Chapter 10
No court would believe that. I fought the urge to slam my hand down onto the weak-looking table in front of me.
"If you knew what Robert did, you'd think the scare I gave him was light enough punishment."
I huffed out a frustrated breath, accompanied by a savage growl from my stomach in hunger. Luckily, Tim looked too depressed to pay attention.
"How did Robert kill you and you're still here?" I blinked rapidly at Tim, trying to make sense of his claim, but found no head or tail.
"Robert led me, along with the other dead people, through the plantation for what felt like hours. Next thing I know, I see poppy fields and other drugs being manufactured by dead people. I discovered then that using dead people was the best type of labor. Robert didn't have to pay for it and he could maximize his profits.
I was on the farm for a day... a week... I don't know, time moved strangely until I escaped. Those people, they fed us— and by us, I mean me and the other dead people—this strange liquid. They worked us to the bone and only let us lie down for six hours the entire day.
We worked day and night, and honestly, I thought I would die. They fed us this strange, blackish, gooey, disgustingly bitter substance. I suppose it kept me lucid. It made me want to work for them, but you know, I wasn't dead!
I was still alive, but that thing made me obey their orders. Eventually, I was able to escape. I ran. I drifted at sea for days until I hit a shore. I found myself in Honduras. I was saved!"
"Did you come back?"
"No. No way. There's no way I would have tried. I was too scared Robert would see me. I knew he would. I didn't even have money. So I stayed... at least till I had money saved up."
"And then you started to kill people."
"No! I didn't kill anyone that wasn't already close to dying. But it wasn't bad... there were only a few."
"A few what?"
"People."
"Like Mr. James? Tell me how you managed to pull that one off. And what was that black thing they kept feeding you? Did you learn to make it?"
"James was already close to death. The man had one foot in the grave," Tim waved his hand as though to dismiss the claim.
"All I had to do was give him the drug I developed in Honduras. What drug was that?"
"It slowed down the rate at which his body would decay. It would keep him in a slightly alive state for as long as possible. You see, James has been dead for three years."
"Three years? That's bollocks!" I was getting ready to pounce on the man called Tim. "How come James has been dead for three years and no one knew about it?"
"James preferred to be kept that way. Everyone knew he was sick; everyone assumed he was recovering. All I had to do was feed him the drug."
"He died shortly after the third... What did James have to do with any of this?"
"You said you saw James on the farm, what does that mean?"
"James apparently was a member of the group. He was… his family, so I saw, was there. I know you might not believe me, but everything I'm saying is true. It's all true, I promise.
James was a part of it, except I remember he was trying to exit when I met him years ago. I couldn't confront him about seeing him on the farm. James told me on his deathbed that he wanted no part in his family's involvement in the use of dead bodies, but he couldn't stop it, so he distanced himself. There wasn't much I could do, but I treated James as a friend, and I gave him the drug; he died a painless death and well…"
I shook my head at Tim's confession. But I still didn't understand how the spell worked. I suppose it was time to tell Tim what I knew.
"Tim," I called out to the man who perked up instantly and looked at me with wide eyes.
"The truth is, I've read quite a lot about the strange phenomenon in Haiti. What attracted me to this case in the first instance was how I heard that the body of James was found opposite Robert when Robert was found dead.
I read multiple times and in different texts how the old witches of Haiti would cast spells on dead bodies and make them toil for years on their fields as slaves.
Of course, these were hypothetical; it was supposed to be fiction until I dug deeper into it. My findings were quite startling. There was this old witch called Romera. She was from Africa, and I suppose it must be from Africa that she learned those spells she used to reanimate the dead. But she was one of the largest, most powerful witches in the largest coven in Haiti years ago."
"I see what you mean. But I don't know enough, and you have successfully managed to do all of this." I gestured to the house and then pointed to the kitchen.
Tim had a relieved look on his face. In fact, the man looked as though he wanted to cry. "So you understand then?"
"No. I don't understand. Revenge? Yes, the week I spent on that island, on that farm, was terrible. Please, what I saw... Many things I cannot even speak of. Atrocities that should not even exist, but somehow they do. And Robert, John was the man to do it all.
Somehow, his knowledge of medicine, being that we were doctors in training, pushed the cult, the covenant, to do things that were beyond my imagination. You must understand, I had no choice.
I had to rid Robert from the face of the Earth, and frankly, there are still many, still many cult members, many of these covenant members that exist in America right now. I have names!"
By this point, Tim's eyes were wide, and he bore a resemblance to a frantic dog.
"You still haven't answered me about the black thing."
"I learned the secrets before I left. So part of the reason I ran like that... I found out the ingredients. I watched the slave master make it, so yes. Local herbs in the area. Some of them can be found here, but some, I discovered, you can replace with other things."
You can make use of our local varieties, and it would give you the same thing. All that matters is the spell you must mumble when you make it. If you make it without the spell, it's just a typical disgusting potion that does nothing. But with the spell, give it to a dead man, and he will obey you."
I got up from the seat and started to pace the length of the small living room. Not only was what he was saying simply unbelievable, but even with my knowledge of the witchcrafts in Haiti, it still seemed wildly mad.
"Haven't you heard the stories?" Tim's voice made me stop walking and look at him.
"There was an old farmer who used the bodies of 600 of his old villagers to harvest his massive farmland. There have been many stories passed around by the natives like that.
The stories even reached Honduras. They told me when they found out I was running from Haiti. At first, many of them didn't want to relate with me because they thought I was a dead man, but I showed them I was alive.
Then they told me stories of how the witches had even expanded the strange. The Hondurans fought along the way, able to drive out the witches. You would have read about this in new books?"
I shook my head. "I have read a lot. Most people believe it's superstitions. And I can't claim to know everything since I have never been to Haiti myself."
My heart began to thump wildly in my chest. Witchcraft? I chuckled to myself. The witchcraft that was safely tucked away in the dark forests of Central America has now found its way into what happens to be a civilized world here.
"Walk me through what happens when a dead person takes this potion."
Tim perked up and sat straighter in his seat, looking at me with slight excitement as though he was about to geek out.
"If given to a live human, it also slows down metabolism and almost embalms them. Like it did to me, but it slows my mind to a stage where the only thing I could hear was the command.
Perhaps with dead people, it's different, but once the potion is ingested, it slows down the metabolism of the dead body and reduces the rate at which they would decompose.
The thing is, after taking the potion, dead people are imperious to any order the person that gives it to them and whispers some words.
They can even kill!"
"Calling it a potion only seems to compound the issues, Tim."
" But it is a potion. Would you like to call it a drug? A drug would be more acceptable in today's age. But then again, there's nothing acceptable about the dead waking up due to witchcraft."
I shook my head. I could already imagine Jack yelling—I mean telling me—how impossible it was for witchcraft to exist in this day and age, much less in this country.
I shook my head again and went back to my seat, letting out a sigh of exhaustion with my breath.
"And this drug you speak of, the ingredients are what? You said they were mostly indigenous to South America. But if we can find it here, I think anybody could just concoct it in their kitchen. Am I not so?"
"It's not like that," Tim scratched his chin. "I also told you that you have to whisper the spells when you make it. The herbs and the plants are so rare, and that's just one side.
The remaining are also hardly identified. But even if anyone wanted to make it, the proportions are so complex they must be followed down to the last milligram, otherwise it would be wrong, and it could end up being toxic material. I've seen it. I know it! I saw it when someone tried to make it and it killed them."
The radioactive fumes were so terrible, the person's skin melted clean off their bones! I shook my head again, feeling a headache blooming.
With each word Tim professed, reality kept slipping further and further away. Then again, I reminded myself, this was the sort of thing that gave me the kick after all.
"And I'm sure you must have conducted experiments, yes?"
"Many. In fact, the rarity of most of these ingredients was so intense, some of those who fetched them died. Many people have given their life to fetch it, but it's even on the good part... at least my part, at least."
"How many people are we talking about?"
"Two out of every ten."
I slapped my forehead. "And you consider that good?"
"Yes. While I was on the farm with Robert, they would send out twenty or fifty people, and only three of them, sometimes only one person, would come back alive."
"Why was it so dangerous? Why was it so important to have your revenge in such an instance?"
"It's nature, my friend." Tim's eyes were obnoxiously bright this time, although he was trying to convince me of a universal truth.
"Some of the plants are so rare that their rarity is similar to that of ginseng in China's Changbai Mountains.
It is a tree parasite. This strange brownish-red vine that is so thin—so thin like thread—it produces tiny grains that look like rice. Of course, I was able to cultivate it artificially successfully. But you see, the vine needs to coexist with a venomous snake, which is why fetching the…"
"You have gone mad, Tim. And now you're telling me you've experimented with venomous snakes. I can't believe my luck; I must have struck gold when it came to the strange. And all of this, all because of revenge."
Tim's smile faded. "It was about revenge at first, I can see." His hand went up to his chest.
"But after living like a hermit and researching for all those years, I found that the drug is like a miracle for humans! It can put us into stasis and hibernation. The longest time was for 12 years, and the witches in Haiti must have kept it for longer.
I saw bodies that must have been there for at least 50 years! My clinical trials only did 12, but imagine the wonders that could do for modern-day medicine!"
"And so, did you drive the pitch idea to Robert, and did he say no?"
Tim shook his head vehemently. "That's not what this is about. Nature can heal people! Don't you see it?"
I shut my eyes for like the 15th time and leaned my head back on the couch, not caring whether or not it was dirty. I was way beyond that.
After all I had gone through—sweat, nearly freezing to death, seeing a dead man walk around with my own eyes—the last thing on my mind was how clean or how dirty a couch was. My eyes found the window, and they widened.
"Bollocks! It's already evening!"