Free Desperate Souls by Gregory Lamberson

and typed in a single word:
zombie.
    A moment later, a section of the dense file opened, one of several hundred reports Tower had commissioned on the supernatural during his quest for immortality. The names of four researchers appeared at the top of the report: Dr. Donna Bidel, Ramera Evans, Professor Blake Carlton, and Javier Soueza. Jake copied the names down on a notepad, then scrolled through the 112-page document, including photos, illustrations, a glossary, and a bibliography. Sipping his Diet Coke for an infusion of caffeine, he returned to the beginning of the section and read it straight through to the end.

    Zombies, or reanimated human corpses, exist in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of vodou, which depicts living people enslaved by powerful sorcerers. The word
zombie
entered English usage sometime in 1871. The beliefs that zombies eat human flesh and that they can be destroyed only by destroying their brains are cinematic devices created by George A. Romero and his co-screenwriter, John Russo, in the 1968 film
Night of the Living Dead
and have no basis in true vodou. A more accurate portrayal of zombies appeared decades earlier in the 1932 film
White Zombie,
which starred Bela Lugosi as “Murder” Legendre, a mill owner with an undead labor force.
    Jake scanned a glossary of terms related to the research data.
    Bokor:
a vodou sorcerer or sorceress who revives a dead person as an enslaved zonbi.
    Jumbie:
West Indian for “ghost.”
    Nzambi:
Kongo term meaning “the spirit of a dead person.”
    Nzúmbe:
the Kimbundu ghost.
    Zonbi:
Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole; a person who has died and has been resurrected without the power of speech or free will.
    Zonbi astral:
a human soul captured by a bokor to increase the bokor’s power.
    Jake continued reading into the night, digesting terms and dates and geographic locations related to zombies. Finally, he rubbed his eyes and uninstalled the program from the laptop’s hard drive. Having processed the file’s information, he wondered if Tower had been taken for a fool by his research team. Although Jake had found the dozens of cases of modern zombies around the world interesting, nothing he read had persuaded him that the creatures existed. Still, the hair on the back of his neck had prickled at the mention of bokors capturing human souls for their own nefarious purposes.
    Soul catchers,
Jake thought. The term alone sent an icy chill through his core.
    Then the lights went out.

SEVEN
    A beam of light shot up behind Jake. It came from the high-intensity emergency flashlight that he kept plugged into the outlet behind his chair.
    Power’s out,
he thought as he swiveled around and stood up. But he did not snatch the flashlight from the outlet. The blinds over the window to his right glowed from the city lights outside, and as he peeked through the slats, he saw lit windows in the buildings on either side of him. Only the power in
this
building had been cut.
    Three… two … one…
    The lights came on again as he expected, juiced by the emergency generator that he had recommended Eden, Inc. install in the basement. As he watched the security monitors on the far wall flare back to life, he unfastened his cell phone from his belt.
    When the phone rang in his hand, he answered it. “Jake Helman.” Scanning the security monitors, he studied each floor. No sign of intruders yet.
    “Mr. Helman, this is Central Alarm Station. What is your—?”
    “Evolution.” With his password given, he added, “I’m on-site. There’s nothing to worry about. Thank you.” He powered down the laptop.
    “Have a good night, sir.”
    “You, too.” Seizing the laptop in both hands, he ran it over to the safe, set it on its designated shelf, closed the iron door, and spun the combination dials.
    His mind raced. The power lines had been cut in the back of the building, which was where the intruders would have to break in. Even as he formulated this scenario, he saw on one