Excerpt from "The Book of Morgan"

He had found himself a widower five years ago and he much preferred this terminology to “lost his wife,” which always made him want to ask when he heard this expression—“Where, on the MTA?” Now he had moved from his beloved Boston to an age-limited (over 55) community in a small town in Connecticut. “My way of heading south,” he liked to say. But he had always loved the change of seasons in New England and would not consider going further. On this day, his 72^nd birthday, he had decided to clean up his computer files. Out went the old unpublished stories; out went e-mails from years ago; however, when it came to his “Friends” list, he tried to be more circumspect.

Not wanting to be rash with this list of people who at some time had meant much to him, even if they hadn’t communicated in a while, he carefully went down the list. As he viewed the list alphabetically, he came to Alan A. This man was also a writer of sorts such as himself, but as he thought about him and his undistinguished writing, he decided this one would be the first to go. “There,” he pushed the button and the man was gone from his life. Delighted, he decided he would repeat the process once every month thereafter.

He didn’t dwell on what he had done until a few weeks later. A Skype message beeped on his computer and it appeared to be from Alan A. “Shit!” he thought, but he answered it anyway. To his great surprise it was not Alan at all, but what appeared to be a police officer. “Hello,” said the officer, “are you Mr. M?” “Yes, I am,” he replied. “How can I be of service?” “We are investigating the disappearance of an Alan A. here in Denver and we are calling on everyone who appears on any of his computer contact lists to see if they knew where he was or what had happened to him.” Shocked, our man replied he had not seen or heard from the man in years and therefore could be of no help in this matter. The officer then asked if he knew of anyone else who was a mutual acquaintance. “No one who wouldn’t have been in his computer,” he replied. “Thank you,” said the officer who was about to cut off the contact when our man asked how long Alan had been missing. “About a couple of weeks,” was the reply. “It’s the darnedest thing. His car was still in the garage, it looked like his bed had been slept in, no sign of forced entry or a struggle, just gone.”

About a month passed when he decided to make his next deletion, Betsey B. He had always enjoyed her bubbly company and she was an excellent mixed doubles partner in tennis, but since she had moved down south, the very right-wing rants she posted to his computer had annoyed him no end. “Yes,” he said to himself, “Betsey has to go!” And with the press of a button she disappeared from his life. However, this was not to be when, a few weeks later, his Skype beeped again. This time it was a detective who was calling from Miami Beach, and yes, it was about Betsey—same questions, same story, and he gave the same answers. But now he was a bit shaken and decided not to mention the Denver incident. What was going on? Could it have been the Haiti experience? “Not possible,” he said to himself, “Voodoo?”

He thought back over that time when, in 2010, he had volunteered as an EMT right after the terrible earthquake devastated Haiti. He had gone with one of the Non-Governmental Agencies and was assigned to a small city named Leogané. This small city was at the epicenter of the quake and 80% - 90% of its buildings were destroyed. As it turned out, most of what he was able to do was try to help find people trapped in the rubble. First it was live people, then just bodies. After weeks of this work he decided to take a day or two off and see the countryside. A Haitian named Pierre-Paul, whose mother’s body he had helped dig out, had offered to take him up in the hills to show the American something unique.

They had hiked for a couple of hours in the heat when they arrived at a small, bedraggled hut. After a few moments to look the place over inside, Pierre-Paul motioned him to come in. Once inside he saw a very thin, quiet, elderly woman who held out her hand—“Money,” said his Haitian friend who had entered behind him. “How much?” asked the American. “Five U.S. dollars,” came the answer with a hand holding up that number of fingers. “She is worth it.” But before handing over the money our man indicated he was thirsty, very thirsty, and he was given a half of a coconut shell with what tasted like cold coconut water. “How the hell does she keep this stuff cold up here?” he asked himself, and he turned over the $5. Then, and only then was he motioned outside to sit on a log in the clearing. There he waited a few minutes and then the show began—and what a show it was!

The woman burst from the hut in a mask and dressed in a feather and bones costume, all the while chanting furiously in a language the American could not understand. She brought with her an old, cracked bowl into which she put some herbs and plants, lighting them as she continued to dance and chant. Our man could not believe where all the energy was coming from. He suspected drugs. It was then the woman picked up one of the chickens which had been wandering around the clearing and, holding it by the feet, dramatically chopped off its head with a machete.

Now she began to swing the chicken around her head, the blood flying all around, while also pointing a stick at the American as she danced. “Just like the movie, Weekend at Bernie’s 2,” he thought, almost expecting to see Bernie come out of the hut doing his zombie walk. Suddenly she jumped forward, touched him on the back of his right hand with the stick, and disappeared back into her hut. “Is it over?” he asked the Haitian. “Yes,” said the man, “and you have been exceptionally blessed with a great power by the Mobu, for she is a high priestess of the Voodoo cult.” Thereafter, our man had never felt he had been given any great power and had dismissed the idea out of hand. “Voodoo,” he thought at the time, “nonsense, but what a great show!”

In spite of his rejection of the idea he still, to this day, had a black mark about the size of a quarter on the back of his right hand where the Mobu’s stick had touched him—it would not come off no matter how hard he tried to remove it. Voodoo, was he losing his mind? No, he would prove this was all a coincidence. So it was that he deliberately returned to his computer the next month and removed one Ira G. from New York City. The man was a distant cousin who had made a fortune on the stock market but never shared a dime of it—yes, he had to go. Our man then waited to see if anything would happen.

This time his Skype never rung, but his doorbell did. When he opened the door there was a man in a dark suit who showed him his FBI...