Albert opened a door at the end of the hall. It opened into a small annex of the research library most people never even knew existed. The New York Public Library was extensive. Though the selection of arcane texts were small by comparison to the rest of the library, it was one of the largest collections in the new world. Several thousand books, scrolls and carvings were kept in this small section. The Library of Congress had a larger and better kept collection of course, and there was a collector whose library was reputedly the largest in the world. No one ever gave the same name. Albert dismissed the rumors as so much gossip.
The sturdy oak shelves were close and musty, weighed down by heavy tomes and leather bound journals. Albert imagined he could feel knowledge hanging in the air, cloying and sweet.
“Good evening, Lytical. I need to do some research on zombies,” Albert greeted the young lady behind the counter reading a book. She was slightly older than himself, perhaps twenty-five. Tall and slender with reddish hair and a pretty nose, Anna Swanson was a far more pleasant woman to behold than Albert had expected to find working in the back room of the Science, Arcane, Industry and Business Library.
“I wish you wouldn’t use that nickname, Mr. McKay. It’s derivative and only half a pun. Puns are not funny in full, half a pun less so. You also need to check your watch more often, it is nearly two in the morning. I believe that qualifies as night,” the young woman never looked up from her book. Albert listened to her emotions and knew that she enjoyed the familiarity. “There are four volumes primarily focusing on voodoo practices with significant sections covering zombies. They are located in the third aisle, four shelves back on the right, two down, fifth through eighth books from the left. Another seven contain mention of the zombie phenomena if you need additional information.”
“Thank you, Miss Swanson. Very precise, as usual,” Albert removed his gloves and hat, placed them on a small table he passed. The books were right where she had told him to look. They always were. Two were in French, one in Latin by a Catholic priest and the last in English. Sitting at the table, he began paging through one of the French volumes and taking notes in a small journal he kept in a coat pocket. Soon all four books lay open on the desk with book marks holding pages as Albert flipped between them. He would read a passage from one book, make a note of it in his journal and compare the passage to the other books.
“Find what you needed?” Anna asked as she gently slid the books to make room for tea. Albert looked up, his eyes slightly unfocused as she sat across from him.
“No, not at all,” he frowned as two cups of tea were poured. Anna added sugar to her own and sat back.
“You’ve been here for nearly three hours. Why did you ask for the books on zombies?”
“I remembered hearing that zombies were people without souls, either raised from the dead or made by drinking a potion as Hurston suggested,” Albert took his tea and slumped in his chair, looking defeated. “These books support those statements. A zombie is a human body empty of soul, no personality or liveliness. The problem is that every example of it I read about says that the zombies can still walk and move,” he swung a book around for the librarian to see. “In the 1780s a Spanish missionary traveled through the West Indies and Haiti. He learned about the local religions and here,” Albert pointed at a passage of Latin, “he describes a local man who was brought back to life but lost his soul and will. It says the man walked, talked, ate and worked as long as someone told him what to do but had lost all capability of independent action. That is a zombie, all four books say so.”
The librarian quickly read the passage and turned the page for more information. “Yes, that is consistent with the other books in the collection as well. What were you expecting?” she asked.
“There is a man at the hospital whose soul has been ripped from his body but he lies in bed comatose. He doesn’t respond to any commands. I’ve checked him against other comatose patients. They are still… I don’t know, present? I can feel them. It’s as if he isn’t even there. There has been no physical trauma that the doctors can find to explain the coma. The only examples of soul taking I know of is the zombie phenomenon.”
“Hold on a moment,” Anna finished her tea and disappeared behind a line of shelves. She reappeared a moment later flipping through the pages of a small, tattered book. “This is the journal of one of the original Dutch inhabitants of Manhattan. He ventured north into the wild and there was captured by the Abenaki. They held him captive for three years before he escaped. One of the legends he writes of is the tsi-noo, people whose hearts are made of ice and eat the souls of men.”
“Anna, I think you may be on to something…”
