Ancil“You’re lucky I came back when I did,” Ray Carter said as he noticed me looking down at the dead humans being traded.
“How come they didn’t change into jumbies?” I asked referring to the dead humans being traded.
“I’m not sure,” Ray Carter said. “If you die, do you think you’d change into one of them?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope not.”
“Let’s hope that we don’t find out anytime soon. I think you should get some sleep. It’s probably going to be a long day tomorrow.”
“On the ground?”
“Do you have a better option?” Ray Carter asked. He sounded sort of annoyed which wasn’t a tone I was accustomed to with Ray Carter.
After only a split second of shock from Ray Carter’s random outburst I sighed then made my bed on the cold hard concrete floor of the rooftop. I hadn’t slept at all that night, the moment earlier when I was just about to, my father had attacked me. It was an experience that I wish hadn’t happened and one that I didn’t want to relive. I tried to get comfortable as I lay down on the roof floor and with difficulty eventually fell asleep.
I woke up early the next morning with the cold feeling of rain on my skin and the dark clouds that spouted it as my canopy. It was raining rather heavily, the weather managing to wake me up just before I got a full night’s rest. I had completely forgotten that I was sleeping on hard concrete but my aching back quickly reminded me of that sad and painful fact. I sat up, already soaking wet, and looked around to see what was happening around me. It was clearly daytime but the dark rain clouds blocked out the sun so I couldn’t really tell what time it was. I was about to ask Ray Carter what the time was but I then realized that he was nowhere in sight. Ray Carter seemingly had a thing for disappearing without a trace and then showing up when least expected. I hoped that he had perhaps only gone to look around. I got up and made my way to the edge of the roof while rubbing my hands in an attempt to feel a little warmer in the cold. As I peered over the edge I noticed that there was no one in the streets below. No one at all. Was it the rain? I wasn’t sure. But it seemed safe. The place was quiet enough for me to convince myself that there was no immediate danger there. Since I was incredibly hungry I decided to walk over to the abandoned grocery store on the other side of the street and get something to eat hoping that I would not get jumped by a jumbie. The plan was to go to the grocery store, get some food and find my way back to the rooftop with all my limbs intact. I also convinced myself that Ray Carter was somewhere in the town and had probably gone looking for shelter from the rain.
After only a moment’s further hesitation, I finally decided that it was a good idea and jumped off the roof onto a large dumpster that was at the side of the building. I cautiously peered around to ensure that no one or nothing was nearby, then I jumped down from the dumpster onto the cold hard floor with my bare feet. I assumed that I had to get to the grocery store and back before the rain stopped.
“One step at a time Jed,” I said to myself as I slowly made my way over to the abandoned grocery store on the other side of the road, my nerves tingling. There was no one around and my tension eased the more I realized that I was alone. I hastened up and got to the grocery without any problems. I breathed a sigh of relief as I got in and began to grab foodstuffs from the shelves shoving them into black plastic bags I had found by the counter. I looked around every so often to ensure that no one else was there. No one. At one point I thought I had heard noises outside but it all just seemed to be in my head because there was not a soul in sight.
It turned out to be the same grocery store that I had rummaged through the morning after the Midnight Robber attacked Arima. I began to recall all the dead bodies piled up throughout the town and the horrible smell that my nose couldn’t shake. The place still smelt like rotting flesh but it was nothing I couldn’t handle now.
As I was finishing up within the grocery I began to get a bit more suspicious of the fact that no one was around especially as the rain let up. I ran quickly back over to the dumpster splashing through puddles of water.
I arrived at the dumpster safely but there was still no sign of anyone, not even the slightest movement. Just a couple of hours ago the town was infested with jumbies so it confused me a lot that there weren’t any around. I decided to walk around the town and inspect the area a little more in order to find some clues to inform me of the reason for the emptiness but I couldn’t find any. Was it a dream? Maybe hallucinations. I was pretty sure that I felt their hands on me when I got out the car. My grip on reality was waning. The town was completely empty without a trace of jumbies. However the signs of its ruin was plainly there with its spooky abandoned buildings that lined the edges of the streets on each side, littered pavements and a howling sound from the wind as it blew through the hollow shell of what was once the town of Arima, the taste of rusted iron in the air.
I walked into a hardware store that was wide open and grabbed hold of a brand new cutlass. It was the best weapon that I could have found to defend myself in case anything tried to jump me. I had a bit of experience with a cutlass because my father always forced me to cut the bushes with it when they grew too high. There were all kinds of fancy tools to cut bushes but my father preferred to use the cheaper and more traditional way. My father always told me that a good old fashioned cutlass, blood, sweat and tears did the job just as well as the fancy new technologies. I never used a cutlass to defend myself before but I thought that it would work just as well as any other weapon. Luckily at the moment I had no use for it in the now desolate town. The only thing I used the cutlass for was to chase a couple stray pot hounds but that was about it.
