Way of the Barefoot Zombie

by Jasper Bark

  Tatyana was surprised when she realised it was shouting: "No! Stop it, stop it, get off you're killing me!" The screaming Zombie tried pulling the other Zombies off the man but didn't succeed.

  Brigitte waded into the middle of the undead and raised her arms. She shouted something in the tongue of the dead and the Zombies became more docile. They parted to form a space around Brigitte and the screaming Zombie, slinking off to chew on their stolen morsels like scolded children.

  The other intruder hung back and watched as Brigitte bent down and picked up the ivory talisman the man had dropped. She glanced at it and shook her head in disgust.

  "Get out of him!" she said to the screaming Zombie.

  "Please," said the Zombie. "This is all I've got, please let me stay. I'll leave right away. I won't bother you."

  "Get out now!" Brigitte raised her arm and made a sign in the air.

  "But I've got nowhere to go. I can't pass over now. I'll die completely and totally."

  "You already have," said Brigitte and clicked her fingers.

  The Zombie went rigid and fell, face first, to the ground.

  Brigitte crouched and checked the unmoving body. She let out a wail of anguish and dismay. "You've killed him," she cried beating the dead body with her fists. "I can't save him now you've killed him!"

  Brigitte glanced up at the other intruder. She was shaking with anger as she stood and confronted him. "Give me the Baka."

  "But..." said the man. "It's my only hope. It's all I've got."

  "I wasn't asking you. I said give it to me!"

  The man handed it over. Miriam held the talisman to her lips and whispered to it. The man clutched at his chest and his stomach as though something was missing from him. "What... did... you... what... did... you... do?"

  "I sent your Gros Bon Ange on to the crossroads of the worlds, to wait with the souls of all the others. If I am successful it will be returned to you when all the others are reunited with theirs." The man put his hands to his head as though he had a splitting headache. "I cant... think. Why... happen... that...?"

  "Now your Gros Bon Ange is no longer on this plane, your Ti Bon Ange has gone to join it. You're changing."

  The man's eyes rolled up into his head and his body shuddered. He had obviously died but he didn't fall to the ground. His body twitched and jerked. It began to walk as though it didn't understand why it was still moving, going nowhere and bumping in to the other Zombies.

  "What's happened to him?" said Tatyana.

  "He has become the same as the islanders." said Brigitte.

  "A Zombie?"

  "If you want to call it that, yes. The souls of my islanders are trapped at the crossroads of the astral worlds. Their souls cannot carry on into the afterlife so their bodies cannot rest. I have sent his soul to be with theirs. If I can return their souls to them his will also be returned."

  "How will you do that?"

  "Tonight is the last night of the Festival of the Gédé, the one night of the year when I can perform the ceremony that will return their souls to them. I need to get them to a crossroads at the centre of St Ignatius to do this. Until then I need to keep them safe."

  "What's with these weird disks they're carrying?" said Benjamin.

  "They're called Bakas. They were created for the ceremony Doc Papa performed last night. They hold the soul to the earthly plane and they can also direct it into other vessels. Now we've destroyed their soul bank, the only place they can store their souls is inside a living corpse."

  "So that's what happened when he put his Baka thing on the Zombie's forehead? He was transferring his soul into it? Then you drove his soul out of the Zombie's body. But why did you get upset about killing him?"

  "Way to go with the sensitive questions," said Tatyana.

  "That's okay," said Brigitte. "I wasn't upset about killing him. What upset me was that the body he was possessing died."

  "The body," said Tatyana. "Was that someone you knew well?"

  "It was my brother. We were very close. And I failed him."

  Tatyana couldn't think of anything else to say after that. Neither could Benjamin. They left Brigitte alone to mourn her loss.

  Tatyana wanted to check the barricades in the office were still up. To her alarm half of them were down and the guests outside were almost able to climb in.

  "There's a large basement downstairs that connects to the mine shaft," Brigitte said. "It's one of the main entrances to the mine. It has a metal door we can bolt. We have to get down there quickly."

  Brigitte led them through the room and down several flights of stairs. Watching the Zombies stumbling progress down the concrete steps was painful.

  There were several falls with every flight. The Zombies who fell had to be encouraged back to their feet. All the while they could hear the guests getting closer to finally breaking in.

  Finally they got the last of the Zombies into the basement and bolted the heavy iron door. They could hear the guests' feet clattering on the concrete steps as they did.

  The basement was pitch black with the door closed. Tatyana couldn't see a thing. All she could hear was the sound of the Zombies shuffling feet and their strange groaning breath.

  She reached out for Benjamin and found him in the dark. She slipped her arms round his waist and pulled him close. He seemed a little surprised. They hadn't been physically close since she'd held him while he cried outside the Ounfó. He put his arms round her for comfort all the same.

  Tatyana heard a match strike and saw a flickering light come closer. It was Brigitte carrying an oil lamp.

  "This was left behind here," she said. "Lucky I have good night vision."

  "Can I talk Zombie movies for a minute?" said Benjamin.

  "Sure," said Tatyana. "Knock yourself out."

  "Well it just occurred to me that what's happening here is like the complete opposite of more or less any Zombie movie. Sooner or later pretty much all of them boil down to a siege situation. A group of living people find themselves inside an enclosed space surrounded by Zombies trying to break in. The Zombies want to bite the people so they'll die and come back as Zombies."

  "Okay, I watched a lot of these movies with you don't forget. So tell me something I don't know."

  "Haven't you noticed it's the Zombies who are under siege here? The living are the ones trying to break in and get to them. Not to kill them but to bring them back to life by injecting their souls into them with those weird Baka things. It's a complete reversal of the formula."

  "That's because there's no formula here, " said Tatyana. "This isn't fiction. Welcome to real life. This isn't like any Zombie movie you've ever seen."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  "Got you." The little vixen was coming out from behind the trees. Palmer had her just where he wanted her.

  He'd picked her up on the island's CCTV. He'd had a huge row with Doc Papa about getting the camera's installed around the island. Doc Papa had claimed he didn't need them. That he could access the "invisible world" using his Voodoo and that was much better.

  Palmer had pointed out that Doc Papa had better things to do with his time than monitor the entire island via the 'invisible world', and that the people they'd have to pay to do the monitoring wouldn't know Voodoo. Doc Papa eventually conceded, but only after he found a way to make it look as though it had been his idea all along. Simply to remind Palmer who was really in control.

  That's what Doc Papa was doing when he handed all of Palmer's lovelies over to those cock sucking shareholders. He was trying to put Palmer in his place. He was also trying to incentivise him, so that Palmer would ensure the Zombies were rounded up at all costs in order to save his own soul.

  Doc Papa had reckoned without Palmer's resourcefulness though. None of the guests, or even the shareholders, were ever told, but there were quite a few stray Zombies roaming the island. Usually they were in the remoter areas which is why they hadn't been rounded up.

  The first thing Palmer did after h
anding his lovers over to the shareholders was head straight for the control room to check the CCTV cameras for these strays. After an hour of searching he finally saw something he liked. A hot little number wandering round the jungle on the other side of the island.

  Which is how he came to be sitting in a jeep, stalking her a couple of hours later. As she came into view Palmer picked up the snare and slipped out of the jeep. He snuck up to a tree she was shambling towards and waited.

  As she passed the tree Palmer stepped out behind her and slipped the snare around her neck. The Zombie began to thrash about as soon he caught her. Her teeth gnashed and her arms grasped for him. Oh she was a feisty little one indeed.

  Probably hadn't eaten in a while by the look of her. She wasn't in the best shape. Still he couldn't afford to be choosy in the circumstances. She was the closest thing to his type that he could find.

  He pushed her up against a tree with the snare, then walked around back of her so she couldn't grab him. Holding the Baka in his free hand he placed it on her forehead right where her third eye ought to be.

  What happened next felt a lot like an ejaculation that started several miles away and rushed right through him and into the Zombie. Both of them shook so hard that Palmer dropped the snare and fell backwards. Strangely he felt colder and more empty than ever when it was over. Even though he had found a vessel for his dispossessed soul.

  Palmer got to his feet and rested against the tree. He felt shaken and drained as though he had just undergone a huge emotional outburst. He looked over at the Zombie. It was no longer flailing about like a wild creature. That was the only visible change in its appearance apart from the eyes.

  The eyes were alight with an awareness and intelligence she hadn't possessed before. A cold, prying intelligence that Palmer recognised as his own. It was a strange sensation to see himself staring out of someone else's eyes. He didn't care much for it. It made him feel judged. There was a silent condemnation coming from behind those newly awoken eyes.

  "Alright," he said. "I presume you can understand me?"

  The Zombie made to speak but her mouth wasn't able make any words. She put her hand to her throat as though something was blocking it.

  "You need to get in the jeep. We're getting off the island. Things are falling apart. It's time to cut our losses and run before the bottom falls out of the whole enterprise. Do you hear me?"

  The Zombie nodded and followed Palmer to the jeep.

  "I've got to get you back inside me before I get off the island," said Palmer. "Today is the final day of the Festival of the Gédé. In spite of what Doc Papa told those idiot shareholders, this is the last day that souls can be transferred. He's obviously playing some power game with them. Manipulating them like he does everyone else. But not me, oh no, if he thinks he's got my measure then he's sorely mistaken. He thinks he's the only one who really knows what's going on round here, but he's wrong. I've picked up a thing or two in my time on this island. I know we need to take you to a glade in the centre of the island. And we need to sacrifice a black goat and a black hen. That's why we've got to make a quick pit stop back at the compound to pick them up."

  Palmer glanced over at the Zombie. She was looking intently at him, almost through him. "For Christ's sake will you stop staring like that? You're making me uncomfortable."

  The Zombie coughed violently. It looked like she was choking. Eventually she spat a great mouthful of soil and dead leaves into her hand. Then a giant, chestnut brown beetle crawled out of her mouth, opened its carapace and flew away.

  "I'm sorry," she said in a gravelly voice, that came from vocal chords that hadn't been used in a while. "That was stopping me from talking."

  Palmer turned away to concentrate on the track as he started up the jeep. He found the sight of the Zombie coughing up soil and insects so repulsive that he was seriously turned on. He tried to ignore the huge erection he was getting as he drove off.

  "It's not the staring."

  "What?"

  "It's not the staring that makes you uncomfortable," said the Zombie. Her voice sounded unusually masculine. "It's that fact that you can't ignore me any longer. You've been ignoring the existence of your soul for most of your life. Now you're faced with the incontrovertible proof that you have a soul, you don't like it. You can't neglect me anymore. I'm right in your face."

  She really knew how to kill the mood.

  "I know you exist," said Palmer. "I've seen too much in my time here to think otherwise."

  "Yes but I'm an inconvenient truth to you. A guilty secret you have to keep hidden from others, like a weakness."

  "Look, I'm doing everything in my power to get you back inside me. I can't be that ashamed of you."

  "You're only hanging on to me because of what I mean to your survival. I'm just an asset to you. Something to stop you turning into a Zombie."

  "You're the most precious asset I have. Isn't that obvious from the lengths I'm going to just to hang on to you?"

  "I've got to argue your case before God when we die you know?" said Palmer's soul. "Convince Him not to toss you into the abyss. That's what a Gros Bon Ange does. You haven't given me much to work with so far though have you? What am I going to say in your defence? That I was the most precious thing on your balance sheet. So that cancels out all the people you've hurt with the things that you've done?"

  Palmer stared straight ahead at the jungle. "You sound just like my father."

  "Yes," said the Zombie. "I suppose I do. That's why I judge you so harshly. Because that's how your father judged you. That's how you were taught to judge yourself. Nothing you ever did was good enough. That's how he made you feel all the time. And your mother, she may as well have been dead to you for all the comfort and love she showed. All of that was reserved for your sister not you. Then when you were twelve she did die. You got to spend a whole hour with the corpse, do you remember? That was the longest you'd spent in her company since you were a baby. Just before you had to go, when you knew no-one was looking, you bent and gave her cold lips a goodbye kiss, do you recall? You probably don't realise it, but that's where this whole necrophilia thing started."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Don't try putting me on. I am you, remember. I know more of your guilty secrets than you do. Don't go pretending this doesn't turn you on. You've finally done what you've wanted to do your whole life. You've impregnated a corpse with your soul. Most men get to see bits of themselves inside the children they beget on women. But you, you got to impregnate the object of your desire with nothing more than your own life. When you look into the eyes of this corpse you see only yourself staring back. Isn't that what every narcissist like you dreams of in a lover?"

  Palmer put his foot down in annoyance. "You're just a tease. That's all you are. A filthy tease."

  "I'm not stopping you lover. I've never stopped you indulging your desires, have I? You wouldn't listen to me anyway. I know all about that hard on you're trying to hide. I know where you'd like to put it. This corpse is pretty ripe isn't it, all rotting and decayed. I know what that smell's doing to you. Why resist anymore?"

  "There isn't time."

  "There won't be any time soon. This might be your only opportunity."

  Palmer stopped the jeep. He leant over and put his hands on the Zombie's hips. She moved closer to him. He pressed his lips to her cheek. The skin felt rotten and soft, it was on the point of putrefaction. He could see the maggots crawling around underneath it.

  Palmer couldn't believe how much this aroused him. He slid his hand up the Zombie's thigh, lifted her tattered dress and slipped his fingers into her fraying knickers.

  Then he froze. He felt sickened and repulsed by what he felt inside her underwear. He pulled his hand away in revulsion. "You tricked me. You knew."

  "Oh, did I forget to tell you?" said his soul laughing inside the Zombie. She slipped down her knickers and revealed the largest penis Palmer had ever seen, on the living or the dead.
"You just picked up the island's only Zombie lady-boy."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sam McKane was ready to kick ass. This was where people started paying. He was taking control and he was getting his due.

  The jeep he was riding was off-road. It kept swerving to avoid palm trees and rocks. He and the guards were thrown about in the back.

  He seemed to be losing all sensation of pain. His back would usually be in agony after this much punishment, not to mention his ass. It didn't bother him at all though. He wondered if this was a drawback or a bonus of the changes he was going through. He didn't care to find out what would happen if he changed much further. That was why he was taking action.

  The jeep pulled up in a clearing and the men jumped out. Sam climbed out after them. "Why are we stopping? he demanded. "This isn't the mine."

  "No sir," said Donovan, the Head Guard. "The mine's about ten minutes down that track. This is the best wi-fi connection in this part of the island."

  "Wi-fi? I thought there wasn't any internet here?"

  "Not for the private use of guests there isn't sir. But the guards and the management have access. There's a transmitter in the security post, behind us."

  "Security post?"

  "They're all over the island sir, tiny bases where two or three men can hole up for security and defence purposes."

  A thickset guard with a moustache handed Donovan a silver laptop, which he opened and gave to Sam. "Now about the small matter of payment," Donovan said.

  Sam grunted. "Playing hardball huh? Where'd you get the laptop?"

  "One of my men stole it sir. You said you'd transfer two million dollars into an account we could all access. You'll be able to do that on this machine."

  "We're getting a little ahead of ourselves aren't we son? I'm paying you to do a job. So far all you've done is get my ass sore by driving me into the middle of nowhere."