So, chapter title is an allegory, but no direct spoilers. Just keep reading and you'll have your answers here. :D

Soon I'll reveal the movie which inspired me to do this horrifying and twisted story!

Chapter Eight

Witchcraft and Walking Dead

She decided that she and Ren were going to do some yoga until the men returned, and they both needed it to take their minds off everything that happened - especially her.

However, before that could happen, she decided that she would start to clean this house a little bit since poor Manami was too exhausted before to do much, except before she could start to do a thing to it, the door was knocked on, making her frown. Who could be here at this time of day?

Ren was in their room, playing his hand-held video game, when she answered the door, and to her surprise, Hideo Hashimoto himself stood there, finely pressed and grave. "May I come in?" he inquired.

He must have been here regarding his wife, whom he had not been told ahead of time about, so she agreed, stepping aside. "I'm so sorry about Manami," Hanaru said. "Everything happened during the night, and after our last meeting -"

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Hanaru," he interrupted, not rudely. "I did come here to speak to my brother-in-law, since it was my right to know first because that was my wife." Now there was a slight trace of anger in his eyes, before it was misted over. "Since you lost your husband, you understand my feelings."

Hanaru had no idea if she should be insulted, because after all, he stopped what would have happened to her, and he sent her off unharmed. "Kabuto is out," she said, ignoring the last statement altogether. "But I wish I could say when he would return. So, for now, I'm caring for things."

"Ah, yes. Well, I'll seek him on my own time, so that I can speak with him regarding my wife."

It was then that she noticed the obvious sorrow on his face, the perfect image of a bereaved widower, but she thought it was...strange that he didn't sound like he was grieving. Plus, if he was the overseer of this village, he would have straight forward confronted the brother of his wife, the village doctor, and prevented Kabuto from performing the autopsy beforehand. To which nothing had been found. And what he said next was enough to make her huff with outrage: "I came here because I wanted to...see you, to know if you still refuse to see my face after last night." The way he said it sounded like it was a breathy lover's confession.

"I loved Manami very much, and she was a breath of fresh air I never knew in my life. I spent much of my life away from this village, but then I met her during a war of all times, and she was everything I knew I wanted. Now I have lost her, and I know how you must feel as much as Kabuto." He lowered his eyes. "But after all of this, as much as it risks jeopardizing what is possible, I would like to see you more after the funeral, if you would permit."

In other words: he thought to come to attempt to court her in light of her best friend's death, not even bothering to ask her if she saw Manami lying out there before today! He never thought to ask her if she was faring before he thought of the wife he claimed to love so much. Livid as she was, Hanaru had to keep cool for now and tread the waters carefully. "Thank you for the offer and the condolences, but don't you wish to share those other words besides with me alone?" she asked.

"Oh, well, indeed, you are right, Hanaru," Hashimoto answered, a slight smile present before vanishing. "But as you know, Kabuto never liked me very much. Understandably since I prefer keeping away from others. To keep a long story short, I spent much of my life abroad while my father ran this village. I returned after the civil war in Ame ended and my father dead by the time. And other than that, secretly as I live - which means that there still were matters Manami was better off not knowing about me - in order to be popular amongst a village now under my care, one must conform. Complying with rules after living free of restraints has been difficult for me."

He just admitted that he hid more than he let on, that not even his wife knew. And that living according to society's ways was something that he happened to object to. "Well, at least you're honest," Hanaru said. Just like Itachi was.

"Honesty is perhaps my only virtue, my dear. I'm always honest - even with myself. I want to be honest with you."

Was it her imagination, or had the room gotten a little warmer - and did it have to do with the fact she was staring into his eyes, seeing more and more of her late husband in him? And look at that strong jaw, the nose and cheekbones - but not much like Itachi, to be exact. She'd always been wary of him, Manami always spoke so little other than how wonderful he was while Kabuto was more spiteful...but now she found herself leaning towards her dead friend's words simply because of the feeling she was getting from one source which was her husband's eyes, his honest words, and the warmth of the crystal around her neck.

No, I don't think I can jump the gun. Because I still love Itachi, and there is also my son whose approval I would need on this, but that won't be easy because his godfather and Orochimaru both don't hold Hideo with high regard.

Hanaru had thought she was going to just spend her life "happily" single and devoting it now to her son, their friends and loved ones but keep Itachi's memory alive, though here she was in this house which belonged to his late wife and her brother, Ren still in the other room and hadn't come out, and the raw stone she acquired the day she got her man was pulsing as if telling her that she should go for it, and she reached for it...

...but as soon as her hand came up to close around it, she winced when she felt her skin burn. That was normally an unsettling sign, but this time, it was also coupled with a twinge that made her feel a certain way that began the first time she saw Itachi at that auction in the very same town which would one day become the warzone that took him from her.

"Oh, perhaps it is best that I take my leave for now." Hashimoto cleared his throat and was turning away, breaking her out of her trance. How did he manage to distract me like that?! Damn it! "But before I go, could I trouble you for a quick glass of water?"

"Yes, of course," Hanaru answered politely, quickly turning away and making way for the kitchen, letting him follow her. She picked up a glass from the cupboard and turned on the faucet - and his question behind her startled her.

"It's strange to ask at a time like this, but I wish to know: do you believe in...life after death, Hanaru?"

Life after death...as in what form? Spiritual? Or...? "That's quite the odd question, you're right, when we're still akin to strangers," she said, turning around and staring into his intense dark eyes again. She was offering the glass to him, and his hand came to simply wrap around it without taking the glass from her hand.

His smile was very uncanny. "I was hoping you'd no longer consider me a stranger."

And no longer a stranger just because they both knew the pain of losing someone you were supposed to be bound to for life?

Against her better judgment and almost giving into that urge of hers which hadn't existed since her husband died, Hanaru replied back, "Then the answer is I do believe in it." Because she could never stop wondering about that strange, scary form that looked like her late spouse but couldn't be...and the fact the one who killed Manami could be the one from the coffin...

"As do I. Very much."

He'd drank down the small glass, but when he went to set it down on the counter behind her, it somehow slipped and fell to the ground, shattering and leaving the biggest behind. "Oh, clumsy of me!" Hideo swore and knelt down at the same time she did - and Hanaru hissed when she felt the skin of her right forefinger slice painfully as soon as he tried to take it from her.

Why did she have to be so stupid to pick it up when he was going to? Before she could say a word, he was holding up a small vial and taking some of her blood which was starting to drip, and he didn't take the little thing away until she stopped bleeding enough. "Pardon me, but this is going to prevent infection. A method we still use today," he explained. "And my fault for being clumsy. I let myself be...distracted..."

She knew what he meant, as she was wrapping her finger around in the bandage he offered from the inside of his coat: distracted by my face, what else?

Her skin burned as her heart jumped a couple times against her sternum when he called her a brave, beautiful woman who endured anything.

He was gone before Ren came out of the room, but she made damned sure to hide the bandaged cut - for now. When the men got home, they were going to ask what happened, and she would tell the truth, but oddly leave out the visit of Hideo Hashimoto.

When they did return, she inquired about their "walk", and then they all sat down so that Kabuto did most of the talking: that mine was owned by Hideo Hashimoto - or rather, it was once owned by his father before him. It was a silver mine, worth a vast amount of money, but no one in the village would work down there since years ago when there were many accidents and deaths. It had been shut down since, and apparently the new bailiff himself hadn't tried reopening it.

He was gone when his father died, somewhere in the Caribbean, but other than that, no one knows anything about him. And then these young people go spending money as if it were their last day on this earth...only to be for some.

Suddenly, she was scared, and it got worse that evening when she decided to visit her friend's corpse in the funeral home next door.

Kabuto arranged for his sister to be buried in a white blouson gown, which was similar to the same-colored kimonos the dead of Japan were often buried in, and was also traditional for vengeful spirits in kabuki plays. But to look upon her pallid face made her flinch, fight not to cry again when she actually wasn't going to, not until tomorrow.

The reason she was here, besides to say good bye, was to check something out which lay on her friend's right wrist, which she remembered vividly but had scant knowledge. Manami said it was just a cut, but not why...

And there it was, the dark red gash thin but deep into the skin.

Gasping sharply, Hanaru closed her hand - the one with the bandaged finger - into a fist and hurried out of the room to get back to the house. She wasn't sure if she would be able to sleep tonight. The crystal was starting to heat a little more than usual, bordering on heating pad temperature.

She really didn't want to think about this, because she had to convince herself it was all just a coincidence...right?

~o~

As far as Orochimaru was concerned, for the bereaved husband to not show up at his own wife's funeral was far more gravely suspicious than the story that was known about him. After today, the doctor was going to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

He had gotten lucky when he heard that the priest of Otogakure - the kindly man who assured him and Hanaru that the accident involving Jurou Matsuda's coffin being thrown off the bridge wasn't their fault - had a splendid collection of books on a variety of subjects, but besides religious and pleasurable purposes, there was no mentioned of what was on Orochimaru's mind. Which is why I intend to ask him after the services.

He watched along with Kabuto, Hanaru, Ren and a handful others who genuinely supported the doctor and his sister as the casket was lowered into the earth, sprayed with white flowers of purity and peace. But those who weren't fond watched from a distance from the cemetery out of a sense of obligation and their beliefs.

But then he noticed something peculiar but said nothing, and Kabuto, too.

They both saw Hanaru reach up and stumble where she was standing, nearly falling into him, and the scene caused a pause in the service, to which Kabuto apologized to the priest and everyone else. But young Ren was worried, constantly asking his mother if she was all right. Smiling, Orochimaru reached down and put his hand on the child's shoulder, assuring him she was. Although his psyche said otherwise.

She cut her finger.

All the more reason he would use the priest's library, and when he requested the specifics, he was surprisingly allowed. That meant confiding in the man of religion as he browsed every book there was.

And what he found in this specific book carried a word to describe what Hanaru and Toshio Matsuda - who was still in police custody - claimed to see in different forms. And Kabuto, as well.

The word which originated in the Caribbean, dating back to West Africa to be exact - actually, two of them. One of them worshipped as a religion but also used to drive fear and control into slavery, which brought the second that was originally a fetish and described something godlike...only to describe a person whose soul was taken from them.

Voodoo...black magic...and zombies.

~o~

He hadn't had a drink at all, which was unlike himself. Hanaru and Ren were so tired they both washed up and had a light dinner before going to bed. In fact, he couldn't sleep himself.

Kabuto found himself troubled when he wondered about the fact that Hanaru's finger cut coincided with his sister's before she died, but he couldn't find any links. In the end, he wondered why on earth that would mean anything. And then his brain clicked; why hadn't he thought of it before?

The victims of the plague...they all had a cut to their hands, fingers and wrists.

At the same time he finally arrived at the conclusion, he heard the door open, and in strolled Orochimaru along with the priest. "Still awake, Kabuto?" his guardian asked with a forced smile. "Good, because I spent the afternoon making progress that could finally help us."

Kabuto perked up. He meant - he meant he spent all those hours since darkness fell looking for some answers that he didn't think to consult with him? But it was like the only father he ever knew to look places that meant going solo first. "What did you find?" Kabuto asked, sharing a glance with the priest, seeing the man beyond uneasy.

"Have you ever heard of voodoo?"

V-VOODOO?!

"It's a form of witchcraft, isn't it?" Where was this going now, that Orochimaru had to turn to the topic of black magic when medicine reached a dead end? When they cut open Manami's body, there was nothing except a normal, healthy human being. But she also displayed the symptoms of the others before her, Itachi as well even though he was never found.

Back to the subject of voodoo. Here in Japan was a similar ritual called ushi no toki mairi, which involved pins and straw dolls of the target, and all performed notably by a woman scorned in white and a crown of iron and candles, performing the ceremony in the early hours of the morning. But Orochimaru said straight up Caribbean voodoo, not their country's derivation and unrelated version.

"Yes, Kabuto. It's practiced in the Caribbean - specifically Haiti." Orochimaru sat down across him at the table, the priest following. "Now, given this is my other specialty besides medicine, I find all kinds of witchcraft fascinating, others slightly nauseating, but this..." His face twisted. "I find this one absolutely disgusting. In fact, you'll have to permit me to take my time to explain, because the poor priest would rather be ignorant in these matters." No offense to you, priest.

And so it went: "Well, Hanaru says that she saw something out there in the forest, near that old mine of the bailiff's. Says she saw something that was a man and yet...not a man. Description fit that of what she believes she saw of Itachi, whom we know was dead but then his body disappeared. Which leads me to this." He stood then and there to pace the room for a moment before continuing.

"It just so happens that she identified the 'walking corpse' who supposedly killed Manami as the brother of Toshio Matsuda - who also claims he saw something near that location...something he insists WAS his brother. But we know his brother is dead, and that he is not lying in his coffin."

Which could mean one answer, which was logical enough, because it happened quite a few times that he knew of: that Jurou was buried alive, somehow freed himself and was just out there, in shock and confused about what happened to him. But when he said this, Orochimaru scoffed and shook his head, tightly smiling. "But, Kabuto, I told you that I've seen him, and so has Hanaru and her poor boy. And the look on the lad's face, with eyes wide open and rolled up into the skull, jaw slack opened - it's just as normal as any corpse I've seen, so buried alive is not the answer," Orochimaru answered. "Which brings me to this connection: someone in this village is practicing voodoo."

Someone is practicing the dark arts here in Oto...

He had no idea how to think or feel about this, because he was a man of science and not magic. Those days were folktales, turning into alchemy which in turn became science as they all knew it today. But Orochimaru insisted, knowing better than anyone else, even him.

"And that corpse wandering the woods and those mines is...an undead. A zombie."

"It's...incredible!" Kabuto exclaimed, shocked to his core by the possibility that was slowly trying to worm its way to his mind. "I still don't understand how a man of science like yourself could even believe this!" Much less balance it with logic and reason!

He found himself thinking back to the Chinese version of the zombie, known as the Jiangshi, which meant "stiff corpse", and it was a kind of hybrid between vampire and zombie - victims of murder, suicide, and those whose souls couldn't exit their bodies for the afterlife. And their appearances were rotten and moldy, covered with "white fur" as well as bearing long white hair, completely different from their recent, normal dead look. As for how they traveled, it was silent hopping and going great distances.

But Orochimaru spoke nothing of this kind.

"I even spent the afternoon catching up on reading the subject in the priest's library. There's so much more than what I have just explained, and it's all there, clear and scientifically stated as far as I am concerned."

Well, the elder's experience overruled, right? But that wasn't all. Kabuto had wanted his help, so he got it, whether it was against his common sense or not. "Well, then, what can be done?" he asked, needing a drink now after all of this.

Orochimaru was grim now. "About Matsuda's brother? Nothing." He didn't mention it, but Itachi was possibly on the agenda. "I'm thinking of Manami."

And so you have the answer as to what the movie is: "The Plague of the Zombies" (1966) - one of Hammer's finest films ever made. Its imagery and such inspired not only George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" which came around only two years later, but many other zombie films that came after.

Ushi no toki mairi ("ox-hour shrine-visit") is a Japanese method of placing a curse upon a targeted human being, called the way it is because it takes place during the hours of the Ox (between 1 and 3 AM). The practitioner is usually a scorned woman clad in white and crowned with an iron ring set with three lit candles upright, and she hammers nails into a sacred tree of the Shinto shrine. In modern-day, the nails are driven through a straw effigy of the victim (voodoo doll) impaled upon the tree behind it. The ritual must be repeated seven days running, after which the curse is believed to succeed, causing death to the target, but being witnessed in the act is thought to nullify the spell. (Wikipedia)

The Jiangshi is the Chinese version of the zombie as Kabuto describes.

BUURRRHHHH, I had shivers up my spine when I wrote this, but the worst is coming in the next chapter. Review and stay tuned!