Prologue
The bayou waited and watched as patient as an open grave.
The young man's shirt clung heavily to his dark skin, channelling rivers of sweat down his back as he poled the pirogue further into the swamp. A heavy mist floated over the surface of the water and hung in the air, transforming the trees and vegetation into nightmarish shapes. There was a small splash from his right, and the man looked to see the unmistakeable shape of an alligator as it swam away from the boat. He flicked his hand in front of his face to ward off the ever-present flies and mosquitoes. A slight, warm breeze rustled through the ancient, twisted trees that shrouded the water on either side.
The bayou was whispering; whispering words that no living man understood.
As he pushed the small boat under a moss-laden cypress, branches clutched at his arms and tore at his linen shirt. A cottonmouth, angry at the intrusion, dropped into his boat from one of the branches above.
Without panic, the young man calmly used his long pole to flip the hissing snake back into the water.
"You won't take me Old Woman," he rasped, "not while I'm still breathing."
A web of rotting vegetation bubbled up underneath him and the pirogue shuddered to a stop. He struggled against the obstruction and pushed hard with the pole, but the snag held fast. Wearily, the young man knelt down and submerged his arm to clear the weed away and free the boat.
Suddenly, something slimy grasped his hand under the water. With a yell, the young man yanked backwards, but the grip was like iron. Before he could pull free, a rotting hand burst from the murky, fetid water and took his arm. Another arm appeared and grabbed his shoulder. Dirty, broken fingernails dug into his flesh and made him scream in agony and mortal fear.
The air grew thick with a yellow, churning mist that bubbled up from the swamp. The young man coughed, his eyes streaming. The mist choked his lungs and seemed to drain him of all his strength. His eyes rolled up and at last he collapsed with a groan.
The slimy hands pulled him into the water. His body floated on the surface of the swamp for a moment and then was dragged under. The small boat rocked a final time and then floated free, alone….
The bayou resumed her death-watch.
1.
Amy Price shifted uncomfortably in her seat. It seemed no matter which way she sat, something dug into her back, or her side, or her neck. This was, she reflected irritably, not one of her better ideas.
The inside of the shuttle bus was stiflingly hot without any type of air conditioning at all. The driver, whose name Amy dimly recalled was Otis, had opened a window earlier but the blast of humid, foul smelling swamp air had been far, far worse. The motion of the bus was making Amy feel sick as well. That or the last few tequilas she had drunk in the bar last night anyway.
Amy opened one bleary eye and looked out of the window, flinching at the bright Louisiana sunshine. They were still heading down Route 1 by the look of things. She glanced at her watch. They had been driving south from New Orleans for just over an hour now. Amy licked her dry lips. She should've stayed in bed.
"You awake honey?"
The voice was female and came from a woman who sat across the aisle.
Amy opened her other eye and looked blearily at a large American lady who was dressed in a Disneyland shirt and too-tight shorts. "Unfortunately yes," she muttered.
"You're lookin' a little peaky honey. Are you okay?"
Amy sat up and stretched her aching back, pushing against the seatbelt. "I've had better days," she replied, summoning up a smile. "How long before we get there now?"
The woman picked up a guidebook from the empty seat next to her and peered out of the window at the road-signs that sped past. "Reckon it can't be more than another half hour." The woman rummaged in her belt pack. "You want some gum?"
Amy nodded, running her fingers through her dark brown–red hair. "Please."
"Name's Annie," said the woman as she passed Amy a stick of gum. "You English?"
Amy nodded. "Yup. London born and bred."
"You here on vacation?"
"That's right." Amy was rapidly becoming bored of the conversation and picked up a leaflet that had been stuffed in a pouch on the back of the seat in front of her. "Visit Galliano – Historic Town and Gateway to the Bayous" she read aloud as she rubbed her eyes and blinked rapidly.
"I'm on my own too honey," continued Annie, oblivious, "so we could always –".
A figure suddenly popped up from the seat in front of Amy and she jumped back in surprise at the sight of a grinning skull face. Then the little boy took off the mask and laughed at her. Amy shot him a filthy look as his mother called for him to sit back down.
Suddenly there was a scream from the front of the bus.
Tyres squealed as the bus swerved.
Amy felt her body thrown against her seat belt as the bus toppled over and everything went black.
2.
"Hello Amy."
Amy's eyes flickered open to see a rotating fan mounted on the ceiling. She was lying flat on a bed, tucked under crisp, neat linen sheets. "Where am I?" she managed to croak, her throat parched.
"You're safe."
Amy turned her head slowly to the sound of the man's voice but stopped suddenly as her head started to throb with pain. "Ow, God that hurts!" She realised that part of her head was covered in a padded bandage and her breath started to come in gasps of panic.
"Hey, take it easy."
The figure of a young man came into Amy's view. He reached over and adjusted the bandage.
"But I'm hurt! Am I gonna be-"
"You're going to be fine," the young man reassured her. "Here," he reached across and poured a glass of water from a jug. "Take a sip."
The man helped Amy sit up and she took a slow sip from the glass. It made her cough but it tasted so good – like the best champagne – and Amy sipped some more to soothe her cracked throat.
"There you go," grinned the young man.
Amy raised her hand and rubbed gently at the bandage over her left temple. It felt sore and tender. She lifted a tentative eyebrow and winced at the pain that lanced through her head.
"Don't worry – pain's good. Reminds us we're still alive."
"That's easy for you to say," replied Amy testily. She glanced at the man who stood next to her.
He was in his mid to late thirties, with a long face and spiked brown hair. Quite dishy, thought Amy (who sized up men in seconds almost automatically), but he didn't do it for her. Too skinny for one thing – he could do with a few good steaks inside him – and there was just a hint of geek. But he did have nice eyes. They were unusually…..well, just unusual. The man was dressed in a crumpled brown pinstriped suit with a grey shirt beneath. A dark, stringy tie completed the ensemble.
"Who are you anyway?" she grumbled.
"I'm the Doctor," the man said with a grin.
Amy gasped. "I'm in hospital?"
"No," the Doctor shook his head, "there aren't any in Galliano – town's too small. This is the best hotel though."
"Oh my God," Amy stammered as she started to remember what had happened. "We were in a crash! Where are the other people?"
The Doctor glanced down at the floor for a moment before looking at her again. "They're in the local morgue Amy. They all died. You're the only one who survived."
3.
Amy just stared at the Doctor. Her mouth moved wordlessly as she struggled to comprehend. All those poor people - the little boy, the driver and that overweight woman. What was her name? Guilt crashed over Amy like a wave as she remembered dismissing her kindness. "Annie…….." she whispered to herself.
"Was that your friend?" asked the Doctor gently.
Amy ignored his question for a few moments and then shook her head. "No…..she was just sitting by me."
"So you were alone?"
Amy nodded and then frowned. "Hey, what is this - some kind of interrogation? How do you know my name anyway?"
The Doctor reached out to a bedside table and held up her passport. "The police found it on you."
"At least that's one bit of good news."
"They're going to want to talk to you."
Amy shrugged. "There's not much I can tell them. We just crashed."
The Doctor bit his lip in thought and then nodded, putting Amy's passport back on the bedside table. "Okay, well, take care Amy Price. My advice would be to get back to New Orleans and fly home as quickly as possible."
"What do you mean?" Amy felt her temper flaring. "What kind of Doctor are you anyway? Aren't you going to prescribe any pills or anything?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I'm not that kind of Doctor. Anyway…." He started backing towards the door.
"Whoa, hang on." Amy sat forwards suspiciously. "Your accent is British. What's your name again?"
The Doctor sighed. "I told you – I'm the Doctor."
"Yeah but Doctor who?"
"Just 'the Doctor' is fine."
"Okay 'Doctor' then," Amy held up her fingers to make invisible sarcastic quotation marks. "Why are you acting so bloody mysterious?" She tried to swing her legs out of bed but suddenly her head started to throb and she reached out, clutching at the bedside table to fend off the dizziness.
"Alright, alright." The Doctor dashed back across the room and eased her back into bed. "Not too fast!" He sighed again but smiled at Amy's hard stare. "Oh, I can see you're going to be trouble Amy Price."
Amy just glared at him. "What's going on?" She said the words slowly, emphasising each one.
The Doctor leant forwards. "You were unconscious for nearly twenty four hours," he explained. "And in that time, two of the bodies from the crash have gone missing from the morgue!"
4.
"Yeah, you tell 'em Mae. I've had police, newspapers and the TV stations callin' me up non-stop since las' night. If they wanna talk again, those media people are gonna pay through the nose. Now I'll see you later, y'hear?" Maurice Dumont plonked the phone back on the receiver and took a long drag of his cheap cigar. Then he leant back on the small chair, put his alligator shoes up on the desk, and tapped ash onto the floor.
Maurice Dumont – or 'Big Mo' as he was known around the town of Galliano – had worked in the morgue for over fifteen years. He enjoyed the job too as he liked the quiet life. As he entered his forties however, the 'quiet life' had seen Big Mo get a lot bigger. His usual cream suit was getting a lot tighter around his waist and his face was often flushed and sweaty.
A sudden knock on the door made him jump, startling Mo from his reverie of making a fortune appearing on national television. He stubbed out his cigar and straightened his short tie. "At least," he said to himself with a nervous smile, "that's from the outside." He glanced to the other inner door to his office – the one that led to the morgue and all the bodies it held. "Hang on folks, I'm comin."
Mo opened the door to what seemed to be the middle of an argument.
"You shouldn't have come," insisted a man in a brown suit. "You need to rest Amy."
"Fat chance," returned a scowling dark haired young woman who wore a bandaged pad on her temple. "You're not getting rid of me so easily buster."
Mo cleared his throat and the man in the brown suit turned to him, a huge grin on his face. "Ah hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Amy Price." He held up a small leather wallet with a piece of paper in it. "We're from the New Orleans Times."
Amy looked between the paper and the Doctor, her face screwed up in disbelief. "What?"
The Doctor just shushed her and grinned at Mo again.
Now it was Mo's turn to frown. "I've just been talkin' to you fellas on the phone……"
"Oh did you?" asked the Doctor innocently, squeezing past Mo's bulky frame and into the office. "Yes that must've been my boss. We were in the area and thought we'd just….you know….have a poke about?"
"You gonna pay mister?"
"Oh yes, absolutely – top dollar. Just ask my…..boss. Now mister….."
Mo smiled at the promise of cash. "People round here call me Big Mo."
"Well then Big Mo," continued the Doctor with an eager smile. "Tell us what happened last night?"
5.
"Well, I don't know who it was that got in here and took our poor departed friends from New Orleans," Mo said with a wink, exhaling foul smelling cigar smoke that made Amy blanch and close her eyes. "And I don't know what it was they had in mind. Truth is, I'd just like to know how they got in here first." He started towards a small inner door and motioned the Doctor and Amy to follow. "C'mon back here to my work room where the folks are laid out an' I'll show you."
Amy raised her eyebrows and shook her head quickly. "I'll stay right here," she stammered.
The Doctor nodded and smiled reassuringly as Mo opened the door.
Amy retched at the overpowering smell of formaldehyde that drifted out before the Doctor stepped through and closed it behind him.
In the back room, the Doctor saw three more corpses - all covered in sheets and laid out on tables. A series of nine hatches, in a three by three square, were set into one wall and against another was a large sink and work area. Only one more set of double fire-doors led from the room, clearly where the ambulance or hearse would pull up to deliver or receive the bodies.
"I'd better get these three back in storage," muttered Mo, pushing a trolley from where it rested against a wall. "Those doors over there were wide open," he continued, pointing to the fire doors. "And they only open from the inside."
"No sign of a break in?" asked the Doctor, examining the fire doors.
"No sir, not a thing." Mo opened one of the hatches, loaded one of the bodies onto the trolley and then pushed the top stretcher inside. "I reckon whoever opened them doors must've used magic 'cos dead bodies just can't get up an' walk out, right?"
The Doctor just looked at Mo for a second. "Are these the three that are left from the crash?"
Mo nodded. "Yup."
"How did they die?"
"Various impact traumas, poor devils. The police boys said the bus was lil' more than a wreck." Mo hoisted another of the bodies onto the trolley and wheeled it next to another hatch.
Out of morbid curiosity, the Doctor lifted the sheet from the body as he did so and winced at what he saw. He draped the sheet back over as Mo pushed it into the hatch. The Doctor wandered over to the last body and lifted the sheet revealing the corpse of a young black man. The Doctor was about to replace the sheet when he frowned. "Mo, who's this?"
"The driver I think."
"Killed the same way?"
"I guess."
"Then why," the Doctor pulled back the sheet to reveal the lower half of the corpse, "is he missing both his hands. Look!" He pointed to the body.
Both hands had been severed neatly at the wrists.
6.
Amy paced up and down the small office.
Clearly the morgue also functioned as a funeral home for Galliano as there were shelves of small urns on display along one wall. In another corner were small headstones with photographs of other designs next to them. Amy peered at the various messages that could be put on the stone or urn and shivered.
She absent-mindedly rubbed at the pad on her forehead and counted her blessings that she was alive at all.
As she turned, Amy glanced out of a window and gave gasped in shock.
Standing outside the morgue, not more than five feet from the building, was an old black woman. She was standing completely still and just staring at Amy. But it was the hard, foreboding expression on her face that made Amy's blood turn to ice. It felt like the old crone was staring into her soul.
Amy took a step backwards just as the inner door to the morgue opened and the Doctor emerged, followed by Big Mo.
"And you're saying this has happened before?" asked the Doctor.
Big Mo held up his hands. "Hey, you know what folks are like round these parts – with the voodoo an' all."
"Voodoo?" exclaimed Amy.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "No, no I don't. When did it happen? How many times?"
"I don't know," Mo shrugged. "It was a while ago mind – 'fore I got here that's for certain. Nothing's gone missin' on my watch!" he snorted.
"Alright, thanks Mo – you've been brilliant. I'll put in a word to my, uh, bosses – they'll see you okay."
Mo grinned and reached down to his desk before lighting up another cigar. "Much obliged!"
The Doctor turned to Amy. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" Amy glanced over her shoulder through the window, but there was no sign of the old woman now.
The Doctor opened the main door to the morgue and ushered her out. He waved to Mo and then shut the door once Amy had stepped through. "I think you should go back to bed," he said pointing to the wound on her head. "No point in overdoing it."
"No way!" snorted Amy. "I want to find out what's going on in this creepy place."
"It might get a lot creepier before it's over, believe me," said the Doctor with a grim smile. "Alright then, prove to me you can be useful - where do you think we need to go next?"
Amy glared at the Doctor, but then bit her lip. "To check out when this happened before?" She thought for a moment. "The local paper - they'll have records!"
"Well done," said the Doctor with a small smile "Exactly – the offices of 'The Timbalier Times'"
As the Doctor and Amy walked off down the street, a figure stepped from the shadows behind the morgue.
It was the old woman. Her face was a mask of hate.
