StarFall/HCC: Zombies Don't Eat Living Flesh

[Phantasm]

(trying an experiment: stream of consciousness writing here, no
editing.)

New Orleans has been through the worst of things.  Even though Katrina
hit several years ago, it still resides in the memories of those who
lived through it.  Despite all this, there are several constants in
New Orleans that seem to withstand even Random Acts of God: The French
Quarter, the oldest part of the city - the *original* city - situated
on the only land above sea level; the annual Mardi Gras parades and
celebrations in the weekend before Lent; and Voodoo.

All of this was well-known to Niqa Patra, better known to her
clientele as Miss Cleo, the self-styled Voodoo Queen of New Orleans,
as she stood in the graveyard.  Niqa had received the vision from
Erzulie sometime after her third glass of rum.  Someone had disturbed
Papa Legba, the loa had been restless, and all the signs she'd gleaned
in her hypersenses indicated St. Roche's cemetery was the focus.

As she flitted through the city of the dead, as the streets and
alleyways of New Orleans' large above-ground marble mausoleums are
known, Niqa couldn't help but feel a sense of forboding.  It was a
sense she hadn't felt since she'd been consulted by the Jackson family
to prevent someone from doing an authentic remake of the "Thriller"
video a few years back.

At first, all she saw were a few people - men and women, some younger,
many older, and some not more than children - mulling about the
necropolis.  That's when the hypersenses kicked in; these people were
*not* alive; indeed, the spirits about them, animating them, flowed in
wrong ways.  Plus, they were all shambling in the same direction:
towards the main street.  Fortunately, the only thing in that
direction was the fence which separated the cemetery from the street.

"Zombi," she muttered to herself, closing her hand around the amulet
she wore as symbol of her station.  But who was it animating them?
She faded from sight, the magics she wielded disguising her.

As she approached the fence, she noted a black man, tall, dark, and
powerful, dressed in little more than a loincloth and sandals, adorned
with skull-motif jewelry.  The man floated high, in front of the

"Yes, go my zombies!" the man called out.  "Feast on the city!  For
every one that falls to your jaws, a new zombie shall rise!  Soon,
very soon, New Orleans will be a *true* necropolis!"

"Ah, mon ami," she said, dispelling her invisibility spell, "ya really
do need a new schtick.  How many times do Ah hafta tell ya, Gheda,
Papa Legba's zombi don' eat da flesh o' da living."

"Cleo.  This time, you cannot stop me!  Eat her!"

The nearest of the zombies shambled towards her, but its bite was
fairly ineffectual.

"Guess again, Gheda."  She gestured, and a bolt of silver-white energy
shot from the heavens, sending Gheda reeling.  He landed near her,
face down on the grass.  "Now, break the spell," she commanded him,
"b'fore Ah get mad."

"Upstart wench..." he muttered as he pulled himself up.

Niqa punched him.  It's not often that she could let loose in this
manner - even in this 'enlightened' day and age, a woman throwing a
punch at an opponent is still a novelty.  Niqa, however, had sparred
somewhat with her cousin Hugh Knight and his friends over in Los
Angeles, and knew how to throw one well enough to land a blow to end
the fight quickly.

And Gheda, as she knew from experience, had a glass jaw.

As he lost consciousness, all the zombies his spell had animated -
some of them barely able to support their rotting flesh, others barely
more than bone and tendon - fell to the ground in sickening piles of
decay.

"Ah tol' ya b'fore, Gheda," she told her fallen opponent, "ya can'
make zombies make new zombies jus' by *eatin'* folks."