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 shit . 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 torture racks and thumbscrews. They grinned when they saw Vanessa.
"Make the matrimonial bed nice and comfy, alright?" Mike said, gesturing to the torture 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.
"Do I really need to propose? Besides, I wanted the marriage to be a surprise."
"Marriages should never be a surprise!" Vanessa screamed.
The corpse shrugged and walked out of the room. Vanessa hurried after him. When they were gone, a corpse pulled out the dagger stuck in its belly and waved it in the air.
"And what a marriage it is going to be!" It scream-whispered. The other two laughed evilly. Out in the corridor, Vanessa hurried to catch up with Mike's corpse.
"Look. I don't mean I don't want to marry you. But..."
A clock chimed the ninth hour of the night. Vanessa ran through the programme in her mind. It was time for cake cutting.
They entered the hall just in time to see the hanged waitress dangle up the stage. She was carrying a black tray. Three livers were piled on tray, one on top of the other. The waitress dropped it on a low table on top of the stage. Then she swiveled on the rope holding her to the ceiling and dangled out of the hall.
Vanessa stared at the weird shape of the 'cake', but she could not see it for what it was. She shrugged off the weird shape. As far as she was concerned, the weird party continues. She let the corpse steer her to the stage. She picked the knife at one side of the tray. The corpse clasped his hand over hers and held it poised over the cake. Pus dripped from the clasped hands onto the cake. Vanessa looked at the crowd below her. Nobody was dancing now. They were crowded around the small stage. Vanessa thought they looked very eager, as if waiting for something to happen.
A body at the front raised its palm and started closing the fingers one by one. When the palm has clenched into a fist, Vanessa tried to bring the knife down on the cake. Mike's corpse held her hand. The small crowd was chanting now.
"D-E-A-T-H..."
With a jolt, Vanessa realised they were going to spell deathday. She felt a sudden stab of panic. She jerked her fist. It barely moved. Mike's fist held hers in an iron grip.
"D-A-Y!"
Mike's corpse brought Vanessa's hands down on liver. The knife went through it like butter. Vanessa suddenly felt an overbearing pain in the upper right part of her abdomen. She winced painfully.
"Anything wrong?" Mike's corpse asked in a wickedly benign voice. Vanessa shook her head.
"It must be the drink." She muttered.
The corpse deftly cut out two pieces and handed one to Vanessa. Vanessa felt more pain as he cut.
"Go in. Eat it."
Vanessa stuffed it into her mouth. She chewed. She felt the pain again. Then she saw Miss Melinda smile at her.
I'm Miss Melinda. It mouthed. And I died over two years ago.
A sudden suspicion flashed through Vanessa's mind. She glanced around wildly. Everybody there was smiling at her now. Evil smiles. Then she saw somebody. It was a renowned terrorist that had bombed himself rather than be caught. There was no way anyone could have survived that, even if one could survive a three feet fall of a cliff. The suspicion grew.
It can't be. Vanessa thought wildly. It just can't.
"Did you know what the cake tastes like?" The corpse asked. Vanessa stared at the corpse. There was fear in her eyes.
"Remember the last thought you had about me on that bridge? Right after we had done kissing, remember?"
It came to Vanessa's mind, as if pulled by a string.
I will miss your mouth.
"Yeah." The corpse said. "But not any longer. You will keep eating forever. The taste of my lips, forever in your liver." It grinned.
Vanessa suddenly tasted it. The cake tasted like Mike's lips, a little bit too much. She swallowed involuntarily. Only that the cake did not go down her throat. It bobbed right back up. She could not soit it out either. Something has sealed her lips. She could only chew, and chew, and chew.
It can. The thought came to her mind, as if she had only just thought its predecessor. It can't be.
Suddenly, Vanessa could see everything for what they were. She could suddenly see the maggots crawling all over her. And the pus on her hands. Miss Melinda winked at her. Only this time, Vanessa saw the maggoty eyebrow and the pus-lipstick and the almost bald head and lifeless, unmoving eyes. Her eyes caught on a rope. She followed it with her eyes, down the.ceiling to around the neck of the waitress that served her cake. Automatically, her eyes travelled to the cake. This time, she saw why the cake had a weird shape. Three lovers, one in top of the other, made for a weird shape. And Vanessa suddenly knew why she had that pain in her belly.
She suddenly tasted the brandy for what it was, as if she was still drinking it. And she tasted the brownish water, as if still kissing the corpse. She retched. The liquid travelled up her throat, into her mouth, and remained there. She couldn't open her lips to spit it out. It could not travel back the way it came. It mixed with the taste of Mike's lips in her mouth.
She saw Miss Melinda smile at her, a wicked smile. And she heard the words again, as if still being spoken.
A new mask for our foyer.
A guffaw.
Truly blind and very gullible.
Truly edible.
Another guffaw.
She saw the skulls in her mind's eyes suddenly, spread through the foyer and the hall. And she could suddenly read the two plaques, through her mind's eyes. The one in the wall read:
LARGEST COLLECTION OF SKULLS FOR MILES AROUND.
The one above the door read: BEST DEATHDAY PARTY VENUE IN THE COUNTRY.
The clock above that stage chimed fifteen minutes after nine. And Vanessa suddenly knew. She was the ghost story.