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“
I shall not put it into my mouth. It shall never
go past these luscious lips. No!”

I felt dizzy then, slapping my palms against the sides
of my head. Barbara laughed out loud and slapped her thighs.

“
O’ stink child! O’ stink child of
mine! I reckon the body you currently possess is low on “gas”.
Har har har! O’ stink child. We have no food left, save for
this
.”

May
the female version of God forgive me: For exactly three seconds I
considered eating this Walking Dead Meat…and I hungered. Oh,
no! I lusted for hideous bestial meat!

Fighting off an intense wave of guilt and sickness, I
turned around, crying into my hands. I could feel Barbara’s
sweet touch on my shoulder. Her voice was that of a pure angel.

“
Dear, sir, please do not weep. I care for you and
therefore would never feed thou anything upsetting and bestial. Now
come to me. Turn around and come to me.”

I sniffed, smiled, and turned around with my arms open.

Barbara shoved a palm-f of bestial meat into my
mouth. My eyes exploded. Barbara glued her hand to my mouth so I
wouldn’t vomit the bestial meat out. She rode me like a pony as
I got on all fours and pranced around, trying to spit up what was
shoved down. Barbara reached back and produced a reel of duck tape
and rolled the tape around and around my head, taping her hand to my
mouth.

I made serious horse sounds out of frustration, all the
while trying to donkey kick her off my back. She wrestled me to the
ground and we rolled around for a bit before she picked me up and
pinned me against a tree. Pinecones fell, many hitting me on the
head. I made curious whining sounds.

She held her cheek to mine, violently, and I immediately
became still, eyes bawling.

“
Silencio,” she whispered. “Silencio.”

What had I become? How embarrassing. I must’ve
seemed like a demonic toddler to her. I wished she wasn’t too
turned off by my actions. I wanted to impress her, not disgust her!
Holding my breath, I nodded, and swallowed the bestial meat, audibly.

We looked into each other’s eyes.

Two minutes later, I was gnawing on a zombie’s
boiled breast. A whole breast that jiggled like fine Jell-O with each
bite I made.

The nipple was included.

Happy, I threw it at Barbara, who caught it in her mouth
and gave me a thumbs up.

Fade out.

Eighteen.

We slogged
for six hours, hiking up many trails and
searching through many bushes. There were many undead stool samples
to be found, but Barbara deemed it unnecessary. I had already
experienced the zombie’s dried dung. Barbara’s main goal
was to teach me the ways of the hunter – the steady growth of
the sidekick into hunter knighthood.

At around 9pm, it was time to find a soft place to set
up the tent. Barbara excused herself so she could urinate in peace. I
said that I’d do the same.

As I sat on my heels behind a bush and pushed for
heaven, a shadow moved – in the darkness between two trees.

My buttocks shut tight.

I stared intensely into the woods, slowly zipping my
pants and catching my breath.

A Japanese schoolgirl slouched out from the dark.

I stood up, embarrassed, and combed my hair with my
hands.

“
Hello,” I said, politely. “How may I
help you this fine night?”

She didn’t respond…only looked down to the
ground. This girl kept walking at a very slow speed. I knew when she
began moaning, and drooling moths, that she was a member of the
living dead.

My heart drooped.

What a depressing sight.

How can something so attractive be so dead?

My mind wandered and I literally had to slap myself
straight. Barbara wasn’t too far off. I went to get her as the
zombie followed me.

I asked if we should kill it. Barbara had a plan. She
eyed the zombie from head to toe and instructed me to tie back its
hands – only its hands – and for me to go to sleep as she
took it out for a walk.

I did as I was told and crawled into our tent, falling
fast asleep.

I woke up at 3am. Barbara wasn’t in the tent.
Afraid for her safety, I took a stake and went out venturing for her,
flashlight in tow.

There was a tree in the distance, on a tall hill.

Figures were on it, moving around.

I began to hear moaning sounds.

Scared, I ran back to the tent.

5am. I couldn’t go to sleep. Barbara returned, so
I closed my eyes and rolled over. She yawned and went to bed. Barbara
smelt strange. She was covered with a familiar scent – a
familiar scent that was now laced with the dead’s perfume.

5:30am. The wind began to pick up and rattle the tent. I
wanted to hurt Barbara. I grabbed my flashlight and stormed out from
the tent. It was a noisy exit and I hoped that yes, indeed, she heard
me.

It was raining again, the wind blowing the storm
sideways.

I hugged myself for warmth.

Soon, I found myself back at that tree under the
moonglow.

The cheerleader was sitting on the dirt, in the nude,
her arms tied behind the tree. She wasn’t moving…head
bowed…hair swaying to the cool breeze.

I squatted in front of her.

She looked so peaceful.

The zombie sensed me and looked up, eyes totally black.
It groaned. I knew that zombies had no emotion other than anger and
sometimes confusion…but at that moment, I sensed shame in the
beast.

I exhaled and stood up.

The thing slithered about, trying to stand.

I closed my eyes and held my flashlight close to my
heart, tightly. I looked up to the dreary clouds. The raindrops felt
good, massaging my face.

Taking a good stance, I gripped her head with my free
hand and hit the creature over the skull with the flashlight until it
stopped looking at me.

I threw my red-covered flashlight into the bushes and
went back into the tent.

Barbara was sound asleep.

She hadn’t followed me. She hadn’t cared.

I
closed my eyes for not a minute when I began to have a dream. I was
drowning in a stormy ocean that rose and fell…the winds stung
my face. Giant waves crashed all over me and pushed me into its
stygian underbelly. I was engulfed with the sudden, dark fear of
utter loneliness.

I expected the cheerleader to save me.

She didn’t come.

…
No one did.

Emo-typical.

Nineteen.

We were
walking on a thin hiking trail that was on the
edge of the mountain. A wrong step and one could tumble to certain
death.

It was hot. The sun was screaming at us.

Barbara tried to impress me by doing a cartwheel down
the path. I laughed at her and told her to be careful, but she made
devil horns and wiggled her tongue at me and went “Blahhhhhhhhh”.
Someone was running toward us, yelling and waving.

This Italian hiker was just attacked by a mad woman that
tried to taste him. She was an evil spirit, he said – void of
skin and meat. “She was the walking rot!”

The hiker threw many sharp rocks at the person and even
yelled at her. Some rocks hit her hard in the face, but she wouldn’t
go away – let alone react. The Italian’s group was still
there. He had left them and felt incredibly guilty.

Barbara and I nodded to each other. She asked the man if
he could take us to this “walking rot”. The Italian hiker
shrieked in terror with crazy memories and ran down the trail…his
screams fading.

We walked down the trail and soon enough entered a
bamboo forest with a clearing made long ago by the park’s
staff.

There were in fact five zombies – four of them
surely the Italian’s group members. The main zombie – the
walking rot – had her back to us: A back that had fallen apart
long ago. They were all eating bamboo shoots for some reason. Barbara
took me by the shoulders and said, “You must go in there as one
of them. Get in there, you hear me? Get in there and get close to
them and cut off their heads with this here machete (she pronounced
it as
maishit-tay
).”

“
How am I supposed to get close?”

“
Thee shall dress up as one of them.”

“
Oh, I’m no actor. I tried that and failed
miserably!”

Barbara drew her face close to mine.

“
This is not Acting, child. This is Becoming.”

My heart pounded. My breath came in short spurts. My
lungs weren’t working right. My legs had social anxiety
disorder. I was going to die. At least I could run fast.

I walked in with my arms up, biting my shoulder, moaning
in fake pain. Barbara had taken a blade to my clothing and ripped it
to shreds.

The zombies looked at me and then went back to their
eating.

It had worked!

Amazement!

I sat next to them and pretended to eat a piece of
bamboo, daintily. One of the zombies looked at me funny, and I smiled
at it, going, “Mmmm.”

The zombie rolled its eyes and got up to eat bamboo
elsewhere.

Sick from munching on bamboo, I got out my machete and
crept up to each one, slicing off their heads and running away before
any gore got on me.

I asked if I had done a good job. Barbara threw me a
towel and a bottle of
Secret Garden
by Victoria’s Secret.

“
You sing of stink.”

As we walked through the bamboo clearing, Barbara gazed
at the decapitated heads and noticed something.

She fell to her knees and sobbed, mumbling a prayer.

I stayed where I was and said nothing.

My arms and legs shook. Barbara whipped her head to me,
her eyes full of tears and hate.

Twenty.

Barbara ran after me, screaming like a confused pig on a
treadmill. I didn’t run until the last moment, hoping this was
just some kind of scary test. She raised her machete and sliced at me
– and would’ve got me on the shoulder hadn’t I spun
and ran.

My
mind erased. Had she finally snapped?

Why?

I
couldn’t hear her anymore. Where did she go? Barbara had grown
quiet…maybe tiptoeing and checking for me behind bushes.

I
ran up a steep hill and sat under a thick tree to catch my breath,
hiding behind a curtain of tangled vines. Barbara had seen something.
One of the heads had upset her to the point of bad rage.

I
had to see for myself.

Maybe
then I could understand. Maybe then I could try to mend things.

When
I got back to the bamboo clearing, only one head was left, on a pike.
The face was distorted, but familiar…and I knew who it was as
I stepped closer.

The
crazy zombie the Italian hiker had encountered was Toshiba.

Janeen.

My
stomach collapsed.

I
was dead.

This
whole trip was devious from the get-go.

I
was being used. I was being molded into someone else. Barbara was
going to kill me now – no matter what. And she was right behind
me. I was too afraid to turn around.

If
you’re going to kill me…do it fast.

A
beat.

Nothing.

Nothing?

Barbara
walked past me and stood next to the head on the pike. She said that
she had eaten the other heads. She didn’t boil them though, and
that any minute now she would be a member of the living dead. Barbara
pulled up Toshiba’s head and cradled it, humming “Aerith’s
Theme” from
Final Fantasy 7.

She
began to cry…then reached out to me, her hand shaking.

I
walked up to her and hugged them both.

Barbara
kissed Toshiba as I kissed Barbara.

We
all slept on the ground.

When
Barbara’s cellphone woke us with its blaring ringtone the sun
was setting, stretching the shadows. Barbara nodded as she spoke,
only saying
Yeah’s
and
Uh huh’s
.
She hung up and stood and began doing stretches. I wondered if it was
okay for me to talk.

There
was the crunching of shoes on dead leaves in the distance.

It
was Barbara’s mum, carrying a duffle bag.

She
hugged her. The mum did not hug in return. I wanted to say something
– anything – but I couldn’t form the words, only
managing to produce bizarre chirping sounds.

Barbara
walked over to me, smiling, and then embraced me.

I
didn’t want to let her go.