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  I was shaking. I could barely hold onto the knives. I dropped them at least fifteen times, over and over again.

  Barbara was asleep.

  When I dropped the knife for the last time, Barbara’s eyes sprung open and she exclaimed, “He throws the knife that deflates the kidney stones in my heart!”

  Shocked, I threw both knives, shrieking.

  Realizing what I had done, I tried to run after the knives to catch them, but it was no good.

  One of the knives was in the side of her neck. The other knife? Vanished.

  Barbara opened her mouth.

  Nothing came out for a long time…when suddenly, she said:

  “The knife inside is hot. Why do I feel so cold?”

  As I walked toward her, I felt a sharp pain in my right foot. It was the knife. It was inside me. I pulled it out quickly and cried. Barbara shut her eyes tight and gave out a mighty roar and pulled the knife out from her neck. No blood came out.

  She went on her back and urinated on her wound somehow. I didn’t watch. She walked up to me and put her hands on my shoulders, explaining that it was a good way to disinfect the wound. I said that I didn’t believe her.

  She shrugged and urinated on my foot.

  Seven.

  When Barbara opened her tool kit – or backpack kit – a rat flew out and attacked me in the face. And then it ran away and disappeared somewhere in the apartment.

  I only shrieked after it had ran off.

  Barbara said that I was so brave, then dumped the backpack’s contents onto the floor while smiling at me.

  The old, sloppy remnants of a rather large wedding cake toppled out.

  The stench was bewildering.

  My nose imploded.

  Something was wrong with my eyes. I couldn’t stop my REM (rapid eye movements) and my tongue had collapsed.

  Barbara was doing no better.

  She gripped her throat and proceeded to gurgle, then looked at me and gurgled. There was such sadness behind those bloodshot eyes.

  There were roaches in the bits of cake. They were in heat and flew around the room in flapping blurs, banging into the walls and getting lost in our hair. A roach dove into my back and ran around under my shirt. I squealed like a crazy person and instantly collapsed.

  When I woke up, Barbara had attacked many roaches, mercilessly. She had hung some of the corpses on tiny gallows – all lined up in five rows. A roach crawled across her face. She reached into her pocket and showed me a miniature guillotine, then sat on the floor and cut the remaining roaches at the neck.

  I nodded whenever she looked over her shoulder and smiled at me in a wrong way.

  I approved.

  Eight.

  Barbara wanted to dress me. Whenever I slept over at her apartment, on the floor, I could always sense her standing over me, watching me, taking notes and jotting down those notes in a spiral notebook, noisily. Once, I got up to use the restroom and she tried to follow me inside while still taking down notes.

  When I asked her why she was trying to follow me into the bathroom, she came to the expert conclusion that I looked like a dignified hooker and that I had no right being so full of dignity. This did not insult me, for she was the zombie hunter and knew what was best.

  We went to Ala Moana Shopping Center and stopped at SEARS, against my many futile requests.

  I did not wish to see my fellow co-workers from the ISS department, or In-Store Support. All we did was put up pricing-signs on all the products. It was a lackluster job and I’d usually find myself falling asleep in the many restroom locations – even the women’s. My coworkers hated me because I acted like how they wanted to act.

  I was too small to fit in anything in Men’s or Teen’s. Every pair of pants I wore dragged at least two feet behind me and it always seemed like my legs were melting away.

  She took me to the 3rd floor, where the baby and children clothes were.Barbara asked the CSM, or Customer Service Manager, where we could find pants that would fit me. I ducked behind a rack of Canyon River Blues cargo pants. Barbara yanked me from my hiding place. I waved to the CSM, a pretty, young Japanese girl, who pointed us in the right direction.

  Barbara handed me a pair of tight black jeans.

  Each time I tried something on, Barbara would want me to parade myself in front of her while she took photographs. I felt wrong inside and even told her so.

  “You’re a liar,” she said. “You’re a liar vampire.”

  I went into the dressing room and looked at myself in the mirror. I was surprised that the clothes did indeed fit me – pleasantly surprised, in fact. Barbara had, once again, proved herself a genius in yet another area.

  She was the Mozart of Clothing.

  I noticed a drawing on her arm – of a woman holding her own severed head. She said that it was a simple tattoo that all zombie hunters had.

  We then went to Sephora and GAP Kids and Longs Drugs. I dreaded walking past the black wall – that displayed plant life and a mini waterfall – in-between SEARS and Longs Drugs.

  Gotho’s and Depresso’s always hung around there, judging you with their eyes. I invented a name for them.

  Wallers.

  As we walked past, my ex girlfriend’s ex boyfriend stopped me and spat in my face. Barbara grabbed him by the lapels of his black shirt and threw him straight up into the sky. He screeched and clawed at the air like a cat and even landed on his feet like a cat. The boy apologized, bowed, and ran off crying into his hands.

  The other Gotho’s and Depresso’s cheered.

  As Barbara and I waved at them, I suggested that we vamoose before mall security arrived.

  She agreed.

  Nine.

  She said that it was now time to see if I could handle being her sidekick. After the typical interview process, which involved a plethora of personal questions, she asked me to stand up. Due to the intense fear accompanied with encountering a zombie, she wanted to test if I could handle the stress of an attack.

  She asked me to turn around. She didn’t want me looking at her.

  After about thirty minutes of just standing and staring at an Edward Scissorhands calendar on a wall, she asked me to hold out my arms and to fall back, on her cue. I assumed that this was a kind of trust exercise and, on her word, fell back.

  I hit the floor, hard.

  Tears swelled up in my eyes. She was on the couch, reading a Victoria’s Secret catalogue and doing yoga. Without apologizing, she said that I was a fool, and explained that I should be laughing instead of crying – that I was to embrace the pain. I tried to laugh as I cried, but I sounded retarded and threw my hands over my mouth.

  If the time came, I may have to take her life if ever she were turned into a member of the living dead. She needed me to be strong and cooperative.

  In a surprising move, she got down on the floor and cradled me in her arms as I wept.

  Barbara said that she had fallen in love with me and trusted me with her life – that she would eat whatever I cooked.

  When it was her turn to fall back into my arms, I let her fall.

  She looked up, crying, and said that I was a genius. She would have no problem killing me if ever I were a zombie.

  Barbara sounded a tad angry.

  I was a man that day.

  Ten.

  We loaded Barbara’s SUV with various supplies: 2 boxes of wooden stakes, 5 boxes of metal stakes, 1 gold-painted box of gold-painted stakes, cans of spaghetti, baby food, SPAM, extra clothing, an inflatable tent, chains, rope, 100 rolls of thick fishing line, hooks of assorted sizes, swords, a chainsaw, a shotgun, unsharpened poles, sharpened poles, paint, Halloween makeup, a cape, and candy.

  Once on the road, I asked her where we were going. She didn’t answer for a long time. Thinking of this as another one of her “tests,” I did not press the question.

  Later, when we drove past the police station on Beretania and drove up toward Tantalus, I asked again. She apologized and said that she didn’t under
stand me the first time because I mumble and that I should learn how to enunciate better.

  I agreed. Mumbling had always been a problem of mine – to this very day.

  We steered into the Hawaii Nature Center, a popular resort for hikers and tourists. Many waved as we drove past. Barbara encouraged me to wave back so as to not arouse suspicion. I asked why she wasn’t waving back, and she complained that her hands were feverish. Later, she said that she was lying to me and that she was just shy.

  I had been here many times to direct and act in various TV shows: Twist, I Buried the Devil, and Sword Fighter: The Movie. I had missed the place.

  The gate said that the center closed at 6pm. It was already 5:30. Barbara parked the SUV in a ditch, and we laced our hiking boots and put on our backpacks. She taped a sign on the windshield that read, This vehicle is property of the gas company. Please DO NOT tow or tamper with this vehicle in any way or else you will be caught by the local Hawaiian mountain police and be imprisoned forever. Love – The Gas Company.

  I expressed my concern toward the letter’s effectiveness. Barbara said she couldn’t understand what I was saying and that I should enunciate clearly.

  The center had closed. We couldn’t enter any of the main hiking trails, so to avoid being seen by the center’s staff, we hiked through the nearby woods, planning to make our way around the center and its offices and thereby accessing the trails.

  This took longer than expected.

  To help us on our trek, Barbara picked up two long sticks from off the mud and called them magic sticks, since they had magic in them because it was nature’s way. I held my magical hiking stick in my hands, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel some kind of force go through me. Barbara smiled.

  “Do you feel it? Do you feel it?”

  I nodded.

  “Yessm. An internal earthquake has just awoken my aura!”

  I kissed my magic stick, with tongue, and felt wide-awake – like I could hike forever.

  Seconds later I began to feel sick. I was getting tired, falling asleep as I walked. My legs were possessed with cramps, my hands were bumpy, my back felt like my front, and I had head sweat.

  I asked if we could stop for a few minutes so I could use the bathroom. She agreed and proceeded to follow me behind a tree. I inquired what she was doing. Barbara asked if she could watch me defecate. I said no and that what she had just said greatly disturbed me. Barbara brushed my cheek with the back of her hand and whispered that we had to get over all fears if we were to be successful on this hunt. I understood completely and agreed that she could watch.

  As I squatted under a looming tree, I asked her to continuously shake a tree branch to help relax my bowels. What she had said was brilliant – the bit about getting over our fears. When I was done wiping myself clean with dry leaves, I asked Barbara if I could then watch her use the bathroom.

  She slapped me in the face with both hands and called me a sick pervert. She commanded that I give her ten dollars for her embarrassment. I apologized for my ignorance and gave her a twenty. She walked off with it. I didn’t expect change.

  After we had inflated the tent, we crawled under our blankets and said nothing to each other for almost an hour. When she said she had to leave to use the restroom, I hoped that she’d ask me to watch her so I could get over my fear of watching someone urinate.

  She never asked.

  Eleven.

  Roughly 2,000 people go missing in the United States every day.

  We had to keep moving to reach the hiking trails before sun-up – before the center opened – so no one would see us creeping around in the woods. It wasn’t long before Barbara yelled out in joy and pointed down to a brown lump on a patch of wet grass. I pointed my flashlight at it and stared.

  “Fecal matter?”

  “Yessm! This be not the dog’s or the buffalo’s – or the child’s! Are you listening to me?! This matter that is fecal belongs to the dead. Are you even listening to me?”

  “Yessm.”

  “Hrmm. You are listening to me.”

  She put it in a plastic bag and ordered that I sniff its stuffing. I was appalled, to say the least. She clarified that the hunter must not sniff for danger of injuring their nostrils – that when she was a sidekick she had to go through the exact same thing. It was a learning experience. She promised.

  Hugging myself, I shoved my face into the bag and breathed in the stench. I told her that it was still very much fresh. I was slightly disturbed by the fact that I didn’t throw up my stomach’s contents. Barbara smiled, then sealed the bag and labeled it “Smiles”.

  The sun rose at 7am.

  When we reached one of the hiking trails many early-bird hikers walked past us, smiling, which we returned in kind. I was so nervous that they’d report us.

  I was walking ahead of Barbara when she pulled on my hair and said, “Shhhhh!”

  She pointed up a hill, where the rising sun gave silhouette to a line of pine trees and a lumbering figure.

  Twelve.

  Barbara kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “This be zombie, O’child.” And then she kissed me on the hand and said, “What thou shall see, thou shall learn.” And then she kissed me on the belly and said, “Power.” I wondered if she was going to kiss me on the mouth next, but she didn’t.

  She proceeded to creep up the hill, reaching into her bag and pulling out a blanket. I did NOT follow. I stood my ground, shaking, urinating a little, later pacing back and forth while biting my nails and scratching my belly. Something told me NOT to go, NOT to go up with her. I didn’t want to die. But what if she were in need of help? This is what I’m here for, isn’t it? To help?

  The hunched silhouette staggered…and paused, sniffing the air.

  Had it sensed Barbara drawing near?

  My face cringing, I pulled out a wooden stake and followed Barbara, who was already tiptoeing behind the stranger. I began to worry. What if this was just some poor, lost fool? Murder was frowned upon in this country. I didn’t have the proper orifices to be in prison.

  She threw the blanket over the person.

  He YELLED out something to the effect of “Drawersss-blahhhrgezg230f!” and tried desperately to get the blanket off. He speed walked into trees and yet did not fall.

  Barbara whipped out a stake.

  Before I could yell out in protest – Barbara jumped on this person’s back.

  He was inarticulate in his screaming and his sentences were madly fractured. He danced about in a circle with angry hops, swaying Barbara here and there and everywhere – her legs swinging past me with a thick WOOSH each time.

  The man pulled the blanket off, and for the first time I got a good look at him.

  This “man” looked funny.

  His face was missing – nothing but a giant mass of hair. The man slipped and fell. His torso turned completely around. His back was now literally his front. Barbara was trying to drive the stake into his brain, but he wouldn’t stop shaking his head and spitting in her face. Barbara yelled out in frustration and punched the man in the chest a few times.

  He pulled on her hair and she yanked out his arm. An amazing stream of gore flew out and would’ve soaked her face hadn’t she ducked as quickly as she did. I was startled by the man’s reaction – he did not scream out from pain. He proceeded to tug on Barbara’s hair with the other arm, which she also pulled off at the shoulder. Now both his arms were shooting red in a loud SHHHHHHHHH – fountains that never wanted to stop. I was paralyzed with weirdness.

  My eyes were larger than usual – staring – my hands were clamps and my thighs were having seizures.

  Then I did the unthinkable. As if possessed by some kind of heroic, idiot-ghost, I screeched a battle cry, “Aiiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaa!” and ran toward them with my stake held high in both hands.

  They both looked up at me in horror as I jumped into the air and landed on the zombie’s chest – my stake in its right eye.

  As I pulled it out,
Barbara slapped her hands over my facial holes to protect them from the strong, warm splatter of gore.

  I stood up for some reason and said something like, “He has disturbed my intestines! Let us not forget to form a team, female-woman, and put threatening bruises onto these zombies with the vicious action in our karate feet.”

  And then I fainted.

  Somewhere, a baby cried.

  Thirteen.

  I awoke to Barbara’s shining face. I asked her a very important question, “Am I losing the wisdom of my thoughts?” She patted my head and fed me a cracker and said, “Thoughts accompanied by sounds are fetal compositions. Give birth.”

  “That's true.”

  I smiled and hugged her.

  She picked me up and carried me on her shoulder and then stood me in front of the zombie, which was bound to a tree by ropes. Apparently, I hadn’t killed it to death.

  Barbara wanted me to examine the beast – to analyze its movements and scrutinize its rabid odors.

  The thing was slow.

  I told Barbara that I was angry at the zombie for almost getting her killed and asked if I could yell at it. Barbara said, “Zombies are like babies. You have to spank them with your mouth.”

  I nodded and yelled at the beast with, “You’re a louse!”

  That helped calm me down a tad.

  The zombie’s extreme facial hair made me want to be sick. Did it have no eyes? No nose? No eating hole? Hrmm…but it must!

  I asked Barbara if I could cut its hairs, but she said no, for I would not be satisfied by what I might find. Of course this only fired my intrigue further.

  That night, as Barbara snored in her tent, I crept out with a pair of tiny barber scissors and sneaked toward the zombie. The moon reflected against the silver scissors. The creature saw me (I think), but didn’t seem to mind.