Perry spoke up. “We were wondering if you knew anything about that. We don’t know much about your culture, so whatever you could tell us about what’s real and what’s not would be really, really helpful. We don’t want to go around perpetuating a stereotype.”
“Oh, thank god,” Ezekiel said dryly. He sighed and gently fingered his mustache. “Look here, I’ve heard these rumors too, but they must be just that. There have always been priestesses who try and use the spirits for destruction instead of healing, pain instead of love. They’re in every religion. But even though there are a few of them in the state at the moment, it doesn’t mean they’d bother with zombie rituals. That’s outdated, back to the old days when people owned slaves. That just doesn’t exist anymore. Curses, hexes, those are way more plausible. The zombie rumors are probably just kids on bath salts, that’s all. Everyone points the finger at Voodoo when the first weird thing happens in this town.”
“You say there are a few of them at the moment, a few of the Bokors,” I said. “Could you tell me their names?”
He looked shocked that I asked. “Of course I won’t. I’m not a snitch. Voodoo has a karma aspect to it, you know. Now, if I can interest you in some books on Voodoo, you’ll probably find them a lot more helpful.”
“Is one of them Mambo Maryse?” Perry asked quickly.
We both watched as Ezekiel’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then he smiled. “I have no comment on that.”
He looked over my shoulder, making eye contact with a couple who had just entered the shop, and muttered, “Excuse me” while he went after them.
“Well, at least we know that’s the truth; Mambo Maryse really isn’t the most popular Mambo in town. Do you know what is the most popular Mambo?”
She nodded then shot me a sly grin. “You’re two seconds from getting that song in my head again, aren’t you?”
“A little bit of Perry in my life,” I sang into her ear. “A little bit of Perry by my side.”
I grabbed her hands and spun her around the aisle, narrowly missing knocking over a few Voodoo statues. Now that would have been bad juju.
After we left the Voodoo store, feeling no better or worse about the whole zombie situation, we headed back to the B&B, grabbing a quick bite of dinner at a nearby café. I voiced my suspicions to Perry about Maryse being behind the walking dead.
“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” she noted over her piping hot jambalaya that I kept stealing bites from. “She’s shunned from the community, apparently for becoming a bad apple. But that Ezekiel dude did say that there were others.”
“Since we have Maryse in front of us though, shouldn’t we start with that?”
Her forehead scrunched. “I thought you just wanted to film the haunted house and get out of here.”
“I do,” I told her quickly, feeling like we were one bad joke away from turning into Scooby Doo. “Really. It’s just bugging me.”
“It’s bugging me too,” she said. “I’d like to poke around a bit more, though obviously Maryse doesn’t want anything to do with us.”
“Ambrosia could probably help,” I said, and got glared at. “What? She did say she’d help us with anything.”
Perry’s eyes narrowed even more. “What if Ambrosia’s the one behind all of this?”
I scoffed at her. “She’s an apprentice; she’s not even a priestess Mambo person. And does she look like she’d try and raise the dead?”
“Yes. She does.”
You’re just jealous, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to start a fight, though I knew that’s why Perry was saying that stuff.
“Even if it were her,” I said, trying to placate Perry, “the question would be why?”
“To prove herself.”
“But why?”
“To show how powerful she is.”
“Kiddo,” I said deliberately, “I think you’re grasping at straws here.”
“Straws are all we ever have.” She shoved a forkful of chorizo in her mouth.
I reached over and put my hand on hers. “Not true. We’ve got this haunted house tonight. We’ll go there and film the shit out of it. Scare ourselves silly. Leave with a pretty fuckawesome show. Sound good?”
She exhaled sharply through her nose, then nodded and continued eating.
***
“Take a left down here,” Perry said to Maximus as she squinted at the Google Map on her phone.
He was behind the wheel, me in shotgun, Perry in the back. We were allowed to borrow Rose’s truck for the expedition, which was a lot cheaper than a rental car, while Rose had to work at her bar. I wished Rose were with us—not only did she know her way around the city better than Maximus, but she would have diffused the awkward tension between the three of us. Thank god Perry still had no idea what Maximus had warned me about, otherwise the whole thing would have probably been called off. I didn’t even know how I was managing with everything. The only thing that kept me from wanting to kill him was trying to remind myself that he was crazy jealous of us, and I had to just pity him instead.
The neighborhood we were driving in was creepy as fuck. Half the people looked like zombies already, just sitting on their porches in the dark, watching our truck rumble past. Every second house looked abandoned, with giant red X’s spray painted on them, a haunting reminder of the damage that Katrina had caused. Curiously, some of those houses had people in them, too scared or too stubborn to paint over the markings.
Just as I was about to suggest we head back to the safety of the touristy areas, Perry pointed up ahead at a large, looming house. “There,” she said, “that should be it.”
We pulled up in front of it and got out of the truck. Yeah. This place was definitely haunted.
I’d never been to Disneyland, but from the way Perry was eyeing it, mouth slightly agape, I had to assume it looked like it belonged there. It was too perfect. It was three-stories high with an attic on top, all grey with peeling layers of faded paint, maybe once yellow or cream. The porch wrapped around it completely, and cracked white pillars stood on either side of the wide stairs, supporting the iron-trimmed overhang. On the first floor, all the windows were boarded up while the ones on the rest of the floors were either cracked or broken. The house was completely dark, except for the attic window. I couldn’t tell if there was a little bit of light coming from there or the glass was reflecting the streetlights below.
I nodded up at it. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah,” said Perry, her voice quivering a bit. I guess this was already turning out to be more intense than we planned. “Maybe there are some squatters still inside. Are you sure this is safe?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I couldn’t tell you.” I looked to Maximus. “So what’s the plan, boss?” I asked derisively. The wind began to pick up, a hot breeze that rustled the live oak and weeping willows that lined the house’s yard, obscuring most of the place from the road. Shadowy shapes danced before us.
“The plan is we get set up right here,” he said, gesturing to the overgrown yard. Might be safer than doing it on the street or inside.”
I looked behind us. The street was totally empty, only a lone car parked further down it, by the only dwelling that looked inhabited. Still, considering we weren’t in a good neighborhood to begin with, it made sense to keep ourselves and our equipment away from roving eyes.
“This place is just…” Perry said absently while I fished my camera gear out of the back of the truck.
“Creepy?” I supplied.
“More than creepy,” she said with her eyes riveted to the attic window. “It feels both dead and alive. Not just this house, but this whole street, this whole area. How many people must have died here thinking they were going to survive? How many people must have clung to the hope before they realized that help was never coming? All the regret and death…it’s everywhere.”
“Easy now, kiddo, we’re just here to film this, not make a tribute to the tragedy.”
She looked at me with annoyance. “But people can’t just forget. No one really knows unless they’ve been here and looked around them and felt it. No one understands what was really lost.”
“Except New Orleanians,” Maximus spoke up gruffly. “They all know, every single one of them. And Dex is right. Let’s not make this more than it is. I know you’re feeling things right now, and hell, I am too. Everywhere I turn in this city, I feel like I’m picking up on one more lost soul…”
I turned to him. “You are? I’m not feeling anything.”
Okay, that wasn’t true. I did feel the supernatural layers were thinner in New Orleans, that there was this sick electricity in the air, that I could spot the dead around me if I really wanted to. But I didn’t want to. Because to spot them was to let them all in, especially the ones I wanted to keep out. Her.
“You need to keep your eyes open,” Maximus said after studying me for a few moments. “Retrain yourself. Then you’ll see. You can start with tonight.” He nodded at my camera. “Let’s get this going. I’d rather not be here very long.”
And, as if he’d been waiting such a long time to do this, Maximus launched into our plan of attack. I had to admit he was a lot more thorough than I usually was, and that only made me hate his plan even more. But, as Jimmy had said, he was the boss tonight and I had to bite my tongue until I made it bleed.
There would be no exploring first and filming later. We had only one chance and it had to be our first one. Spirits didn’t reappear twice for the sake of cameras. And there would be more than one camera as well, Maximus was manning the other. Perry would stay with either of us, and she would be silent for most of the filming. We could do a voiceover with her later, but Maximus didn’t want her talking for the sake of talking. He said it ruined the atmosphere for us and the ghosts. Instead, she would just react and use the new infrared device that Maximus had brought, one that not only showed the warmth of objects around us but the magnetic fields as well.