AncilChapter 19: Jumbie Town
I kept frantically screaming at Ray Carter hoping that he would come to my rescue but he still remained unresponsive. The place was so dark that I could barely see anything beyond the jumbies that encircled the car and it seemed as though the numbers were continuously increasing by the second.
As they relentlessly pounded and scratched the parked vehicle, the door windows slowly began to crack. The jumbies were strong but they were very malnourished and not as strong as an average human being. Despite this, it was also obvious that they felt no pain as their fingers bled while they scratched and clawed their way in. They were the life sized embodiments of death. Nothing shy of death in the flesh, these beings possessed no consciousness, no emotions and had no regard for human life. They were mere shells, robots that did as they were programmed to do without free will. Soulless spirits.
“Hey Bloke!” Ray Carter suddenly said merrily in his regular British accent.
“They’re all around, they’re coming, they’re coming!” I shouted frantically in a bout of sweat and spit.
“Who’s coming?” Ray Carter asked.
I lifted him with my shaking hands and showed him the commotion that was going on outside.
“What are they?” He asked.
“Juh…juh..juh…JUMBIE!!” I stuttered. I was way too afraid to come up with any plans or even say much. I just lay there cold sweating and shaking. Ray Carter was a bit more calm and collected, mainly because of the fact that he was not in any immediate danger.
He did some thinking then he finally said, “I want you to hold on to me, and when I tell you to open the door, open it. Okay?”
“I’m not going out there,” I responded.
“Trust me,” he said.
“No no, I’m not going out there.”
“Trust me Jed!! I’m trying to save your life here!” Ray Carter shouted. “Have I ever let you down?”
I started to reminisce on the few times that he was actually there for me. Back on the Uriah Butler Bridge when he rescued us from the bandits and when he got me out of the ship back in San Fernando. Those were the only two moments that I could recall at the time being. It then dawned on me that he didn’t have to help me. He could have just left me to die and report the details on the news. He was doing it because he wanted to, not because he needed to. I decided to trust him. I looked outside then back at Ray Carter then said, “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“There we go!” Ray Carter said. “Just hold on to me. Open the door then run as fast as you can.”
I hesitated a bit but the loud shout of Ray Carter urging me on prompted me to open the door. This was especially hard to do since a hoard of jumbies were leaning against it, but I gradually and strenuously managed to get it open and made a daring run into the hands of the decaying creatures.
“Ray!” I shouted hoping that he would have done something to relieve me of my pending doom. “Ray!”
“Hold on tight!” He shouted before a blinding bright white light burst out of him dazzling the jumbies. I felt the countless hands slowly being removed from me and my body rising. I was being lifted into the air by Ray Carter. The flash from the bright light dissipated and when I looked down I saw the swarm of jumbies in their thousands below me like a colony of ants. More and more of them joined every second causing the numbers to increase drastically. They were coming from everywhere, all throughout the town. From the looks of it, there wouldn’t have been any escape for me if it wasn’t for Ray Carter. He saved my life…..AGAIN.
I held on tightly to Ray Carter as he lifted me up into the air and over the town. After about ten minutes of flying he dropped me on top of a short building with a flat concrete rooftop in the middle of the town where it was safe — supposedly. I looked down from the roof of the building and saw a couple of jumbies walking aimlessly about but they weren’t as aimless as they first appeared to be. Some were actually doing things like sweeping, throwing away garbage and selling goods at the side of the street. They weren’t as dumb as I thought. Some of them were actually purchasing goods! They were undead but they weren’t zombie-like.
There wasn’t much talking among the jumbies however. They only spoke when it was necessary to do so. I couldn’t hear how they communicated or what they were saying but I could clearly discern that some interactions were occurring. It didn’t seem as though the jumbies were using money in their transactions either, but simply bartering. In most of the transactions that I observed, the customers were exchanging dead things for food supplies. Dead things like chickens, dogs and even dead humans that they transported in wheel barrows. I also saw some wheelbarrows with solely human body parts such as feet and hands. I began to see myself in a wheelbarrow as I realized that could have been me. I also wondered about any other possible survivors and where they could be. Maybe I wasn’t the only human alive in jumbie town.
