He descended the stairs and through the opening, suddenly confronted with…a cozy reading room. Despite the cramped quarters, it made really good use of the space. It featured a wraparound couch, surrounded on all sides by bookcases, each brimming to the top with books, and a fat, fluffy, friendly-looking cat snoozing contentedly on a cushion. It beheld Richard briefly before resuming its nap. In the corners stood odd, eldritch statues; even stranger things hung from chains attached to the ceiling, momentarily distracting him from realizing there was no visible light source. Even the bookcases seemed to glow under their own power, like a child’s first attempt to draw a three-dimensional scene. The space held a pleasantly chilled temperature, though there were no visible grates suggesting a central air-conditioning system.

The old crone lowered herself to a seat on the couch and covered her legs with a knit blanket, featuring the same dark color schemes as her clothes.

“So…” she began. “How do you know Tucson Sam?”

He took a seat on a different section of the couch. “I first met him on a night stakeout; he saved my life. I ran into him again, a few days later, in the woods, where…he once again saved my life. Then, last night, we took a midnight hike around the city.”

She nodded knowingly. “Tucson Sam is a good judge of character; you should be honored he’s accepted you.” She scrutinized him more closely. “I think I know what he sees in you. You have a kind face; you sort of look like an honest weasel.”

Richard tried to contain his bristling; it escaped his throat as a scoff, and he fought to remain polite.

“Would you like a snack?” she offered as Richard heard footsteps approach from a nearby hallway. He practically jumped to his feet when he saw what emerged from the dark. In his terror, he thought it was Racer X at first; then, as he fought to regain control of his poise, he realized this person was much taller and thinner. But he also wore a black t-shirt and dark-colored blue jeans, his head and neck were completely hidden by a knitted ski mask, and his bare arms were as pale as haddock. The butler shuffled up to Richard and, with a dignified motion, proffered a silver tray.

Richard beheld the small, gooey loaf on the platter. “No thanks,” he dismissed.

“Oh, have some,” she chided. “I make the best banana bread.”

Richard reluctantly picked up a slice and took a bite. A moment later, his eyes shot open. “This is delicious!” he gushed.

“Why, thank you,” she fluttered demurely.

He quickly finished the first slice and reached for another. “What’s your secret?”

“Use fresher bananas,” she deadpanned. “Most people wait until they’re practically translucent.”

“That’s just crazy enough to work,” he joked. The butler bowed gravely and staggered away.

“So…” Richard muttered. “Was that…a…”

“Zombie,” she finished for him. “One of my sidelines. They’re expensive when made to order, but some people can afford them.”

A chill washed over him; it wasn’t just the lack of torrid heat. “Zombies are real?”

“Well, of course they are,” she chided. “You see zombies every day, camping on the sidewalks downtown. Shuffling gait, dead eyed stares, filthy personal hygiene…kind of hard to miss them.”

“Sure, but are those really zombies?” Richard asked. “They might be in bad shape, but at least they’re still alive.”

She gestured to the empty hall. “So is Rupert. But he’s completely under my control.”

Richard shifted uneasily. “I’m going to regret asking this, but…what gives you the right?”

Her expression turned sour. “Rupert was a no-good street hoodlum that, one night, made the very bad decision to attack me.” She snorted derisively. “I showed him I’m not just some frail old lady.”

Richard chuckled. “OK, I don’t regret asking any more. But how is it possible?”

She settled back into the couch and steepled her hands, as if beginning a scholarly lecture. “There are two main ways people can become zombies. The first one involves poison, traditionally from blowfish, and psychedelics, traditionally from Datura, cane toads, or ergot mold.”

“I’ve heard of all of those but Datura,” Richard revealed.

“Also known as zombie cucumber, for reasons that should be obvious now. They’re hardy plants that can grow anywhere, even here. In these parts, they’re referred to as angel trumpets.”

“And any of them can make a zombie?”

“Oh, heavens no,” she dismissed. “It takes a mix of all or most of them, along with some other ingredients that help to stabilize the effect. Otherwise, you just get a stoned-out psycho that ends up ramming his head through the wall or something.”

“Wow.” He paused. “So, what’s the second way?”

“That,” she stated, “involves voodoo rites. The petitioner literally asks an outsider to take over their body.”

“So, it’s like demonic possession?”

“No,” she corrected. “It is demonic possession.”

“And that brings them under control?”

“Not a chance,” she answered. “You then have to rein in whoever just jumped into their new vehicle. It’s way too dangerous.”

“Then…why do people do it?”

She shrugged. “Because they’re desperate to learn that another world exists. Because they don’t want to work to build up their knowledge and experience, and try to take the easy way out. It’s like trying to ascend spiritually quickly, with psychedelics, instead of meditating for years. It might work, but it’s more likely to snap your mind and leave you a raving lunatic.”

“Have you ever made a zombie this way?”

“Only once,” she reminisced. “It was when I still lived in Haiti. One of my friends decided she was willing to go through with it, so we performed the ritual one night. Something took over her, and then left. We ended up with a body with no will of its own. She just stood there, staring blankly.”

“Now that sounds like the more classic kind of zombie,” Richard jested.

“It’s nothing to laugh at,” she chided. “We could lead her around, and sometimes coax her to eat, but she couldn’t control her effluents; she made a big mess. And despite our best efforts, and the efforts of her parents, she died a week later from dehydration.”

“Why did the being leave so soon?”

“I think he got bored. Taking over someone’s body is like buying a junked car. It takes special knowledge and skill to get any value out of it, and most people aren’t up for the challenge.”

Richard grimaced. “Why would you do something like that in the first place?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. She was willing. And we were only fifteen.”

Richard chuckled. “I guess teenagers are the same all over the world.”

“They are,” she agreed. “They really are.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re from Haiti,” he concurred. “How come you left?”

She raised one eyebrow. “You have to ask? I moved out of there as soon as I could afford to.”

“And then you decided, what, that Tucson was your kind of place?” he teased.

Her look suddenly became very serious. “There’s a lot more going on here than you might realize. It lies on a weak point in fourth-dimensional space, allowing other realms to seep through relatively easily.”

“That’s what my hike with Tucson Sam last night really was,” he revealed. “We followed a bizarre, circuitous path, and at the end, we found ourselves…somewhere else.”

She smiled kindly. “Oh, you’ve been there, huh? What did you think?”

Richard froze for a moment. “It was an odd combination of beautiful and deadly. And the tall buildings had some seriously brutalist architecture. But there wasn’t a single living soul. Does anyone live there?”

“Millions,” she revealed. “Those buildings are packed to the gills.”

“Then why didn’t we see anyone else? There should have at least been midnight revelers or something.”

“You didn’t get ‘inside’ enough, whatever direction ‘inside’ is. If you had continued, you would have found the inhabitants.”

Richard looked unsettled for a moment. “I’m glad we didn’t. The moving statue was bad enough.”

“Oh, yeah, I know exactly where you went,” she chirped. “A big plaza with a temple, right?”

“Yes!” he exulted. “You’ve been there?”

She clucked her tongue. “Honey, I go there all the time. I go there, come back, and buy the t-shirt. But I’m always glad to leave; the place gives me the creeps.”

“And it’s all around us? Even now?”

“Even now,” she declared. “It’s just out of phase, or whatever you want to call the fourth-dimensional direction. We’re like two intertwined paths on the same mountain.”

“I wonder how many people here encounter it,” he mused.

She fixed him with a deadpan look. “Child…do you think this city somehow got weird all by itself? Of course not! The proximity of the ‘border world’ has a lot to do with it. People fall off one mountain path, only to find themselves on another one, and for the same reason – because they’re clumsy. So even if the city’s inhabitants can’t sense it directly, it has a lot of indirect influence on them, and people cope with it any way they can…mostly, from what I can tell, by getting drunk.”

His face beamed with fascination. “All of a sudden, Tucson makes a lot more sense. I’ve wondered about it all my life, and now, I feel like I’m looking at this city for the first time.”

She spread her arms wide. “Welcome to our town! Hope you survive the experience!”