Way of the Barefoot Zombie

by Jasper Bark

  She really was petrified now. Getting caught or arrested didn't worry her. She was terrified of what she was going to say to her father when she arrived back home in a police car with a criminal record for breaking and entering. How was she going to explain to him why she'd left a ball he had paid a small fortune for her to attend, to break into a church with a guy she'd never met before who was dressed like a Zombie?

  "You punks are in trouble now," the guard said. "I'm warning you, come on out and don't try anything funny." His torch beam stopped on the coffin.

  Benjamin's fingers appeared on the side of the coffin. He let out a deep groan and sat up. Really slowly like he was in some corny old horror movie. His skin looked extra white in the torch beam. The bloody wounds stood out on his face, as did the soil on his tuxedo.

  He turned to the guard and opened his mouth. A gout of wine spilled out like blood. "I... want... to... eat... your... brains!" he croaked, like he was coughing up loose earth.

  The security guard let out a high pitched scream. He sounded like a scared little girl. Tatyana had never heard a grown man make a noise like it. He threw his torch at the coffin and ran, full pelt, out of the vestry.

  Tatyana waited until the sound of his footsteps faded, before she stepped out of the closet. She was so relieved she was shaking. She started to laugh hysterically as Benjamin grinned at her out of the coffin.

  "That is the coolest fucking thing I have ever seen," she said.

  Benjamin winked and she almost jumped on him right there. "Do I know how to show a gal a good time, or do I know how to show a gal a good time?" Benjamin climbed out of the coffin and found the guard's torch. "Now we can see to get out of here."

  People were starting to head home when they got back to the ball. Gregor, her father's chauffeur, was waiting behind the wheel of the Rolls. He didn't take too kindly to Benjamin when he saw him.

  "We better say goodnight here," Tatyana said at the top of the hotel steps.

  "Okay," said Benjamin and took both her hands in his.

  Shit he wasn't going to try and kiss her was he? Actually, she rather hoped he was.

  "Listen," he said. "I had a really good time tonight."

  "So did I." She licked her lips to make sure they weren't dry.

  "I thought this whole ball was going to be one long drag but you made it really special."

  "Thanks, you kinda picked things up for me too." She looked at his lips. They were red with wine and fake blood. She wondered what they'd feel like pressed against hers.

  "I'd really like to see you again," he said.

  She put her head to one side and moved a little closer.

  Come on, what was stopping him? Couldn't he see she wanted to?

  "I'd like that too," she said.

  Benjamin glanced past her. "I think your driver's coming over."

  "Oh yeah, sorry about that," she glanced behind her to see Gregor advancing on them. "He's kind of protective. It's my father's orders."

  "He's a lot bigger than me. I better go. Can I get your number?"

  "Sure," she fumbled in her purse and dropped it on the steps. Its contents rolled out at her feet. "Shit, sorry," she said as she stuffed them back in. Damn, she felt stupid and clumsy. She found a card and gave it him. "My mobile number. Call me."

  "Will do," Benjamin said. He smiled at Gregor and disappeared into the lobby.

  "Everything alright Miss Bulgakov?" Gregor asked. She was annoyed by him being there and embarrassed by his heavy Russian accent.

  "Yes, yes. I'm fine, just take me home."

  Why didn't he kiss me? she thought as she lay back against the hand-stitched leather upholstery of the Rolls. Did her breath smell? Did she do something wrong? Maybe she should change her deodorant. She sniffed discreetly at her pits.

  Maybe he was just a gentleman. A walking dead gentleman, now that was a turn up for the books. He had asked for her number though, and he'd said he wanted to see her again. She better charge the battery on her mobile.

  What if he didn't call? She knew what she was like. She was going to be checking her phone every five minutes now until he did.

  What a night though. Who would have thought? The only way it could have been any more perfect was if they had kissed. Still that was something to look forward to.

  She wondered what she'd tell her mother in the morning.

  So dear, did you have a good time last night?

  Yes mother I met a charming young Zombie. He had the cutest smile and a butt you could eat your breakfast off. That reminds me, we must have him over for morning coffee. Oh you'll laugh when you hear this, we broke into a graveyard together and terrified a security guard. You must be so glad you paid for all that private education.

  She hoped he did call. He was cute and dangerous and he had this lost, sensitive look in his eyes that made her ache when she thought about it.

  If they did get it together, he was a keeper. She knew that already. Once they were together she couldn't imagine anything that could come between them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Palmer had showered, changed and shaved by five am. The guests would all be sleeping off the effects of the night's celebrations.

  In a few hours, when they woke, he would have the staff round up all the escorts. Then he'd have them ferried to a sound proof room where Doc Papa would put them into a trance and remove all memory of the last twenty-four hours. This was a precaution against careless guests who let too much slip during pillow talk.

  There was nothing like a good orgasm to stir up a loose tongue or prick a conscience. Many high class hookers were as much confessors as they were bed partners. He couldn't have them leaving the island with tales of murder and mutilation playing on their minds.

  Doc Papa was already at the runway when Palmer got there. Palmer cursed himself that he'd been beaten on punctuality. Doc Papa looked at him and grinned in satisfaction. That was the unnerving thing about him. He seemed to see the thoughts as they formed right there in your mind.

  He took his place at Doc Papa's side as the island's private jet came in to land. The steps were wheeled into place by the ground crew. A hand woven red carpet, trimmed with ermine, was rolled out to meet it.

  A meat truck pulled up. The driver opened the doors and a group of miserable specimens trudged out. They wore dreadlocks, nose rings and sou'westers. They had badges pinned to their waterproofs and slogans painted on them. All in all there was about thirty of them.

  At a signal from Doc Papa they lined up either side of the carpet and took carving knives out of their pockets. He had them in a trance. They were completely prey to his will.

  The sheer power Doc Papa wielded over other humans never failed to excite Palmer. Just being in his company made the most audacious and remarkable things seem possible. Nothing and nobody was an obstacle to him. Everything he said and did was all about enforcing that.

  The pathetic, bleeding hearts lining the carpet called themselves environmental activists. They'd been taken in Japanese waters, aboard a boat with the cringe-worthy title of Sunshine Superman. They were interfering with international trade by sabotaging whaling ships.

  Just because the idiots at the UN had decided to place an international ban on those waters, these contemptible meddlers thought it gave them the right to intervene in the whaler's activities. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of trade was being wasted through their actions. All to save some species that was near extinction anyway.

  Because they refused to accept the economics of non-renewable resources like the whale, they had been rounded up and taken to St Ignatius. Palmer himself had overseen the operation. Doc Papa was very pleased with the result. He hadn't said what the purpose of extraditing them was, but Palmer knew he had something spectacular in mind to greet the share holders.

  The door of the jet opened and the shareholders stepped out. Doc Papa shook his asson twice and the activists fell to their knees, raised their knives with both hands and held them over their
faces. The shareholders didn't descend, but looked on with wry fascination to see what Doc Papa would have them do next.

  At another shake of the asson the activists plunged the knives into their left eye sockets. With precision they twisted the knives so they sliced through the cornea and severed the ocular muscles holding the eye in place.

  Using their left hands, each activist then reached into their sockets and pulled their eyeball out of its orbit. Blood trickled from the sockets as the activists took the carving knives and sliced through the thin red optic nerves at the back of the eyeball that connected it to the brain.

  The activists tossed their severed eyeballs onto the red carpet and repeated the process with their right eye. The shareholders responded with sardonic smiles and a smatter of applause. Doc Papa had rolled out a carpet of human eyeballs to welcome them.

  As the shareholders descended the steps Doc Papa shook his asson one last time. The eyeballs started to squirm about of their own accord and arrange themselves into their original pairs.

  The activists dropped their knives and started groaning and waving their hands in front of them as though they were trying to ward something off. They were still frozen to the spot but Doc Papa had returned the power of speech and limited movement. Why were they responding like this though?

  Then Palmer realised. They could still see out of the severed eyes squirming on the carpet.

  The shareholders realised it too as they began to walk over the carpet of eyes. The eyeballs popped with a satisfying, wet squelch when they trod on them. The shareholders ground the vitreous humour into the carpet with their hand-stitched leather shoes.

  The activists screamed with pain and fear as their eyeballs were trampled. They implored the shareholders to stop. Calling out for mercy.

  "No, don't, please no..."

  "Stop, don't, stop please I'm begging you..."

  "Oh God, why are you doing this? Dear Lord why?"

  It amused Palmer that self professed atheists and pagans always invoked God when they were about to die. They didn't call on the Great Mother or logical reason. Oh no, they all shouted for God without fail. And they all asked why.

  If they couldn't see the point Doc Papa was making here then they were beyond tedious explanations. It was simple. They had to be reminded of how powerless they were.

  The world was run a certain way by a certain breed of men and there was nothing they could do about it. Palmer and his kind would do whatever they pleased whenever it pleased them and nothing would stand in their way. All these bleeding hearts could do was sit at the sidelines and look on as the ruling elite trampled over them.

  In his novel 1984, George Orwell had said 'if you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.' He was partly right. Except it wasn't a boot it was a $4,000 shoe, and it wasn't a face it was an eyeball. A powerless eyeball that could only look up as the shoe came down and ground it into lifeless jelly.

  Of course, that wasn't the only point that Doc Papa was making. He was also displaying the full extent of his power to the shareholders. He was letting them know who was fully in charge.

  The men trampling the eyes into the ground were the richest and most ruthless operators in the world. They were without mercy or compunction. You never underestimated or turned your back on them and you showed them no weakness at any time.

  This was also what Doc Papa was testing with his welcoming stunt. The limits of their cruelty and viciousness. He was probing them to see how far they would go. Whether any of them would show a sign of squeamishness or compassion. Not one of them did.

  As the shareholders reached the end of the carpet Doc Papa clapped his hands and the activist keeled over. Having broken their hearts, he now stopped them.

  "Impressive," said Walden Truffét, the majority shareholder. "What do you do for an encore?"

  "Bring them back to life," said Doc Papa shaking Truffét's hand. Truffét was a portly man with silver hair and large horn rimmed glasses.

  "So you got the new recruits primed?" said Frank Evans, a short, stocky man with died black hair and a craggy face.

  "Oh yes," said Doc Papa. "All it will take is one little push and they will be right where we want them."

  "Well," said O'Shaugnessy, a tall, freckled Irish man. "That's what we're here for."

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was a new mood among the guests in the morning. Benjamin could see it in their eyes. The way they moved. The way they greeted one another. All of it was downbeat.

  There was something muted in the way they filed into the lecture hall. An air of gloom hung over everyone. The triumph of the night before had been replaced by something a lot like regret. It felt like the bill for the orgy had just come and it looked to bankrupt them all.

  No-one made small talk. Everyone avoided eye contact. It wasn't just that they were hung over or tired from their late nights. It seemed like it had suddenly dawned on them, in the unforgiving light of morning, just what they had done the previous day. And, in spite of everything they had been taught, they couldn't shake off the guilt it caused them.

  Benjamin felt it too. He couldn't quite face up to what they had done yet. He didn't want to admit to himself that he'd played a part in it. That he was the sort of person who could commit such acts. Or force others, like Tatyana, to commit them.

  She still wasn't talking to him, not properly. They had conversations and stuff, like what to order for breakfast and which draw she put his spare socks in. But she hadn't opened up to him about what she was feeling.

  They were drifting away from each other and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was like watching some dreadful accident in slow motion. He could see everything that was going to happen but he just couldn't move fast enough to avoid it.

  He didn't want to lose her. But he couldn't do anything until she told him what was going on inside her. He was numb from all the fear he ought to be feeling. Fear of losing Tatyana. Fear of being revealed as an outsider. Fear of what he was becoming and having to admit what he'd always been. No wonder he could identify with the gloom that had soured everyone's mood.

  You wouldn't know it to look at the guests, but today was supposed to be special. The beginning of the pay off for all their training. There were guest lecturers for the morning and hints of some special ceremony that night. If it was anything like the 'special' surprise they had yesterday, then Benjamin wasn't looking forward to it.

  Palmer announced the first lecturer. It was Eamonn O'Shaugnessy. Benjamin was surprised to find even he knew who that was. He was a hero of Richard's and a cult figure on Wall Street. He commanded seven figure sums for public speaking and those appearances that he made were always sold out.

  He was tall with sandy brown hair that was greying at the temples. He looked like the sort of guy you'd see hosting an infomercial for the Irish Tourist Board. Benjamin half expected him to raise a pint of Guiness and start singing the praises of the Emerald Isle.

  Instead the man shot them a smile that was half lovable patriarch and half man-eating shark.

  "Good morning," he said as he took to the podium. "How are you all? I hear there was a good craic last night. Anyone nursing a hangover?" There was no response and he smiled a knowing smile. "No? No-one who cares to admit it anyway. And who could blame you? You're not going to admit a weakness sitting here surrounded by your peers. I can tell by the bloodshot eyes I'm seeing round the room that more than a few you are feeling rough though. And that's not all you're feeling.

  "You know what got me ahead in business? Not my ability to read the market. Though that's netted me a billion or more, to be sure. What's really clinched it for me is my ability to read people. To look into the other feller's eyes and see what he's thinking and feeling before even he realises it. That's what's been invaluable to me. That's why I'm standing here now worth more than the lot of you put together.

  "Do you want to know what I see when I'm looking at all of you? I see gui
lt, and I see doubt."

  There was a murmur of dissent from the guests. Eamonn raised his hand to still it. "No, no, I do. I know you're less likely to admit to that than being hung over, but it's written on every one of your faces. Once you know what the signs are you can spot it a mile off. Do you know how I know what the signs are? Cos I've been there myself.

  "You've just signed over a fortune to be here. And for what? To murder some poor guy? To act like a vicious animal? No - worse, to act like an undead monster. Is that what you came here for? And what if someone finds out? What if word is leaked to the press or the authorities? What will you do then?

  "What you're feeling is only natural. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel a tiny bit of remorse. After what you've just done, anyone would. You're only human. And that's the problem. That's what we're here to rectify.

  "You see, the regret you're feeling now, can make you prone to the terrible allure of altruism. But, you have to watch out for that, because it's a trap. You know the first thing you find when you make more money than you can ever spend? It doesn't make you happy. In fact, I'll go farther than that. You find you start to despise money. Because it's worthless. You went to so much time and trouble to make it and then you find it doesn't do a thing for you. And you're right to despise it. It's only when you hate it and you spit on it that it clings to you like a dog that's been kicked and is desperate for your affection. It's why poor people love money so much. Cos you have to hate money if you want to make a serious amount of it.

  "But don't mistake this hatred for the source of your unhappiness. Just because it feels good to give your money away doesn't mean you're doing the right thing. And yes, I will admit that building a few schools in some African backwater feels better than building a new wing on your mansion. But doing your secretary over her desk also feels good, and that can get you into a whole heap of trouble with alimony I can tell you."