Ghost City

By Raymund Hensley

Trapped on an island of ghosts, a surviving zombie hunter writes about his early training days, his stint as an exorcist, and run-ins with a gangster Pope. A horror comedy novella.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raymund Hensley
• Release date: Sep 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465813428

Raymund Hensley

Raymund Hensley is the author of Filipino Vampire.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

CURRENTLY AT GHOST CITY

….And then I held my breath and shoved my fist into the woman's stomach and gripped intestine. When I gave it a good yank, all her mess came out in glittering shades of red this and red that. I shut my mouth and eyes...warm splatter all over my face. A terrible thought struck me: If a cannibal's blood got into my face-holes, will I wake up one day craving human flesh...like this girl...like all those people...like a cannibal? Eating human meat? The idea was sickening.

The white woman grabbed my neck and squeezed, so I pulled out more guts. My hands had a hard time yanking. Very difficult. Like holding on to greased rope. I think the cannibal woman was British. She kept yelling, I'll eat ya! Yes! You better kill me! Ahhh! She was yelling through the pain. Then her eyes rolled back white, and she fell on me and pinned me to the grass. Again with the warmth – this time all over my belly, some liquid running down into my pants and around my back.

When she fell, her forehead CONKED against mine and left a big bump. Her mouth was over my mouth, and I could smell her stink, dead-meat breath. Jesus, her tongue touched mine. I was surprised; I wasn't turned on. If I may be honest, I felt guilty.

I was lonely.

I needed company.

After that fight, I tried not killing. I tried making new friends.

One time, I was walking through downtown, and a little boy – I don't know, age 15 – jumped off a bus and tackled me to the ground. I pressed my feet on his belly and kicked out and sent him flying – crashing – through a store window. He ran back out and jabbed his finger at me. He was weeping. Glass was all up in his face.

Gimme back my knife! he begged.

I looked down and saw his blade's handle sticking out from my shoulder. I pulled it out and made a deal with him. I would give his knife back, but only if he agreed to sit down and chat with me about religion and movies and books and current events. But he had to be real about it – no fake interest in what I had to say. The boy cocked his head and looked at me weird. He said, You crazy or sumtin'? I took offense and threw the knife at him, thinking that he'd grab it and run off. But naw.

He just stood there like a cat in headlights, and the knife hit his forehead.

He went down, wiggling like a fish...froze with his hands clawed in the air...and, well...just stayed that way. I assumed he was dead.

I was horrified...saddened. To make myself feel better, I dragged him to Kaka'ako Park and dug a shallow grave on one of those green hills overlooking the ocean and dead ships. That park – all the tourists used to go there to take their wedding pictures. I looked at my aching hands, then said a little prayer.

Oh yay, oh yay, I went. "Please God, accept this poor, murdered soul into your flock and/or herd. Let this young, dead boy ride on the back of your holy lion. Father...please forgive me for killing one of your own. Damn. I'm sorry. He tried to eat me out! I am ashamed...so shamed. Please forgive and forget. Master, please! Stop damning me! I don't wanna go to Hell – that hot, hot place!"

And then I cried a little.

Or maybe it was raining.

Ah! That old guilt again. Always with the guilt. NO MORE KILLING. These people were innocent! People were going crazy and turning into cannibals, but it wasn't their fault. They were just hungry. Food. People do strange things when they're hungry – desperate things. I was lucky. Before the ghost portal came, I always had tons of Spam to fill me up. I was all set from day one. Canned food at its finest.

After I said my words of peace – after I blessed that boy and kicked away the roaches that were already all over his grave – I made promises, goals: 1) No more killing people, and 2) Try to make friends. Just keep trying until someone gives in...until someone a little more sane than the rest can hold a reasonable conversation. Heck, I'd even talk about politics.

And then I go and yank out that woman's insides and kill her.

And now here we are.

Me dragging her to Kaka'ako...burying another one of my fellow humans...another sad soul. Another sad, sad soul that was just mad with hunger; that's all. Otherwise, good people, I was sure of it. Loneliness. Guilt. I could feel God looking down on me, ashamed; and I could feel Mr. Satan looking up, approving.

Your room is ready, Dr. Boss, Satan was saying. Anytime you're ready. Anytime you're ready.

A stronger part of me demanded I shut up with all the guilt-talk.

You're a survivor, it said. You're just doing what you have to do to make it in Hawaii – to live, dammit, so cut out all this BS about guilt. You HAVE to kill. You HAVE to protect yourself. These aren't people anymore. These are damn cannibals! Get it through your head. Not people. Cannibals.

But I'm lonely. I need companionship. I need a woman. Please, God, I want a lover.

You'll get over it. In time...you'll get used to being alone. Besides, you wanna be friends with someone who eats people?

No.

Who gobbles up cats? Dogs?

No.

Who eats DEAD BODIES? Are you weird???

Of course not. I don't wanna kiss a girl that just ate a dead body. It disgusts me.

Well, then...stop talking to yourself and head on home. A mighty Spam feast awaits ye.

I had to leave my condo. Those cannibals were everywhere. They were breaking into places and messing things up. My condo was no exception. When I got home, the place was trashed. It was like someone irresponsible threw a drunkard's party. The stink of urine hung in the air, chairs stuck out from walls, spit filled the kitchen sink, and a half-eaten arm was in the toilet. It reached up with a clawed hand. I flushed, but that didn't get rid of it. Those irritating cannibals....they took all my clothes, but they didn't find my precious canned foods.

I stuffed them all in a backpack and went out for my new place, and I knew exactly where to go.

Back in the world, before the island went haywire with ghosts, I was paid to get rid of some zombies in Kalihi. The guy said I could stay over his place until I finished my job, and there would be a lot of zombies to kill, because he lived behind a cemetery. I said, For all this money you're giving me, I'll hold you down and give you the ol' up-down. He said that wasn't necessary. I was just joking, of course.

I lived on the bottom floor of a two-story house owned by two 60-year-old Hawaiian-Filipino brothers. The house got into trouble even before I could get to work. If memory serves me right, one brother got drunk, died of a heart attack, turned into a zombie, and tried to eat the other. Much screaming. I remember being in bed, trying to read, looking up at the ceiling and thinking, What the F is all that damn noise?

To escape being bitten, the still-human brother jumped off the roof and broke his neck. I saw tears in his eyes. I like to think it was due to a broken heart. After he, too, turned 'sour', I killed them zombie brothers with a sharpened shovel. Seeing as how I had to get paid, I searched them. Not finding anything, I went upstairs and looked around. The place was strange. The walls were covered in newspaper, and animal hair was all over the floor, and I kept hearing a soft whining sound, like a dog was behind a wall or somethin'.

In any case, I found my money in an empty honey jar and got the heck out of there before the fuzz came and threw me in jail. Sure enough, as I walked down the sidewalk, cops sped by. I kept my head down. Works every time....

The house still looked the same, except for the plastic covering the windows and all those boards nailed over the front door. Took me an hour to get them off. I could've smashed through a window, sure, but I wasn't in the mood to hear shattering. I placed each board in a nice pile and opened the door. I expected no one to be home, and I was wrong.

Two dead, old women were on the couch. The looked somewhat ethnic, and they smelled