A Zombie Christmas Carol Read online

  Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home. He paused for a moment, feeling sure he could hear wailing or screams but the sound of the wind swept in until he was convinced it must have been part of the awful apparition.

  “Could old Jacob be right? Was his soul truly damned because he had stuck to such a fastidious path as finance and self-responsibility? Could he have been saved if one of them had turned from the Bank rather than running back for more?”

  Scrooge continued looking for signs of trouble but the city had returned to its normal state, though Scrooge still muttered to himself as he considered the words of his old friend.

  He sighed and then closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say “Humbug!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

  STAVE TWO.

  THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS.

  When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

  He was quite familiar with the clock and used it to assist in his daily time keeping. As the familiarity of the sounds calmed him, he listened intently for the subsequent chimes. He half expected some kind of phantom terror to tear open his door or to crash through the window at the sound of each chime.

  To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

  He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

  “Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

  The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world.

  There was noise outside, though to old Scrooge it was the sound of people going about their business. Just a slightly more careful examination would have revealed the first of the plague’s victims stumbling through the lanes and into the darkness as the cursed object began its journey towards the heart of the city. The first of its victims were already starting their dark journey that began with sickness and fever and then moved on into pain, weakness and then coma. As the pulse slowed and the life drained the victim would die. In some it could be days, in the weaker, it could be mere hours before death took them. No matter their resilience though, once dead the transformation was fast and always successful.

  Scrooge listened again and could hear nothing that should trouble him unduly, for now, this was a great relief, because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by.

  Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. Every few moments he was able to empty his mind and he did his utmost to concentrate on nothing but nothingness. All it took though was but a single thought or memory and the entire affair expanded before his eyes. As soon as the memories filled his mind, he knew he would be able to do nothing other than to dwell upon the awfulness of them.

  Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

  The matter of the death of Marley weighed heavily with Scrooge. It was an event that he rarely considered and yet the event that had taken the closest person to Scrooge. The day was one of those terrible life-changing moments when all his beliefs and fears were transformed by the mythical dead wandering the streets. Worse than the death though was the manner in which Marley had died. “Perhaps the dreams were caused by him noticing something in the day that reminded him of the awful violence and death that had occurred in London that day?” he thought.

  Scrooge lay there, his mind wandering and doing its best to persuade him that the events concerning Marley’s death were in fact far less dramatic and that it was simply his overactive imagination that had furnished them with such impossible things. Just as he made the decision that this was so, a chill spread in his chest as though a pistol’s flint had been cocked next to his head, and the dreaded fear returned to his heart. It was the fear of a man that had awoken from a dream only to find the world of the living was the hell and the world of dream was the one of peace and serenity.

  Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

  The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

  “Ding, dong!”

  “A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting.

  “Ding, dong!”

  “Half-past!” said Scrooge.

  “Ding, dong!”

  “A quarter to it,” said Scrooge.

  “Ding, dong!”

  “The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “and nothing else!”

  He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

  The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

  For a moment, he considered grabbing the weapons he had now pulled near his bed in case of being faced with a deadly, ethereal foe but there was something about this Spirit that was both fearsome and friendly. Something deep inside him told him that this creature was there for a common purpose, not to harm him. His mind tried to calm him yet his heart, still trembling from his dreams, troubled him and pounded like an anvil in his chest.

  It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. Its body reminded him of the cl
assical sculptures of the great heroes of Ancient Greece. The rippling muscles of Achilles and the brute strength of Herakles.

  The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Scrooge could easily image it swinging a mighty club or pulling down wild beast with nothing but brute strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

  Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

  “Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

  “I am!”

  The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

  “Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.

  “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  “Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

  “No. Your past.”

  Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

  “What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

  Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

  “Your welfare!” said the Ghost, “and with it the welfare of this good city,” it said as it spread out its arms.

  “There are things more important than your own purse, Scrooge. You have seen the Spirits dragging themselves away from here. Why do you think they are leaving? They do not travel for reasons that are minor in nature. Something evil and terrible is coming and it is something you have seen before! It is not far away now and some are already feeling its icy fingers,” it said mysteriously.

  Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

  “Your reclamation, then. Take heed!”

  It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

  “Rise!and walk with me!”

  It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

  “I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

  “Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

  As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

  “Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!”

  The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten!

  “Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And what is that upon your cheek?”

  Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

  “You recollect the way?” inquired the Spirit.

  “Remember it!” cried Scrooge with fervour; “I could walk it blindfold.”

  “Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!” observed the Ghost. “Let us go on.”

  They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!

  “These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

  The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes!

  A group of yeoman cavalry, resplendent in their bright uniforms rode gently past, the boys jumping and waving at them as the gallant soldiers moved on and through the road.

  What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

  “The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

  Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

  They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

  As they entered, Scrooge held back. The darkness and coolness of the place reminding him of something he had long forgotten. The Spirit looked to him and back to where they were to travel. Scrooge took a deep breath and with a great effort pushed on.

  They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

  Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panel
ling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

  The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

  “Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. “It’s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge, “and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t you see him! And the Sultan’s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess!”

  To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

  “There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. “Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!”