The Story Behind the Story: Razzed

The source of inspiration for my story Razzed, which initially appeared in Tabloid Purposes IV anthology, was the old black and white movie White Zombie. I watched it because the movie title was the inspiration to Rob Zombie’s first band. The movie was made in 1932 and features Bela Lugosi as an evil voodoo master who transforms a woman into a zombie. The voodoo master has the zombies working for him on his plantation. This is a very different depiction to how zombies are viewed these days. In today’s day and age, zombies are mindless creatures who live in a post-apocalypse of their creation because they have destroyed humanity and only exist to eat brains.

This movie got me thinking what if people could create zombies to do their bidding. This would certainly be a source of cheap labor. And what industry relies on cheap labor the most? The clothing industry. So, in my story, my lead character is Sebastian, the CEO of hip, trendy clothing company named Razzed, who is getting flack for using sweat shop labor from third world countries. He comes across an African shaman who can create zombies using voudon magic. Sebastian uses these zombies as workers in his factories. However, as part of the deal, the shaman requires that Sebastian do things to improve conditions in his native Tanzania. When things don’t go the way the shaman would like, Sebastian will learn just how hungry his workers can be. You can read this story at http://www.carlalves.com/blog-post/ra...