The Making of Zombie Wars Read online

  He advanced to Graham’s straight from the Coffee Shoppe and landed on the futon not even glancing at Bega, who was the only one already in the living room, reading the newspapers spread on the desk. His ensemble today featured a T-shirt reading Sarajevo in the shape of the Coca-Cola logo. He had an orange in his hands, which he, for some reason, kept kissing. The smacking sound annoyed Joshua so much that he kept moving his tongue along his teeth, like a gum-bleeding boxer, which consequently invoked Ana’s lips and all that followed. But he managed to get invested in setting up his computer and be conspicuously busy with appearing to be busy.

  “I am very sorry about whole thing,” Bega said, without looking up from the papers.

  “What thing is that?” Joshua snapped.

  “Cat.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “What can I tell you? Sorry.”

  “It was my girlfriend’s cat. She loved him. He was her best friend.”

  Kimmy was no longer his girlfriend, nor would she ever again be one, but the lie gave him no pleasure. Bega kissed the orange once more, then started peeling it with his teeth, spitting the fragments onto the unread page. What was he going to do with the peel? Joshua hoped he’d drop it on the floor for Graham to see and then dress him down for foreign littering.

  “How did you explain cat to her? Just curious,” Bega said, dropping the peel into a bin at his feet. There was even a box of tissues on the desk, so that he broke the orange up into wedges and lined them up on the paper. “You can tell her he attacked you and you had to kill him.”

  “Go to hell,” Joshua said.

  “I’m joking. I’m really sorry about cat.”

  “And what about Stagger?”

  “Who’s Stagger?”

  “Your killer friend broke Stagger’s arm, kicked him in the head. I had to take him to the hospital. He’ll never be the same again.”

  It was hard to imagine Stagger’s life being any different than it was—it was somehow unruinable, his insanity its armor. The phone in Joshua’s pocket, pressed serendipitously against his testicles, buzzed and vibrated pleasantly, indicating a text message.

  “That Stagger. Well, it was fair fight.”

  “Fair? Please don’t talk to me anymore.”

  “Okay. No talking.”

  Wedge by wedge, Bega devoured the orange, then dropped the peel in the bin. Motherfucker! Joshua thought.

  “Hey, listen to what your friend Rumsfeld said,” Bega offered, but Joshua showed no sign he’d heard him. Instead he pulled up the Zombie Wars file and it came up to conceal his screen wallpaper: a shot of the newscaster in Night of the Living Dead failing to explain the cataclysmic developments. He set out to read through one of his freshly written scenes, scanning for wrylies, wondering where Graham was. His cheek hurt, feeling swollen. The room smelled of Bega’s orange as he read from the papers:

  “‘There is among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into that bombing campaign. It was not a long air campaign. It didn’t last for weeks. And there was minimal collateral damage—unintended damage.’ That is beautiful! Rumsfeld is genius! You should be thankful too, Joshua. Just one fat cat is minimal collateral damage.”

  Bega’s pronouncing words with his Bosnian accent—bombing as “bomBing,” damage as “damach”—made Joshua even more annoyed.

  “Fuck you,” Joshua said. “You know nothing. Not about the cat, not about me, not about this fucking country.”

  “What I know is that you had sex with Esko’s wife.”

  “I thought you were my friend. You brought a killer into my home.”

  “It’s Kimmy’s home.”

  “We split the rent. And it’s none of your business anyway.”

  “Nobody was killed. You must have respect for care and precision.”

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  “I thought that I must be there to protect you if Esko goes real crazy. You don’t know him. He could’ve break your neck just like that.”

  “Could’ve broken my neck,” Joshua said gleefully.

  “Broken your neck,” Bega said. “You don’t want to be alone with Esko, believe you me.”

  “Thanks for saving my life, then!” Joshua said. His phone buzzed, but he ignored it, immersed in a vision of punching Bega’s face in, complete with the sound of his cheekbones cracking. Unleashing a few extra voracious zombies to rip the flesh off his bones could be pretty enjoyable too.

  “Are Ana and Alma with Kimmy now?” Bega asked.

  “Even if they were, I wouldn’t tell you. And they’re not at my place either.”

  “Esko’s taking the whole thing hard. Drinking, a lot, talking to himself. He can get ideas, you know.”

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone and take care of your terrorist friend instead?”

  “I understand you’re angry. I’m there for you.”

  “I’m here for you.”

  “What?”

  “You say: I’m here for you. Not: I’m there for you.”

  “I’m here for you,” Bega said.

  “Well, get the fuck out of here,” Joshua said.

  Dillon walked in and took the far end of the sofa, inserting his presence between the two of them. “I just saw the craziest thing,” he pronounced.

  But neither Joshua nor Bega showed any interest in the craziest thing. Graham entered, threw down his papers, and dropped in his chair. All of the splotches on his forehead stood united in one solidly red front.

  “If any of you utter the words weapons of mass destruction,” Graham said, “I am going to projectile vomit directly in your face.”

  “I just saw the craziest thing,” Dillon repeated for Graham’s benefit, but he ignored him as well. Joshua’s phone vibrated, yet again. There was a time when the phone was not embedded in you, the time when you could be alone with the people you were with. And when there was no one around, you could be by yourself, with yourself. Now your spiderweb was always being tugged.

  Alice emerged from the bathroom and smiled angelically at everyone, her hairdo perfectly blown dry. It’d been a while since she’d been at the workshop. She was in her pudgy forties, with a moony face and saucer eyes, which Joshua did not find pretty but, rather, comforting to look at, like a cloud in a perfectly blue sky. Last time he’d seen her, he’d imagined himself curling up in her arms.

  “Good evening, gentlemen!” she said.

  “I just saw the craziest thing,” Dillon tried again, and, mercifully, Alice said: “And what did you see, Dillon?”

  “I saw this dog with like wheels instead of his hind legs.”

  “That’s amazing,” Alice said and smiled at Dillon, who fidgeted with the pleasure of her attention.

  “It was like half dog, half skateboard,” he said.

  * * *

  Joshua read from his computer screen, enunciating every word carefully, as if auditioning:

  “Ruth opens the cage door and walks in. The boy lies still, facedown. She kneels next to him and rolls him over. His eyes are closed, he looks peaceful, as opposed to the tormented zombie face he wore before. Suddenly, his eyes open.”

  Alice gasped.

  She was in the middle of a spiritual self-liberation journey, working on a script about an Idaho woman who lived in the same shack for forty-seven years, communing with angels every day. “True story,” she’d said. “She once even went to heaven and sat at God’s throne.” Alice could see this scene in her head: the throne of gold; the divine light around it; angels prancing everywhere; and there was Candy, fresh from the shack to rub elbows with the Lord. “That’s going to be expensive,” Graham had said. “A godless set is considerably cheaper.”

  “Ruth takes the boy in her arms and strokes his long hair lovingly,” Joshua continued. “Feebly, he smiles. Wounds on his face are now slowly bleeding. He raises his hand with some effort and touches the woman’s hair. She smiles at him. Boy groans. She sits him up. Boy: ‘I’m hungry.’”

  Joshua l
ooked up. No one said anything. Graham gestured toward the others to suggest an offering of comments. Bega conspicuously sucked on an unlit cigarette.

  “That’s pretty good,” Bega said. “Better than before.”

  “I really like that she like risks her life by like going into the cage,” Dillon said.

  “I think that’s beautiful,” Alice said.

  “But the boy was dead, no?” Graham said.

  “Undead, strictly speaking,” Joshua said.

  “I know, but his brain was dead, right?” Graham said and pressed his forefinger against his mandibular cleavage. He never used any other finger to help his chin climax. “Don’t know much about history, or zombie physiology, but humans can’t live without the brain. If he was dead, or undead, then his brain was dead. Am I getting this wrong?”

  “Zombie brains are infected by a virus that makes them undead,” Joshua said.

  “It’s like it’s shut off, like in deep-sleep mode,” Dillon said.

  “My point is that the boy’s brain might well be beyond repair,” Graham said. “He can’t just wake up and ask for a fucking sandwich.”

  “Suspension of disbelief,” Bega said. “There are no zombies unless you believe they are there.”

  “It’s the power of love,” Alice said.

  “The power of love?” Graham looked at Joshua, then at Bega, then back at Joshua, like a lawyer before a jury. Saint Pacino gloomily observed the scene. Then Graham exploded in snickers, and Bega joined in and even Dillon chuckled. Alice did not laugh, but she did doodle. I’d fold up in her like a foal, Joshua thought. Graham wiped away his tears of laughter.

  “The power of love!” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

  Heroically, Alice ignored the insult and asked Joshua: “What happens next?”

  “The boy recovers, but they have to escape because the soldiers find the lab. They all go looking for his father.”

  “Are they going to find him?” Bega asked.

  Joshua didn’t even bother to look in his direction.

  “They might. They’ll have to make it out first,” Joshua said.

  “Well, let us know what happens,” Graham said. “Nearly everything in the world hinges on it.”

  “I think they should find him,” Alice said.

  * * *

  Graham slipped out without asking about the lunch with Billy/George; he must have received a full report and was pissed for wasting his influence. Joshua took his time packing his computer and his notes. Dillon lingered too, pretending he was browsing through Graham’s paperbacks, until he abruptly turned to Joshua and said:

  “Can I like ask you a question?”

  Joshua looked up and Dillon was blushing to his ears, biting his lips compulsively.

  “Would you like to have like a drink? Maybe?” he asked, grinding his teeth in a grin of awkwardness. His trucker hat was at an angle; there was a visible smudge on his thick-rimmed glasses; he was sweating.

  “I don’t think so,” Joshua said. “I don’t think we can go on a date or even be friends, Dillon. Because I think you’re an idiot.”

  His phone buzzed and he finally took it out of his pocket to read the goddamn message. Dillon sat back down on the futon, looked up at Joshua, and said:

  “You know what, Joshua? You’re an asshole.”

  EXT. WOODS — DAY

  Major K, Ruth, Boy, and Cadet leap over rocks and logs, branches whipping their faces. The refugees stumble forth in their wake, all pursued by zombies who, extremely skinny and slow as they are, come from all directions. We can recognize Goiter among them, as well as Cancer Patient. Boy trips, slams his head against a rock and goes out. Cadet stops to help him, as Major K and Ruth hesitate, then turn around to rush back. The zombies begin to close in on them, which allows the refugees to keep running and escape. Cadet looks at Major K, who understands instantly what needs to be done. As Cadet takes his rifle off his shoulder, Major K picks up Boy and runs on, followed by Ruth. Cadet faces the advancing zombies, picking them off one at a time with precise shots that blow off their heads. Many zombies drop, but more keep coming. In no time they are too close for him to shoot. He swings at them, smashing a few heads with his rifle, until the undead snatch it out of his hands.

  From a distance, Major K and Ruth watch in shock and trepidation.

  RUTH

  I didn’t even know his name.

  MAJOR K

  Angel. Angel Rodriguez.

  Major K puts Boy down and takes the rocket launcher off his back. The ravenous zombies pile on Cadet Rodriguez, who HOLLERS in terror. Major K loads his launcher with the only grenade he has and rushes back. The zombies are unperturbed, too busy tearing into the fidgeting flesh, Goiter the most voracious of all. Cadet Rodriguez keeps SCREAMING as Major K comes close enough to be able to aim at the heap. In the mayhem, for a brief moment, Major K’s and Cadet’s eyes meet. Major K launches the grenade. Cadet Angel Rodriguez and the zombies are all swallowed by apocalyptic flames.

  Bernie was on his back beetle-like, his left leg immobilized, his arm attached to a despondent drip, the rest of him tucked under a blanket like a shameful secret. Something somewhere beeped occasionally, petulantly. The hospital window looked out at roofs strewn with air-conditioning behemoths, at all the unreal estate and other windows, at solid, reflective, downtown nothingness. Bernie’s eyes were half-closed; still, he smiled when Noah attempted to break into the red medical-waste box on the wall. A TV set in the upper corner showed Saddam’s statue coming down like a lost erection. This year we are slaves. Next year, may we all be free. And the year after that we’ll probably be slaves again.

  “Leave it. Noah! Leave it,” Janet barked and pressed, impatiently, the call button on the bed remote.

  “You’re too young to fall in the shower,” she said to Bernie. “The minimum age for that is seventy-nine.” Then, without even looking at Noah: “Leave it, I said!”

  The boy finally abandoned his attempt, only to turn his attention to the bathroom, into which he troublingly disappeared. Bernie’s smile remained unchanged, even if he closed his eyes to indicate that he heard her.

  “Yes!” the screeching voice of the nurse came through the speaker.

  “Could I talk to Dr. Hashmi again?” Janet said. “This is the third time I’m asking. Did he go back to Pakistan or something?”

  “He’ll be there as soon as he can,” the nurse said. “He has many other patients, you know.”

  “I just need to talk to him about my elderly father. Are his other patients elderly?”

  “His other patients need his attention right now,” the nurse said. “He’ll be there as soon as possible. Thank you!”

  Bernie was thoroughly out now, loaded with painkillers to his contented gills. Despite all their philosophical differences, the Levins had always been firmly united in their faith in pain management. The consensus was that pain was no gain, whereas absence of pain was a great gain. There was the sound of the shower coming from the bathroom and Janet hurried to limit the damage, which, this time, was only Noah’s Northwestern University sweatshirt becoming soaking wet. Janet ordered her firstborn to sit down in the chair under the TV and not move. He did sit down, still eyeing the red box with a mixture of mischief and malice, plots ever hatching in his head. As his not moving was obviously of a very temporary nature, Janet excavated a Spider-Man comic book from her purse and shoved it into his hands. When could she find time to simply love him, always so busy with getting him under control?

  “Dr. Osama says Bernie’s hip is bruised but not broken. He will need replacement down the road, though,” Janet whispered, as Joshua provided a requisite brotherly squeeze. “Whereas I need a martini drip presently.”

  She was taller than Joshua, so that she had to bend down to put her head on his shoulder. They were both uncomfortable in that position, but the rules of sibling consolation demanded that they stay attached for a while. An old man, thin as a stick, regressed down the hallway, pushing very slo
wly the walker on which his half-full colostomy bag hung. His hospital gown was not closed in the back, so his withered, doughy ass was there for all to behold. Noah’s face lit up with the joy of bearing indecent witness. Script Idea #185: A teenager discovers that his girlfriend’s beloved grandfather was a guard in a Nazi death camp. The boy’s grandparents are survivors, but he’s tantalizingly close to achieving deflowerment, so when a Nazi hunter arrives in town in pursuit of Grandpa, he has to distract him long enough to get laid. A riotous Holocaust comedy. Title: Righteous Lust.

  “It will be okay,” Joshua said.

  “Don’t tell me it will be okay,” Janet said, pulling away. “I can’t even remember what okay looks like.”

  “It’s just a bruise,” Joshua said. “He looks good.”

  “He looks good? This is not a beach pageant. He almost smashed his hip to pieces. And, soon to come to a life near you, dementia and diapers and daily guilt trips to the nursing home.”

  Bernie was blazingly pale, which allowed his age spots and moles to multiply. He was drooling on the pillow, a wet spot growing under his cheek. Everything in Joshua wanted to call Kimmy to tell her about his father having stepped into his dotage as on a land mine. She’d had to take care of her parents as they slipped out of life, breaking their half-desiccated bones along the way. She was the kind of person who could talk him through all this—in her wise therapist voice, she could tell him what to do, how to do it. But he’d never dare to ask her for advice or succor, or call her again, as a matter of fact. And then he also wanted to watch Ana’s lips telling him life was not misery. In a perfect universe, he could talk Kimmy and Ana into a permanent ménage à trois and be forever snug as the meat in the comfort sandwich. This was not a perfect universe, however; it was barely a world.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Joshua said. He knew he should be brave enough to tell Janet about Bernie’s prostate, but the doctors were surely going to find the diagnosis in his file and tell her all that needed to be told.

  “Jackie, I love you. I’d give you my liver if you needed it,” Janet said. “But don’t tell me we’ll figure something out. You do not figure things out. That’s not what you do.”