Ghost City

by Raymund Hensley

  It didn't listen.

  I assumed it was heading its merry way toward the ghost portal. They always did. That's what I always saw on the news. Weeping and sniffling in that crazy, embarrassing way, I walked over to Lacey's body and embraced it. I didn't care that her neck-blood spurted all over my face. I held her close. She could have been the one. The ONE. And this ghost portal had to go and screw it all up. I felt like crawling up into a ball and sleeping all day.

  I was more depressed than usual.

  But there was no time for it.

  I picked myself up and thought about money – all that money waiting for me on that roof. I was gonna win that money, buy a ton of beer, go home, and get hammered drunk.

  Suddenly, I felt a lot better.

  I folded Lacey's body up and stuffed her down a laundry chute as gently as I could for safe keeping. I then ran screaming, positively, down some dark hallway.

  “Get ready, you damn ghosts! I'mma gettin' my monies and nothing's gonna get in my way! Yaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhhhh!”

  At some point, I was trapped in a room filled with what seemed like 20 ghosts, and that big, unnamed guy I mentioned earlier (the ghost hunter) locked me in that room. He laughed while he did it, saying how HE was gonna win that money and “throw” a dollar in my mouth, because he was such a “nice guy”. So there I am...all trapped in this room with all these ghosts. It was a mad fight. I was flinging ghosts here and there. They got in a few good hits, but I managed to hold my own. One of them ran their fist through my chest and almost – almost – pulled out my soul, but I punched that ghost IN the face and pulled out ghost-brain and threw it back in its face and kicked the ghost away. It crashed through a window, and that's when I got my little idear: Climb out the window!

  Which I did.

  And was able to climb one of those water drains...all the way up to the roof.

  To my stupid horror, I saw Mr. Unnamed dancing around with my briefcase of money. He talked to the host of the game show with the camera guy all up in his face. The host kept calling that ghost hunter “Winner”.

  “Anything you wanna say to your adoring fans, Winner?”

  “My mom, dad, all my fans. I want to thank Ghost City for this exciting opportunity. And, of course, I want to thank my lord and savior,” the winner smiled, but he didn't say who that was. “Kids, remember...stay off them drugs!”

  He was smiling so brightly. That bastard! I ran up and made to goose him, but those damn Samoan security guards put their mitts all over me and hauled my ass away. I dragged my heels, cursing into the night, and watched as that ghost hunter was showered with love. Those Samoans threw me into a taxi. I told the Korean driver to drop me off at some bar, where I got super drunk. I went to my condo that night and collapsed on the kitchen floor. In the nude.

  I didn't dream of anything.

  Usually I dream of nice things when I'm drunk.

  But not that night.

  Waking up was the worst part. I couldn't stop vomiting. I didn't even get up. I opened my eyes and mouth and bad stuff flew out in a powerful stream. I hit a rat once, but I didn't care. I tried not to think too hard...but her face just kept popping in, stalking me.

  Lacey....Lacey....

  After I lost the game show, I'd always find myself walking through the woods, hammered drunk, just crying, thinking, not caring how hard it rained. I was an epic failure. Failed zombie business. No money. Now I'd have to get a job, maybe as one of those guys that pushed carts around at supermarkets. Looked easy enough.

  For some reason, I got an urge to go to church, so I's did.

  I saw some people on a hill with their hands in the air. Ghost flew all around these dumb-asses. I started running toward them and yelled at them to run their dumb-asses away, but they didn't listen. They just stood there...and then the ghosts flew through them and towed their souls away. The people dropped dead, I walked away, and that was that. Almost seemed like they wanted to die. I couldn't blame them. Crazy times. Crazy, depressing times. After that, I just strolled back into the woods and walked around some more...thinking about other possible future jobs. Maybe I could go back to school and be an accountant. I shuddered at the thought. Math. Numbers. Gadzooks. It felt like a black hole was swallowing me up. Hopeless....Hopeless....But come on. Accounting. People were always hiring for that sort of thing. Nursing was another option....Sure, cleaning butts all day is gross, but I've seen worse, believe you-me.

  People were giving up.

  It was estimated that 81% of the island moved away to Vegas and Seattle. Those left behind were in a world of hurt: Random fires, buildings blowing up, trees falling down, stores raped, cars overturned, babies crying, the elderly molested, houses molested, businesses abandoned, streets defecated on, much screaming, much weeping...general chaos and misery.

  There was no need to weep for Oahu. Portals were popping up all over the world.

  The ghosts were winning.

  I survived by staying indoors – high up in my tower – feeding on beer and cans of Spam. It was a rare event that I ventured outside. I only did to get some air or if I heard someone screaming for help, which happened more than I liked. I'm saying, like everyday someone would shriek, and seeing as how I'm such a nice guy, I'd run out in my black getup and battle the ghost, or sometimes it would be some crazy biker-guy harassing some chick. Now, I'm not a very big guy, but my knife always made things fair. I try not to kill anyone human, but sometimes I have to run my blade in some guts. Like pushing a knife through a tire.

  Ah, time. It goes by quick when you're blasted off alcohol. Sometimes I'd go too far and wake up outside! Next to a burning car, in the dead of night, my head pounding. Not too smart. Never know who or what will get ya.

  Let's recap: Punching woman's gut and pulling out her intestines, game show tries to make money off the ghost portal, me losing said game show, me surviving in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii, and now here we are; back where we started....

  I woke up under a tree.

  I was at a beach.

  How'd I get here? Drunk walking. Another adventure. Works every time.

  The sun was in my eyes; sand was in my mouth; crawly things were in my ears. I stood up and cleaned myself up and just stood there for a long time, staring at the whooshing waves. I was in a trance. I felt...peaceful.

  And then I heard the screaming.

  I walked down the beach, expecting something really bad to happen. I saw smoke. Smelt cooked meat. I reached back and pulled out my knife. Heard more screaming. Maybe this time it would be a hot woman. A hot Russian woman that needed help – that would throw her arms around me when I saved her, kissed me all over my face. But it was no hot woman. It was a cannibal beach party, complete with beach balls and boys playing in the ocean with legless girls on their shoulders. Old people were in a cage – all very old people with their hands on the bars, looking depressed. Someone was cooking over a fire, a metal bar shoved through its body. A cannibal turned the meal with a crank. The fire crackled and sparks would sometimes fly out. The old people in the wooden cage saw me.

  “Help!” cried an old woman. “You, there! Young man! Give us a hand here!”

  Fools!

  I ducked behind a bush, but it was too late. The cannibals pointed in my general direction and screamed and ran towards me. The men still carried their legless women on their backs. The women threw spears at me. I ran, and I got a spear in my ass. I pulled it out and threw it back. I got one of them guys right through the belly. He gripped the spear and stopped running and looked very confused. I ran into the woods and climbed up a tree, listening as they went looking for me.

  “He killed, Johnny!” a girl said.

  “I'm gonna eat him out!” said a man.

  “He's here somewhere,” said another.

  I stayed up there until nighttime. Then something bad happened.

  I got hungry.

  I went home to eat, but everything was gone. No, thieves didn't rob the place. I had been getting hammer
ed drunk way too often. So much so, that the need to restock completely slipped my mind. I went out to the mall, sneaked into some food stores, but they were bone dry. I then broke into a few houses, but no, useless...all of them were cleaned out. One thing ran through my weak brain: Drink! I need a drink. But all that was gone, too. I had nothing. Nothing expect tap water. Could you live off just water? I went back home, locked the doors, and slept my hunger pains away. Was it true what they said?

  Three minutes without air.

  Three days without water.

  Three weeks without food.

  Something like a month went by.

  I was throwing up strange, acidic stuff that hurt my throat like something awful. A little later, and I was eating cockroaches...then rats...all cooked, of course. Then I wanted meat – really wanted meat – GOOD meat. No more rat meat. Something was just wrong with how it tasted. All this time, my head spun a little. I wasn't thinking clearly. My thoughts were distant...like they were being beamed in by some UFO.

  I took a shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed, grabbed my knife, and went out.

  I was on that cannibal beach again.

  It was night....They were all sleeping....The cages were all empty....There was a pile of skeletons....Their campfire was dead, but still smoking a little....I could smell something so good, my stomach growled....As those cannibals snored, I cut their throats – covering their mouths and whispering to them Shhh, shhh, shhh....I was real quiet about it....I was too weak for any sort of battle....I took a female home, a legless one so as to make dragging her easy....Was able to make it home safely....Sliced off some meat from her arm and cooked it....

  Then ate it.

  I swear, I didn't know what the heck I was doing....I was just so hungry....I was possessed by hunger....It was like I was watching myself from the outside....I was so hungry....I'm sorry....This isn't who I am....I don't know who I am anymore....It always feels like someone's watching me....It always feels like her head is under my bed, staring at me....

  What's gonna happen to me now?

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE MAKING OF A MONSTER HUNTER

  Time to go back.

  Wayyy back....

  To 1979.

  According to an old newspaper, my mum was admitted to the hospital that year, and she murdered 90% of everyone in there. Much screamings and bleedings and beheadings. Why was Mom acting that way? What had set her off? The police tried to reason with her, tried to bargain with her, telling her to “Think about the baby inside of you!” Mom responded by throwing a nurse's head out of a window and laughed as the ball of hair CRASHED through a police car's windshield. According to an eyewitness, the policeman inside tumbled out and accidentally shot himself in the stomach.

  The paper said that my mom acted like someone possessed by a demon.

  The police couldn't just stand around with their thumbs in their mouths, so they rushed in to get her. But she wasn't going without a fight. Hiding behind doors and jumping down from vents, she was able to slaughter 52 cops. Even after being shot at so many times, she still ran and climbed like someone “possessed”. At one point in the battle, she was armless, but as you might've guessed, she still managed to kill a few people. Took their lives by biting and yanking out their throats. Fingers, too, if you want the details.

  In the end, the guns won. One thing the paper mentioned was how they found hair in my mom's mouth. I never could figure that part out.

  Good thing I wasn't around during Mom's last stand.

  A male nurse named Todd Doktor, my mom's lover, saved me. Right before the cops decided to raid the place, my mom told Todd to cut her open and take me out, and that's what he did. Mom got some needle and thread and closed herself back up and ran away to fight the “bad guys”.

  Todd, he hid me under his jacket and got me out of there.

  Bless his little, dead heart.

  My real dad. My father. That guy's a mystery to me even to this day. But Todd, he did me well. Todd never spoke about him; didn't help that I never asked....Todd lived in the woods, in a stick mansion. It was something like three stories, made with mud, plant-rope, various sticks, and various rocks. It even had a working bathroom with a toilet made of alabaster stone. He said the “bad stuff” traveled through some wooden pipes and went down into a stream. And lights? We used torches. We lived in the mountains of Kalihi, close to “civilization”. He said that was a good thing. Made his second job as a bible salesman easier, and if there was anyplace to sell bibles, it was Kalihi: Home of God-fearing Filipinos imported yearly, fresh from the Philippines, Fresh Off the Boat, who we called FOBs. Because I had a warrant out for my arrest, I had to be home-schooled. My new “father”, Todd, taught me everything I had to know about life. He made me read the bible every day. But only one part. The last part. The Book of Revelation. You know, the scary story. I cried whenever I read it – scared me right out of my skin – kept me up at night. Father once told me, “Are you scared? Good. That's how God knows you're listening. That's how you keep yourself from going to Hell – how you know you're on the right path. Fear God, son. Fear for your life.”

  I nodded. I had to agree.

  He was my dad, daddy, daddy-O, daddums. Everything he said was law. If it wasn't for him, I'd be locked away in some orphanage. This was something I made myself remember each night I slept on my soft, stick bed. I owed that man my life. He gave me a name.

  Boss.

  After what he called God. After this universe we live in.

  I took his last name.

  Doktor.

  One night, I was cooking mongoose eggs on our stone stove when I heard him screaming. I ran outside and saw him struggling with a man...a mailman...a DEAD mailman. I knew he was the walking dead, because his stomach was dangling out of him, and he was stepping all over it. The stomach was steaming! And this “man” just stepped all over himself without caring. No normal person can do that; I don't care how crazy you are. Oh, and his legs were just bone. No pants. No meat. Just clean bone. Something bad must have happened to that mailman. Envelopes flew out from his bag. A letter that read “Congratulations! You might have won $1,000,000!” hit me in the face and gave me a paper cut right in the eye. I had to wear an eye patch ever since that day.

  I was seven.

  The mailman bit Dad. I ran up to them, and Dad kicked me away to protect me. Or, at least that's what I keep telling myself. Dad picked the guy up and held him over his head and threw him into a bush of thorns. We always had construction supplies around; Dad picked up a handsaw and got to work on the monster's skull; the top of its head flew off with a comedic POP sound. Blood came out and sparkled in the sun. It all happened in slow motion for some reason. I think I was in shock. Dad was screaming for me to run back inside our home. I couldn't move. I felt dumb. Totally stupid! Dad destroyed some brain, but not enough. That bastard zombie shoved its hand into my dad's mouth and pulled out a mess of black material. Dad's eyes rolled back white, and he fell down. The zombie jumped on Dad and tore at his shirt, tearing away chunks of his chest. The zombie looked at me with its mind spilling from the top of its head...head foaming...bubbling.

  Someone in the woods yelled.

  The zombie's eyes blew up with fear as a giant hunting knife cartwheeled out from the woods and struck the monster right in the mouth, pinning him to a tree. It thrashed around, trying to break free, hands wrapped around the blade, slicing its own fingers off. An old woman with white hair ran out from the woods, screaming for me to get out of her way. Fifty zombies were right behind her: Nurses, bus drivers, surfers, chefs, kids, old people, bankers with suitcases, and so forth. The old woman picked me up and ran off with me.

  Again, my life was saved.

  I watched as those beasts feasted on my dad.

  Next thing I know, I faint.

  When I wake up, I'm in a condo, and I'm surrounded by hippies. A whole gaggle of them. Some sat in a circle and smoked. Some did yoga. One of them played the guitar. They a
ll wore things like yellow pants and blue scarves and rainbow shirts, and there were flowers all over their bodies – behind ears, around their necks, off their rope-belts.

  I'd grow up with these people. The old woman that saved me was Nora Fukamoto, and these hippies were her followers. They were like me – she saved them just before they were eaten by zombies. Those hippies became my brothers and sisters, and yet, I was distant with them. I barely remember having any sort of conversation with even one of them. Nora was a zombie hunter for hire. I was lucky that day she found me. I was an accident.

  Nora would only be home one day out of the week. Each time she came home, she'd be covered in blood and mud. She'd always throw a few big bills into the kitchen sink to help pay for the condo's insane rent, and then she'd vanish into her bedroom. We all assumed she was sleeping. One night, when I was 14, I put my ear against her bedroom door...and I heard weeping. I knocked and walked in. Nora was kneeling on her bed, in the nude, with a dagger held against her breast. The dagger's handle was shaped like a mad dragon. I thought she was gonna rip my eyes out for what I saw, but no....She smiled and waved me inside. I closed the door behind me and sat next to her. She put her finger to her lips and went, “Shhhh....”

  The old woman was shaking.

  She put her arm around me....She said she saw something in me. Something special. Told me that when the time was right, she was going to teach me all about zombie hunting. I was fine with it. Everyone needed a career. She seemed surprised. Killing zombies (tall, walking corpses) didn't bother me. Maybe because I was desensitized by seeing my dad...I mean Todd...killed and eaten in such a nasty way.

  Nora. She loved her job.

  All she ever spoke about was zombie slaying. How they're all evil. How they all deserved to die. The hippies speculated that maybe something bad happened to her when she was younger, like all of us there. But no, something in me said something much, much worse happened to the old woman. One time, I opened the bathroom door to take a shit and saw Nora doing pullups on the shower curtain rod. A huge scar was on her back. I saw spine. White bone. Maybe that had something to do with her terrible past. I don't remember what happened after that whole bathroom thing. I think I cried and ran off like a fancy girl.