Deathday Party

Chapter 4

The corpse reached out a finger and flicked a drop of tears off Vanessa's cheeks.

That was horrible." Vanessa said, referring to the story.

The corpse stuck out a maggot tongue and licked the drop of tears off his finger. A worm stuck to the finger.

"This should have been on the menu. "The corpse muttered.

"What?" Vanessa asked.

"Never mind. Drinks?"

Vanessa nodded.

"Bile juice, saliva salve or blood brandy?" The corpse asked.

Vanessa shivered.

"Are all those drinks?" She asked, horrified. The corpse grinned.

"It's a deathday, isn't it?" It said. "It has to look like it."

"Creepy." Vanessa muttered.

"Must be." The corpse said.

"I really cannot make a choice." Vanessa said.

"I will choose for you then." The corpse said. "Bile juice has nasty colour, like s**t . The same goes for saliva salve. So, blood brandy?"

Vanessa shrugged. The corpse went to get the drinks. Vanessa looked around to see if she could recognize anyone she knew. She recognised no one. It did not seem like Mike invited anyone she knew. But she supposed if he wanted the world to think him dead, there was really no sense in inviting those that would recognise him. The people in the party must all be from the mysterious island.

Then she saw a couple near the disc jockey and her heart missed a beat. It did not stop missing beats either. Vanessa cleaned her eyes to make sure of what she was seeing. The female one looked like Miss Melinda, who had committed suicide two years and some months back.

She was a famous jeweller. When a friend brought papers proving that the gems and gold she used for her jewelries were fake, her customers immediately accused her of cheating them and demanded their money back. No one would believe it when she said that she too was swindled. That her gem dealer had assured her that the gems were all real. She committed suicide when she could not meet up with her debts. A month later, the papers proving her products were fake were discovered to have been faked.

Ironically, Mike had committed suicide when Vanessa demanded for a Miss Melinda necklace.

Vanessa stared at the female one of the couple. It did not look much different from the corpse that had gone to get her drinks. The body was bloated. The brown colour of the skin has washed away so much that she was almost colorless. She was almost bald. Only a few strands of hair falling to her shoulders stopped her from being completely bald. Yellow pus were smeared on the lips in the anger if a lipstick and worms formed a thick eyebrow. It looked heinously ugly.

But Vanessa's heart was not missing beats because of the looks. She could not see it anyway. She saw a completely normal person, beautiful even. Her hearts was missing beats because no normal person would survive three hundred feet fall into a water body.

She walked up behind the corpse and tapped it on the shoulder. It looked at her impatiently.

"Are you not...I mean..." Vanessa swallowed nervously. "You do look like Miss Melinda. "She finally said.

"I'm not." The corpse snapped and went back to her dancing.

Vanessa stood undecided. Just then, her corpse tapped her on the shoulder.

"Your drinks." Mike's corpse told her. Vanessa turned and had to suppress a shudder. The blood red liquid in the cup held out to her looked too much like blood for comfort. She collected the cup and swirled the liquid. It frothed. Vanessa was not sure if blood froths. She raised it to her lips and sipped cautiously. It had a distinct iron taste, like blood but also ahd a sweet undertaste. She swirled it aeiund in her mouth. The sweet undertaste became stronger. She swallowed. The corpse wss watching her closely.

"Thought it was blood?" It asked, smiling. Vanessa smiled guitily. Behind her, Miss Melinda whispered into her partner's ears.

"Truly blind and very gullible."

"Truly edible." The partner replied and guffawed. Vanessa looked behind her and blushed. She had not heard the words, but she did hear the laughter. She thought the laughter was at her 'ridiculous' suspicions. She closed her eyes and took

another mouthful of the blood red drink. Then she gulped it down in one go before she could lose her courage. The corpse smiled.

"Let me give you a tour of the house?" Th corpse asked. Vanessa nodded. The corpse started steering her to a side door at the hall. A waiter in black tight fitting dress passed them and the corpse grabbed two more cups of the blood red drink. He held out one to Vanessa. They were outside the door now. Vanessa faced the corpse.

"Look, Mike, I know you have a fatally cruel sense of twisted humour. But this I'd getting beyond twisted. This is getting crazy! It's all too real!" Vanessa gushed out in one breath.

"Yeah. Maybe it is crazy. Maybe the water affected my brains that day, don't you think?"

Vanessa felt tears spring to her eyes. Now did not seem like a good time to fling her sins in her face to her. She wished Mike would understand that she was sorry and feels horrible. She blinked back the tears, bu a drop slid down her cheeks. The corpse plucked it off with a finger and sucked the finger.

"That was harsh. I'm sorry." It told Vanessa.

"Never mind it." Vanessa replied. They continued walking.

"This hall is incredibly long." She commented for want of something to say. The silence between them was getting awkward.

"Yeah." The corpse said. "It runs diagonally across the house. A stair is at the other end."

In a few moments,they reached the stairs. Vanessa put her nose up in the air and sniffed. There was a stale stench of blood in the air.

"Let me guess." She said." The kitchen is up these steps?"

"The aroma is overwhelming, right?" The corpse asked smiling.

"Yeah. Your cooks must be very wonderful. I can't wait to eat whatever it is they are cooking."

"Stomach sausages?" The corpse asked with raised eyebrows.

Vanessa blanched. She has forgotten what was on the menu in her invitation card.

There were now in front of an opaque door. The aroma was stronger now. Vanessa pushed the doors open. The kitchen was full of bodies in black clothes. It looked like a normal kitchen, but activities within it were not at all normal. For instance, what looked like human intestines was frying on a silver pan and a corpse with a stench of insecticides shoved what looked like a liver into the oven. A girl with her feet off the ground and a rope around her neck glided into the room to place orders that the mere thought of would have sent a pregnant woman reaching.

Vanessa went out the door at the other end. Mike stayed back to ' chat with his staff'.

"She looks nice." The man with The insecticide stench said.

"She came along just in time too. We haven't had fresh meat since Miss Melinda brought that her friend here." Another one said. Mike grinned.

"We'll make a nice dish of her."

He next room Mike showed her was the master bedroom. There were three corpses in it preparing t*****e racks and thumbscrews. They grinned when they saw Vanessa.

"Make the matrimonial bed nice and comfy, alright?" Mike said, gesturing to the t*****e rack. Vanessa's eyebrowmshot up in alarm.

"Matrimonial bed?" She asked in a high pitched voice.

"Of course. Don't you think it's high time we got married?" Mike's corpse asked coolly.

"Maybe... But this suddenly? You never even told me! Or proposed even!" Vanessa's voice was still high pitched. The corpse's eyebrows shot up.