"Damn it, I haven't time to wait," the plantation foreman insisted angrily. Though his mother tongue was French, and though it irked him to do so, he spoke now in Creole to the Haitian ship's master. "I have to deliver my cargo to the sugar cane plantation outside Port-au-Prince by tomorrow morning. I must get down the river and it's already getting dark."

"I am sorry." The ship's master shrugged apologetically and made a loose gesture toward the dock where barrels were slowly being raised out of the ship's dark hold. "I must unload my cargo first, you understand? When I am finished, then perhaps we can sail again. It will only take an hour. Until then--"

"All right, all right. I'll pay you extra, how about that? I'll pay you... double if we can sail now. Understand? Double?"

The ship's master frowned, startled by this unexpected offer. But Jean Mercure, the foreman, knew he had won. Business had been poor of late and no Haitian ship's master could afford to turn down such a proposition. Still, though, the man was dubious.

"But, sir, where will we stow your cargo? The hold is full. There is no room for..."

At that moment, he chanced to glance into the darkness beyond Jean Mercure. There were deep shadows nestled between two rickety shacks.

In those shadows something moved.

His black skin turned an ashy grey, a hand flew before his face and he stumbled quickly backwards, almost off the dock and into the water. He gasped.

"No."

There were eyes in the darkness, terrible glazed, unseeing eyes. And beneath the eyes, dark, gangly limbs, nearly naked except for a few shredded rags. And now he could hear a sound. A dismal, muted moaning.

Jean Mercure cast an impatient scowl over his shoulder, then hissed urgently: "That's right--zombies. What of it? Will you take my cargo or not? I don't need you to empty the hold, they'll just stand on deck. What do they care? Stop staring at them, I say! Do you want my money or don't you?"

For just a moment, the ship's master continued to stare with wide, horrified eyes at the wretched creatures huddled in the darkness. Jean Mercure knew precisely what he was thinking. Zombies! No doubt the man had heard stories--who in Haiti had not? And perhaps, some nights, when the wind blew from the inland hills, he had heard the ominous beating of the rada drums. But he had never expected to encounter such abysmal things himself, no, not him--certainly never expected to find himself asked to carry them aboard his precious ship.

With a visible effort, the ship's master tore his gaze from the darkness and looked at Jean Mercure. He stared into the foreman's face, the expression of horror still flaring his eyes. But then, quite suddenly, the expression changed. It melted away in an instant, and what was left behind was oddly... hardened.

The man nodded once.

"Very well, sir," he said. "I will carry your hellish cargo down the river to Port-au-Prince. But for double the price? I think not. Three times the price, or you can find another ship--and there are no more ships available, I assure you."

Jean Mercure scowled, but knew he had little choice. He was working against a deadline and his job was at stake.

The plantation outside Port-au-Prince used zombies to cut the cane and, as foreman, it was Jean Mercure's task to take care of those zombies. For a year, things had gone well. But then, he had foolishly hired a new woman to cook for the workers, those who were not zombies. Though she had been told to keep away from the zombies, the stupid woman didn't listen. Seeing them lurching about in the fields, dressed in their shredded garments, their limbs so thin and malnourished--she took pity upon them. She cooked them a meal and brought it to them.

What she did not know, what no one had thought to tell her, was that zombies must never be fed salt. If they eat salt, they instantly become aware of their horrible state and...seek to redress it.

It took twenty men with axes and guns to put down the zombies. One man was killed and several others seriously wounded. Jean Mercure wasn't even there when it happened, but he took the blame just the same. And so, now, he had been given this one final chance. He must replace the zombies by tomorrow morning--or he would never work in Haiti again.

"Very well," he snarled bitterly. "Three times the price. But we must leave now. And we must reach the plantation before morning."

"Oh, I will get you there, have no fear of that."

There was still that strange look in the ship's master's eyes. Had Jean Mercure not been in such a hurry, had he not been so absorbed in his own problems, he might have paid greater attention to it. As it was, he merely put it down to greed. That was an emotion with which he could sympathize.

No sooner had the money changed hands than Jean Mercure went to work with the whip. The zombies did not feel pain, or so the bocor had told him, but they were slow, dim-witted brutes and often the sting of the whip was the only way to enforce his will.

The ship's five-man crew watched with wide, sickened eyes as Jean Mercure lashed away at the moaning, shambling creatures, cursing them with bitter heat. Slowly, with lurching steps, they moved out of the shadows and into the failing light. There were twelve of them, twelve black men, all gaunt and gangly, barely clothed in rags that fluttered in the rising breeze. Their arms hung slack at their sides, their murky eyes staring blindly ahead, half-lidded. From time to time, one moaned, a low, hideous song of despair.

Up the boarding ramp they slouched with bare shuffling feet, onto the open deck of the sailing ship. There Jean Mercure herded them together in the centre of the deck, where they remained standing, mindless of discomfort, never tiring or needing to rest. Still moaning dismally.

Jean Mercure noticed the ship's master shiver with revulsion, as did the five men of the crew, and, though he smiled derisively, he knew he too felt something of the same. But the job was good and paid well. He wasn't about to complain.

The ship set sail down the river. It turned dark soon after and Jean Mercure, peering out into the Haitian night, could discern the passing shore only as a deeper darkness; that and the occasional glimmering lamp from a rickety wooden shack.

He spent his time at the gunwale, staring out into the darkness, because it was better than thinking about those wretchedly moaning creatures at his back. The ship's master had been right about one thing--it was a hellish cargo. For all that he had spent a year overseeing such things, Jean Mercure found he could never get used to them. There was something about those horrible glazed eyes, that dismal moaning, the way they huddled together like mindless cattle--just the sight of them raised the hair on the back of his neck even now.

And his fear had only grown worse after the accident with the salt. Though he had not been there to witness it, enough had been described to him to leave him shaken for life. Now at night, he had dreams, horrible nightmares of staring eyes, and dreadful moaning...and hands...eager clutching hands...

While lost in his melancholy brooding, Jean Mercure did not hear the footsteps that crept up on him from behind. At the last moment, he noticed the creaking of a tarry board, but, before he could turn, something came crashing down upon his head. And a greater darkness overcame him...

Clutching the gunwale, Jean Mercure could only look around in helpless despair. The ship's master had been right. Without a crew, there was nothing to be done. The ship must eventually founder. But before that time came, before the sea claimed him, the zombies...

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