"The Dead Speaketh Not, They Just Grunt Now and Then" by "Lionel Fenn" (Charles L. Grant) (from The Ultimate Zombie, edited by Byron Preiss & John Bettancourt, 1993; no known repirints)
Let us sing the praises of Kent Montana, the heroic Scottish baron and hero of five B-Movie adventure novels (Kent Montana and the Really Ugly Thing from Mars, Kent Montana and the Reasonably Invisible Man, Kent Montana and the Once and Future Thing, Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire, and -- winning my vote for the best book title ever, hands down -- 668: The Neighbor of the Beast) and several short stories. Throughout these adventures, our hero finds himself having "to do battle with forces that were generally beyond his ken, which is where, all in all, he preferred to keep them."
This time circumstances bring Kent to a lonely plantation deep in Central New Jersey, a land steeped in Jersey zombie lore and legend. A telephone call from an old college chum, Sir Ronald Kenilworth of the Yorkshire Kenilworths. Sir Ronald is distraught and tells Kent that someone in the house is trying to kill him. Then Sir Ronald screams and the line goes dead. Kent immediately calls the number back and gets Sir Ronald's beautiful daughter Sally, who informs him that Sir Ronald is dead, having passed just ten minutes before. Then Sally screams and the line goes dead. Kent once again calls back and reaches the Kenilworth's cook, Matilda, who tells him that Sally is now dead, having passed just ten minutes before. Then Matilda screams and the line goes dead...
Kent Montana realizes that he must go to the mysterious corn-enshrouded wasteland of New Jersey to discover what had happened to his good friend, his daughter, and their cook. Arriving there, among the constant beat of mysterious drums from the corn fields surrounding the plantation, he is greeted by Sir Ronald's manservant, Denbro, "a short, gray-haired black man in a white suit with wide gold piping." Denbro bring him Sir Ronald's two sons, Roland and Robert, the last of the Kenilworth family. Also there is Lucy Dane, a former inamorata of Montana's who had rebounded in hopes of winning Sir Ronald's affections.
Montana is told that the family suffers under a cruse delivered by Momma Holyhina because her lover, Pierre Grumage, had been fired by Sir Ronald when he tried to organize the plantation workers. Pierre, realizing he had nothing left to live for, threw himself into the ocean and drowned. Momma Holyhina recovered the body, turned him into a zombie, called upon the god of vengeance, Lamolla, and placed the curse on the family. All the workers then abandoned the plantation in fear and a zombie fetish symbol of coming death was nailed to a door. Montana is told that he should flee, but that it would do no good, because the zombie Pierre "will follow you. Wherever you go. There isn't a mountain too high or a ocean too deep... he'll follow."
And all the while, the winds sloughs and rustles through the corn and the incessant sound of voodoo drum beats continue...
Just then, Lucy screams from a balcony. There, on another balcony is the shambling figure of Pierre, with Robert in his arms. He lifts the body and throws it off the balcony, where Robert lies crushed on the ground bellow. Pierre lurches back into the building an reemerges with the screaming body of Roland. Again, he lifts the body and tosses it off the balcony where he lies dying on top of his brother. Lucy fires a gun and bullets slam into Pierre's chest to no effect. Lucy runs to Kent and the zombie follows. Kent sends a bullet into Pierre's skull, but he just keeps coming.
Golly. How can Kent put a stop to this rampaging beast? I guess you just have to reed the story to find out.
In addition to writing tongue in cheek tales about Kent Montana, Grant (1942-2006) has written a n umber of other humorous fantasies and pastiches. He is best known, however, for his horror and fark fantasy novels and anthologies, and for being an advocate of "quiet horror," "subtle, atmospheric works that eschew overt violence in favour of the [powerful terrors of the imagination." (John Clute). In addition to eight novels and four collections set in the fictional Connecticut town of Oxrun Station, he has published some two dozen novels horror novels. Grant was won three World Fantasy /awards and has been nominated for the award 23 times. He has also won two Nebula Awards and has won a Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, was named a World Horror Grand Master, and received the British Fantasy Society's Special Award for Achievement. He has edited over twenty anthologies, including the eleven-volume award-winning Shadows series. He has penned young adult science fiction and horror series, Gothic romances, and historical romances, and tie-in works, and has edited Writing and Selling Science Fiction for the Science Fiction Writers of America. Among his many pseudonyms are Lionel Fenn, Geoffrey Marsh, Simon Lake, Mark Rivers, and Timothy Boggs (notice a pattern here?). His other pseudonyms include Felicia Andrews (best-selling historical romances, Deborah Lewis (Gothics) and Stephen Charles (the young adult Private School series).
Also, near and dear to my heart, was his brilliant bimonthly newsletter, Haggis, which once devoted its entire front page to my thrilling recounting of "How I Met a Haggis." The newsletter also serialized an unpublished novel, Lancelot and Blanche, which, after all these years, still begs for book publication.
He died far too young from heart failure resulting from COPD at age 64, leaving two children from his first marriage and his second wife, the writer and editor Kathryn Ptacek (the Gila Queen).
I would highly recommend any book written by Charles L. Grant -- excepting, of course, the novelization of the Bruce Willis film Hudson Hawk, which as a book is almost as bad as the movie itself.
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