Way of the Barefoot Zombie

by Jasper Bark

  "What do we do now eh, Donovan? C'mon, you got us into this, what do we do now?"

  The question went unanswered as the Zombies overwhelmed them. Tatyana stood very still and hardly breathed. She concentrated on reducing her vital signs. All to block out the sounds of the guard's screams and curses.

  She tried not to think about their suffering, or whether they had wives and children who'd mourn them but never recover or bury their remains. She tried especially hard not to think about her part in their death or the other deaths in which she was complicit.

  She wondered how she was going to atone for all the things she'd done. One of the main things that fascinated her about religion was the opportunity it offered for absolution.

  If the Loa were calling her, as Brigitte said, should she answer the call? Would that be her opportunity to make good for all the bad things she'd done?

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Doc Papa was about to make good on everything he'd done since founding the Way of the Barefoot Zombie. He'd returned to his ceremony room and was hovering above his body. It was still lying on the floor surrounded by the living Vévé.

  He held up the Gateway of the Souls and savoured his victory. It was an artefact of rare and unimaginable beauty. Fashioned from a perfect blend of solar energy and dark mass it had an undeniable gravity about it, even when closed as it was now.

  The Gateway was to the soul what a black hole was to light, inescapable. Even in his astral form he could feel his soul beating at his body's breast to be free to enter it. What a burden it must have been to Brigitte to have carried it within her all this time. Yet she put up such a fight to hang on to it.

  The living Vévé shifted into a new shape so that Doc Papa could return to his body with the Gateway. He descended with exceptional care into his corporeal form. It felt like clambering down a gigantic pile of broken glass carrying several pounds of live gelignite. One wrong move and his mind, body and soul would be torn to pieces.

  He marveled again at the brilliance and ingenuity of Brigitte's ancestor for not only opening the Gateway, but finding a way to carry it inside himself and later to hide it in Brigitte. He was relieved to be free of the curse that Toussaint had placed on his bloodline.

  Doc Papa's astral form finally found its way carefully back inside his body and brought the Gateway with it. He came back to consciousness with a start. He sat bolt upright and vomited. He emptied the entire contents of his stomach over Vincenzo's still cooling corpse. That was something else that would have to be cleaned up in the morning.

  Still, he shouldn't focus on tiny details like that at such an auspicious moment. He got to his feet but couldn't stop himself from swaying. He felt drained and unsteady. He didn't want to admit it, but the battle with Brigitte had taken more out of him than he realised.

  The Gateway was also having an effect on him. He could feel an immense inward pull at the centre of himself that was contracting his whole being. So much power and so little time left to use it.

  Doc Papa reached inside himself and opened the Gateway.

  It felt like an infinite unfolding, taking place forever and in the space of one moment. The finite nature of his being was now host to an endlessly expanding opening that it shouldn't be able to accommodate but was.

  As the Gateway opened he started to feel its pull. A huge vortex was unleashed within him. It hollowed him out inside and drew every untethered human soul to him.

  He felt the first of them dragged to him, mewling and afraid. George Griffin the investment banker and the real estate tycoon Arthur Sonnenfeldt. More followed. He enveloped them as they entered him in a confused and vulnerable state. They were totally prone to his dominant consciousness. He had never had such power over other humans. It was beyond intoxicating.

  Every part of their essential being belonged to him. Within an instant he knew every guilty secret they harboured, every weakness they hid. Their whole being was annexed to his. Like a small pool of water that meets a larger one, they were engulfed by him.

  He was swollen by them as their thoughts, hopes and fears swam through him and became his to command. This was domination beyond the dreams of any despot. It was subjugation to which no police state could ever aspire. No implanted micro-chip, twenty-four hour CCTV coverage or illegal wire tap had ever stripped a citizen of this much privacy or individuality.

  And still more souls flooded into him. Everyone who'd ever entrusted their soul to his bank was drawn into him. He glutted himself on their greed and lusts, their needs and hunger, all of them his now, all of them part of him.

  He became the central nexus point for all the souls. They could have no desperate longing, no vengeful urge or boiling hatred that didn't run through him first.

  Every whim or desire he had was filtered down to the hundreds of souls under his dominion and would bring hundreds of responses as the other souls processed it. His tiniest impulse brought a wall of feedback that was almost too much to take in.

  He was surrounded by a symphony of being. He had hundreds of other consciousnesses to consider, hundreds of desperate clingy appetites grasping at his attention. There was no longer any separation between his own will and that of every other will he'd married to him.

  The barriers between himself and the others began to crumble. There were too many of them in too little space. It was too much to bear. He couldn't find himself any more. Stripped of their uniqueness and identity none of the souls could tell themselves apart and neither could Doc Papa.

  Who was who? Who was he? What was his anymore? Was this his thought or theirs? Was it his confusion or theirs? Who were they, weren't they him now? Where was he?

  Didn't he own them? Didn't he? All of them his. All of them on top of him. Needing. Wanting. Taking. Taking. Taking.

  Stop. Stop it. Stop them. Who them? Them or us? Isn't them us? I am them but who is I? They are here but where is me. What am I? I am Legion...

  ... and lost...

  stifled

  suffocated

  drowning.

  Wait, get a grip. A grip on this. How to stop this? What caused this? The Gateway. Yes, the Gateway! Got to close it. Got to remember how to close it. But how? So many memories to go through, so many memories that are now his. Which one holds what's needed?

  Can't think. Can't stop thinking. Too much thinking. Move. Get out. Fresh air, we all need fresh air. Take me out. Take me out to the ball game.

  Ball game, there's a ball game?

  No stupid, it's a song.

  Who are you calling stupid?

  I don't know, who are you?

  Don't you know?

  Doesn't who know?

  Who's in charge here?

  Who has hold of the reins?

  Reins, are there any?

  Where are we going?

  Out to the ballgame.

  This is a whole new ballgame.

  This is madness.

  This is

  This

  From the furthest reaches of the afterlife, the last remnants of the man who was Toussaint looked down on Doc Papa, the last of the Papamals, as he ran from that hateful house he'd rebuilt.

  Doc Papa screamed as he ran. He laughed and gibbered and cried. He tore his clothes and he pulled his hair. He scraped his skin and he bit his tongue till they both bled. But nothing he did would silence the clamour inside him. Nothing would get them all out.

  This was just as Toussaint had planned it. It was all playing out as he knew it would. The curse had come to fruition. Erzulie Zandor had granted Doc Papa's wish. As she had said, it would be a lesson to many. Toussaint could rest now.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Brigitte couldn't rest now, though she desperately longed to. Her body ached and her soul was weary. It had been a long route back from the astral plane to her body. Or at least it felt that way.

  She came to in complete darkness. She was sitting up against the jagged wall of a tunnel. In the distance she could hear the sound of shuffling fee
t and flesh being rent as bodies were torn apart and chewed by lifeless jaws.

  Oh God, she hoped that wasn't Benjamin and Tatyana. Brigitte tried to get to her feet. She banged her elbow on the wall and fell back down. The sound of shuffling got closer and she felt something bump against her leg. There was a scuffle and the sound of someone falling.

  "Ouch," said a voice. "I think I've found her." It was Tatyana. Legba be praised she was alive.

  "Are you alright?" said another voice, Benjamin's. "Let me give you a hand."

  "I could do with a hand as well," said Brigitte. She heard Tatyana gasp in surprise.

  "You're okay," said Tatyana. "Thank goodness."

  "I was thinking the same thing," said Miriam as they helped her to her feet. "What happened to the guards?"

  "The err... Zombies got them," said Benjamin. He sounded contrite.

  "Oh," said Brigitte unable to hide the disappointment in her voice.

  "You asked us to look after them for you," said Benjamin. "It was the only way we could stop the guards from capturing them and killing us."

  "I'm sure it was," said Brigitte, sighing with tiredness. "It's just that they've been used as violent monsters for so long I get upset when it happens again. I take it that's the guards they're feeding on?"

  "Yes," said Tatyana. "I'm sorry, we couldn't stop them."

  "No I don't suppose you could. But it makes them harder to control when they've tasted blood. Where are they?"

  "They're in the tunnel just down here," said Tatyana. "We'll lead you if you like. Our eyes have kind of got used to the dark now."

  "I thought we had a lamp."

  "Yeah, that got broke when I dropped it sorry. I was avoiding one of the Zombies.

  "It was trying to eat her," Benjamin said by way of explanation.

  "Do you mind us calling them Zombies?" said Tatyana. "I mean I know that's what they are, but they're your friends and relations aren't they? Should we call them by their names or something?"

  "That's okay. You can call them Zombies if you like. I don't like to think of them as monsters, but I don't want to think of them as the people they were. Not when they're in this state."

  Benjamin and Tatyana led Brigitte to the crossroads in the tunnel. She readied herself to take control of the Zombies one last time. She reached out with her mind and pieced together a group mind for them. Teasing out each tiny piece of consciousness they possessed and weaving it into a collective mind. One that she could communicate with and instruct.

  It was harder after they had just killed. There was little to them but savage instinct and it took a bit of effort to get them all to focus on her. Especially as they hadn't been fed in a while and there was plenty of fresh meat left on the guards. She was tired and hungry and hardly had the strength for the extra effort. She pushed herself all the same.

  Eventually they all came round. She felt light headed from expending so much energy. She swayed and nearly lost her footing. Benjamin caught her and stopped her from falling.

  "Are you okay?" he said. "Do you want to sit down and rest?"

  "There isn't time. It'll be sunrise in just under an hour and then the Festival of the Gédé will have passed. We can't afford to wait another year for this chance."

  As her islanders stood and chewed over the bones or other scraps they'd torn from the guards' bodies Benjamin pointed to several beams of light on the floor.

  "Hey look," he said. "They had those torch things on their helmets There's one for each of us."

  Brigitte led them out of the ossuary and along the tunnel that took them back to the surface. They came out of a cave entrance that her ancestors had carved to look like a skull. In times gone past they would light candles in the eyes and leave offerings to Baron Samedi and Le Gran Brigitte during the Festival of the Gédé.

  A short walk from the cave entrance was the crossroads. When they arrived Brigitte arranged the islanders around the crossroads in a circle. This took some doing. Some of them were still vicious and savage from the blood they'd tasted and needed coaxing. When she had them all in position she led Benjamin and Tatyana into the centre of the crossroads with her.

  "This crossroads sits at the very centre of St Ignatius," Brigitte said. "For that reason it is a very sacred site. This is where I'm going to open a portal to the Celestial Crossroads that lies between the three worlds of the Loa and the world of the humans. When you pass on, your soul comes to the Celestial Crossroads. A soul can also be sent to the Celestial Crossroads by a powerful Houngan or Mambo while its owner is still alive. When you arrive you can choose to follow the roads to eternal damnation or eternal salvation, to re-enter the cycle of birth and death in another life or even to return to the life you've just left."

  "Hold on a minute," said Tatyana. "Didn't you say that when you died your Gros Bon Ange argued your case before God and that's how He decided what was going to happen to your soul? But now you seem to be saying that we can just choose, how can that be?"

  "Sooner or later you'll meet God on the road you've chosen to follow. That is when your Gros Bon Ange will argue your case. Ultimately however it is God's decision whether your choice of road is the correct one and if it will lead you where you want to go."

  "Wow."

  "Indeed," said Brigitte. "Sometimes a Houngan can trap a soul at the Celestial Crossroads so they can't choose a road. When a person's soul is no longer part of their body and unable to move to the next life, then they're no longer alive but they can't properly die either."

  "They become a Zombie," said Benjamin, as the penny dropped. "That's what happened to your islanders. And it's also what's happening to the other guests."

  "Exactly," said Brigitte. "I need to open a portal to the Celestial Crossroads so that I can free my people from the spell they're under and give them the opportunity to make the choice they've been denied all this time."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "To be honest," said Brigitte. "I'm not entirely sure. I'm going to have to wing it. I was given a magical artefact that my ancestor used to free his people from the crossroads. But Doc Papa stole it from me when I was out of my body. It's very powerful and I'm afraid of what he'll do with it. We have to free my people before he tries to stop us."

  "What do you need us to do?" said Tatyana.

  "More than anything I need you to believe. The world only continues to be the way it is, and operate according to certain laws, because we believe it will. This goes for everything from gravity to money or the rules of high finance. Magic within Voodoo is the same. We only get the outcome we want because we believe the Loa will grant it. If you want to alter reality, your belief in this change has to be stronger than the belief of everyone who's keeping reality the way it currently is. You need to defy their belief in order to change the way things are. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "I think so," said Tatyana.

  "Opening this portal involves strong magic because it goes against most people's view of what reality is. If you have any scepticism or doubt about the outcome it could jeopardise the whole spell. I'm hoping that after everything you've seen this won't be the case but I need to know you believe in what I'm about to do?"

  "I want to believe in this more than anything in the world," said Tatyana. "In fact I need to."

  "I thought that might be the case," said Brigitte. She turned to Benjamin. "How about you, do you have faith?"

  "Yeah, you know what, I do have faith."

  "Good, because we need to invoke Papa Legba, the most powerful of all the Loa, to make this work, and he demands complete faith from his servants."

  "Who is Papa Legba?"

  "Papa Legba is the Master of the Crossroads and the Gatekeeper between the worlds. It is only through his permission that the other Loa are allowed to cross over into our world. That's why he's the first Loa to be invoked at the beginning of every ceremony. Only he can open the portal and lift the spell on my people."

  "Is there anything we need to d
o?"

  "Usually it would take a big ceremony with a sacrifice to summon him. We don't have the time or the tools for that though. So I'm going to improvise. Kick off your shoes then join me in the circle."

  Brigitte held out her hands to Tatyana and Benjamin. She reached out to the group mind of her people and sent an impulse out to all of them. They all lifted their left leg and brought it down. Then, concentrating hard, she got them to do the same with their right leg. Most of them did this in unison. She got them to repeat the actions, stamping first their left foot then their right until they had a workable rhythm going.

  "We don't have any drums," said Brigitte. "So we're going to use our feet instead. We're each going to take a ritual drum and stamp out the part ourselves. Tatyana, I want you to be the Ka-Tha-Bou drum. I'm going to stamp out your part then I want you to repeat it." Brigitte stamped it out for her and Tatyana tried to copy the rhythm. After two attempts she got it right.

  "Benjamin, you're going to be the Manman drum. This is your part." Benjamin got it first time and stamped in counterpoint to Tatyana's rhythm. "I'm going to be the Grondez drum."

  The whole ground shook to the slap and the stomp of living and undead feet. "As I can't draw a Vévé we're going to have to picture Papa Legba in our minds. You can visualise him as a crooked old man with a walking stick and a small pipe. Or you can think of him as St Peter carrying a holy book and a set of keys. This is the Catholic saint he's associated with. He is very charming but a great trickster, so be careful in his presence."

  Brigitte closed her eyes and pictured herself drawing Papa Legba's Vévé on the floor of her Ounfó. Then she summoned up every time she had ever encountered the Master of the Crossroad from her memory. She put together a composite picture from these memories and she overlaid it on the Vévé she had drawn in her mind.

  "Now I want you to sing this invocation with me." Brigitte sang them the invocation line by line and after a few attempts they were word perfect. They repeated the invocation over and over again, singing: