Romance: Welcome to Zombie Island: A Tale of Zombie Romance and Survival (Post-Apocalyptic, Zombie, Spirit, Survival) Read Free

hopped on. After three kicks the little engine finally kicked over. The Vespa was probably older than her twenty-five years, but bikes like it were precious commodities on Tortura. She pulled away just in time to see Eric walking to the exit gate.
    "So Eric, you're trying to head me off at the pass," She mumbled to herself.
    Thinking quickly she turned the Vespa and shot down a small construction path entrance, waving to the manager as she left the grounds. She'd made her escape.
    She bounced down the unpaved path, eventually coming to what passed for the main road. The sun had set and there were no streetlights, rendering the coast road pitch black. Cass had learned to be on the lookout out for the usual obstructions like donkey carts and stray cattle.
    She was rounding a corner when a pair of headlights suddenly blinded her. She cut to the right, barely avoiding an oncoming local bus. It was one of the rainbow painted antique vehicles that the island was famous for. It was strange to see because the local buses almost always stopped running at sunset. It was just too dangerous with the roads as narrow as they were.
    Her mind quickly went to the fact that in twenty minutes she would be in Talin's arms. He was the island's most revered Voodoo priest, a "Mambo" in the local parlance. Years ago Cass had written off religion as fairy tales for the gullible. While serving in Afghanistan she'd seen too much horror to believe any benevolent spirit watched over mankind. If there was a god, he was kind of an asshole she’d figured. Talin had changed all that, reawakening her spiritual beliefs and opening her heart to love. His soft words, affection and devotion pulling her back from the brink. Seeing her potential Talin had taken her under his wing, teaching her unbelievable things. When locals discovered she was Talon's protégé their respect for her had grown enormously. Somehow, despite all her running, she had discovered life and love on this tiny island, of all places.
     

CHAPTER THREE
    Colonel Hector Marcos knelt in prayer. He enjoyed the solitude of his private chapel, filled with candles, human skulls and a squawking chicken as it was. The centerpieces were a small collection of lovingly carved statues of skull faced, top hatted deities. As a devout practitioner of Voodoo, the colonel had selected "The Barons" as his personal spirits. Baron Samedi - Lord of the Dead and Baron Krimenel - brutal enforcer of the spirit world. He would need their malevolent power for his plan to succeed. With practiced skill he decapitated the chicken in their honor. He followed up with an offering of fine cigars and vintage rum. The spirits would surly smile on his sacrifice. But his true offering was yet to come. Tonight there would be bloodshed and death carried out in their honor. What more could a spirit want?
    He rose to his feet, shirtless, his skin stained with the blood of his sacrifice. He left the small room he'd converted to a private chapel. His servant would clean up the feathers and blood, but knew better than to touch the rum or cigars. Stealing from the spirits carried severe penalties in this world as well as in the next.
    It annoyed Marcos that he could only afford one servant. He surveyed the home granted to him by the Prime Minister of Tortura. It was an opulent Chateau once belonging to a French Plantation owner. But Marcos had always found it too dark, too confining and most of all, too French for his tastes. Hadn't the frogs ever heard of the term "open concept?" He was convinced that the Prime Minister intentionally kept Marcos living in these humble circumstances, shutting him out of the island's highly profitable narcotics traffic and smuggling rackets – businesses that were essential to a military officer's financial security. He could barely afford to pay his one servant on his relatively meager salary and what he earned shaking down the local shop-owners and bordellos.
    For ten years he'd stood by the Prime