact, until
recently, I had been convinced that she was just old.  But now I had an
alternative explanation for her condition:  Barrington had zombified her.  She
was walking dead. 

Following
Reggie’s strategy, Phase Two, Freddie began to play up to his supposed injury
by wincing and groaning.

I
coughed lightly to gain Head Matron’s attention.  “Ma’am?”

Still
she didn’t notice us and continued carefully to decant a gloopy green liquid
from a bottle into a beaker with a funnel.

“Ma’am?” 
I repeated more loudly.

She
turned slowly towards us with a syringe menacingly raised, casting an arched
shadow against the wall.  Freddie looked at me in immediate fright.

“What
is it?” she said flatly, placing the syringe in another beaker.

I suddenly
felt silly and that our ruse was far too obvious.  But all we needed to do was
stall for long enough to allow Reggie time to hop up the stairs to Sick Bay,
have a look around (a “dekko” as he insisted upon calling it) and get back
without being caught.

“It’s
Strange’s ankle, Ma’am,” I said.  “Think it’s broken.”

She
exhaled slowly.  “Bring him here,” she said and pointed to the geriatric wooden
chair in the middle of the room.  It was, I thought, the sort of chair that
people get tortured on by Russians.

Freddie
hobbled and winced his way to the chair.  Head Matron crouched down to examine
him.  But, just then, we heard a sudden commotion coming from the Upper Corridor. 
Oh dear.  Phase Three was going wrong.

“
Reginald
Pickering
!  What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?!”  It was Mr.
English and he was in a terrible temper.

“Sir,
I...” began Reggie.

“
Detention
!”
shouted Mr. English.  “In fact
double
Detention!”

“But
Sir...”

“Do
not
answer me back, boy!” he fumed.

“Reggie,
Reggie!”  It was Caratacus’ calmer tone.  “What on Earth were you doing going
up there, eh?”

“Sir,”
said Reggie, “I’ve lost my tuck-box key and I think Blackadder’s got it.  I
wanted to see him to ask if he could tell me where it is.”

“Well,
look here, the thing to do is ask Head Matron.  You know very well that she is
the only person allowed up to the Sick Bay.  She’ll pass on the message.  It’s
not worth the risk going up there yourself now, is it?”

“No,
Sir.  Sorry, Sir.”

“So
does that hurt?”  Freddie had been too distracted by the exchange outside to
remember to maintain his groaning and wincing while Head Matron prodded his
ankle.

“Hmm? 
Oh...er...ooh, ouch!  Gosh, that’s sore!” he howled unconvincingly.  I rolled
my eyes at him.

“You’re
fine,” she said, standing back up and, with a wave of her hand, added, “Off you
go.”

“Yes,
Ma’am.”

I
pretended to help Freddie out of the Surgery and, as soon as the door was shut
behind us, we ran to catch up with Reggie.