Get Zombie: 8-Book Set (57 page)

As we got into Tish's white van and made our way to her apartment
somewhere in Makaha, somewhere near the beach, I thought about Lynn.
She was working. I didn't tell her about the job I was heading to.
Didn't call her cell. Didn't want her to worry.

Tish lived on the 50
^th
floor of an apartment building
called The Queen Ka. A storm cloud was above the ocean. The waves
were violent. In the elevator, I wondered if I could come up with
something to say to Tish. She didn't say anything through the whole
ride over. She made me feel weird, like I was doing something wrong.
To help ease my nerves, I just kept thinking about being paid. I just
wanted to get this whole thing over with. As we walked to her
apartment – down that dirty, red carpet – I could hear
strange things all around me – odd sounds coming out from those
other apartments. We walked past an open door. In those two seconds,
I saw a skinny Chinese man in an bloody apron, cutting the head off a
chicken with a loud THWACK! The head bounced on the floor, still
alive and bouncing, those eyes rolling around like cartoon eyes,
mouth gasping, tongue shooting in and out. Then, out of another
apartment (this one a closed door), a baby was crying –
wailing! Like it was being murdered, like it was being shook to high
heaven. For a second, I thought THAT was Tish's apartment, but no, I
was wrong.

Tish stopped and looked in her purse for her keys.

“I wanna move out of this dopey place,” she said, already
crying. “My big day will come. See?” She showed me a
napkin. Someone scribbled a few lines on it. It looked like a smiling
snake. “See?” she said again. “I'm an artist!”
Only she said it like,
Ar-tee-sT!
She searched through her bag
again and found her keys. “When I'm rich and famous, I'm moving
out of here. I'm moving to Arizona. Land of the free. Land of heroes.
Land of ar-tee-sts!”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn't dare to say
anything offensive – OR encouraging.
Let's just get this
over with,
I thought over and over again.

Standing outside of her apartment door, watching as she fumbled and
dropped her keys, I could already hear her possessed son, Coons. He
must have sniffed me out. He began pounding on the door, saying the
most disgusting things.

“I can sniff your holes!” He sounded like he was begging.
“I can feel your mouth against mine....” His voice was
demonic, like a hyaena’s mating call gone terribly wrong, mixed
in with too much hard liquor and cigarettes and screaming and the
gargling of exotic baby oils.

He threatened his mother – promising to rip her tongue out and
replace it with his little prick. The image was startling. There was
no logic to it. Nonetheless, Tish began crying.

“I blame this place,” she said. “This is no place
to have your son suck the milk from your breast.”

I understood completely.

Coons kicked at the door and continued his F-bombs and sexy talk.
People were opening their doors and looking at us. I was embarrassed.
Did these people think I was
saying
those terrible things???

“Nothing to see here, folks,” I assured them. “Please,
go back to your homes and fine dining. Everything is under control.”

The Chinese man holding the chicken head nodded and went back into
his home. I could hear him chopping off more chicken heads. A baby in
the nude ran through my legs and kept going. The damn thing was
laughing. A cat was chasing after it – a cat with a saddle on
its back. This place was, indeed, disturbing and dirty. Coons pissed
on the door. I know this because a stink, yellow liquid pooled around
my sneakers. The urine was
steaming
. I put my hands to my
mouth and coughed. Tish growled. “Oh, please, God,” she
begged. “Not again.” Her face exploded. “Son! You
promised!”

Coons laughed like a banshee: Loud and crazy-like.

He then continued his rant by calling my mother a whore and my dad an
asshole.

“Your mother's a whore and your dad's an asshole!” the
demon spat.

I had enough of his foul mouth. I pushed Tish aside and kicked the
door in. The whole thing gave way and fell on Coons. I jumped on the
door, demanding that the demon leave the boy. Tish then pushed ME
aside. She flipped the door off her boy and cradled him in her arms.
Jesus, she breastfed him right in front of me. I put my hands to my
mouth and coughed. She accused me of being too harsh on him.

“Tender love and care was part of the deal!” she said.

Before I could come up with something witty, Coons clamped his big
mouth onto Tish's hair. He gave a big yank and took her whole scalp
off, leaving behind a red, bald mess. Tish touched her head. She was
looking at me, looking so surprised, looking like she wanted to cry –
lips trembling. I kicked her away, right when Coons was going to stab
her in the back with a knife!

I punched the kid on the ear. He went down, cursing, wiggling around,
throwing a tantrum. The demon said terrible things about my father
again. It knew my history. It went through my whole life in a super
sped-up voice. That demon was familiar.

Shoehorn!

It was the same one that possessed Shells, Jichard's girl. The demon
remembered me, too. It said that it had big plans for Shells, that it
was going to possess her again and turn her into a real whore. I
slapped Shoehorn, and the boy inside cried. Shoehorn told
itself
to shut up or else it would hurt its body by jumping out the window.

“Quiet, you!” the demon said. It began punching itself in
the face. “I'm gonna kill you, boy, if you don't behave and
stop that weeping! It's a turn off!”

The boy wouldn't stop crying, so Shoehorn said that was it. He was
gonna end it all and jump out the window.

Hearing this, Tish screamed, “Noooo!” and jumped on her
son/demon. Shoehorn tried like all hell to get her off his back. It
was a weird sight: This large woman being tossed around by a little
boy.

Shoehorn growled and flung the woman against a table, onto the
briefcase. It flew through the air and opened and rained money. I
went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife and ran toward the monster.

“You toad!” Shoehorn whined. “You've interrupted my
business
for the last time!”

I made to throw the knife and say something intelligent. The demon
shrugged...and jumped through the window.

Tish screeched and jumped after him. She went screaming; the demon
laughing.

They both landed on the rocks below, bodies swallowed by the waves.

The storm was in full swing then, whistling through the broken
window. I had to work fast and get the money before it was all blown
away. The police wouldn't like this. It was only when I was in the
lobby that the reality of the situation grasped me one hundred
percent. I felt like fleeing the scene, but at the same time, I
didn't know where to go. Miles from home. I didn't have a car.
Should
I wait at the bus stop? Would that be wise???
I was stiff all
over. I wanted to swim away. Problem: I didn't know how to swim.
Well...it was time to learn...or die trying. I began running toward
the beach.

A black van with a golden cross stopped in front of me.

Large priests got out and grabbed at me and threw me in.

The door slid shut.

Next thing I knew, we were zooming away.

The priests wore shades. I could see guns underneath their jackets. A
man, dressed like the Pope, leaned forward from out the darkness,
smoking a cigar.

“My boy, how old are you?”

“I...”

“Silence! You look young – TOO young to be doing this
kind of work. We've been keeping an eye on you. Our holy psychic has
told us much about you, yesss, ha ha ha. That you're strong, yes.
That you can do great things. That you can learn new skills rather
quickly. But they also tell me that you give up easy when things
don't go your way. Take my advice, kid: Stay with the exorcism
business. You can make us all happy!” He laughed, and then all
the priests laughed. One giggled. The Pope sliced through the air
with his hand.

“Shut up!” he said. “NO laughing in my van unless I
say so.”

“Duhhh, sorry, boss,” the thugs went.

The Pope fed them animal cookies. And then I noticed something: A
woman was sitting in the dark with wires connected to her head. Her
eyes were wide, staring at me. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
A doctor was near her with his ear close to her mouth, taking down
notes and nodding.

“Ahh, yesss,” he said. “Yes, that makes sense.”
(Writes in his notebook.)

The Pope leaned in and put his hand on mine. He was wet. He was
gentle. He explained that he was going to help me – that they
protected their own
kind
. With this man's help, no police
officer – at least on the island of Oahu – could lay a
finger on me. I would be protected by God. The big man himself.

All it took was 90% of the money I made doing exorcisms.

I couldn't argue. For one thing, I was involved in their Godly
affairs; and the other thing was...well...they had guns.
Holy
guns, I imagined. So I agreed. I just nodded my head. I didn't say
anything through the whole ride home (and how they knew where I
lived, I didn't ask that, either).

The Pope stuck out one of those little rattan plates you see in
church for “donations”. I put a stack of bills on it. The
Pope smiled. He counted the money, flipping through it, eyes focused.
He demanded that we all hold hands and pray, and then I was dropped
off. I stood there in the rain – not sure if I was paralyzed
from shock or super anger.

How was I going to explain this to Lynn? Should she even know about
it?

Yes.

If I wanted her to be my girl, she deserved to know.

When I told her about what happened, she hugged me and kissed me and
told me everything was going to be okay.

We made love that night.

My first time.

How was it?

How to put it....We've all seen our share of “mature, sexual
education” films. They're pretty arousing and satisfying. But
believe you-me...nothing beats the real thing. Long story short, it
was the best night of my life. I could tell that she was experienced.
She asked if it bothered me that she had been with 87 guys. I told
her I didn't care. I told her that I loved her. She could do no
wrong. She couldn't believe I said that, but it was true. I was
hooked on her. I was hooked on the
present
.

The hippies weren't anywhere to be seen. I asked about them, and Lynn
told me that they were on the roof, singing and dancing and
worshiping their moon god, Lipportoy. She showed me a picture one of
the hippies drew of the god. It was a goat with the body of a
giraffe. It was playing the banjo and was all smiles. The picture
looked like a kindergartener drew it with crayons. I told her I was
concerned about that Pope and his van of God. Lynn told me to
worry
.

She heard of him before – these gangster priests. The first
time she saw them was when she was a little girl. A long time ago,
while attending mass and everyone was singing with their hands waving
in the air, some kid ran in front of the priest. People thought she
was dancing, doing the Robot. They even started clapping. But they
were wrong. The little girl wasn't expressing her love of Jesus
through street dance....She was possessed by a
demon
. The
priest ran up and drove the demon out – some fat demon in the
shape of an elephant with horns. The parents of the little girl were
very grateful and immediately threw money at the priest. His alter
boys jumped around, catching the money in fishing nets. All were
merry; all clapped and sang, praising Jesus and Mary and Paul and
Moses. At the end of the religious ritual, while everyone hugged and
gossiped about how awful so-and-so's dress was, Lynn went to the back
of the church and saw the priest hand a bunch of money to someone
sticking a small rattan plate out of a van.

This happened all through her kid years.

However....

One Sunday, the priest expelled a demon out of an old woman. When
people began throwing money at him, he snatched it all up, kicked
away the alter boys and stole their fishing nets and ran off.

“I remember he was crying,” Lynn told me. “Everyone
ran after him – ran outside. He was running down the hill. The
van was after him. It honked at him. The passenger-side window rolled
down, and that same hand stuck out, holding that donation plate. But
the priest didn't stop running. He was shoving money into his mouth.
He just kept running, heading for the woods, heading for freedom! So
the van ran over him. It was the first time I ever saw someone fly up
into a tree...
dead
. Dear Jesus...it was horrifying. His long
tongue dangled out of his mouth.”

Lynn cried in my arms.

She said that the whole thing traumatized her for a month. She became
paranoid – too afraid to leave her house – her bedroom.
Whenever her parents tried to drag her outside to get some sun, she'd
cry out and threaten to call the cops – threatened to defecate
on the lawn and stink the place up – threatened to jump into
the pool and drown herself – threatened to run down the
neighborhood in the nude and rant about Bigfoot. Her parents didn't
want that kind of attention, so, after much thought, they gave up.
Lynn said that later on, she learned that the priest the church
gangsters ran over had money troubles. He couldn't afford to pay for
his mother's medical bills. The priest tried working as a science
teacher at Fern Elementary School, but he got into a fist fight with
the principal over the theory of evolution and was fired. After that,
he applied to be a bus driver. Things were going good for a while;
but again, he got into a fight – this time with another bus
driver. Apparently, people don't take too kindly to someone running
off at the mouth about how dinosaurs are in the Bible.