Darlings of Decay

by Chrissy Peebles

  “What?” Jack asked. “We’re going to go check.”

  She pointed to his rifle and reached for it.

  Jack moved it from her way.

  The woman pointed to the rifle, shook her head, then mimicked raising the gun.

  “Um, Sarge,” Carlson said. “I think she’s telling us to raise our weapons.”

  “I think you’re right.” Jack lifted his and motioned his head. “Let’s go.”

  The shack was only twenty feet away, but it seemed like a mile. Arriving at the door, Jack signaled Carlson to stand back and then Jack sprang open the door.

  Nothing.

  They looked at each other, then with weapons raised walked in.

  It was quiet and dark. Another step then out from no where, with an inhuman growl, rushed a man.

  His snarled and raged for Jack and Carlson, snapping to a stop inches before reaching them.

  Jack stepped back. The man had been restrained by chains, but he fought and struggled to reach and bite him.

  His face, his wounds, his coloring. All the same.

  Jack didn’t need to be a doctor to know, this man, in this remote village, was infected.

  ***

  Jacqueline Druga is a native of Pittsburgh and a prolific writer of numerous novels. While she specializes in the Apocalypse, Jacqueline also writes Horror, Comedy, Romance, Mystery and YA. She is considered an authority on Bio-terror and was feature3d on the History Channel.

  She welcomes your feedback and you can reach Jacqueline via her website at www.jacquelinedruga.com

  Dana Fredsti

  YOU'LL NEVER BE LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN

  First time director Darren Zuber was having a hard enough time shooting his film before the dead started coming back to life and eating the living.

  Mara Dubray, his leading lady and a well-known star of daytime soaps, was proof positive that most actors' IQs and egos were inversely proportional. Known more for her enormous bosom rather than any real acting talent, Mara was not about to let some first-time director tell her how to deliver lines. Her tantrums had already run the film well over budget and the words "completion bond company" had been bandied about more than once by Gerald Fife, the executive producer.

  Never mind that it had been Fife's brilliant idea to cast a mediocre soap star as Lady Genevieve, a noblewoman in love with a priest (played by Derrick Stone, a minor name whose entire range consisted of stoically wooden) in the midst of a plague-stricken 14th Century Europe.

  Darren had fought this casting — certainly the most ludicrous decision since Verhoven had cast Melanie Griffith as Elizabeth I ("I have the mind of a king and a bod made for sin") as vehemently as he dared. But with only a music video directing credit under his belt, Darren had to swallow both pride and common sense on a great many crucial details, such as casting and rewrites. It was the only way to get his film made, a project he'd dreamed of doing since his first years at UCLA. And it was only the success of Game of Thrones that had convinced Plateau Productions, headed by Fife, to invest the money.

  Plateau was known for low-budget rip-offs of big box office pictures, as well as micro-budget exploitation films in every genre. If you rented a Plateau picture you could always count on four things: bad scripts, worse acting, one or two minor "name" actors for foreign draw, and at least one scene set in a strip club.

  Explanations to Five that 14th century Europeans did not have strip clubs were useless. To Fife, if a film didn't have topless dancers, it wasn't a film. "You gotta have tits and ass, kid," Fife had said during one of their many rewrite sessions. "And I don't give a shit what century we're talking here; you can't tell me that the men didn't want to see naked girls after a hard day plowing in the field, even if they hadn't invented boob jobs yet." Darren had given in, figuring he could come up with some sort of scene in a tavern with bawdy serving maids and a band of roving minstrels for the music.

  But it was certainly a far cry from the idealism of film school and all of those vows Darren and his fellow students had made. They would never sell out to the commercialism of Hollywood. Their movies would be pure; art for art's sake. No stars (unless it was an older name, like Maureen O'Hara or a 70s sitcom star. Both had a certain cache that appealed to the idealistic — and pretentious — students in the UCLA film program); no more than one explosion per film, and no scripts by Roland Emmerich.

  Darren wondered how many film school grads had their idealism kicked out of them by the steel-toed boots of companies like Plateau. He supposed he should be grateful to have won the battle against a rock'n'roll soundtrack. As he stared balefully at Mara while she finished butchering yet another speech, however, Darren found it hard to be grateful about anything.

  The scene would have to be done again to get the master shot, and then there would be countless takes on key phrases, close-ups, reaction shots from the crowd of peasants as Lady Genevieve tried to convince them not to flee their village, and—

  Shit! Was one of the extras wearing sunglasses?

  Why the hell hadn't the extra coordinator or the wardrobe mistress caught that? And how had he missed it? And how could that asshat of an extra be so…so brain-dead? Several scenes would now have to be reshot, adding more to the already inflated budget.

  Darren groaned and rubbed his head, trying to convince the nagging ache behind one eye that it did not want to become a migraine. Melissa, his assistant, silently handed him two Excedrin Migraine and an unopened can of soda. Darren mouthed a silent "thanks" and popped the top, washing down the pills with a mouthful of sickly sweet orange-flavored carbonation.

  "Jeez, this stuff is crap." Darren handed the can back to Melissa. "Can't those P.A's get anything but this shit?"

  Melissa shrugged. "Budget will only cover generic. Besides, the whole dead thing back east is really playing havoc with shipments."

  "Jesus…" Darren turned to his first A.D. "John, call lunch. We'll take this scene again after that. And tell Zack to make sure none of the extras are wearing fucking sunglasses! Or watches, or any other jewelry, for crissake! These are 14th century peasants! And tell Linda I want more yellow on their teeth! They didn't have Crest in the 14th century! Jesus!"

  Darren stomped off without waiting for an answer, unable to control his temper. He didn't like losing it in front of people. He had promised himself he wasn't going to be one of those abusive directors famous for their on-set tantrums. But he hadn't bargained for the reality of low-budget Hollywood.

  At least Darren could trust John to handle the situation. Thank God for John, a fellow student from UCLA and one of the few people Darren could really count on. His producer, Phil, was another friend from film school. The three of them had shared many a late night pizza while watching The Definitive Movie Masterpieces as defined by their film prof, analyzing them to a degree that would have both amazed and amused the original filmmakers.

  John still retained some of the purity of vision they'd once all shared, albeit tempered with an increasingly world-weary attitude now reflected by his newly tinted glasses. Phil, however, had not only happily tossed idealism out the window; he'd also thrown out imagination, courage, and loyalty. He made up for these gaps in his character by extra doses of brown-nosing and sleaziness.

  Even now, instead of showing any interest in the increasingly disastrous proceedings, Phil was off in a corner schmoozing some buxom peasant girl; one wearing a pair of decidedly non-period earrings and far too much self-applied cosmetics, despite strict instructions from the makeup department.

  Darren went off in search of something stronger than Excedrin.

  The next day brought a whole slew of unpleasant surprises, including the news that Joe Pilate (one of the few actors Darren had actually cast himself) had been eaten the day before. Phil delivered the unpleasant news via telephone before Darren had a chance to sip his morning espresso.

  "Eaten? What the hell do you mean, 'he was eaten?'"

  "Had his guts ripped right out," Phil confirmed with ghouli
sh relish. "Joe was visiting his father's grave in Philly and a couple of deadheads had him for lunch."

  "Jesus, that's sick." Darren was dismayed that even while he mourned the death of a friend, his mind was already going over possible replacements for the devoured actor.

  "That's the east coast for you," Phil said. "By the way, Fife is really on my ass about the budget. Are there any more scenes we can cut?"

  Darren swore. It would already take an editing genius to make a coherent story out of the amputated bits left from his original script. Not for the first time, he suspected Fife had a sympathetic ear in Phil.

  "Forget it," he growled. "Any more cuts and we're going to have a 14th century music video."

  "Hey, we could get a rock band and have them do a title song," Phil said enthusiastically. "Call it Plague Years or something!"

  Darren closed his eyes. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Bottom line, no more cuts." He paused, finding his next words sticking in his throat. "And find me a replacement for Joe ASAP. We'll shift his scenes to Thursday. I'll have Melissa call the actors and let 'em know we're doing the love scene today."

  Hanging up before Phil could argue, Darren sadly reflected that he'd just given Joe an extremely shoddy obituary.

  As soon as he arrived on set, Melissa told Darren that Mara was refusing to do the love scene with Derrick unless provided with a bottle of Cristal to relax her.

  "Relax her?" Phil, who had joined the pair as they walked towards the craft service table, snorted in derision. "If she'd lay off the coke or whatever other crap she's been taking, she'd relax just fine."

  "I don't know." Melissa shrugged fatalistically; something she'd been doing a lot the past few days. "She says the whole dead coming back to life thing is really stressing her out."

  "Oh, that's a load of crap," Phil snarled, grabbing a bagel and slathering it with cream cheese. "This is Hollywood, not Philadelphia."

  Darren headed straight for the Excedrin.

  "I don't know." Melissa shrugged again, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "They're saying it's spreading."

  "'They?' Who are 'they', Mara? That's total bullshit." Phil bit viciously into his bagel. "She just wants to get loaded on good champagne on our dime."

  "I guess," Melissa said doubtfully. "So what should I tell her?"

  Darren sighed, deciding he'd better step in. "Get some Tott's or spumante and don't let her see the bottle. I doubt she'll know the difference. She only knows about Cristal because she's watched Showgirls at least twenty times."

  Later, as he tried to coax some genuine emotion out of his two leads, Darren reflected that if the walking dead problem did spread out west, no one would be able to tell the difference between the zombies and his actors anyway, so who'd give a shit?

  The next day, both the media and the general uproar in the city confirmed the fact that, like practically everyone else in the country, the dead had indeed migrated to the west coast. Traffic was abysmal; it took Darren two hours to drive from Culver City to the studio in Burbank. He wasn't sure, but he thought several of the scruffy street people he passed on the way looked…well…dead.

  At the studio, for the first time Darren could remember, the large electronic iron gates were shut, a heavily armed security guard screening each new arrival very carefully before letting them in. Another guard, also packing what looked to be a heavy-caliber weapon, kept vigilant watch each time the gates opened and closed.

  Melissa greeted Darren with the news that several crewmembers (two production assistants and a grip) were missing. They hadn't called in; they were just … missing. "And we're short extras too," Melissa added. "Central Casting called and said a bunch of their people are afraid to drive anywhere."

  John walked up, radio in hand. "I figure we'll have to do tighter shots to get the kind of crowd effect you want with the plague victims."

  Darren set his mouth in a determined line. "Let's just do it."

  He stalked towards the day's first set; the interior of a church where several hundred plague victims, both dead and dying, were gathered to seek salvation. About seventy-five extras, gruesomely made up to look like they were in the final throes of the Black Death, were sitting in the aisles and rough-hewn wooden pews, nervously discussing the more current plague of ravenous corpses. Crewmembers looked equally distracted. Very few were actually doing their jobs.

  Darren thought they'd have to do some fast-talking to keep people on the film so he called a meeting with John and Phil.

  "So what do you think?" he said after outlining his concerns.

  "I just don't know, Darren," Phil replied. "I mean, you've got people scared to leave their homes. Businesses are shutting down. I mean, Starbucks was closed this morning." He stared at both Darren and John in turn. "Starbucks."

  "Do what you can," Darren said, trying not to imagine a world without readily available coffee. "Offer bonus pay, whatever it takes."

  "Bonus pay?" Phil sounded outraged. "Are you nuts? Do you know what Fife will say if I do that?"

  "Don't tell him!" Darren slammed his hand against a chair in frustration. "Jesus, Phil, there's got to be something we can do!"

  Phil was quiet; a sign that his mind was working furiously. After a moment of reflection he smiled broadly. "I've got it!" He lowered his voice. "We'll offer the bonus pay. But we don't have to actually pay them the extra money."

  John nodded thoughtfully.

  Darren, on the other hand, was horrified, both at the idea and John's calm reaction to it. "Jesus, Phil, that's totally unethical! These people are working their asses off!"

  "Yeah, and we're paying them. There aren't any clauses in their contracts for a zombie plague."

  "Look, Phil, they have every reason to demand more money if they're risking their lives to be here."

  John nodded. "He's got a point, Phil. You know how much stuntmen get paid."

  Phil brought his face close to Darren's. "Do you want to finish this film or not?"

  John nodded again. "He's got a point, Darren."

  Thousands of objections whirled around in Darren's mind, but all he could come up with was a feeble, "But we could get sued!"

  Phil shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. But with all this other shit going down, who's gonna have time to deal with it?"

  John shook his head doubtfully. "SAG isn't going to let a little thing like zombies stop them from fucking with the production if we screw their actors over, you know that. And the Teamsters…"

  The three men shook their heads, differences momentarily forgotten as they contemplated the eternal enemy of the low-budget filmmaker: the Unions.

  Taking advantage of the moment of camaraderie, Phil rested his hand on Darren's shoulder. "Let's get this film finished, buddy. This is what we worked for in film school, right? So we'll do whatever we have to do."

  Darren felt a tiny piece of his soul die as he heard himself reply, "You got it."

  The offer of hazard pay got about two-thirds of the cast and crew on set the next day. Darren had sympathetic for the absentees. The commute to the studio had been even worse than the previous day. He'd definitely seen people—both living and dead—with large chunks missing from various limbs, all staggering around the streets. The kind of stuff nightmares were made of.

  On the other hand, it was a definite solution to the homeless problem.

  Darren's main concern was the number of armed soldiers and national guardsmen now patrolling the city. Certain broadcasts on radio and TV said the government was planning to impose a twenty-four hour curfew on the streets. That would make it impossible to get to and from the studio. Darren had brought an overnight bag just in case and had called to tell Phil and Melissa to do the same.

  Melissa had been charged with the duty of calling as many other crew and cast members as she could reach and suggest they plan on staying over too. "People aren't going to want to leave their families," Melissa had pointed out when asked to make the call.

  "They can bring their families
with them," Darren had immediately replied.

  Darren was gratified to see some people actually did bring their families (and pets) with them to the studio. When Phil pointed out this would compensate for the shortage of extras, Darren agreed, thinking it would keep their minds off the horrors outside of the studio walls.

  Today was a key scene. Lady Genevieve accidentally reveals her love for the handsome priest in front of the townspeople when she seeks him out in the church so he can read the Last Rites over her dying father.

  The scene was shot several times before lunch, Mara doing an abysmal job of conveying any real emotion. Whether she was trying to show fear, love, hate or indifference, Mara just looked as though she had a bad case of gas.

  "I can't concentrate!" she wailed when Darren didn't bother to hide his impatience wither lack of talent. "There are dead people outside!"

  "Well, they're not inside," Darren shot back coldly. "And they aren't paying your salary." He turned away, dismissing her before he said something he really regretted. "Now people, we're going to break for lunch and then try this again. The caterer did show up, didn't he?"

  When Mara didn't return to set after lunch, Darren assumed she was throwing a tantrum because he hadn't treated her with the respect she didn't deserve. Everyone else was in place, waiting for the camera to roll. Derrick, playing the handsome young priest stood patiently at the pulpit, muttering lines that would all come out sounding heroically wooden.

  Patience worn paper-thin, Darren stalked towards Mara's trailer, determined to drag her out by her hair if need be.

  "Damn it, I hate actors," he muttered, rapping sharply on the trailer door with a closed fist. When no response was forthcoming Darren threw manners to the wind and flung the door open hard enough to send it smacking into the inside wall.

  "Mara, get your ass out here! I swear, I'm going to make sure you never work in this town again if you don't stop this shit!" Aware that he'd just made an empty threat, Darren took the stairs in one long stride and stuck his head around the corner. "Mara, I mean it. I—"

  Darren stopped short, confronted by the sight of Mara's prone body, still in 14th century garb, lying on the trailer floor, one hand clutching a hypodermic, the other splayed lifelessly to one side.