Way of the Barefoot Zombie

by Jasper Bark

  The Zombies were excited. They could smell fresh blood and fear. The instinct to feed was beginning to override their behaviour. Tatyana could sense their group mind splintering. Only Miriam was holding it together. Her mind straddled the group mind, guiding it like a rider steers a horse.

  Miriam was conducting the whole operation from outside the Ounfó. Before she sent in the Zombies they had cased the place. There was a yard out front full of trees, some of which were painted bright colours. Miriam explained that they were sanctuaries for the Loas.

  Beyond the yard was a walled courtyard with a high roof and a bare earth floor. This was the Peristyle, where all the major ceremonies took place. To the rear of that was a small square building. This was the Holy of Holies. Miriam explained that only the Houngan (the high priest) or Mambo (high priestess) and their close circle of acolytes could enter there.

  Tatyana was enthralled. She felt something deep inside herself open up as Miriam spoke about Voodoo and serving the Loa, something she hadn't thought existed. Like a hunger for something she'd never tasted.

  It seemed more than just a fascination with the forbidden topic of religion. She was genuinely excited about seeing everything inside the Ounfó. Miriam's descriptions and explanations left her exhilarated and confused. Was it Miriam? Did she just have a crush on her, or was there more to it?

  Tacked on the back of the Holy of Holies was a building Miriam knew nothing about. It was all hi-tech chrome and glass. It looked totally out of place and there was a bad feeling coming off it. They all felt it, Miriam especially.

  Miriam went back round to the yard out front. She tapped the lower branches of a tree and a snake appeared. She held out her hand and it curled around her arm.

  Miriam whispered to the snake and Tatyana heard her say "Dambala Wédo Yé-H-we" several times.

  The snake seemed hypnotised by Miriam's words. She placed it on the ground and it slithered towards the side entrance of the Peristyle at a rapid pace. The Zombies followed it.

  Miriam told Tatyana to go in with them and not be afraid, she would be protected. Her job was to make sure that the guests all got out unharmed. Miriam would remain outside with Benjamin until the Ounfó was cleared.

  Tatyana was surprised that Benjamin didn't make any objections to this. He still seemed spaced out after the healing Miriam had performed on him. He was definitely changed. He seemed sweeter and less likely to fly into a rage.

  The guests were still groggy from the ceremony as Tatyana and the Zombies entered. The sight of so many unsupervised Zombies pouring into the place soon woke them up.

  They couldn't have looked more horrified if their whole stock portfolio had just been wiped out.

  "Jesus fucking Christ?" Sam McKane, the grey haired Texan, said jumping to his feet. "It's an invasion. We're being invaded."

  "Where the hell did they come from?" Arthur Sonnenfeldt said, trying to dive behind Sam. "There's so many of them, how'd they get out of the compound?"

  More and more Zombies filled the Peristyle which was still littered with the remnants of the ceremony. Several Zombies skidded in the animal blood on the earthen floor. Their feet trampled the intricate patterns drawn in powder on the ground. The clouds of white dust they kicked up added to the confusion.

  Tatyana saw Bessie, the red-headed woman she last saw trying to gnaw some guy's penis off, go into hysterics. She screamed, an honest to goodness scream of terror just like in the movies.

  This was the cue for the rest of the guests to bolt for the entrance. Too many people hit the doorway at once. There was a jam and they began to push and shove each other.

  One young guy punched an elderly male Zombie in the face. Tatyana heard bones crack and saw dead skin tear. The Zombie hardly moved though. It just bit at his fist when it smelled the fresh blood on his scraped knuckles.

  It reached out to get hold of the young guy. He kicked the Zombie in the midriff to keep it away and he fell over on his back. When he saw how ravenous the Zombie had become the man scrambled to his feet and scampered away.

  A stocky guy with sandy brown hair picked up a censer full of flaming oil and tried to ward them off. The oil spilled onto his shirt and set it alight. The man panicked and ran for the door. He collided with the tall guy, George Griffin. George pushed him away and he and two others got the man down and rolled him on the ground as he howled in pain.

  Tatyana wended her way through the Zombies as the last of the guests spilled into the yard outside. She watched from the doorway as they spread out and ran between the trees.

  Snakes dropped out of the lower branches. Some dangled by their tails and hissed with menace. Others landed on the ground in front of the fleeing guests.

  The guests changed direction and ran through the middle of the yard where there were no deadly snakes. This must be Miriam's doing. She was shepherding the guests, making certain they went where she wanted.

  Tatyana heard a scuffle over at the other end of the Peristyle. The creepy priest Vincenzo and some other men dressed in white came out of the Holy of Holies. The guys in white must be the acolytes Miriam had mentioned.

  One of the acolytes raced through the Zombies, waving a ceremonial flag and chanting. He got to the multi coloured pole in the centre of the Peristyle. What had Miriam called it? The Poteau Mitain.

  There was a coiled leather whip hanging from the side of the Poteau Mitain. It obviously had some sort of spiritual significance. The acolyte climbed on the pedestal at the base of the Poteau Mitain and took the whip down. He began to crack it over the heads of the Zombies.

  The Zombies all stopped and turned to look at him. He waved his flag back and forth and used the whip to corral the Zombies.

  "Rete. Dans le nom des Gédé - Rete!"

  He was calling the Zombies to heel and it was working.

  Shit, what was going to happen if they lost control of the Zombies? Tatyana started to edge towards the entrance so she could slip out unseen. As she did, she looked up and saw a giant constrictor curling its way down the Poteau Mitain.

  The acolyte with the whip hadn't seen it. As he barked orders at the Zombies in Creole it wound its way closer to him. He didn't see the snake until it slipped round his neck. His hands went up to it, but its coils were too strong and it crushed his windpipe.

  The acolyte's face turned purple. He dropped the flag and the whip and clawed at the constrictor as his eyes bulged. Tatyana heard the crack of his neck breaking and the man fell to the floor.

  The Zombies nearest him smelled the fresh corpse. They closed in on the dead body. Their jaws working in anticipation, they knelt and began to tear strips off him.

  At the sight of this, Vincenzo and the other acolytes turned and ran back into the Holy of Holies. Tatyana heard their footsteps race through the Ounfó and into the hi-tech building behind it.

  "Let them go," said Miriam. "The Ounfó is ours."

  She looked around at the Peristyle. Some of the Zombies were fighting over the corpse, scrabbling for the last few shreds. Others were milling around inspecting the space, staring at it as though they were trying to recapture some distant memory of their former life.

  "I grew up attending this Ounfó," Miriam said. "I was initiated here, I became its Mambo and led the congregation for years. Yet now it seems as foreign to me as it does to both of you."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They left the Zombies in the Peristyle and went into the Holy of Holies, looking for Vincenzo and the others. Tatyana felt honoured. She could see Benjamin was curious and excited to be allowed into the inner-sanctum too.

  The entrance chamber was lit by candles and had crude paintings of Catholic icons on the walls. Miriam explained that these were representations of the Loa that blessed the temple. On one wall was a picture of a dark skinned St Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland. This represented Dambala the snake Loa of the heavens. On the opposite wall was a painting of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, who was the Catholic equivalent of Ay
ida Wédo, the rainbow Loa married to Dambala.

  "Wait I don't understand," said Tatyana. "How can you be a Catholic when you practice magic?"

  "Voodoo is not magic," Miriam said. "It is a religion with a complex theology. One that embraces Catholicism."

  "So you believe in God, but you worship spirits, how can that be?"

  "God is in all things, all places and all times. People often ask how He can allow a thing to happen. They do not understand that He allows all things to happen out of His love for us. However, because He knows we look for divine guidance and intervention in our lives at a level He is too great to provide, he created the Loa to be his intermediaries. We serve the Loa because they fulfil the greater will of God."

  "Wow, that's quite mind blowing," said Tatyana as they passed through a coloured hanging into the main chamber. "But it makes a lot of sense."

  At the far end of the chamber was a stone altar. There was a huge assortment of objects on it. There were dolls in ceremonial dress, Catholic icons, ritual rattles, jars and pots containing strange herbs, flags, amulets and charms and several representations of serpents, including a large stuffed snake.

  "That is the Pé," said Miriam. "The name comes from the old African word 'kpé' meaning stone. This one is sanctified to the Loa Dambala. The other two chambers through there have their own Pés blessed by Ayida Wédo and Erzulie Dantò."

  They didn't go through these other chambers. Miriam took them, instead, into another room. "This is the Djévo where the initiations take place. Normally you would never be allowed in here, but these are exceptional times. The Ounfó has been desecrated and I believe the Loas have brought you into their service." Miriam peered through the gloom. "That door should not be there."

  On the other side of the room, standing open, was a solid steel security door. It had a huge circular handle in the middle, like the door of a bank vault.

  Tatyana walked over and peered through it. "This must lead to that hi-tech building we saw."

  Benjamin put his hand on her shoulder. "Careful. They could still be in there."

  "I'm pretty sure I heard them running out," said Tatyana. They heard the engine of a jeep start up outside. "I think that means they're going."

  They walked through an empty entrance chamber into a room that was filled with banks of computer screens.

  "This doesn't look like Voodoo to me," said Benjamin.

  "No," said Miriam. "This is anything but Voodoo."

  On the other side of the room, the walls were lined with row after row of sealed glass compartments. Inside the compartments were the earthenware containers Doc Papa had called Pot-tets. A fine white mist swirled around each container and frost ferns were forming on the inside of many of the compartments. A gauge on the front showed the temperature inside the compartments was way below freezing.

  At the opposite end of the long room were several huge tanks of liquid nitrogen. A network of tubes ran along the walls from the tanks to the compartments.

  "Cryogenics," said Benjamin. "This is a cryogenics facility. They're freezing all the souls once they capture them, but why?"

  "To numb them," said Miriam. "To put them to sleep and tie them to the earthly plane."

  "So, does Voodoo include science as well as Christianity?" said Tatyana.

  "Not this type of science," said Miriam. "Doc Papa has displaced the Loa of this Ounfó and made bargains with many other Loa who do not look kindly on St Ignatius or its people. Dambala and Ayida Wedo are not pleased with him or what he has done to their Ounfó."

  "Like building this soul bank," said Benjamin. "And using it to freeze people's souls and stuff?"

  "Precisely. He has desecrated this Ounfó and he has perverted our most sacred ceremonies."

  "You mean that ceremony we took part in, to remove our souls?" said Tatyana. "That wasn't proper Voodoo?"

  "There is no right or wrong Voodoo. But there is Voodoo that harms and Voodoo that heals and strengthens. The ceremony that you took part in was a twisted version of a ceremony that has been central to our worship for years."

  "But you don't want to remove people's souls and capture them, right?" said Tatyana.

  "No. The ceremony is called the Lave Tet it means the 'washing of the head'. It is a ceremony in which the initiate is married to their patron Loa. The Pot-tet is prepared as a place for their Gros Bon Ange to reside while their Met Tet, or patron Loa is inside them. When they die their soul will also return to the Pot-tet on the way to the afterlife. This is meant to strengthen the soul and allow it to grow. Not to imprison it and hold it to ransom."

  "No wonder the Loa are pissed off with him then."

  "Indeed."

  "There's loads of souls though," said Benjamin. "Just about everyone on the island must have banked their soul here."

  "It looks that way doesn't it?" said Miriam.

  A sudden burst of gunfire made them all jump.

  "We know you're in there," said a voice from outside. "We have you surrounded. There's no use trying to run. Come out of the building and leave the Zombies behind."

  "What are we going to do?" said Tatyana.

  "They won't try and storm the place," said Benjamin. "They can't risk damaging the soul bank or harming the Zombies."

  "Yeah, but we can't get out of here either," said Tatyana. "They've got us trapped."

  "Their presence here is completely immaterial," said Miriam. "The Loa wish us to leave, but before we do we must perform a service for them."

  "How can we leave when the place is surrounded?" said Tatyana.

  "I thought we were going to use the souls to bargain our way out," said Benjamin.

  "All will become clear in a little while," said Miriam. "First we need to shut down the power to this building."

  "I can do that," said Benjamin. "There's got to be fuse box, or a breaker board around here. I'm sure I can find it."

  "Good. Please do that quickly."

  Benjamin scampered off while Miriam took Tatyana back through to the Holy of Holies. She picked up a pole and used it to open a trapdoor in the ceiling of one of the chambers. Then she stood on a box and pulled herself up through the trapdoor. She reached out a hand for Tatyana. "Here, come on up."

  Tatyana climbed into a narrow crawl space. Miriam led her to a tiny room just large enough for the two of them to sit up in. It had six large windows with no glass in them, only angled wooden slats.

  "This is an old observatory," whispered Miriam. "It was built in the days when we had foreign missionaries and soldiers on St Ignatius. They feared our religion and tried to suppress it. At times the congregation had to keep watch for them. You can see the surrounding jungle from here without being seen."

  Tatyana peered through the slats. She could see about ten men stationed around the Ounfó. Many were hiding behind trees and the large leaves of tropical plants. They looked hot and scared.

  "I thought you said that Voodoo accepted Christianity," said Tatyana in a low whisper. "How come the missionaries wanted to persecute you?"

  "Sadly they still see our religion as superstition and devil worship, no matter what we believe. Voodoo has also played a big part in the struggle against foreign oppression. So whether the occupiers are French or American they have always tried to suppress us."

  Tatyana jumped as the slats in the window she was leaning against started to rattle as though a fierce wind was blowing them. Three other sets of slats did the same, even though there wasn't the slightest breeze.

  "Get down!" said Miriam. She pulled Tatyana to the floor as the slats splintered.

  Gunfire raked the small observation room as Tatyana and Miriam pressed themselves to the floor with their hands over their heads. Tatyana could hear the bullets whistle and crack as they hit the wood inches above her head. They began to wriggle down the crawlspace as the whole observatory fell apart and blew away in a bodiless wind.

  "What's happening?" said Tatyana as they dropped back into the chamber.

  "I believ
e it's Doc Papa," Miriam said. "He's attacking us through the invisible world." A commotion broke out in the Peristyle. Tatyana could hear the Zombies bellow and moan as she and Miriam ran to see what it was.

  Tatyana watched as Miriam strode into the Peristyle and began chanting something. Some of the Zombies became quiet and placid straight away. Other continued to rage and fight among themselves.

  Miriam's voice grew weaker and she put her hands to her head as though in great pain. She stumbled and fell to her knees. Tatyana went to help her but Miriam waved her away. She was holding her throat and coughing. The Zombies nearest Tatyana turned towards her. Scenting her blood they began to advance. With great care Tatyana stepped back inside the Holy of Holies. She was in danger but she couldn't leave Miriam.

  Miriam rallied. She stopped coughing and seemed to gather herself. She got to her feet and sang out her incantation in a voice so clear and loud it seemed to still every other sound in the jungle.

  The Zombies fell silent. There was no sound for a moment and not even the air moved. Miriam strode back inside the Holy of Holies with her head high.

  "We do not have much time."

  The lights went out as soon as they stepped into the hi-tech building. The computers died and, with a click and a hiss, the cryogenic units stopped humming.

  Benjamin appeared carrying a lit candle. "Told you it wouldn't be a problem. I found these in a cupboard." He handed candles to Tatyana and Miriam and lit them from his. "What was happening outside?"

  "We were under magical attack," said Miriam. "Doc Papa was trying to neutralise us so his men could move in and round up the Zombies. We're safe for the time being but we need to work fast. We have to get all the Pot-tets out of their compartments and arrange them on the floor."

  "We'll have break the glass to get them out," said Benjamin. "But we can't touch them. They'll take the skin off our hands they're so cold."

  They hunted around the room in the candlelight. Benjamin found a couple of pairs of large steel tongs that must have been used to lift the Pot-tets into the compartments. He handed one to Tatyana then swung his into the door of a compartment. The glass shattered.