Zimba Zombie's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Zimba Zombie had hunted the necromancer who cursed him for three weeks, and he still did not know the man's name, his face, or where he hid. The curse had turned Zimba from a living boy into this. His skin hung pale and gray. His eyes glowed red. A green wool hat covered his cold scalp, and his checkered red and black jacket hid his thin arms. Each morning he woke with the same wish: to find the man who did this and undo it. But a hunt needs a trail, and Zimba had none. He pushed open the door of the old house where he lived. The wood was rotted and gray. Green moss spread across the slumped roof. Boards crossed the windows like broken ribs. Inside, his grandmother sat by the cold stove, knitting. She had taken him in when his own mother shut the door on a dead boy. "You've been to the ridge again," Grandmother said. She did not look up from her needles. "Three weeks you've chased ghosts. You come home with nothing but mud." "Someone cursed me," Zimba said. "I have to find him." Her needles stopped. She set them in her lap and looked at him over her round glasses. For a moment her soft face went hard. "I hoped you'd never ask," she said. "But you're asking with your feet now, and that's worse." Zimba stepped closer. "You know something." Grandmother rose. She crossed the warped floor to a loose plank near the hearth and pried it up with her fingers. From the hollow she drew a folded square of cloth, yellowed and soft with age. She laid it on the table and smoothed it flat. It was a drawing. Zimba saw a crooked house ringed by trees, and past the trees a hill with a single tower. "I kept watch the night you changed," Grandmother said. "I followed the man who did it. He went into the forest and did not come out the same way. This marks where he went." Her finger touched the tower. "A witch lives near that wood. She knows every curse brewed for a hundred miles. If anyone can name your necromancer, she can." Zimba stared at the cloth. His hunt had a direction now. His cold chest felt almost warm. "Then I'll go to the witch," he said. Grandmother caught his gray wrist. Her grip was gentle but firm. "Hear me. That forest is cursed. The fumes in there wake things that obey no one. People walk in and come out wrong, or not at all. I give you this map because you'd go anyway. But the witch is dangerous, Zimba. She may be the very hand that cursed you." Zimba folded the cloth and slid it into his jacket. For three weeks he had chased nothing. Now he had a map, a warning, and a door marked on it. "I know where to start," he said, and walked toward the cursed wood.