Mumbo Gumbo

by Peter Miller

This is a true story. I’m afraid I can’t prove it since all the people it concerns are dead. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

It had started innocently enough as a kind of half joke between a bunch of us. It was Halloween. We were sitting around drinking Absinthe and telling ghost stories. Pil and Simon had recently returned from a trip overseas and both still had that far away look in their eyes. Or maybe that was just the Absinthe.

It was Pil who made the suggestion.

“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if next year we could do this somewhere with real bona fide spook factor,” she had said, “like Highgate cemetery in London or a haunted castle in Scotland?”

William raised an eyebrow. “Or John Howard’s lounge room”.

Someone, I can’t remember who it was now, Michele, or Hugh maybe, had suggested New Orleans. Voodoo. Vampires. Chicken gumbo. There had been unanimous approval. We all knew it was a pipe dream of course, none of us could afford either the time or the money, but there was an undeniable romance in even considering the possibility.

With what now seems eerie foresight, Karen had speculated that if it was something we all wanted badly enough, then maybe we could make it happen by sheer force of will. Rather Poe-esque of her I remember thinking at the time. Knowing what I know now, I wish she hadn’t put the thought into words at all.

I’d more or less forgotten about it by the time next October came round. A stint of work in Los Angeles had put me in the right part of the world and without really thinking much about it I’d planned to visit New Orleans for a bit of a holiday before heading back home. I mentioned it in an e-mail to Pete G. and he reminded me of last year’s proposed rendezvous. “Spooooky!” he’d remarked, with extra ‘o’s. But far more spooky than that was the very next e-mail I got from him, less than an hour later. For the six months previous Pete had been working for a computer games company called BlitzBitz and it seemed that they wanted him to attend GamesCon 2002 at the end of October, held this year in New Orleans. Expenses paid, of course.

It was my turn to write “Spooooooooky!” I added even more ‘o’s.

Still, at the time it seemed like nothing more than just a weird coincidence. Pete and I were quite looking forward to catching up over a few Hurricanes on Royal. Halloween was obviously as good a time as any and we were more than willing to raise a glass to absent friends.

I was regularly keeping in touch with the gang back in Sydney but I hadn’t mentioned my plans to visit ‘N’Orl’ns’ as the locals drawled it, so the next e-mail Hugh sent me came as a bit of a surprise.

“Looks like I’m going to be in New Orleans at Halloween” he wrote. “It’s a long story, almost unbelievable really, but it seems that I have, or had I should say, a Great Aunt who’s died and left me some property in the French Quarter. They need me to be there at the end of October for the transfer of titles and other legal stuff. I wonder if you’ll be finished your film by then? Maybe we could hook up for that ghost story session we talked about last year?”

The hairs on the back of my neck were still standing on end when I replied to him that I’d already be there, along with Pete.

Well, you’re getting the drift by now. I probably don’t need to go into too much more detail. On the off chance, Karen had entered a piece in a short story contest in the U.S. winning the first prize along with a trip to the presentation ceremony in ... New Orleans. Some friends of Michelle’s had arranged for her to join them on a special surprise driving holiday across the American south, including a week or so in ... yep, you guessed it.

Simon and Pil looked like they were pretty choked up with work. No New Orleans junket for them. Razzle Dazzle Jazz, their biggest client had them booked for the best part of three months at the end of the year. Pil had, in fact, entirely forgotten entering the competition on the back of the Absinthe bottle. ‘Send in this label,’ it had said ‘and you and a friend could spend next Halloween in New Orleans!’ She’d sent it in, of course, well why not, but that had been back in March. And work had been frantic and looked like continuing that way. Who’d’ve counted on Razzle Dazzle going bankrupt suddenly and spectacularly. Ten minutes later a call from the Absinthe promoters. Pil and Simon could collect their tickets to the U.S. at their convenience.

William watched all this unfold with mounting trepidation. It seemed like an amusing set of coincidences at first, but an eerie relentlessness was setting in. This was just too weird. He avoided competitions of any kind. He made plans to be in Fiji. He turned down an offer to produce the new Smashing Pumpkins album at Sun Studios in Memphis. Not New Orleans, but too close for comfort. There was no way William was going to end up in New Orleans at Halloween.

The evening of October 30th. New Orleans. It was cold and a little foggy. Pete and I wolfed down a bowl of jambalaya at Ruby’s and wandered down to the Old Absinthe Bar. Some Portuguese tourists were knocking back test-tubes of Jagermeister at the main bar so we ordered a couple of Blackened Voodoos and looked for a table in the warmth of the shadows at the back.

Aside from the happy campers up front, it was pretty quiet. A single figure sat hunched over a glass of Coke, collar turned up against the night chill.

“The makers of the dead travel fast,” I whispered to Pete “but as we knowthings go better with Coke ...”

He groaned. And then ...

“Hang on a minute,” he said peering into the gloom. “I think that’s William.”

I stole a surreptitious glance at our undead companion. It did look a bit like him. Skin somewhat paler than usual, but, as my eyes adjusted it appeared that Pete was right. We grabbed our beers and made our way over.

“William?” said Pete.

William’s eyes flickered up to us.

“The RSL Club” he said, “The damn RSL Club.”

We dragged the story from him, word by bitter word. It seemed that a group of his friends, or ‘ex-friends’ as he frequently referred to them, had convinced him to tag along to the local club to see a show by notorious hypnotist Claude Valdemar. William remembered being ‘volunteered’ to the stage and despite his protests, coming under M. Valdemar’s smouldering gaze ...

... and then waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room. It didn’t take him long to work out where he was; the wrought iron balcony, the hanging pots of Spanish moss and when he went outside, the unmistakeable bustle of Bourbon St.

That had been two days ago. His hotel room had been paid up to the first of November. There was an economy ticket from Sydney to New Orleans in his coat pocket. One way.

“I knew that sooner or later you’d appear” he said to us. “I didn’t even bother to try and find you.”

“And here we are” said Pete.

“Yes, here you are.” He looked quite unwell.

I have to admit that up until that moment I still believed that we were all the victims of a monumental coincidence. I mean, sure, it was a little bizarre, but hey, I’ve read stranger things in Fortean Times. After hearing William’s story though I did have a brief case of the heebie jeebies. What had Karen said? “If we wanted it badly enough we could make it happen by sheer force of will ...” It was all starting to sound a darker shade of Monkey’s Paw.

“So let me guess,” said William “I suppose you all have some kind of planfor tomorrow night?”

“Absolutely” I said shaking off my momentary superstitious misgivings. “No sense wasting an opportunity like this. We’re meeting at the house Hugh inherited from his Great Aunt. It’s apparently a perfect old New Orleans mansion. It was even a funeral parlour once. Each of us is reading our favourite horror story.”

William paled even further, taking on a greenish hue. He looked a bit like one of those luminous plastic skeletons you see in Clint’s Crazy Bargains.

“I have a ba-a-a-d feeling about this” he said, with extra ‘a’s.

The next day dawned grim and overcast. It wasn’t raining but close to it. The whole gang had arranged to meet for breakfast at Cafe du Monde. Coffees and beignet all round. A couple of hipsters hopefully busking jazz on the sidewalk outside.

“Is it just me, or does anyone else find this a little weird?” asked Simon. “Only a year ago we were talking about this and now, snick! Here we are!” He scoffed down his fourth beignet.

“Tell me about it” said William.

“Tell me about it sa“id Pil at exactly the same time.

“Maybe it’s just the power of positive thought,”Michele said.

“Or maybe there’s a reason that we’re all here” said Karen, brimming with optimism after her accolades at last night’s presentation ceremony.

“Even if there was a reason ” said William, “that doesn’t mean it would necessarily be a shiny happy reason. It might be an evil murky thing-from-the-bottom-of-a-swamp kind of reason.”

“Tell you what, Will” Pete said “why don’t we swing by Marie Laveau’s Voodoo shop and buy you a charm to ward off bad vibes? Maybe a rabbit’s foot or something. That’s supposed to be good luck.”

“Not for the rabbit” William said.

There was distant thunder somewhere off over the river. We reached Marie Laveau’s as the rain started in earnest.

Despite the gloominess of the day outside, it took a few moments for our eyes to adjust when we went in. This was real gloom. Gloom that only had only a little bit to do with light levels and a lot to do with strange dusty herbal smells, walls marked with mysterious symbols, baskets of chicken bones and dolls with pins stuck in them.

“Can I help you folks?” A thin woman, all teeth and hair, materialised from the darkness at the back of the shop.

“We’re looking for a good luck charm” I said, “for our jittery friend here.” I indicated William.

The woman regarded him.

“My, my, my” she said. “By the look of him, a charm won’t do no good. He’s needing a potion.”

“Don’t you just have a crucifix or something I can wear around my neck?” William said.

“Tush,” said the woman. “It ain’t vampires you gotta worry about honey. It’s much worse than that.”

She rummaged about under the counter and brought out a small bottle filled with violet liquid.

“Five dollars” she said. “Drink it in one go. Protection from evil guaranteed for twenty four hours.”

“A bargain at twice the price” said Pete, handing over the money. “Here you go Will, full of purply goodness.”

He gave the amethyst potion to William, who looked at it queasily.

“Maybe later.” he said, putting it into the pocket of his coat.

“As you wish, but don’t leave it too long” said the shopkeeper. “The makers of the dead travel fast, you know.”

She made a strange twitching motion with her hand.

“Oh, and be sure to visit our museum. Free to you all, since you made a purchase.” The twitching hand pointed at a tattered velvet curtain under a grimacing wooden face and a sign saying ‘Voodoo Museum: Entrance One Dollar’.

“Can’t get ”any worse, said William heading on through.

“This is brilliant” Pil said following him. “Better than I imagined.”

The voodoo museum was everything a voodoo museum should be. Voodoo altars, photographs of genuine spirit possessions, macabre fetishes and plenty of skeletal remains.

“Hey look at this,” Simon said. “A necklace made of real human teeth. I’ve gotta get a photo.” He fired off a couple of shots.

Hugh, Karen and Pete posed for another snap in front of a mock graveyard fence supporting a line of age-yellowed human skulls.

We spent about twenty minutes poking around the gruesome exhibits and had just about had our fill when Michelle appeared unsteadily out of a little alcove in a dark corner.

“Uh, guys...” she said “this is just too strange.”

“What is? What is?” said Will.

“You’d better come and have a look”.

We followed Michelle, eight of us crowding into the dark little nook. An electric candle with a flickering red bulb cast the only light.

Someone drew in a sharp breath.

A single glass display case held a perfect miniature tableau. Around a circular table was seated a group of tiny figures, in front of each an open book. The mannequins in the display looked disturbingly familiar.

“It’s us!” Karen said.

And so it was. There was a little Hugh, a little Pil, a little Michelle, a little William, a little Karen, a little Simon and two little Pete’s.

All with pins stuck through their hearts.

And there was someone else. Sitting at the head of the table was a stranger. A stranger dressed all in black. A stranger wearing a black top hat. A stranger with a grinning skull face.

Pete did the theme from the Twilight Zone.

“Does this mean we’re cancelling tonight?” asked William hopefully.

“Are you kidding?” said Simon. “Now it’s getting really interesting.”

“Sorry” “William said I thought for a split second I was on Planet Rational. Silly me.”

“It would be irrational to cancel it,” Pil said. “What could possibly happen? We’re just going to be sitting around telling stories. It’s not as if we’re likely to die of fright.”

“Besides, I’ve catered” said Hugh.

“I hope there’s enough for nine,” William said.

Michele peered at the skull man in the top hat. “He doesn’t look as if he eats much”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’d be lying if I said we weren’t all a little nervous when we arrived at Hugh’s newly acquired mansion later that evening. But at least it had stopped raining.

The way I figured it, though, there were really only two possibilities. Either we were all experiencing a very bizarre set of coincidental events or we were in the hands of some kind of spooky destiny. In either case, I didn’t think there was much point in just staying back at the hotel. If it was all coincidence, then we’d’ve missed out on a fun Halloween evening of ghost stories and if there was a Greater Purpose, well, I had a feeling it would find us no matter what we did.

There was no doubt about it, the house was impressive. A Gothic masterpiece in the finest Addam’s Family tradition. Iron fences, Spanish moss floating from the boughs of ancient cottonwood trees and even a couple of gravestones.

“I thought they made this kind of thing up” Michelle said, as we made our way up the path.

“Lately, I’ll believe anything’s possible” said William.

“You’ve gotta ’admit, its a perfect place to spend Halloween” I said.

The moon came out from behind the clouds. It was full, of course.

Hugh met us at the door.

“We’re upstairs. I’ve set us an extra place in case we have any... unexpected guests” he said with obvious ghoulish delight. In spite of this, the house was pleasantly warm after the night chill outside. It had that lived-in feel, like older relatives houses always seem to do. Not spooky at all.

“I’ll hang the coats” I said.

“Down the hall to the left” Hugh said. “There’s a coatstand in the little room at the end.”

I collected everyone’s coats and made my way through to a small ante-room with sombre striped wallpaper and a couple of solid antique chairs. I hung the coats and poked my head around a door that opened into a darkened formal sitting room. The air was musty and sweet, as if the curtains had soaked up years of incense smoke. I had just turned to go when a heavy shape in the centre of the dim room caught my eye. A prickle of fear ran down my spine. A coffin. I know Hugh had said the house had been used as a funeral parlour but I’d gotten the impression that he was speaking in the past tense. The very past tense, as in “it used to be a funeral parlour once a long time ago but don’t worry there are no embalmed corpses here anymore...”

I fumbled for the light switch and saw with vast relief that the ominous weighty object was nothing more than a low mahogany table.

Wow, I was really jumpy. I needed a drink.

Upstairs, the gang was in good spirits. The room was warm and comfortable, lit by four heavy iron candelabras. I took my seat with the others at a beautiful circular wooden table. Hugh really had set a ninth place but it was conspicuously unoccupied.

The food was excellent, and after a few glasses of wine and a lot of laughter, the ominous tinge that had hung over us during the day dissipated like the afternoon’s storm clouds.

We were ready for ghost stories.

Pete started the readings with Hodgson’s ‘The Whistling Room’. Michelle followed with Ex Private X’s eerie ghost story ‘The Sweeper’ and William almost trumped them with a colourful rendition of Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’. From Karen we heard Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’, Simon read an odd little tale called ‘Diminishing Wife’, Hugh gave us Poe’s classic ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and Pil chose the squirmy ‘Mr Fiddleback’ by Jonathan Carroll. I finished with Bradbury’s unsettling piece ‘The Trapdoor’.

The tales were appropriately spooky but everyone was in such good spirits that we’d entirely forgotten the oddness of the last few weeks. It seemed that the unusual events that had brought us all together were, after all, nothing more than random incidents culminating in a fortuitous gathering of friends.

“A toast,” I said “to coincidence.”

There was a chorus of agreement.

“And to our mysterious guest,” said William, “even if he didn’t make an appearance.”

We clinked our glasses.

And there was a rattle of bones.

“That didn’t sound quite right” said Simon.

We all turned toward the sound. The candles fluttered. The shadows in the darkest corners in the room seemed to smudge themselves together to form a tall dark shape. A shape dressed all in black. A shape wearing a black top hat. And, we could see as it moved slowly forward into the circle of candlelight, a shape with a grinning skull face.

“I also would like to read a story,” said the figure, producing an old rotten leather book from inside his coat. He took his seat at the table, as we knew he would.

Looking at us implacably, almost as if he was waiting for permission, he opened his book. Flakes of ash fell from his sleeves.

Then, in a voice like boots crunching cockroaches he began to read.

And that’s all I remember. I woke uncomfortably propped in my chair, my head on the open book in front of me. The room was empty. A feeble dawn light was seeping through the drapes. There was a dry burnt smell in the air, like the smoke from autumn fires. I wandered around the house looking for Hugh or any of the others, but there wasn’t a soul to be found.

And that’s my story. I don’t expect you to believe me, I know it all sounds rather far-fetched. When I arrived back in Sydney, I left messages on everyone’s machines but so far no-one’s returned my calls. Or answered my e-mails. So I’ve assumed the worst. I’m very careful what I wish for these days, and I don’t believe in coincidences anymore.

By the way, does anyone know how I can get these purple stains out of my teeth?