Get Zombie: 8-Book Set

by Raymund Hensley

  At the bus stop, I noticed something queer.

  That fresh, dead guy was gone.

  Maybe he turned into a zombie and up and left?

  Maybe.

  But, then again, maybe not.

  I hadn't seen a zombie in a looong time – not since that ghost portal arrived.

  Again...the Fear.

  I dropped my can of corn and spun around. Felt like eyes were on me, examining me.

  “Who's there!” I yelled.

  Wind. Hissing sun.

  I looked at the scene, squinting and looking some more.

  As I was walking back home, I saw another woman surrounded by ghosts. She was on the roof of a car, jumping up and down, reaching up to one of them ghosts. It was an older ghost – male. The woman kept saying, “Johnny! You've come back for me! Take me with you! I've missed you!” The old ghost – Johnny – laughed like a deranged monkey and flew through her chest, dragging out her soul, flying her up into the sky. I think I saw them bastards kissing – french kissing.

  Her body dropped dead.

  Just then...an old, red truck done pulled up, and a big man wearing one of them black dominatrix masks come walking out. It went over his head, and his hair stuck out at the back where the zipper ended. He looked like something out of a Mad Max movie. This guy waved to the truck, and a woman, also wearing the mask (a red one), come jumping out the back bed. They both walked over to the woman's body and picked her up by the wrists and ankles and tossed her into the back of the truck. I was hiding behind a bus stop the whole time. As they drove away, I saw that the back of the truck was filled with bodies...and that girl was having a little snack, munching on a severed hand.

  Cannibals, I thought. Sweet sassy molassy.

  A-zigging and a-zagging behind trees and buildings and derelict automobiles, I was able to follow the truck a little. These cannibals, they lived in an abandoned, local restaurant that specialized in Zimbabwe hamburgers, called Mouth Palace. I hid behind a car and watched as they pulled up to the front and dragged out bodies.

  Then they walked into their home/restaurant and locked the doors. They had painted the windows black. Why? I didn't know. Not like anyone was snooping around. Well, I guess 'cept for me.

  I walked to the door and brought my hands up against the window and tried to peek inside, and then I heard something.

  Screaming.

  But not just normal screaming.

  Bloody screaming.

  Sounds of murder.

  Something heavy banged up against the windows. Other people were in there, trying to get out – all yelling and fighting and begging and calling out for Jesus. I looked around and found a big ol' rock, so I's picked it up, but before I threw it, I looked up to the clouds.

  If I do this, will you take me? I thought, really trying to shoot my mental words into the sky. Will you guys save me? Huh?

  No answer (although the sun did appear from behind a cloud and blinded me a little).

  Good enough, I thought...and threw the rock at the door.

  The thing shattered. A naked old woman and a naked man ran out, both limping, both shielding their eyes from the loud sun. That cannibal man ran out after them, wielding the biggest butcher's knife I ever did done see. I reached behind me and took out one of my small knives and jumped on his back and slit his throat. His blood shot out in glittering streams and went SPLAT on the ground like thick rain – splat, splat, splat! He fell to his knees, holding his neck. He spun on his knees to see the jerk that did him in, and when he saw me, he reached out and curled his fingers...then fell on his face.

  His girlfriend screamed and ran out to get me. She was waving a samurai sword around in the air, and something told me she had no idea how to use it right. She took a sloppy swing down at me, and I stepped to the side real easy-like. The blade dug into the concrete, setting off a spark. She tried to yank the sword free, but it wouldn't give.

  I kicked her in the face, and she back flipped through the air, her mask flying off. She landed hard on her head, and she moved around in pain, gripping her stomach. She was young, probably just a teenager. The girl snarled at me, acting like some kind of crazed, uncivilized animal. I pulled out the sword and held it high above my head. A part of me didn't want to kill a living person; but another part of me said, Not human. She deserves to die. All monsters deserve to die. Cannibals. Not human. Do it. Kill her. The world will be a safer place. You'll sleep better at night.

  “Just a monster,” I said, and chopped her head off in three tries. The girl made a pathetic sound right before I did her in. It was something like a yelp.

  Jesus. She sounded human enough.

  I stepped back and looked up at the sky.

  No ghosts came.

  Not one.

  Back home, as a mad storm kicked at the windows, I had a terrible dream.

  I'm back there at that restaurant, in the freezing rain, at night, and I'm killing those two cannibals all over again. I take off the dead man's mask, and it's...Slovoth, still missing his eye. I walk over to the girl's severed head and, after a whole minute thinking about it first, I take off her mask, and what I see knocks the strength from my knees.

  It's Shells.

  I woke up screaming and crying.

  I put my clothes on and ran out and ran, ran, ran back to that restaurant, my heart pounding in my ears. I ran through that stinging rain that felt like needles on my face, through all that thunder and lightning.

  When I got to Mouth Palace, the bodies were still there. Dogs were eating parts of the male cannibal. I yelled at them, and those dogs ran off complaining with his fingers in their mouths. I leaned over his body, kicked over his heavy bulk, and worked at taking his mask off.

  It was Slovoth.

  Odd reaction: I fell on him and started attacking that dead man, elbowing his face, screaming at him, strangling him. After minutes of that BS, I stood up. I was lost for a second.

  Where am I? What am I doing here? Dear God, what's happening?

  It was time to check on the girl I beheaded.

  And I didn't wanna do it. I didn't want to know. My body walked there, but my brain was screaming, begging not to do it. The girl's body was still there. The rain picked up, and it was like she was in a river that threatened to carry her away. I could see her pruned fingers.

  But I didn't have to unmask her. I didn't have to check – to see who it really was.

  The head was gone....

  I searched around, looking under cars, looked all over that restaurant....What happened to it? The question nagged at me, bothered me like a pimple on my brain. What happened it it? Where is it? I've looked everywhere. This went on for days....I once found a gaggle of wild cats munching on a big-something, but it turned out to be just a duck. I saw that head everywhere I went. I saw that head covered in that evil-looking, red mask in cars, staring out at me. I saw it up in trees, behind store windows, even looking up at me from down them gutters.

  Each day, I was finding more and more cannibals. They'd be driving around in trucks, looking for bodies to eat – alive, dead, human, animal, didn't matter. One night, as I was looking for that head, I found myself at a park, and I saw a large group of cannibals dancing around a fire. They all wore those leather, black and red masks. They were cooking and eating people...people who also wore those masks.

  I ran home that night, confused.

  When I woke up the next morning, I went looking for the head again, in the city. I walked by a van, and it looked just like the one that gangster Pope rode around in. The thing moved – just a little, but enough for me to open the door and take a look inside. Nothing in there. Just my imagination.

  Someone ran around in a nearby store.

  At first, I thought I was just seeing things again, but then, on closer inspection, I saw that there really was someone in there: A woman that seemed to be searching for something. I ran to the window and tapped on the glass, praying that she was no cannibal.

  This is it!
<
br />   A real woman....Someone I can talk to. Someone I can love. She'll be all mine. We'll talk for hours. It's been so long. Thank you, God. Thank you for sending me this gift. I get it now. This was all a test! You wanted to see if I was worthy. Not everyone deserves a girlfriend. You must prove yourself. Thank you for this gift. She is beautiful. She won't judge me. She won't leave me....I'll never be alone again. Thank you. I knew this was all for something. I knew living through this hell was for something. She's beautiful....She's beautiful....I'll love her forever. With her, I am complete. I feel worthy....I can finally live. I am complete.

  She shot me a look and ran and jumped through – THROUGH – the store window. Came at me with her long nails aimed at my face. I gave her a big punch to her breasts, then we fought – wrestled around, bit each other, slapped each other around for a minute.

  I picked up a long thing of glass, and cut into her belly....

  The End

  Dedicated to the island that I love.

  Aloha Mannequins

  "Aloha Mannequins is a funny story of eerie,

  inner circles in Hawaii...Great story, great humor!"

  -Sterling Knight, www.macabremenace.com

  PART ONE

  “Eye Nodule”

  THE ORCA KILLS THE SHARK by torpedoing into its belly from underneath, causing the shark to blow up. When this Gothic fellow opens his mouth, there is a shark inside. He has four rows of sharp teeth. He rolls his eyes back white. We all lean over the table with hungry eyes. He SNAPS his mouth shut and scares us and leans back, laughing like Santa Claus.

  “Hohoho!”

  Someone I don’t know laughs with him to be his friend.

  “Heehaw!”

  The place is hot. Moist. Sticky. Dim. Everyone wears black for some reason, but not in a racist way…at least I hope not. I haven’t seen anyone yet with blond hair. Strange, dream-like music plays—not what I expected in a Goth club (I expected hard-core, industrial, German speed metal. Later, I find out that they DO play it. Just not on “these” nights). Something invisible and thick hangs in the air. Something is going to happen, but when? The suspense is a major thumbs down for me, although I assume these folks get off on it. The place is dirty – although it’s a strange, stylized dirtiness: controlled dirtiness. I try to remember the name of this bleak place: Galaxy or Neutrino or some other sci-fi-ish word.

  Everyone looks happy – everyone’s having a good time. I see these people all the time at the mall, loitering outside of Longs Drugs. Mall security is always waving a finger at them, chasing them here and there while holding their jiggling belts. Taki hands me a bottle of something: Looks like a vitamin bottle. It’s small. I unscrew the cap and drink a taste.

  Vodka. A vodka and vitamin C shot. It’s good, but one is definitely not enough. He opens his backpack and pulls out 3 more bottles and sets them on the table, almost as if they were trophies. He examines the empty bottle and I can barely make out his eyes behind his vampire-shades. He leans in:

  “Did you drink all of this?”

  “I thought that was what you wanted me to do.”

  He laughs and continues unpacking his goods while bobbing and swaying to the music.

  It’s so hot in here. My skin feels sticky. I sit alone on a couch (I hope nothing dead is under these cushions), in a corner that has been painted a thick black: The floor makes a sick, sticky sound when people walk past. That’s the key word for tonight, sticky. There’s a black-light, which means that passing white shoes glow. People in black trench coats and black tights walk about, aimlessly, showing off their threads to onlookers, doing that thing where they look over their shoulder at you and wink. Everyone has a bottle of water. You can’t bring water in a place like this…you must buy water at the front. But you can bring in all the alcohol you want. Huzzah!

  A shortie and some tall white boy sit next to me. I don’t know how, but I start chatting with this girl. It’s very unlike me, due to my crippling shyness, so I assume those vitamin shots are kicking in. She’s not beautiful, by my ignorant standards, but she looks nice, and she is very friendly. She starts talking about her folks in Russia and the music in the current, local Goth scene. She asks where I’m from and I lie to seem more interesting.

  “Russia. I’m from Russia,” I scream over the loud music.

  After awhile, the man with the shark teeth arrives again and seems to be passing me odd glances. He’s thin, tall, and has long, blue-streaked hair. Lucky for me, he finds a friend to speak to before throwing his attention at me. I mean, what the hell are we going to talk about? The fluid dynamics of sharks? I’m a 1st time visitor to this small, black place with the yellow painted nuclear power sign out front. I don’t know the language. Yet.

  I can feel the dizziness coming on hard, and I start getting the dread. I underestimated those deceitful shots. Someone walks by in the distance. I hope it’s not who I think it is.

  My memory rewinds: It was.

  Great.

  It was her, and I immediately feel depressed, and ugly, and insignificant.

  One Hour Earlier...

  EXT. DOLE MOVIE THEATER – NIGHT

  With friends. Just finished seeing Cowboy Bebop. Great film – in parts, anyway. See ex-girlfriend talking with movie promoter. Feelings of depression, uselessness, suicide, guilt, and major ugliness. Taki seems to notice, tries to make me feel better by complimenting my horrendous, shorty-short haircut.

  “You need to go out and find someone to fuck.”

  And I say out of pre-panic attack: “Yessm.”

  We pick up his two female friends – dressed in black dresses, of course (I feel out of place and uncool with my glasses and blue jeans) – in downtown at something like 11pm, and speed away into the night. I don’t speak to them. Or is it, they don’t speak to me.

  Stop near Hawaii Culture Center and park on some dark, side road. The night streets are busy. People jaywalk. I’m excited. This is crazy goodness. I can’t wait to enter another universe. Maybe even a place where people understand me and share my mental poop.

  Taki crosses the busy street towing two large, plastic Safeway bags of liquor as a trolley honks. The driver shakes a mean fist, tourists snapping bright pictures. The club’s entrance fee is a tad high for our wallets and there’s some discussion about my lack of cash. I’m too out of my mind to really be following any of this: Mind plagued by noisy images from the annoying past. It turns out that everything’s going to be okay somehow and we move ahead.

  Taki says with a smile – smiling to maybe soften the blow:

  “Hey look who it is...”

  I see who it is and my stomach punches me. I should’ve known. Taki and her have similar tastes in clubs. Why didn’t I connect the dots earlier! If he’s going to a club tonight, surely would she.

  I back up.

  “Er...”

  “Aw come on, man, don’t be like that.”

  “I’ll just wait for you guys back at the car.”

  “No, no, you’re going to come inside and hang loose. And then we’re going to find you some hot chick and get laid in spades.”

  “I didn’t realize it was that easy! But no.”

  All I hear as he yaps is her voice, saying over and over again, You’re a loser; call me when you grow up.

  I imagine the sweet taste of alcohol and say: “Fine. Good.” I’ll be fine so long as I stay low and hide in some dark corner, on a suspiciously soft couch.

  One Hour Later...

  This couch is getting soft; I think I’m sinking into it. I take hold of the glass vodka bottle with my wee, skinny hands and take a swig. I remember then why I hate vodka. The stuff went down with a fight – it wanted to come back up, the furnishings of my stomach too poor for its liking. To be nice, I offer some to a girl that walks by. I don’t say anything of course, I just hold up the bottle and smile. She smiles back through those black-painted lips and says, “No thank you, kind sir. Vodka gives me the toots.” I nod and she walks off, vanishing into
the dark.

  I’m determined to hold the alcohol down. I hate to waste anything. I might as well be vomiting Taki’s money: Then what kind of a friend would I be?

  I lean back.

  That couple is still here, chatting with Sharkman. A screwball kid with a sledgehammer walks up to the table, which is actually a giant, upturned wooden spool for industrial wire. He pounds his sledgehammer on the table, rattling empty beer bottles. It’s obvious to me that he does this for attention. His smile looks mean. No one cares, so he does it again, smiling brightly. Someone says Hello and the kid moves on.

  Taki calls me and we head outside.

  It’s noisy outside. Large groups of tall, white people lean against their cars, giving me the stiff one-eye as we walk past. The music inside the club tries desperately to free itself through the walls, sounding muffled. A lot of people have on contact lenses: Red ones, white ones, sometimes both. The glowing eyes are interesting. I feel so out of place. I keep my eyes down as we walk.

  What’s a tiny white boy with glasses doing in a place where everyone wants to be a vampire? Besides, I like mummies better.

  Taki walks me into an alleyway and we kneel between the front of a car and a length of dangling chain that’s blocking off a parking lot. A swinging sign on the chain reads DO NOT ENTER.

  Taki reaches into his waist-cut, Matrix-looking, pleather jacket and pulls out what looks to me like a large, glass kazoo filled with The Buddha, aka marijuana. I’m shocked. That’s a lot of green. The whole thing is filled. More of who I assume to be Taki’s friends pop up…so many eventually, that there’s enough of us to make a cute circle. Odd how no one even makes on effort to introduce themselves. There’s something unsettling about that – there’s something unsettling about Taki’s buddies in particular: As if they just don’t give a damn about anything, even if they got run over by a truck-load of Hawaiian pigs.