Cavern of the Blood Zombies.

The Grave Robbers' Chronicles.

By Xu Lei.

Chapter One.

FIFTY YEARS AGO...

At the edge of an open grave squatted three men and a boy, all of them silent as they gaped at a shovel. This was a special sort of tool, known as a Luoyang shovel, used by men who loot burial sites. The long, tubular spade they had just pulled up from the grave was covered in dirt that oozed with a thick red liquid, as if the shovel had been dipped in blood.

The oldest man in the group stamped out his cigarette as he released an impatient cloud of smoke. "We're in big trouble. There's a zombie in that grave and if we aren't careful, we're all going to end up buried in there with it forever."

"What's wrong with you, Lao Yantou? You're always b.i.t.c.hing about your old legs bothering you-are you too decrepit to go down into that grave?" said a one-eyed youth in his late teens. "We don't want to hear your bulls.h.i.t-just give us a one-word answer, yes or no. If you won't go, my little brother and I are more than willing. Come on!"

Lao Yantou looked at the young man calmly and then turned to a big, bearded fellow standing nearby. "This son of yours has a bad att.i.tude and a big mouth, grandson-you really need to teach him that in our trade loud words aren't enough to keep him from slipping and falling flat on his a.s.s."

"You little b.a.s.t.a.r.d," the bearded man scowled at his son. "How dare you be so rude to your great-grandfather? He was robbing graves when you were still safe in your mother's belly."

"I was out of line," the one-eyed teenager apologized. "I spoke without thinking. But you know, if there's a zombie in that grave, it must be guarding treasure, and a lot of it. That's a good sign. We'd be stupid to leave without going down there. This is our chance to make ourselves rich and we can't ignore it."

"And now you dare to talk back to me?" The father raised his fist but Lao Yantou blocked his blow before it fell.

"Don't hit him-he's just the same as you were when you were young. If the upper beam of a house isn't straight, then the lower one is sure to be crooked too."

The teenager began to laugh as his father was reprimanded but Lou Yantou cuffed him on the side of his head. "What's so funny? Believe me, a zombie is no laughing matter. When we were working in Luoyang, one of your uncles dug up this same kind of b.l.o.o.d.y dirt and he's been a lunatic ever since, mumbling to himself all day, all night, with n.o.body understanding a word he says. Yes, we're going down into that grave and I'm going first." He nodded at his bearded grandson, "You follow me. One-eye, you go only as far as the first excavation level and your little brother had better stay out of the grave altogether. If all four of us are down there at one time, there isn't going to be enough room for us to get out fast if we need to. You, boy-One-eye here is going to hand you the rope after he ties it to this bucket-pull it up when you hear us yell."

"That's not fair," the boy grumbled. "Why do I have to stay out of the grave? I'm going to tell Mom you wouldn't let me go with you."

"Cheer up," laughed Lao Yantou. "Stop your fussing and Great-grandfather will find a nice little golden knife for you to play with, baby boy."

"I don't need you to find things for me. Let me go down into the grave and I'll find my own knife."

Grabbing his little brother by the ears, One-eye shook him as he yelled, "Why are you messing everything up for us and bothering Lau Yantou with your precious little tantrums, Mommy's boy? Even Mom wouldn't think you're so cute if she heard you whine like that. Shut up-if you say one more thing I'm going to kick your little sissy a.s.s all the way back home to Mama where you belong."

"Cut it out!" Lao Yantou shouted. "We have work to do, stop squabbling-let's get at it," and he began to shovel dirt like a human whirlwind.

In half an hour, the grave opening had become a gaping abyss, and when the boy peered into the dark opening he could see n.o.body. One-eye emerged from time to time to get some fresh air but not a sound came from Lao Yantou or his bearded grandson.

It was dark and cold and lonely, waiting at the edge of the grave, and finally the boy called down into the depths, "Great-grandpa, have you found any treasures yet?" A few seconds pa.s.sed before his brother's voice could be heard faintly, funneling up from the blackness, "No-we don't know. You, stay where you are-be sure to pull hard when we yell-pull that rope tight."

The boy heard a cough, and then Lao Yantou's whisper echoed in the dark, "Be quiet-listen! There's something's moving!" And then there was nothing but dead silence, leaving the boy terrified, unable to move or make a sound. Suddenly he heard an eerie rattling noise, as if a toad were calling from inside the grave, and then his older brother roared, "Pull, d.a.m.n you, pull!"

The boy planted his feet as firmly as he could on the slippery ground, grabbed the rope that was tied to the bucket, and pulled with all of his strength, but then he felt resistance, as though something below had suddenly grabbed the other end. There was a giant tug and the rope was jerked back into the grave, with the boy almost going in with it.

Quickly he tied the end of the rope around his waist and leaned backward, almost touching the ground, using his entire weight to pull. This is how he always won at tug-of-war when he played with the other boys in his village and he knew he could exert enough force this way to hold his own even against a mule, if he had to. And sure enough, the boy was able to withstand whatever was trying to pull him into the pit, but the force on the other end was too powerful for him to pull the rope back up to the surface.

The sound of a gunshot came from within the grave and then his father's voice shouted, "Run, boy, run!" The rope slackened and the bucket shot out of the pit. As the boy grabbed it, he thought he saw something clutching the rim but there was no time for him to look. Holding the bucket tightly in one hand, he ran as rapidly as he could, knowing something terrible was happening to his family in that open grave.

Only after a couple of miles did he stop to draw breath. As he released his grip on the bucket, he looked at it and screamed. Hooked on the rim was a severed hand, dripping blood. As he looked, the boy knew this was the hand of his one-eyed brother, who was now a cripple, if not a corpse.

I have to go back. I have to help my father and brother and Lao Yantou, he thought. He turned and there, sitting and staring at him, was a creature the color of blood.

This boy wasn't an ignoramus. He had gone on grave-robbing expeditions with his father many times before and in his short life had seen quite a few strange and unearthly things. He knew that anything could happen below the earth's surface and that the most important thing was never to panic, no matter how bizarre the circ.u.mstances might become. He knew that no murderous spirit could be stronger than any living person, and that anything, whether it be a black demon or a white devil, had to somehow comply with the law of physics. Once it was. .h.i.t with a bullet and destroyed, the most terrifying ghost was nothing to be afraid of.

The boy always carried a pistol, an old box-gun his great-uncle had found in a warlord's tomb. He had never used it before but he knew what he had to do. Stepping back, he pulled the pistol from his waistband and aimed at the creature before him. If this bloodred thing made a move toward him, he was ready to shoot.

The monster rose to its feet and as the boy looked at it, his scalp turned numb and his stomach churned violently. This creature was a man who had been skinned alive, as b.l.o.o.d.y and raw as if it had been squeezed out of its skin like a grape from its peel. How is it possible that this thing is still able to move? the boy wondered. Have I finally seen a blood zombie? Is this what they really look like?

As he stood frozen in shock, the boy saw the zombie hurl itself toward him, the smell of the blood dripping from its face and the sickly sour stench of its flesh wafting around its body like poison gas. The boy pulled the trigger of his pistol repeatedly and his volley of bullets struck the zombie's chest. Hit hard and spraying a fountain of blood, it reeled backward. The boy aimed at its head and squeezed the trigger again. This time the box-gun refused to fire; its ancient mechanism jammed.

With all of his strength, the boy hurled the useless gun at the zombie as hard as he could and raced away, not daring to look back at what might be following him. He sprinted toward a nearby tree, hoping that his pursuer would be unable to climb after him-and then he tripped, face flat against the tree trunk, his nose and mouth filled with blood.

How in the h.e.l.l could I be so clumsy, he asked himself, beating the ground angrily with both fists. He heard the sound of thundering footsteps coming closer. He knew death was approaching, but, he thought, if I'm going to die, I might as well die lying down. And then the zombie raced over the boy's body, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y footprints on his back. It kept running and faded away into the distance, still chasing the quarry that it had failed to see.

The zombie was surprisingly heavy, and with its first footstep the boy had felt as though its weight had squeezed all of the bile from his liver. His back began to itch with a tingling, burning sensation and everything before his eyes grew hazy. I've been poisoned, he thought, I'm going to die.

As his vision faded, all he could see was his brother's severed hand lying on the ground in front of him, with something clutched in its grasp. He blinked as hard as he could to see more clearly what was held in those dead fingers-it was a piece of glowing silk. My brother died to bring this up out of the grave, he thought, so it must be rare and valuable. I need to take care of it so even if I die, somebody will find what my brother found. Perhaps it will be important enough that neither of us will have died for no reason.

Painfully and slowly, the boy crawled to the hand, pried open the stiffened fingers, removed the piece of silk, and tucked it inside the sleeve of his own shirt. His ears began to buzz, his vision blurred as if a layer of wool had suddenly covered his eyes, and his hands and feet felt freezing cold. I just hope I don't pee and s.h.i.t my pants, the boy told himself, people who are poisoned usually look disgusting when they die. I hope that pretty girl who always smiles at me in the village doesn't see how bad I look when they find my body and take it back home.

His thoughts raced wildly and began to make no sense, but through the buzzing that filled his ears, he could hear the same rattling sound he had heard coming from the grave before his brother had yelled at him to pull on the rope. What can this be? the boy wondered. The blood zombie didn't make a sound, even when I wounded it. Why do I hear this sound now? If it's not coming from the zombie that chased me, then what is making that noise?

His brain was no longer capable of giving orders to his body, but a reflex made him lift his head and focus his fading vision. There leaning toward him with a vacant stare was a gigantic, unearthly face. Its eyes had no pupils, and not the slightest spark of any sort of emotion came from their depths.

Chapter Two.

FIFTY YEARS LATER...

Half a century after all of this had taken place, as I read these words at the Hangzhou Xiling Printing Company, I was interrupted by someone coming through the door. I closed my grandfather's journal, and looked up to see an old man.

"Do you buy ancient books of ink inscriptions on silk here?" he asked. It was a question I'm asked often since I'm quite well-known in the antique book trade, and I answered him with little interest, "Yes, but I don't pay much for them." What I really meant was, if you don't have anything good, get lost and let me go on with my reading.

I was good enough at my line of work that I could close my business for three years, then reopen it and almost immediately make enough money to stay idle and comfortable for another three years. I was used to doing what I pleased during the day and had come to detest customers who knew just a smattering about old books, a loathing that increased over time. When I saw this sort of person coming my way, I would put on an expression of deepest boredom and shoo them away. But recently my free time had been a little more than it should have been, and the peak bookselling season would soon be over. There hadn't been much good stuff coming in, so I was a bit more eager than usual to do some business.

"In that case, I would like to ask if you have any silk books of ink inscriptions that date back to the Warring States Period? I'm especially interested in one found by some grave robbers fifty years ago that was later spirited out of the country by an American," the man asked, peering at the books displayed on my counter.

"If it were taken away by an American, then how could I have it?" I replied, annoyed at what seemed a pointless request. "If you're looking for volumes like that, go to the antique market and don't bother me. How could you be so stupid as to think you could find this particular book? Who would ever be able to put their hands on it?"

He lowered his voice. "I heard you had the money and the connections. You were recommended to me by Lao Yang."

Suddenly I snapped to attention, wildly alert. Didn't Lao Yang go to prison just a year ago? Why was he blabbing about me from his cell? My heart raced and cold sweat rolled down my back. "Which...what Lao Yang? I don't know who you're talking about."

"I know, I know." He smiled and took a watch out of his shirt pocket. "Take a look. Lao Yang said you'd understand once you saw this."

Lao Yang had been given that watch by his first love when he was up in the Northeast, and he treated her gift as if it were as valuable as his own life. Many times when he was drunk, he would take the watch out, look at it, and call out "Azalea! My beautiful girl!" I once asked him what on earth he was yelling about, and he was silent for a long time, then out of the blue began to sob and told me he couldn't remember. If Lao Yang had given his watch to this old man, that was a clear indication that he thought this stranger was someone worthy of my attention.

Nonetheless, as I looked at the man in front of me, I thought he was nothing more than a hideous old pain in the a.s.s. But since he had approached me with Lao Yang's most treasured possession, I thought it best to make him think that I spoke frankly and openly. Raising both of my hands clasped into one fist as a gesture of respect and mutual trust, I asked, "So you are a friend of Lao Yang's. Why do you want to see me?"

The old man grinned widely, exposing a large gold tooth. "I have a friend from Shanxi who brought back something from there. I'd like for you to take a look at it and tell me if it's real."

"I can tell from your accent you're from up north. You're a big wheel from Beijing who's come south to ask advice from me-I am so flattered. But why? There are many expert appraisers in Beijing. I'm afraid the drinker's heart is not in the cup!"

He laughed, "Ha! When people say that Southerners are intuitive, they are absolutely right. I see that you're a young man but you are already very perceptive and you speak the truth. Indeed, I did not hope to see you on this visit. I came to see the elderly gentleman in your household."

My expression changed at once. "Looking for my grandfather? What do you want?"

"Do you know if there were any other books made at the same time as the silk book of the Warring States Period that your grandfather stole from that grave fifty years ago? My friend wants to know if the volume we have is from that historical period."

Before he finished speaking, I was already shouting at my salesclerk who dozed at the other end of the counter, "w.a.n.g Meng, show this visitor out!"

The old man looked confused. "Why do you shoo me away when I'm still talking?"

"What you said about my grandfather is true, but you have come too late. He died last year. If you want to find him, go away and kill yourself!"

As I yelled, I thought to myself, what happened a half-century ago was so dreadful that it shocked even government officials. Why would I ever let this old fart rummage through the past to stir up that old story again? If all that came back into the public eye, how could anyone ever think well of my family again?

"Young grandson, how quickly your speech turns from sweet to sour!" The old man showed his gold tooth again in an evil grin. "It matters little that the old gentleman has pa.s.sed on. I'm not asking too much of you. Why don't you just take a look at what I brought, if only so Lao Yang won't lose face, eh?"

I looked at him as he forced himself to put on an insincere smile and realized he'd probably never go away unless I took a peek at whatever he had. I supposed I ought to do this just to save Lao Yang's face and to keep him from berating me the next time I saw him.

I nodded. "I'll take a look but I can't guarantee the authenticity of your piece."

I knew there was a collection of more than twenty silk volumes written in ink from the Warring States Period, and that each volume was different from the rest. The chapter that my grandfather had taken from a grave was only a fragment of just one volume, but still it was extremely important. I had a few of these volumes packed away in the bottom of boxes and they were my dearest treasures, which I wouldn't trade for all the money on the face of the earth.

The old man with the gold tooth took a piece of white cloth out of his breast pocket. As soon as I saw it I felt even more annoyed-h.e.l.l, it had to be fake.

"Oh, this precious thing really shouldn't have been traveling around in hiding like that. It'll fall into shreds if it's just given a little shake," he said, lowering his voice to seem mysterious and secretive. "If it weren't for my connections, this piece would have gone overseas long ago. I suppose my keeping it here in our country is at the very least a service to the Chinese people."

I laughed in his face. "Looks like you're a grave robber yourself! I bet you don't dare to sell it because it's a national treasure. Who would want to lose his head in a public execution?"

I seemed to have struck upon the truth because the old man's face turned green. But because he needed a favor from me, he ignored my rudeness.

"That is not precisely true," he said mildly. "Every trade has its own honorable standards. Everyone remembers that when your grandfather was a grave robber, his awe-inspiring reputation for ethical behavior was known far and wide."

Now my own complexion lost its normal color and I spoke through clenched teeth. "If you mention my grandfather again, you can get the h.e.l.l out and take your treasure with you."

"Okay, okay. I'll stop. Just take a quick look, so I can be on my way."

When I unfolded the piece of white cloth, I knew immediately that this was a well-preserved volume of the silk books from the Warring States Period, but it was certainly not the one my grandfather had stolen in Changsha. It looked like a counterfeit made a few dynasties after the original had been created. That was to say, this was an ancient forgery, and such an object would only embarra.s.s anyone who possessed it.

I smiled. "This looks like a counterfeit of the Han dynasty. How can I say this...it's fake, but at the same time it's not. It's real, but at the same time it also isn't. How the h.e.l.l can anybody tell if it's a copy of an original volume or just a careful fabrication of something that never existed? I don't know what to say."

"So is it like the one your grandfather stole?"

"To be honest with you, my grandfather himself didn't even take a good look at the one he stole before the American swindled him out of it. I really can't answer your question." It was hard enough to sway you from your initial confidence in what you brought me, I thought, and now I even have to pretend that I give a d.a.m.n about you or what you have carried in here. But the old man with the gold tooth seemed to have no doubts about my sincerity as he sighed, "What bad luck for me. If I can't find an American who's stupid enough to buy this, then there really is no hope of my making any money from it."

"How come you're so concerned about this particular volume?" I asked.

"I won't hide the truth from you, young fellow. I'm no grave robber. Look at my bony old body-it's neither fast nor agile. But my friend is really an expert and I have no idea what kind of game he's playing. In any case, every man has his own reasons for what he does." He smiled and shook his head. "I better quit asking questions and take off," and he began to walk away without looking back.

I looked down, and realized I still had his piece of silk in my hands. Suddenly I could see something imprinted on the sheet, a foxlike face of a man. His two eyes had no pupils and looked three-dimensional, as if they were convex forms protruding from the cloth. I gasped and took a deep breath. I had never seen anything like this before, and I was sure it must be a valuable treasure. Once Lao Yang got out of prison, we could make a few counterfeits from this piece, just enough to keep me amused-and solvent. I hurried outside, looked around, and saw the old man with the gold tooth scurrying back in my direction.

He must be coming back to retrieve his piece of silk, I thought, so I quickly went back inside, grabbed my digital camera, snapped a few photos of the cloth, and headed out the door. My face almost hit the tip of the old man's nose. "You forgot something," I said.

My grandfather was a "dirt prowler," as it was commonly termed, a grave robber. The reason he went into this trade was not surprising. It was what we would call today a family business. The year my great-grandfather's great-grandfather turned thirteen, a severe drought plagued Changsha in central China and famine naturally followed. Even people with money were starving to death.

There was nothing in the streets or in any corner of Changsha that could be used to make a living except for the ancient tombs that could be found there. And as the saying goes, those living on a mountain will survive by using what they can find on the mountain; those who have nothing but graves nearby will rob the graves to stay alive. Only heaven knows how many people died from starvation in Changsha during those years, except for those from my grandfather's village, who were all well-fed and well-dressed. And that was only possible because they used what they dug from the graves to barter with foreigners for food.

After some time had pa.s.sed, just as in other trades, grave robbing also began to acquire its own rules and techniques. By the time my grandfather's generation took up the job, grave robbers were divided into two groups, the northern and the southern factions. My grandfather belonged to the southern faction, who were experts at excavating soil by using the Luoyang shovel. The most talented of them all could ascertain the depth and the age of the soil above a tomb simply through their sense of smell.

The northern faction would never use the Luoyang shovel, but were still very good at figuring out the exact location and the structure of the tombs, a difficult skill few people could attain.

There was something strange about the northern faction. According to my grandfather, too many of them were sly and deceitful. As if robbing a grave wasn't enough to do, they had to create different rituals to observe such as kowtowing to the dead, which led to an overwhelming bureaucracy overseeing the trade. In contrast, the southern faction had few regulations and was unconcerned about offending the dead.

The northern faction claimed the southerners were pretentious and conceited, denounced them as a disgrace to their culture, and said that every grave robbed by a southerner was left in a state of complete ruin. They spread rumors that southern grave robbers even dragged out the dead bodies and put the corpses up for sale.

The southern faction called the northerners hypocrites and no more than thieves who posed as honorable men. The conflict escalated to the boiling point, so much so that "a battle for corpses" took place and in the end, the two factions were divided by terminology as much as they were by the Yangtze River. The northern faction called the trade "tomb raiding," while the southern faction called it "digging up the soil."

The Luoyang shovel wasn't invented until after the two factions had completely severed all connections, so the northern grave robbers refused to lower themselves by touching a shovel that had been invented by southerners.

When he was young, my grandfather did not know how to read; he only knew how to rob graves. Later, he took some literacy cla.s.ses, even though for him learning a new word was as bad as being tortured. But thanks to his education, he was able to record his adventures.

He was the young boy who wounded the blood zombie fifty years ago. He wrote about this and all else that had happened in his journal, in his own words and in his own hand. My grandmother was an intellectual, the daughter of an ill.u.s.trious and well-respected family. She was deeply attracted to my grandfather's stories and fell in love with him. My grandfather married her and settled down in Hangzhou, and his journal became a family treasure.

As for how he had survived the Changsha ordeal, or what became of his older brother, their father, or Lao Yantou, my grandfather refused to tell me. He would weep when I asked about this and say, "That is not a story for children." No matter how sweetly I asked, or how charmingly I begged for details, he would not utter even half a word about it. As I grew up, my childhood curiosity faded, but as far as I can remember, I never saw a great-uncle who had only one eye and one hand.

On the day that I met the old man with the gold tooth, I closed the shop early and sent my salesclerk home. Before I locked up for the night, a text message came in on my cell phone: "9 o'clock, Huangsha Chicken-Eye."

It was from my father's third brother, Uncle Three, in a secret code that meant a new shipment had arrived. Another message closely followed: "Spine of a dragon. Come quickly."

My eyes sparkled. My Uncle Three had an unusually keen intuition. "Spine of a dragon" meant something exceptional had come his way. Anything he deemed exceptional I had to see for myself.

Quickly I drove to my uncle's place. On one hand, I wanted to have a look at what this good stuff was. On the other hand, I wanted to show him the photos I had just taken and see if he could tell me anything about the figure on the cloth. I hoped he could since he was the only person I knew who had any direct contact with the past generation of grave robbers.