Get Zombie: 8-Book Set (40 page)

Mum
slapped her, too. I don't know why. After seeing how Sherry betrayed
me, I don't know what's going on any more.

They
hauled us outside and stuffed me into the back of a car. Mum took Vol
for herself; and we were off.

I
had a good idea where to.

Polo
Church had been there since 1869. According to the local Hawaiian
mountain police, legend has it some priest came down from Jerusalem
with the hair of Jesus. Anyway...this priest buried some under the
church, kind of like a gift to the town for being so pure and all, so
now all the people claim that it's a holy site, that it can cure
whatever you got that's giving you crap...or cramps. The place can
chase your demons away, and all that jazz. I even heard of some
exorcisms being done there...although some said, “No, they be
orgies, man. Orgies of the sexy kind.” In any case, it was a
weird place, and I stayed away from it.

To
get to the church, you had to cross a cheap bridge on Old Polo road
and keep going up. It was a big building on a hill.

Can't
miss it. But this bridge, it was where all the cool kids went under
to get drunk and do the big poke.

I
looked at the woods as we drove over that bridge, imagining old
Granny in there, headless, still alive somehow...waiting for
me...every now and then bumping into trees and tripping in mud
puddles.

I
think there were something like 3 or 5 cars. I was in the last car.
My driver was an old woman with a sword strapped across her chest for
easy access. The car's headlights picked up a figure of a man in the
middle of the road. My driver complained something about disobedient
teens and stopped. The man fell on the hood of the car. He looked
scared to death.

“She's
gone crazy!” he was saying to us. “That kid bit the boss,
and now she's gone crazy!” He ran off into the forest, fell in
a ditch, and that was the last I saw of him.

The
old woman looked at me, her face sweating, then continued driving
real slow. The other cars were all scattered on the road, all their
red lights blinking. The old lady turned to me.

“I'm
going on out there,” she said. “You better not do
something dumb.” She pulled free her sword. “Remember,
I's got this here sword. Got that?”

I
wasn't afraid of her, but I played her game and nodded my head.

“Yes,
ma'am, I got you.”

The
old bag got out and walked to the front of the car...searching the
area...holding her sword out and waving it around.

Money
floated everywhere, dancing with the wind. The old lady tried to
catch some. She brought her hand to her mouth.

“Jerry!
Ca'leen! Where you guys at? If this is the surprise birthday party
I've been hearing about, I'm not impressed!”

She
saw something and turned around. Something struck her on the head,
and she did a belly flop on the hood of the car.

Mum
jumped on the woman's back and yanked out her spine. The skull flew
out and left the woman's face behind. It hit the windshield like a
wet mask. Mum threw the spine away and dug into the woman's shivering
back. Mum looked like a pig in a trough, snorting and gulping and
slurping and all that. I ran out of the car...ran for the church.

When
I looked back to see if Mum was following me. She was gone. But I did
see Vol all up in that old lady's corpse and munching away.

Vol
waved at me.

I
threw a rock through one of the church's huge windows. I would be
safe if I just got inside. Oh, don't worry about the window. God
understands. He forgives all.

A
sudden WHOOSH! and I was lifted off the ground. Mum laughed and made
to bite the back of my head, but I reached up and pulled away her
right breast. She screamed and let go, and I landed in a bush. It
wasn't as soft a landing as one would think. I rolled out of that
thing with thorns and twigs sticking out of me. I yanked out as many
as I could as I ran for the church. Mum called my name and came in
for another hit.

Vol
tackled her, and they were both sent exploding though the church
doors. The two torsos punched and choked each other.

The
whole place came alive – flames engulfed each candle, bibles
exploded, holy water bubbled, walls bled, statues looked away in
shame, and the organ played by itself. It was a crazy song –
something a cat would play if it was running all over it.

Mum
and Vol burst into flames. Mum reached out for me, trying to get me.
She was spitting blood at me and cursing me out in Filipino. I ducked
one of those bloody spits, and it sizzled on the grass. Vol tried her
best to hold her back. Mum got close to breaking free from her, so
Vol tore away Mum's other breast, then her eyes, then the meat on her
arms. Mum's ears fell off. She was melting.

An
intense heat was inside. Hairs jumped out from the ground like snakes
and pulled them into a zigzag crack of black smoke. All sorts of
laughter and cursing came out from there. The hole was bilingual. Mum
was tearing at her own face, pulling off everything. Vol was helping
her, laughing, giggling, just so happy.

The
crack sealed up...

...the
candles died out...

...the
music stopped.

A
car was driving up right for me. No one was driving it. I jumped out
of the way as the car took a sharp turn and rolled on its side and
sealed the church up good.

I
ran from that place as fast as my little legs could carry me. As I
went by those dead cars, I stopped by all those bills on the road and
stuffed my pockets with so much cash. I ignored the dead bodies. Once
my shoes were full, I went to the nearest bus stop and slept there.

Sirens
woke me up. The sun was in my eyes. People waiting for the bus were
talking, saying things like “broke into the church” and
“black smoke” and “dead people” and
“shootout”. I got on the bus with the rest of them. I'm
not sure, but I think I put in a twenty.

The
first thing I did after that ride was go to the police station –
I just walked right in and spilled the beans. What was I gonna do?
Get a job and pay the bills? Where was I gonna go? I had no
relatives, no nottin'. So I told them coppers everything – the
Filipino vampires, the trailer home, the kids – everything. I
also did it as a sort of therapy. I didn't wanna bottle all that crap
inside of me. I might end up with mental constipation. They sent me
to stay overnight at the hospital, and that was pretty darn great. I
mean, all the free food I could eat. The police were in and out of my
room, asking all these questions about my mum. I kept saying I knew
nothing, that she just up and left one day. As for the money in my
clothes, I said my mum wanted me to hold it all for her, that I was a
confused little girl, that I didn't know what was happening.

They
bought it. But they didn't let me keep the money. I didn't argue. I
didn't have a lawyer.

The
story was all over the news. Reporters visited me. I felt oh so
special. When a doctor told me that my mum was missing, I cried.
Well, I mean I put my hands over my face and went “Boo hoo
hoo”. Days later, a police officer walked into my room. He said
that after much paperwork and after a lot of phone calls, it was
decided. I'd be sent to stay with my mum's folks.

In
the Philippines.

Great.

A
few days later, I'm greeted by an aunty I've never seen before. She
cried and hugged me. I tried to cry back so she didn't feel like an
idiot, but nothing came out. I was all cried out (isn't that a
song?). She seemed nice enough. Aunty Sharon helped me out of the
hospital, drove me home, made a quick meal, and packed my bags. I
remember asking:

“Do
you have SPAM in the Philippines?”

She
said yes, and I was relieved.

Maybe
it wouldn't be so bad, this moving to a different country thing. My
senses hungered to experience different sights, new sounds, exotic
tastes. And wasn't that what Life was all about? Expanding the
senses?

I
made sure to pack my favorite book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,
and my favorite movie, Forrest Gump.

I
was scared the whole plane ride over. I always expected Mum to pop up
by my window and try to get me. It was even a problem using the
bathroom. I was doing the business one time and the whole place
dipped. My heart went with it. All this blue water splashed up all in
me. I remember being afraid that Mum had attacked the plane and her
hand was seconds away from reaching up from the toilet. On a night
like that when I couldn't sleep, especially way up in the sky, I just
read.

It
was always a sure way to calm my nerves.

So
then I'm in Cebu. I'm in the PI. In the Philippines. And it really
ain't so bad. It's as modern as any place, really.

The
house I stayed in was nicer than my place in Hawaii. I don't know
why, but Filipinos love their Bruce Lee and Van Damm DVDs. My new
home had every one of them. And the movie Speed. There was a whole
month where we watched Speed. I didn't mind. It was always a game of
Who-Can-Say-Every-Line, and everyone got involved. People brought
beer, food, it was a gosh-darn Keanu Reeves party.

Some
nights Sharon would be gone on business. She said she fixed
computers. Her dream was to be an actress, but until the right
audition came, doing “computer stuff” brought in the
money just fine. Sure, it killed her soul, and she felt like dying
each morning, but...you know...gotta keep hope alive, and all that
jazz.

I
don't remember what the name of the town I stayed in was, but when
night came, the whole place shut up. It was like in those old horror
movies when the clock struck 10 and all the windows in town closed at
the same time. Same thing happened.

10
PM hit, and there went the windows. Sharon told me what was
happening, but I already knew.

Aswang.

People
were freaking out.

It
was an old woman giving them problems. Well, old in the day time. At
night, she transformed into a hot babe. All the guys were advised to
stay indoors and, if they see her flying around, topless and
jiggling, to look away.

So
a lot of guys were being found dead.

Some
girls, too. But mainly dudes.

The
other problem was that our bathroom was outside. That meant that
Sharon had to follow me all the time at night.

Correction:
she didn't have to. She was scared for my life. Not only did I have
to deal with squatting over a pipe sticking out from the ground, I
had to deal with Sharon always asking “Are you all right in
there?”

Sharon
stayed by my side as much as possible. She was my guide around town,
around the city. She taught me a lot about what I shouldn't say, what
I should do, how serious people took their Catholic upbringing, how
to pray, what to eat, what NOT to eat, things like that. Here;s a
tip. Never buy food from a vendor on the streets. Because that's not
really a “hotdog”. Just an FYI.

Sharon
and my mum were never close. In fact, Sharon hated my mum as much as
I did.

“She
was a little too crazy for me,” Sharon said. “Sometimes
she'd walk around the house just screaming about how much she hated
some boy that broke hear heart – how she was gonna kill him.
And we all knew she meant to do it. That was the scary part –
the crazy part. So many times she was arrested for attacking
boyfriends. Doctors told us she had some kind of brain disease, I
don't remember what. Her reasoning was that the Philippines was
possessing her soul and making her do all these crazy things. It
didn't make any sense. As she got older, she got quieter and quieter.
And that was too weird for all of us. Because what was she thinking?
No one knew what she was going to do next. We all expected her to one
day blow up and, as you're fond of saying, get nuts. Imagine my
relief when she hooked up with your dad and ran off to Hawaii.”

She
asked how my dad was, and I told her that I knew nothing of my dad.
That he just ran off one day and never looked back.

Sharon
had a few things to say about him. She said that he was a tall white
dancer that cheated on girl after girl.

“I
knew he was bad news,” Sharon said. “But she wanted to
run away with him. That was all I needed to hear, so I said nothing.
I didn't warn her about him. And life was much better with her gone.
Everyone let out this huge sigh. It was like a big stink that was
hovering over the town had finally disappeared.”

I
was waiting for her to say something like “I'm sorry for saying
such an awful thing about your mother”. But it didn't happen.

I
think she just knew that I also didn't care for Mum. Maybe it was a
matter of “come on, who ever did?” You'd be a weird-o if
you liked her.

It
was on my third week there that things turned for the worst; and I'd
lose the only person I was growing close to. The thing is, ever since
I arrived, no one died. People started talking about me, like I was
some heaven-sent omen. It was good that I was around. People were
happier. Grateful. There were times when I'd be walking down the
street, walking through a village, and people would throw flowers at
my feet. Many people gave me balut, and yes, I had to eat them right
then and there. Fake smile and all. Sharon approved. And if you don't
know what balut is, I'll tell ya. It's an egg with a chicken fetus
inside. And you eat it.

So
night falls, 10 strikes, and all the windows close again.

I
asked grandma and grandpa about Sharon, but no one knew where she
was. There was a thump upstairs, in her room, so I went up and
knocked on her door. It was unlocked...I opened it.

It
was the first time I saw Sharon's room. There were computer parts
everywhere. It was like a huge junk pile. But it was the smell that
made my belly turn sour. It was that DEAD CAT smell. Again. Back
AGAIN. Memories of my stay in that dark room all came running back,
breaking my brain. I had to throw up, but my legs wouldn't listen and
turn around. They walked to the bed...to the gurgling sounds coming
from between the bed and the window. I called for Sharon.