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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 hammered 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.