Night of the Damned

by Stephen Bywater

Genres: Horror; Thrillers

Synopsis

When darkness falls the nightmare begins . . . It is 1935 and a rubber plantation deep in the Amazon jungle is losing its labourers one by one. Company agent Miller arrives to investigate the mounting number of those disappearing as well as the brutal killing of a fellow agent. Sightings of a corpselike girl and a man who bears a striking resemblance to the dead agent soon have Miller on edge. And when night falls, and the humid air fills with the stench of rotting flesh, he becomes convinced he's found the nearest thing to hell. They roam through the darkness, hide in the shadows and shun the daylight. But what are these deathly-looking figures? As the sun sets over the plantation, only a brave man dares to sleep...

Release date: June 18, 2015

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 368

Sample

The Carson Motion Picture newsreel plays in the movie theatre in Detroit, the flickering light intermittently illuminating the audience, most of whom are waiting patiently for the main feature to begin. In grainy footage the Brazilian settlement shifts on a yellowing screen of cotton muslin. The camera pans, from a vantage point above the bunkhouses, across the corrugated roofs and dusty roads. In the distance, beyond the park and its tall, fluttering palm trees, is the municipal hall, the hospital and the row of stores. Labourers walk along Main Street, machetes swinging beside their loose linen trousers. The sweeping movement of the camera slows to a stop as the jungle creeps into view. The voice is calm and authoritative, a Midwestern burr wrapping itself around the listener. ‘The settlement was Sinclair Carson’s own idea, and his plan was simple: to carve out a vast rubber plantation in the Amazon for the tyres, piping and seals required by the automobile industry; an industry which in the United States is now churning out over six thousand motor cars a day.’

The image switches to the head and shoulders of a young woman standing beside an orange tree. Behind her is one of the clapboard bungalows for the Michigan managers and their families. She stares at us, or rather slightly to the side. She has a smooth, oval face and dark eyes. Sunglasses are perched above her brow and she is squinting a little. A hand goes up to shade her eyes, but it only remains there for a second or two as though she’s immediately instructed to lower it. ‘With other raw materials under his control, it was only latex which eluded him, but not any more. Now, with Brazil’s full co-operation, Mr Sinclair Carson has his very own township in the heart of the Amazon jungle, and our dependence on rubber from British and Dutch plantations in South-East Asia will soon be history.’

The woman’s oval face expands until it is almost filling the screen. She is smiling, but it’s a mildly impatient gaze. She’s quite young, more a girl than a woman. Her skin is clear, her hair short and blonde. No matter how hard she smiles, her almond-shaped eyes are sad and glisten like reflected teardrops above her freckled cheeks, the result of a hard-bitten childhood or a broken heart. The camera lingers for several seconds, the cinematographer dwelling on her prettiness. The next shot shows a man. His skin is pale in comparison to the woman’s. He’s much older, somewhere in his late thirties, and wearing a collar and tie, but he’s unshaven and his brow is damp with sweat. His thinning hair is lank and dark. Unlike the woman we assume to be his young wife, he is standing in the shadow of the bungalow and ignores the camera. He’s not happy, but neither is he angry. He refuses to look into the camera and you sense that he’s impatient for the shoot to finish.

‘His men from Southfield and Granite Mountain manage the plant. Brazilian workers help to keep it running, and tap the trees for their latex. Yet this isn’t just a factory or a business opportunity he has created alongside one of the most famous rivers in the world. No, it is an idea he is exporting. Carsonville is a settlement unlike any other, a plantation created to feed a different kind of hunger.’

The next shot of the young woman shows her at full length. She is wearing a simple cotton dress with horizontal grey lines. The dress is tight around her waist and her head is bowed, as though the sun is still troubling her eyes. The slight mound of her abdomen posits the idea that she’s pregnant. The girl turns to the camera and slowly moves towards us, still staring calmly into the lens.

In amongst the movie audience is Vernon Miller. At just over six foot he sits slouched in his seat, a cowlick of blond hair, a square jaw which, at thirty-nine, is beginning to turn jowly. Like most Carson employees, he watches the familiar story unfold with a mix of satisfaction and disquiet, though unbeknown to him his fate is being fixed three thousand miles away.

While Miller scratches at the stubble on his chin, the blood of a fellow agent drips between the floorboards. It is the plantation in full swing. This is where Leavis has gone, where coincidentally his corpse is being dragged out of the room. The short, coppery hair smears a semi-circle of scarlet lines across the wooden floor. Miller shifts in his seat. The people are smiling, or industrious, moving briskly, striding over furrowed earth, pointing at saplings, the jungle, the sawmill. The reel is selling a vision. Cost and competition has driven its creation, but there is something more behind the idea, a zealous force which lies hidden. Miller idly wonders how Leavis is coping with the insects in Brazil just as his lifeless body slumps forward, folding over itself like a discarded puppet. A freckled hand hangs down off the porch. Rain cleanses the fingers, droplets of translucent pink falling into blackness.

Earlier the same evening rain had started to fall in Carsonville. Thick charcoal-coloured clouds had tumbled through the dusk, bringing with them a premature darkness. Heavy rain and a hushed stillness in the trees; the squawking of birds and the howling of monkeys in the jungle having ceased as if in accord, as though holding their breath in anticipation of what was about to happen.

On Cherry Drive Frank Leavis, his face almost feminine in its untested delicacy, stood under a covered porch and, with arms outstretched, shook droplets from his coat. He hadn’t been in Carsonville long enough to appreciate the relative quietness of the evening. Instead, he softly cursed the tropical rain and rapped his knuckles impatiently on the frame. Behind the fly screen the bungalow’s door was ajar and a dim light, as though from a candle, lit the polished floor. Leavis called out again. At his back, water was beginning to pour off the roof like shattered glass. He inched closer to the door. ‘Can I step inside for a minute?’

A woman shuffled towards the screen. ‘We don’t let in anyone after dark.’ Her face was hidden, but he sensed her resentment at having been disturbed.

‘It’s not yet five, and this is an official visit.’ The voice was soft, almost whining.

‘Sullivan sent you?’

‘I’m with the Sociological Department. Here to see Mr Sam Halliday.’

‘The socio-what?’

‘I just need to ask you a few questions. Make sure everything’s OK.’

There was a pause. ‘Dr Masterson know you’re calling?’

‘Yes, he does,’ came the reply, a little louder on account of the rain.

Through the screen door Estelle looked the stranger up and down. He wasn’t tall, yet he stood straighter than most men, particularly those who’d become bowed beneath the tropical heat and constant irritations found in the Amazon.

‘It’s just a short survey, that’s all,’ prompted Leavis. His manner was calm, unaggressive. He smiled his practised, plaintive smile.

Estelle paused again, as though weighing up the consequences of sending him away. ‘We got company,’ she hollered over her shoulder. ‘You better be sitting.’ Trying to disguise her unwillingness, she pushed open the screen door and tilted her head, motioning him to enter. ‘Might want to hang your coat on the hook. We don’t want it dripping all over the rug.’

Leavis, suave and smiling, did as he was told while his eyes adjusted to the gloom inside. He took out his notebook and fountain pen. ‘I was just going to bed,’ said Estelle. ‘Sam, I’ll switch on the lamp.’

‘I didn’t realise people retired so early. We’re on Detroit time here, aren’t we?’

Estelle nodded. ‘I just like to read, and the more you’re covered up, less chance of them bugs taking a bite. You new, ain’t you?’

‘Yes, I am. All the way from Southfield, to help as best I can.’

‘Well, not everyone goes so early, but when it rains there’s precious little to do. You just hope it’s eased off before dawn.’ She straightened up from the lamp, the light catching her short blonde hair as she did so, and stepped in front of Halliday. Leavis expected him to tell her to stand aside so he could see their visitor, but he remained silent while she continued to talk. Her wary tone had made her sound older than she was, but now Leavis saw that the woman had barely stepped out of childhood. Hanging from her slender shoulders was a worn-out dressing gown, tied low at her waist and held by one hand tight across her heavy breasts. There was something rudely wholesome about her, though in the lamplight her oval face betrayed a measure of suffering he’d only ever seen in women twice her age. ‘Now what is it you want?’ Estelle asked. ‘Have you really been sent here to help?’

‘My name’s Frank Leavis.’

‘You’ve already said.’ She swapped hands across her chest to allow her right to be shaken, but otherwise showing no inclination to put her visitor at ease. ‘What is it you want?’

‘They’re just questions I have to ask all employees from Michigan. Mr Carson’s keen to avoid the kind of labour unrest we’ve had in the past.’

‘You mean like the riot they had here or back in—’

‘Take a seat,’ interrupted Halliday in a slow drawl.

‘My,’ said Estelle, turning round, ‘aren’t you talkative tonight.’

Leavis sat down facing the couple, daintily lifting his damp slacks an inch higher on his thighs. Between them was a small, low table with a copy of The Phantom Detective and a label-less bottle with a tumbler beside it. The girl said something about the drink being medicinal yet he knew enough to know it was cachaça; had smelt it on her breath as he’d brushed past her.

Suddenly conscious of how she was eclipsing Halliday, Estelle moved to the side. As her shadow fell away from the man behind, Leavis saw enough to know that there was something wrong with him. His face was deathly pale and he sat slumped in such a way that he appeared almost corpse-like. The man was thirty-one according to the records, yet he appeared to be in his fifties. Before calling, Leavis had gone over what few papers they had on him and, as he’d suspected, little of what he was seeing made any sense. The drink alone was enough for a serious reprimand, if not to send them packing. And as for the girl, well, the fact that he hadn’t seen anything referring to a Mrs Halliday put her in a very vulnerable position. He had his official line of questioning, but he thought it might be worth teasing out one or two stories while he tried to ascertain their true status.

The agent studied the man sitting in his grubby overalls. He was staring straight ahead, rather than at Leavis, and what hair he had left on his narrow head was dark and thinning. Estelle saw Leavis looking and moved the standing lamp away from the chair. Even in the shadow, though, the agent couldn’t get over the paleness of the foreman’s skin. It was his understanding that Halliday was one of the men in charge of cultivating the rubber trees and therefore must have been spending most of his time outdoors, and yet in comparison to the girl he looked as white as chalk.

‘Are you ill, Mr Halliday?’

‘My husband’s as good as he’s goin’ to get.’

‘You look washed out. Dead beat.’

‘Happens with the shift,’ said Estelle. ‘You’ve spoken to Masterson, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ replied Leavis, though he thought it wise not to elaborate.

‘Well, he’s been doin’ the shift for the last month or so. Doctor says he can stay in the house. I mean, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

Leavis nodded, simply to put her at her ease. In the distance thunder rolled across the treetops. Neither paid it any heed. He thought he knew what kind of a girl he was dealing with: the sort who started out with a surly politeness, became irreverent and hot-tempered in the blink of an eye, and ended up sullen and unfriendly. Yet he couldn’t quite fathom her husband, if that was what he was. While Leavis had been talking she’d been gazing unsteadily at his bow tie. Outside the rain was driving hard into mud and in the distance thunder rumbled again as if the night sky itself was cursing the swollen land.

‘You like the bow tie?’ asked Leavis.

‘It’s all right, I guess.’ The pastel print looked strange on a man, but she wasn’t drunk enough to say it. Instead she made some loose comment about how the rust in it matched his hair, then she shivered, despite the warmth, and tried again to talk like a grown-up. ‘When you say unrest, you mean here?’

‘Here and at the factory in Ferndale. We certainly don’t want a repeat of the riot. They’re questions which will give Southfield some indication of how things need to improve if this is to succeed.’

‘Well, we’ve been here less than a year. You should talk to Bell. He’s been here since the start.’

‘And Bell works …?’

‘At the payroll office. Lives just up Riverside with his wife and kids.’

Leavis made a note of the name to satisfy her. ‘I’ll be speaking to everyone over the next month or so.’

‘Including the blacks and those Indians they have working out in the fields?’

The scratching of the nib stopped and the agent looked up. ‘As many as possible.’

‘Indians are fit only for a sideshow – everyone says so – you won’t get much sense out of them. Say, what are you writing?’

‘Just a reminder about Bell.’

‘Least that’s what Sam says. I ain’t never had no trouble with them.’

He closed his notebook, though the tip of a finger kept his place. The girl was sitting forward in her chair. Her dressing gown had fallen loose across her frayed nightdress, which lay taut over her swollen belly. The sight of it made Leavis uneasy. Despite the rain, it was unbearably warm in the house. The heat had pooled during the day, the metal roof turning the bungalow into an oven. There was a smell as well, something lurking beneath the cheap perfume. The stench of garbage, or rotting meat. Halliday sat motionless, his dark hair plastered across his forehead.

‘This isn’t going to take long, is it?’ she asked.

‘No more than five minutes.’

‘And it’s not about rubber production? I don’t know a thing about how much they’re supposed to be producing.’

‘No, Mrs Halliday.’ The girl seemed pleased to be addressed as such. ‘This has nothing to do with the amount of rubber being produced. Perhaps I should explain. As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr Carson’s ambition is to create a harmonious settlement for all employees. We’re here not only to export rubber but to create an irradiating centre of civilisation in this neglected corner of the Americas, to set an example to the natives and to harness, in as efficient a manner as possible, what natural assets the land and people possess.’

‘Those are high-faluting words.’

‘No different to the sentiment your husband’s heard a dozen times before.’ The agent looked at Halliday, but the man still didn’t say anything, nor had he even looked at the agent.

‘And I’m guessing you haven’t spoken to anybody else.’

‘I thought I’d start with the botanists this afternoon, then those at the powerhouse, sanitation, sawmill …’

‘Then why Sam?’

‘He’s involved in the planting.’

‘Not any more. Masterson should have told you that.’ Estelle looked a little confused. ‘You say you’re here to help?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And how you figuring on doing that?’

‘Well, one of Southfield’s biggest concerns is the number of labourers we’re losing.’

‘You mean dying or getting sick?’

‘No, not exactly.’ Leavis reopened his notebook. ‘Last year was better than the year before, but we’re still finding it hard to keep men.’

‘We ain’t planning on going nowhere, I can tell you that, though the heat and the bugs don’t exactly make it a delight. And the Indians don’t like work, that’s the short of it. They’re lazy, most of them, or sick. And then there’s the shift, of course. It frightens them. Then there are all kinds of crazy stories.’

‘Like what?’

‘Just stories. You know Masterson doesn’t like us talking too much. These Brazilians aren’t company men. They must have explained that to you.’ Estelle poured herself another drink. She’d forgotten how fine it was to talk to someone who wanted to listen. ‘Do you want one? I can get you a glass.’

‘No, thanks.’ Leavis was gratified to see her relaxing. ‘From what I’ve heard it sounds like some silly superstitions are taking hold. There’s nothing you can think of that perhaps could bring them round to our way of thinking, help to develop a sense of belonging?’

‘Companhia Carson don’t mean much out here, other than a free hospital and a roof over their heads. Money don’t mean much neither, unless they’re buying cane alcohol.’

Leavis nodded as though he sympathised with the girl sitting in front of him. ‘And the men and their families from Michigan, they still see themselves as part of the Carson family?’

‘As much as they ever did, though some find it harder than others. Folk here are dying all the time. If it ain’t fever it’s snakes or spiders, and then there are things in the river that make swimming as dangerous as flying. Bloodthirsty fish, Sam used to call them.’

‘There’s the pool,’ said Halliday, as though emerging from some sort of reverie at the mention of his name. ‘We like the pool,’ he slurred. Leavis glanced again at the cadaverous figure slumped in the chair; he was either ill or some sort of dope fiend.

‘One for us, and one for those whose skin ain’t as lily-white,’ Estelle explained. ‘I don’t want you to think we ain’t civilised.’

‘And you’ve been here for how long?’

‘I said, less than a year.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

She turned towards Halliday, more from habit than expectation. He didn’t seem to be inclined to speak. ‘It was last June,’ said Estelle. ‘A rotten time to arrive, though better than those winters back in Chicago. Saying that, this summer’s something else, what with the heat and the rain and neighbours becoming delirious and shooting off about all kinds of crap.’

‘Before you arrived you worked in Chicago?’

‘He did.’

‘I’d like Mr Halliday to tell me in his own words.’

‘Yeah,’ he replied, though the word was grunted rather than spoken.

‘Ain’t there a file up in Sullivan’s office?’ asked Estelle.

‘There may be, but this is for my records. It makes my job easier if you just confirm what I need.’ Leavis sensed a growing uneasiness but continued with the questions which had been agreed upon back in Southfield. Part of the reason why he’d been sent to Carsonville was to root out any irregularities. In the few days he’d been on the plantation he’d come to suspect there was some sort of scam being perpetrated, though he wasn’t sure how far it stretched. ‘What was your address in Chicago?’

‘216 Oakfield Avenue.’

‘A fancy neighbourhood?’

‘Apartment 27. It wasn’t that fancy.’

‘And how long did you live there?’

‘Say, is this about here or what we did back in Chicago?’ asked Estelle.

‘Believe me,’ said Leavis, ‘this is just a formality.’ Perhaps he should have waited a little longer before launching into his enquiry, but now there was no going back. ‘You ever lived in Texas?’

‘Ain’t never been anywhere else, till we come here.’

‘It’s just you sound more the southern belle than anything.’

‘What you saying? That I don’t know where I’m from?’ The girl was wary now. There was the feeling he was out to trip her up.

The agent shrugged. ‘Where did Sam work before he came here?’

‘Grant Park, Chicago.’

The answer was too slick, the city superfluous. ‘You know most of those working in the fields are engineers. Carson figures engineers are bright enough to plant a few rubber trees.’

She wasn’t saying anything.

‘Where did you meet Halliday?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘How long have you been married?’

No answer.

‘Are you married?’

‘Of course we’re married!’ There was too much righteous indignation for her outburst to be anything other than phoney. ‘Now if you ain’t here to help me, if you’re not asking me about how the crawlies make me cuss, or what it takes to survive in this godforsaken place, then I suggest you leave.’

He briefly regarded the girl with ill-disguised disdain before asking Halliday what exactly his work entailed.

‘You know he can’t answer questions like that.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Leavis.

‘You’ve spoken to Masterson, ain’t you?’

‘I met him briefly and he checked me over. A courtesy I believe he extends to all new arrivals.’

Estelle kept her face composed as best she could, but her eyes seemed to flare with anger and alarm. ‘Then you know nothing about what’s been happening?’ In a drunken act of realisation she slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand and kept it there until she started shaking her head. ‘You haven’t been sent by Masterson, have you?’ It was an accusation, more than a question.

‘No. As I’ve told you, I’m here to find out why we’re losing men, but I also want to make sure that those who are employed are here legitimately. At the moment all I can see is a man who’s not fit to work, let alone care for his wife, if that’s what you are.’ Leavis looked pointedly at Estelle. ‘Is it drugs? Is that what he’s taken? Is it heroin?’

‘It ain’t drugs,’ she snapped.

‘You want to tell me the truth?’

The girl glowered back at him. He assumed that she’d been taken in by his boyish looks; had thought she could fool him, even entertain him with a fluttering of her eyelashes. An Eagle Scout doing a man’s job was how they perceived him, but he knew he was twice as hard as Miller. Other agents were susceptible to their charms, but not Leavis.

‘Well, child, are you going to answer me? Why don’t we start with the easy stuff? You have a marriage licence, any sort of paperwork? Because I tell you, there’s precious little in Sam’s folder.’

Estelle angrily pulled her dressing gown over her exposed knee and stood up. On her face was the look of one whose trust had been abused too many times by all sorts of men. ‘I’ll give you what you’re looking for,’ she said before shuffling purposefully into the bedroom, her scarlet slippers making a soft hushing sound over the wooden boards.

Leavis quietly rose up from his chair and took the opportunity her departure offered to have a better look at Halliday. Further checks would be required to ascertain whether any of Halliday’s credentials were in order. It wouldn’t surprise him if he was wanted in at least one State. ‘Mr Halliday,’ Leavis said, then repeated his name. In response he turned his head slightly, but remained gazing into space. The rubber plantation had yet to come close to matching its predicted output and suspicion had fallen on those in charge of planting. Whether or not they were suitably qualified to carry out the work was one of the things he’d been sent to investigate. Looking at Halliday, it seemed to Leavis that he wasn’t qualified to do anything.

From the bedroom there came the faintest rasp of a drawer being opened, but the agent wasn’t listening. There was something wrong with Halliday’s eyes, the irises so pale it was hard to detect any colour. Was he blinking? Leavis snapped his fingers in front of Halliday’s face. Nothing. An insect, which must have been lodged behind his ear, fell to the floor and beetled its way beneath the cane chair.

He took hold of the wooden lamp stand and leaned the shade towards Halliday. The man in the chair squirmed away from the light. Leavis caught the stench of spoilt liver, saw the puckered face and its reaction to the lamp: his skin was lime-white, his lips gnarled and twisted, his unblinking eyes dulled, gelid and sunk in his head. His wasting flesh was anaemic, an incurable type of anaemic and fatal looking. This was no white-knuckle drunk or dope addict, but a man who was seriously ill. A fly landed on Halliday’s bottom lip and sauntered in and out of his gaping mouth. It was a sorry, repellent sight: a man so absent from the world that he was no longer capable of reacting to anything.

Leavis straightened up at the sound of Estelle returning. Her hips swayed a little with her languid shuffle. There was a yellow square floating in front of her: a nicotine-stained pillow. She was holding it folded over her right fist. He’d been about to share his thoughts concerning her husband, but the sight of it folded like that made him forget what he was going to say. Her face was fixed, her dressing gown hanging open. In her lowest voice she whispered viciously, ‘You get away from him.’

Leavis saw the pillow thrust out, saw her cleavage, made manifest by her pregnancy and almost monstrous in one so young. As she stepped forward she looked up at him between her thick lashes. He moved away from Halliday and then winced instinctively. Her hidden hand was only inches from his chest when the irresistible urge to squeeze the trigger, to punish the cowering man in front of her, overcame what little self-restraint was left. Ever so lightly she squeezed, just the lightest of touches, and a searing hole blew through the greasy cotton. The thunderous retort reverberated in the living room. . .