How I Met Barbara The Zombie Hunter



  How I met Barbara the Zombie Hunter

  by Raymund Hensley

  Copyright 2011 by Raymund Hensley

  https://raymundhensley.blogspot.com/

  All rights reserved

  Cover design by the author

  ALSO BY RAYMUND HENSLEY

  The Zombie Hunter's Bible

  Aloha Mannequins

  A Revelation

  “The tongue was engorged with dead blood

  and seemed bestial at best.”

  CONTENTS

  Barbara was sitting in her rocking chair...

  One of the first things I had to learn was self-defense...

  It was now my time to extract the zombie sample...

  Barbara ran after me, screaming like a confused pig...

  One.

  Barbara was sitting in her rocking chair in the dark, nudity abound, covered by parrots. I asked as politely as I could if it would be possible to take a picture of her for the book, and she yelled something unintelligible and threw a bird at me. It occurred to me then that it wouldn’t have mattered how nice I asked.

  She apologized and said:

  “I am the best at zombie hunting. I am the Master and Commander of zombie hunting.”

  Barbara was a 30-year-old French woman who had just gotten her degree in Graphic Design, from The University of Hawaii at Manoa.

  She had contacted me via my Gmail account, explaining how she had enjoyed my book Aloha Mannequins, and that I would be perfect to document her exploits as a zombie hunter here in Honolulu, Hawaii. I was skeptical to say the least, and didn’t email her back for the next six months. Finally, she called my home phone and begged that I take the job – that she would pay me as her sidekick, and that she was lonely.

  Thinking that it would be an interesting idea for a “possible” future book, and being very afraid, I accepted. It helped that she was a Capricorn. I was always told that Virgos got along well with that particular astrological sign. Being more of a student of eastern astrology, I inquired what her Chinese sign was, but she refused to tell me and hung up each time I asked.

  To this day, I am still unsure how she had gotten a hold of my email address, let alone my phone number.

  After she took a shower to cleanse herself of bird mess, she gave me a grand tour of her Waikiki apartment.

  A chicken ran past.

  I shrieked, mentally – but not physically, for I did not want to insult my host.

  Her hallway was covered with paintings that to me seemed to date back as far as the 15th century. I asked if they were stolen. She simply laughed and shook her head, and said Yes. Barbara told me that they were portraits of zombie hunters and that many are still with us – that they are in hiding for fear of being ridiculed or arrested.

  Many are in mental facilities.

  At this point, she stopped walking and put her fingers to her head, massaging her temples.

  “Mental institutions depress my face,” she said. “And inflate my hate.”

  And then she began to cry. Barbara turned around slowly and held her arms out to me. Her face was a waterfall. Out of pure pity, I nodded and walked up and gave her a hug.

  She didn’t hug back. I think her eyes were open.

  Hours later, I was in her parrot room, helping her cover a number of cages with black sheets to silence them. She said that the bird noises sometimes disturbed her – that some days it sounded like tiny children were being hit with knives. I told her that the parrots were rather silent and behaved since I had arrived. She said that she could hear the noises in her head.

  Two.

  Barbara had display cases of various zombie parts – “Trophies”, she called them. There were eyes, fingers, parts of genitals (human and animal), tongues, teeth, one nose, ears, flaps of skin, balls of hair, a 12 inch long finger nail, blood with bits inside, a constipated intestine, etc. All were in glass jars of yellow liquid. I asked her what this strange liquid was, but she refused to tell me and stormed out of the room.

  An hour later she would came back and tell me that it was a secret – that only her and the “Church” knew.

  I asked her what this “Church” was, but she ran out of the room again, flailing her arms. When she returned thirty seconds later, she was carrying a large photo album. She held my hand like a child and walked me to the living room where we both sat on the carpet, legs crossed.

  Depressing music from India played from somewhere.

  She held the heavy photo album up and blew on the cover, but no dust flew off.

  There were many black and white pictures inside, of bushes and open fields and bonfires and cemeteries and butterflies. Barbara said that they were pictures of zombies, and that I could see them if I looked closely enough. I had to look closely because a lot of times zombies like to hide, for strategic reasons.

  I stared at a picture of a bush intensely and thought I could see a neck, but I could have been daydreaming. These peculiar pictures were taken while in the field by her ex sidekick, Toshiba, a 19-year-old college student, majoring in Art.

  Toshiba vanished many years ago.

  The story goes they were both on the hunt, in the murky woods of Wailupe Valley, in Aina Haina.

  One rainy night, Toshiba heard a bleeping noise and, against Barbara’s wishes, crawled out of the tent to explore the strange sound. She never returned. The following morning, Barbara found a dead lamb dangling from a tree, wearing Toshiba’s clothes.

  Out of rage and confusion, Barbara beat up the animal corpse and cursed at the heavens with her fists pumping in the air, exclaiming, “Damn you, zombie! Damn you to hell! Your life force shall not have been in vain, Toshiba! I shall eradicate them all in a mean manner until the day I am called The Eradicator! This is damn upsetting me. You, zombie, are a turd. You damn lousy guy!”

  The strange thing is that lambs are not common in Aina Haina.

  Upon telling this dismal story, Barbara began to weep.

  I hugged her again. Her tears were cold on my shoulder. She held Toshiba’s picture and spoke to it.

  “I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you, I will run to you. You will run to me.” She said it through many languages. Her crying twisted the words. I hugged her.

  Still, she did not hug back. Instead, she rose suddenly and got milk from the refrigerator and offered some to me. Remembering my Catholic upbringing and not wanting to be rude, I accepted. But it was already too late, for she had spat inside, explaining that it would “put some meat on my chest, and hair on my bones.”

  She sounded like my mother.

  Barbara said that there were many things a zombie hunter (and sidekick) had to learn before entering the hunt, like trust. A leap of faith would be needed; an open mind. She hugged me and told me to drink the milk carton with her spit inside. Because it was now magical.

  I did.

  Fortunately, I had held my breath.

  Barbara said that she lied to me. She said that the only magic inside the milk was vitamin D, and that she was impressed I did not vomit.

  I had gained her trust.

  That night, I cried myself to sleep.

  Three.

  Barbara said she had something amazing to show me; but I could tell no one. I assured her that I could be trusted, and she drove me Makiki.

  We parked in front of a one-level apartment structure. Kids played jump rope nearby
.

  “This woman’s insane,” Barbara said. “As a licensed psychologist – which I am not – I advise you to say nothing to her.”

  We stood outside of a door that was covered with pictures of women in hospitals, giving birth and screaming. Barbara knocked on the door and told me again – quite seriously – that I could tell no one who we were about to meet.

  The door opened, revealing a frail, middle-aged woman in flower-designed bra and panties. I tried not to look.

  Her face lit up when she saw Barbara and they hugged and jumped up and down, giggling.

  This woman’s apartment was dim; when I closed the door, it was practically pitch-black inside.

  She fixed her hair.

  “You have to excuse my appearance. As you can see, I’ve been sick.”

  Barbara examined her arms.

  “Gun wounds, again?”

  “They had weapons. I forgot that they could go off even if you don’t know how to use your hands. You should have seen them. They’re horny. They had red eyes.”

  “Were they dark red?”

  “I don’t remember. I’m colorblind.”

  “How did you protect yourself?”

  “I killed them in the face.”

  “You always use violence. If ever we should tussle, I should have a raw duck dangle around my neck.” She put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I don’t want to make your innards weep.”

  “Don’t worry about me. If I die, to heaven I shall go for my heavenly deeds.”

  “Heaven does not transform assholes into angels.”

  “Even angels have assholes. Now excuse me while I kiss the sky.”

  She lit candles and I could tell immediately that she had been drinking much, for there were empty bottles of vodka all over the floor and in holes in the wall. Some were tied to strings and dangled from the ceiling. Did this woman have a violent streak? I grew nervous. Alcoholics can never be trusted. They do sudden things that boggle the mind and madden the mouth. If ever I was allowed to speak, I had to be careful of what I said.

  As she guided us into the kitchen, we passed by what I can only assume to have been a bedroom transformed into a storage room – full of stained computer boxes and toddler clothes. I could have sworn I saw a figure inside, standing between two towers of Macintosh G4 boxes. I wanted to investigate, but I was too afraid to stop walking.

  Four.

  There was a special smell to the apartment, best described as a daunting combination of alcohol and soy sauce and cat.

  On the hallway walls were old black and white, blown up pictures of strange men and women in groups – pictures taken in the woods, cemeteries, and lakes. All carried guns and whips and wooden stakes – all gathered in front of the camera, showing off their kill, which were all impaled horizontally and displayed like boars about to be roasted. Only these prizes were not about to be eaten (as far as I could tell) and they were certainly not boars.

  They were human.

  I made no visible reaction in seeing all of this, although my innards were complaining.

  Before I stepped into the kitchen, I asked if I could use the restroom. There, I sat on the toilet to stitch together my thoughts. What was happening? Were these people cannibals? Were they crazy? Or worse…crazy cannibals?

  Barbara was arguing with the woman – I could hear them throw things made of glass and other heavy objects.

  Then…

  …silence…

  …followed by weeping apologies.

  They began to laugh and clap their hands. Barbara began to sing to her.

  “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Mommy. Happy birthday to you. Hurray! Yessm! Blow it out, blow it out! Yessm!”

  It was good to hear such happiness.

  I sobbed in my hands and then wrapped my arms around my knees, rocking myself on that cold toilet.

  Barbara called after me.

  “Raym! Raym! Eat cake! Yessm!”

  I sniffed and cleared my throat.

  “I’ll be out in a second, thank you, ma’am!”

  They began clapping and cheering. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or not.

  For years I always thought my life was speeding towards a dead end, where I would indisputably crash and burn.

  As I sat on that toilet and stared at a bird chirping on the windowsill, I realized that life had such wonders to offer – that my pathetic life was what I made of it. There was a goal for every soul: A purpose. No, I wasn’t a churchgoing person (not since my Catholic School days in the sticks of Greenville, Florida), but I did and still do believe in a higher power. You can call it God or Vishnu or Ra or Master. I call it The Universe – the thing that is in everything and everyone and is always around us. And it wants to help humans. Wants us to be happy. Wants us to feel like we have a purpose in life.

  Studies have shown that the number one reason most relationships fail, is because the lover does not feel wanted – useful.

  Barbara had a purpose. One she felt strongly about.

  Her story – her zombie adventures – this future escapade I was about to undertake – had to be documented. It was something I was meant to write, even if no one were ever to read it.

  I was doing this for the both of us.

  Five.

  One of the first things I had to learn was self-defense. I had always been fascinated with the martial arts and was understandably excited. When I asked if it would be possible for me to learn Wushu, she accused me of making up words and lying to her. Barbara instead forced me to learn a martial art she had invented, called Mouth Masters.

  As far as I could gather, it consisted of rabid punching and kicking and a variety of ways to bite your opponent – to death, mind you.

  Being skeptical about this fighting style called Mouth Masters, and due to her ceaseless taunts, I challenged her to a duel. She accepted and, to my shame, gnawed me into submission.

  There was something to this unorthodox style after all, and from that night on, in her parrot room, I would never judge her again.

  After saying this to her, she locked me in the parrot room and exclaimed that she was not used to such words that, as she said, ran away from my mouth and kissed her on the face. She wanted her parrots to learn from me – to learn such nice words instead of shrieking at her all the time, although the birds, as far as I could tell, were always docile.

  As a matter of fact, I had yet to hear them make any sound whatsoever. I began to question if they were even alive. Upon further inspection, I found that they were indeed alive. Just fed up.

  However, one cage emitted a curious ‘I am dead’ aroma. The parrot inside had died, tiny legs in the air. I feared telling Barbara, but did anyway because it was her right to know. When she found out, she held the bird close to her face in an angry way.

  “Who gave you the nerves to get killed here? What are you saying to me from beyond the grave, child?”

  Barbara closed her eyes and began to channel the bird’s ghost. She opened her mouth and, without moving her jaw or tongue, pretty parrot noises came out. I was full of gasps. It was a wonder. Barbara looked at me and said:

  “Translation! Translation! Translation!”

  She closed her eyes and said, while drooling, “Woman, you with your thick face have hurt my loins. The bird lunches I have eaten are unhappy in my insides. They make me flatulent, and you did it.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing/hearing. Somehow, Barbara had the gift to communicate with deceased animals. I asked if I could talk to the bird’s soul, and Barbara agreed. It was decided that I could ask it one question.

  I leaned in close to the parrot’s corpse.

  “If you had one wish, dear bird, what would it be?”

  Barbara nodded and closed her eyes, then said…

  “I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.”

  Later, we wrapped the corpse in tissue paper and flushed it down the toilet, out of respect.


  Six.

  Barbara next urged me to learn knife throwing. I agreed immediately, watching in awe as she opened a box full of impressive knives of many shapes and sizes. I asked if I would be throwing these beautiful knives. She said, “Never.” Instead, she handed me two rusted-brown steak knives. There were bedbugs on them, which I loathe with a passion of the Christ.

  I thanked her for her generosity and clapped my hands in approval. She bowed and then pointed at me, ordering that I juggle the knives as best as I could. Apparently, if I couldn’t juggle knives, I would never be able to throw them.

  It was a pathetic sight.

  As she had put it, I couldn’t juggle knives to save the glands which belong to a Russian prostitute.

  It was exactly what I was thinking.

  And she was right, of course. If I wanted to be her sidekick, I had to shape up and put out. If all that she was saying were true, I would soon enough see an actual zombie. It made me giddy. I giggled each time I picked up the knives from off the floor. And each time I giggled, I put my hand over my mouth like a Japanese girl.

  In my intense concentration, I hadn’t noticed that Barbara had tied herself to a wall via lamp cords. Some of the lamps were still plugged in.

  She wanted me to throw the knives at her – to stick them around her head. This, of course, sickened me. I vomited a little onto my shirt. She laughed and then wept, saying that she trusted me and had put all her love into my love and then put it into her morning soup and then ate the soup. I was inside of her now: Me and my love. She trusted me…wholeheartedly.

  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 Se
cret 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 understand 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,