Cavern of the Blood Zombies Part 6

His face was completely covered with corpse-eaters, and I saw him stretch out his hand and make the sign of a gun. His arm was torn to shreds and I knew he was telling us to shoot him and make sure we killed him when we did it.

The fat guy couldn't bear to look; he clenched his teeth and yelled, "Brother, forgive me."

The trap suddenly reopened and another person leaped down from above to the spot where Panzi lay in agony. This person did not fall but made a deliberate jump that had him still on his feet when he hit the ground, although the jolt of the fall made him waver slightly. He regained his balance and took a deep breath.

The corpse-eaters were stupefied and began to rattle away in all directions frantically, as if they were doing their best to stay away from this man. Those insects that had come upon us like a tide now retreated like a tide and disappeared into several large holes in the stone walls.

I looked carefully. Wasn't this Poker-face? Fats screamed, "My G.o.d! This guy actually survived!" I took a second glance and saw that Poker-face's clothes were torn to shreds and his body was covered with blood, as though he had suffered some serious injuries. In spite of his own state, he picked Panzi up to carry him over to us. We stretched down our arms; I grabbed Panzi, Fats took hold of Poker-face, and we pulled them both up.

It was as if the sea changed into mulberry fields and mulberry fields into the sea. In a desperate predicament we were given a way out. A moment ago we were sure we were going to die, and now the situation was suddenly reversed. We wanted to check Panzi's injuries, but Poker-face waved his hand and said, "Come on quick. It's chasing us."

Although I didn't understand what he meant, Fats jumped up immediately as if he knew his meaning all too well. Poker-face carried Panzi on his back while I picked up Panzi's lamp and illuminated the path ahead. Together we ran into the depths of the tunnel.

I did not know how long we ran nor could I tell how many turns we had taken when Poker-face pulled the fat guy to a stop and said, "Okay. There's something quirky about the design of the tunnels at this spot. It should not be able to find us too quickly here." We stopped and I found that I was sweating all over. "What are you talking about?" I asked.

Poker-face sighed without replying and put Panzi down on the ground. I thought, oh right. The most important thing now was to tend to Panzi's wounds.

He was really badly injured; nearly his entire body was covered with wounds. If we bandaged him up, if we only had any bandages, he'd be wrapped up like a mummy. I checked him out. Most of his wounds weren't deep but there were several on his neck and abdomen that could be fatal. Evidently these insects were extremely good at attacking the softest and most delicate parts of the human body.

I remembered the corpse whose hand I had touched earlier. His abdomen was also the most severely wounded part of his body.

Poker-face pressed his hand on Panzi's belly and took out the iron sword that he carried on a belt around his waist. "Help me hold him," he told me.

"What are you going to do?" I asked with a dreadful feeling of foreboding.

He stared at Panzi's stomach like a butcher staring at his victim. He moved his two freakishly long fingers into Panzi's wound and said, "One of the corpse-eaters has crawled into his stomach."

"That can't be..." I looked at him suspiciously. Then I looked at Fats, who was already holding down Panzi's legs and said to me, "Judging by both of you so far, I have more faith in him."

I could only obey and hold down Panzi's hands. Poker-face raised his sword and began to probe at the hole on Panzi's stomach. Then, his lightning-fast fingers stabbed into Panzi's wound, found what they were looking for, hooked onto their quarry, and pulled out a light green corpse-eater. Although all of these motions were extremely fast, they still were painful enough that Panzi curled up his body and thrashed about so violently that I almost couldn't hold him down.

"This just suffocated in his stomach," Poker-face flung the dead insect away. "The wound is already too deep. If it isn't sterilized, it will become infected and that's big trouble."

Fats took the last bullet out of Panzi's gun and said, "Why don't we learn from those advanced lessons taught by the American people, and put this bullet to use? We can pull it apart and use the gunpowder to sterilize his wound."

Panzi grabbed Fat's feet, gritted his teeth in pain, and yelled, "I wasn't wounded by a bullet! You want to...want to G.o.dd.a.m.n well blow up my intestines?" He took a bundle of bandages out of his trouser pocket. They were bloodstained and looked as though they were the ones that had been wrapped around his head. "Thank heaven I didn't throw these away," he muttered. "Just wrap me up, and do it tightly and properly. These injuries are nothing!"

Fats said, "Being a hero is out of fashion this year, comrade. I can see your guts. You don't need to put on an act." He began to pull the bullet apart but Poker-face and I stopped him. "Don't be so reckless," I said. "If the gunpowder burns into his internal organs, he'll die instantly. Let's just wrap him up first."

The fat guy listened to me, agreed, and helped us wrap Panzi's wounds. I tore off pieces of my clothing and added another layer of bandages while Panzi almost pa.s.sed out from the pain. I saw him leaning against the wall, gasping for air, and felt guilty. If I hadn't messed up with the matches, he wouldn't be going through all this now.

Suddenly I was struck by curiosity and asked Fats, "Oh right, who the h.e.l.l are you?"

He was about to answer when Poker-face motioned for us to shut up. As we fell silent I could hear a terrifying rattling sound coming from the other end of the tunnel.

Chapter Fifteen.

FART.

Fats raised the pistol into which he had put back the last bullet, as if signaling to us that if we wanted, he would raise h.e.l.l. Poker-face raised his hand in disagreement and motioned for us to copy him as he covered his nose. He then covered Panzi's nose with one hand as he turned off the lamp with the other.

We sank into absolute darkness. I could hear only my own rapid heartbeat and the terrifying rattles that surrounded us. All my attention was devoted to that noise as I heard it approaching closer and closer. At the same time, an extremely disgusting stench pervaded the air.

I was so petrified that I almost suffocated. As the noise became more and more distinct, I felt as if I were a death-row inmate waiting to be executed. Suddenly the noise stopped and my heart trembled-could it have found us?

After several minutes, an extremely deep but clear rattle abruptly sounded close by. It was so solid and real-s.h.i.t, it was almost near the edge of my ear. My scalp instantly tingled, and I pressed my hand tightly over my mouth to keep from screaming.

It was truly intense suffering for the next few minutes. My mind went blank. I had no idea whether death or life waited for us. Another thirty seconds pa.s.sed, and the noise finally began to move away. I sighed and thought, holy s.h.i.t, maybe we're going to live. Then a "pop" sound came out of nowhere, and I wondered what son of a b.i.t.c.h would fart at a time like this?

The rattling suddenly disappeared. At the same time, the lamp came back on and I saw a strange, gigantic face in front of me, right at the tip of my nose. Two eyes without pupils stared straight into mine. I was so shocked that I staggered back a few steps while Poker-face shouted, "Run!"

Fats looked clumsy but he was actually very agile. He rolled onto the ground next to Panzi, put him on his back, got to his feet, and began to run. I followed close behind and cursed at him, "You fat f.u.c.k. Was it you who farted?"

Fats's face began to flush. "h.e.l.l! Which one of your eyes saw me farting?"

p.i.s.sed off, I yelled, "I say you're a f.u.c.king walking disaster," and Fats screamed, "Ahh..."

Just as I was about to ask him what was up, the ground under my feet suddenly gave way, and I let out a similar cry. Without a lamp we could see nothing in the dark, but we knew what we had been running upon had vanished. And so we fell into what seemed like a bottomless abyss.

The falling sensation was quickly replaced by a pain in my b.u.t.t. As I recovered from the dizzying plunge into blackness, a flash of light suddenly appeared. Fats had found his flashlight.

I looked around. Here we were, again in another room with walls of stone. It looked very simple and crude, quite similar to the one where we had just battled with the corpse-eating bugs. But because it was a different size, I knew it was definitely a different room. Nervously Fats asked me, "Could this be another trap? We couldn't be extending an invitation for the insects to come and bite us again, could we?"

We have Poker-face, I thought, we don't have to worry about the insects. As I turned and looked, I found he wasn't there. Was it possible that we all had run off in different directions? I hastily recalled my memory and discovered that in all the commotion, I simply didn't pay any attention to whether he was following us or not.

I switched to a different train of thought. We had no idea what that monster was-how could it have let us escape so easily? It must have been because Poker-face had helped us by blocking its pursuit. Had he survived?

As I continued with my thoughts, my heart sank further and I felt worse. If this kept on, we would sooner or later be dead! Fats stared around the room as he put Panzi down in a corner. He sat, rubbed his b.u.t.t, and said, "Oh yes, I have to ask you this: Did you also come here to look for the royal seal of the commander of the dead?"

"Is there really such a thing?" I asked in bewilderment.

Fats listened carefully for a minute to be sure that nothing was approaching us before he whispered, "What? None of you know about this, and you dared to come down to this grave? Don't you know about the Ghost General and what he did?"

As soon as I heard this, I knew Fats had some valuable information and asked, "Wasn't he just a marquis or one of the minor princes? I heard that his only power was his ability to gather troops from the netherworld to fight with him in battle."

"My a.s.s," Fats looked at me contemptuously. "Listen to me. This so-called Ruler of Dead Soldiers and the so-called troops he borrowed from the world of the dead were all part of a blatant lie. If I didn't tell you the hidden secrets of this ancient grave, you would never be able to guess them no matter how hard you tried."

Chapter Sixteen.

A SMALL GREEN HAND.

In my job, I had gained some experience in watching and judging people over the years. I had learned how to a.s.sess the quality of the people I dealt with as well as the objects I bought and sold, and I knew that Fats wasn't for real the minute I first saw him. If I wanted to get information out of him, I knew I couldn't be too nice so I reacted as if I did not believe a word that he said. "Like you know what you're talking about. If you really knew, then why would you be in here buzzing around like a confused fly?"

Sure enough, Fats took the bait. He pointed his flashlight at my face and said, "You still don't believe me, kid? Before I came, I put more than a month of preparation into this expedition. Do you guys know what this Ruler of Dead Soldiers did? Or what the whole story was about borrowing troops from the netherworld? And what the royal seal was used for?" My speechlessness put a proud smile on his face. "Let me tell you. This Ruler could be referred to as a general if you wanted to put it nicely. But the truth is he was just like us-a grave robber."

I suddenly remembered that Uncle Three had mentioned the same thing but had no idea how he and this guy knew this. Fats explained, "But his skills were much better than ours-as you can tell by the honor he received when he was given a t.i.tle from a king for his grave-robbing accomplishments. Records indicate that his troops worked all night and rested during the day. They would often disappear completely and then suddenly materialize in a different place. The places they had been were often filled with "abandoned graves," and when asked about this, the explanation was that the Ruler had used both living soldiers and troops from the world of the dead to fight these battles. They definitely robbed graves everywhere they went, and if the graves that they had worked on were discovered later by other people, they would say the Ruler of Dead Soldiers had "borrowed the spirits" of those who had occupied these graves. This story spread everywhere since people at that time were very superst.i.tious. They believed it was a miracle that spirits of the dead would fight their battles for them."

This story wasn't too credible in my opinion so I asked, "How can you and my uncle form a theory about the importance of this tomb based on this information alone? Haven't you both jumped to a hasty conclusion?"

Fats gave me a sharp look as if he were upset that I interrupted him. He said, "Of course there is more evidence. The most direct evidence is that, according to historical records, the Seven Deceptive Coffins were first invented by some grave robbers. This was because they knew for a fact that many other grave robbers did the same thing they did. They were afraid their own graves would be plundered after their deaths so they created the set of decoy coffins. As far as they were concerned, it wasn't important how elaborate the traps were because mere danger wasn't enough to deter the grave robbers. They had to make the robbers so apprehensive about what deadly tricks they might discover that finally they would be unable to begin robbing in the first place. There is only one real coffin out of the seven. If any of the remaining six were opened by mistake, death was almost certain, because all of them had been installed with either concealed crossbows or black magic. It was not until after the Sung dynasty that some capable masterminds gradually discovered the secret of the Seven Deceptive Coffins. Once the hazards were explained, many people thought it would be an ill-starred venture to attempt to find the one coffin that was safe to open, and the expenses involved in doing this were far too high for most."

Fats was such a sloppy, careless-looking guy that I never guessed he would be so knowledgeable, and I couldn't help but be impressed by what he'd told me. It did not sound like he had finished, so I asked, "Is there any way to tell which coffin is occupied by its owner?"

Fats patted me on the back, pleased by my change of att.i.tude, and proudly continued. "I see you are a studious fellow, young comrade. Well, then I'll follow the steps of Brother Confucius-'Have patience in teaching one's students and don't care about the exhaustion.' Okay, listen closely. There is a way to distinguish the real coffin from the other six. But our line of work has its rules. When they came upon the Seven Deceptive Coffins, most grave robbers would kowtow a few times and respectfully make their way out, so they wouldn't anger our ancestors. But during times of war and chaos, a number of our colleagues had no food and no place to live. Shivering and starving, they had to break their own rules. At that time, there was an expert who found a way to get around the dangers of the six false coffins by using two crowbars to tilt a coffin up from one corner, chiseling a small hole in its bottom, and then fishing inside it with a pothook to see what might become impaled on the point of the hook. That way it was possible to discover what the coffin contained."

I sighed with relief at the information, thinking I should really write a book about the battle of wits between the grave robbers and the trap designers. Fats drew closer and said in mysterious tones, "But I'm afraid the seven stone coffins here are all fake. In fact, I don't even think this grave of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers is real."

He pointed his flashlight toward the spot we had just plunged through to make sure nothing was crawling downward. Then he went on, "Originally I could not entirely understand this stone-tunneled maze, but once we fell into this chamber, I suddenly realized this actually is a tomb of the Western Zhou dynasty."

Surprised, I asked, "So these aren't escape routes dug by the workmen who built the tomb?"

Unexpectedly, Panzi cursed from the corner. "I told you already. How could this be an escape tunnel? Have you ever seen anyone digging escape tunnels into a maze? Who would have the time or the inclination?" I was greatly confused, as if some argument was forming in my mind but was still elusive. "How could it be possible that someone would put his own grave on top of someone else's grave? According to Feng Shui principles, wouldn't that make that person the last of his clan?"

Fats smiled and said, "You're a grave robber, so naturally you're aware of the teachings of Feng Shui, although those of us who rob graves usually pay little attention to them. Except for some basic guidance to be found in Feng Shui, I really don't see any other use in it. It's a branch of knowledge bequeathed to us by our ancestors which is now irrelevant to the good young people of our socialist society." He made a special effort to pat himself on the chest. "Moreover, this whole thing about burying oneself on top of someone else's tomb also has a name in Feng Shui. It's something called... hm...it's called something like Hidden Dragon Point, or something like that-let's not worry about these superficial names. As long as the numerology is in harmony and the layout is proper, burying oneself on top of another person's grave is not inauspicious. Therefore, the Ruler's coffin is without a doubt to be found in this tomb of the Western Zhou dynasty. I absolutely cannot be wrong!"

Panzi burst out laughing, "What? So you-you moron-you think you actually understand Feng Shui?"

Fats became furious. "What do you mean, 'I think I understand'? If I didn't understand...how would I know so much?"

Panzi laughed loudly, but his laughter tore at his wounds and he clutched his stomach protectively. He said, "I have no idea where you heard all this nonsense. If you really understand Feng Shui, why can't you take us out of this maze? I made at least seven or eight turns and still couldn't find the way."

My short-term memory was coming back as Panzi spoke. I asked, "By the way, when you guys left me behind and ran away, did you know you nearly scared me to death? Where are Uncle Three and Big Kui?"

Panzi straightened up his body with difficulty and said, "I'm not sure myself. When Poker-face began chasing after Fats here and Uncle Three wouldn't let me follow them, I knew something bad was up because Poker-face was so upset. You know, I really don't trust Poker-face. I feel there's something weird about his motive for accompanying us on this expedition and I wanted to try and find out what that might be, so I followed him." He frowned and continued in lowered tones, "I ran for a few minutes and suddenly saw something ahead in the tunnel. I took out my lamp, and then whatever it was vanished, gone like a gust of wind. I got a bit nervous, and walked further along-and then I saw tucked in between the cracks of the stone wall something that looked like a human hand, with its four fingers and thumb all the same length." Fats looked shocked. His mouth moved a little as if he wanted to say something, but he didn't make a sound.

Panzi continued, "So I went over to check it out. You know my weakness-I can't control my curiosity, I would even eat s.h.i.t if I really wanted to know what it tasted like. Now when I think about this, I'm still a bit spooked. I didn't expect that handlike thing would attack me. It clasped itself around my neck with enormous strength, so much that I almost choked to death. Luckily I still had my army knife with me. On one hand I was kicking my legs around like crazy; on the other I was doing my best to cut that hand off. Then I discovered the wrist of this hand was frighteningly slender-it was only a bit thicker than one of my fingers and I couldn't understand how the hand could be so strong with only this slight support. I struck at its wrist with my knife and cut open a very long wound. The hand released its grip immediately, and retreated back toward the cracks in the wall." Panzi rubbed his neck and said, "I thought, Holy f.u.c.k, there must be something odd behind this wall. So I checked it by knocking it on the left and kicking it on the right. I had no idea what the h.e.l.l I pressed, but my whole f.u.c.king body just fell!" He tapped the wall. "Then you guys know what happened after that. I fell into a stone chamber like this one, and found a tunnel. Lucky I'm still in good shape. I jumped for a long time and finally got up into it-otherwise I really have no idea how or when I would have run into you."

"So you're saying that you don't know the whereabouts of Uncle Three and the other guys?" I sighed. I turned to Fats and asked him, "Hey you fat f.u.c.k, how did you fall into that chamber where the corpse-eaters almost ate Panzi alive? You better tell me the truth. Were you the one who provoked that G.o.dd.a.m.n rattle monster and had it come running after us?"

Fats responded, "h.e.l.l, if you really mean what you're saying, then you do me a terrible injustice! When I ran from the guy you call Poker-face, an old guy came out of nowhere and released the monster. Then the man chasing me saw it, said 'oh s.h.i.t,' turned, and ran. I a.s.sessed the situation. If I had to fight that monster, I guessed my chances of winning were nonexistent. But I had to keep going; I hadn't yet finished the task given to me by my team, so I turned and ran too. After I ran for a while, I saw that guy in front of me yelling to stop where I was. I still hadn't figured out what was going on, but he kicked the wall, and I fell before I knew what was happening to me. And I thought following him was going to save me! s.h.i.t, there were so many insects down in that place." As he spoke, he looked around as if the corpse-eaters were crawling out to bite him again.

Panzi glanced at me and said, "You see, Poker-face seems to know a lot about this tomb. There are plenty of reasons to be suspicious of him."

I had begun to think that Poker-face was not a bad guy, because whenever he was around, I felt safe, but when Panzi put it this way, I began to realize that all along this quiet b.a.s.t.a.r.d seemed to know way too much.

It was as if he could antic.i.p.ate everything before it happened, and that made me uneasy.

We were silent for some time, and then changed the subject. Fats argued that we couldn't solve anything by just sitting around, and suggested that we go back into the tunnels to test our luck. Panzi agreed with him, so we decided to rest for a little longer and then go on.

I began to doze off and was half-asleep, when I noticed Fats raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyeb.a.l.l.s at me. d.a.m.n, I thought sleepily, is this guy some kind of schizophrenic? How else could you explain his putting a crock on his head to scare people in an ancient tomb? He was either extremely daring or extremely nuts. Now that one of us is badly hurt and none of us has a clue of where we are, he's still crazy enough to make faces at me. If I had enough energy, I'd get up and beat the h.e.l.l out of him.

But then I saw Panzi was making the same weird expressions as he stared in my direction. What the h.e.l.l? I thought, Is psychosis contagious?

Both of them were patting their left shoulders, their mouths moving as if they were saying, "Hand, hand!" and sweat was beginning to run down their foreheads. It was so demented that I took a look at my own hand, but there was nothing wrong with it. Did they mean my shoulder? I slowly peered down and there hanging onto my shoulder was a small green hand.

Chapter Seventeen.

AN OPENING IN THE CAVE.

The fingers and thumb on the hand were all the same length, its wrist was extremely thin, and it looked exactly as Panzi had described-intensely revolting. Fats made a gesture that warned me not to panic but I wasn't afraid. I'd come across so many horrible things recently that I felt as though someone was playing a stupid prank on me. If anything I was p.i.s.sed off and wanted to bite that disgusting little hand as hard as I could, but somehow logic and reasoning kept me from doing that.

Using Panzi's gun, Fats poked at the hand in attempts to jar it from my shoulder. When the gun came close by, the hand grabbed it, coiled around it like a snake, and began to tug it away but Fats refused to let go. Anchoring himself with his big b.u.t.t, he embarked upon a tug-of-war with that little hand.

I went to help him and he needed it. Although Fats was very strong, even with my a.s.sistance he could barely hold his own against this monstrous little thing. Although he was unable to join us in our struggle, Panzi drew back his arm and threw Fats his army knife.

Fats muttered an obscenity as he caught the knife and quickly cut a large chunk of green tissue from the hand, which released its grasp on the gun, flung itself into the darkness, and disappeared, writhing away from us like a snake. As soon as its force was withdrawn, Fats and I fell backward with our legs in the air.

Fats was on his feet in a second. He ran to see where the hand might have gone and found a deep, trenchlike crevice in the stone wall. He tried to squeeze in but the opening was too small for his bulk. Frustrated, he raised his fists and punched at the wall, which to our surprise, crumbled under the force of his bare hands.

"Look," he cried, "there's a large tunnel leading to a cave!"

We hurried over as Fats illuminated the place with his flashlight. Indeed, there was another pathway within that opening. The interior was very dark, and we had no idea where this tunnel would lead us. Who would ever suspect there was a tunnel hidden in such a dark spot along the wall? No wonder the corpse-eating bugs could come and go as swiftly as ghosts, I realized.

Panzi touched the opening and said, "Looks like this is a man-made tunnel. Could it have been dug for the corpse-eaters to move through?"

"You're saying those d.a.m.n bugs are in here?" Fats was just about to crawl into the tunnel but stopped when he heard Panzi's next words, "Don't worry. Earlier when Poker-face was taking care of my wounds for me, I wiped some of his blood onto my own hand. You see," he pointed to a bloodstained spot on his palm, "You guys use a bit of spit and wipe some of this on your faces. It's got to have some power."

I could not help laughing. "You're such a crook for G.o.d's sake. He saved your life and then you stole his blood!"

Panzi smiled with embarra.s.sment and said, "I don't know why, but when I saw his blood dripping onto the ground, I had a feeling that it shouldn't go to waste."

Fats didn't understand what we were talking about, and asked, "Why? Is this guy's blood that powerful?"

We nodded, and told him about what had happened back in the carca.s.s cave.

"I don't know why this opening was put here," Panzi told us, "but since we're lost in this maze of tunnels, I guess it's our only hope. Why don't we go in and take a look?"

I stared at the opening. Only one person could go through it at a time, and it gave me the creeps. I did not feel good about going in, but if we didn't take some sort of action, we were sure to die in this place so I nodded in agreement. Fats took off his belt and tied it to his leg, saying to Panzi, "You hold onto my belt and I'll lead the way."

Without saying another word, he crawled into the tunnel. Panzi clutched the belt and was pulled inside. I watched them disappear in the darkness, summoned all my courage, and followed them.