by Jeff Strand
“Who?”
Bobby pointed to a booth at the other end of the restaurant. “Alicia Howtz.”
2
“No,” said Justin.
“Why not?” asked Bobby.
“She isn’t right for the role.”
“We don’t have a role yet.”
“She won’t be right when we do have one.”
“Could it be because, I don’t know, let me think, gosh, you’re madly in love with her?”
It was indeed because Justin was madly in love with Alicia. Okay, moderately in love with her. He had been for the past four years. During those four years, they’d had exactly three conversations consisting of a total of eleven sentences, the content of which was yes, Justin did know what time it was, no, Justin did not have change for a five, and, in their most recent exchange, “Excuse me.”
They had never shared any classes. Their lockers were on opposite ends of the school. They didn’t ride the same bus. In fact, he could go weeks without seeing her.
Without seeing her beautiful, long blond hair…
Without seeing her beautiful blue eyes…
Without seeing her beautiful smile…
(He’d fallen in love with her when she wore braces, and he had found her smile to be entrancing even then. Now it was absolutely radiant.)
Her body was like a goddess mixed with an angel mixed with a female superhero.
Justin knew that he didn’t stand a chance with her, which is why he never tried to stand a chance with her. He didn’t look like Gollum or anything, but he also wouldn’t ever cast himself as the lead in one of his movies.
She was gorgeous. He was a film geek.
“No,” said Justin. He was lying though. It really was because he was madly in love with her.
“This could be your chance,” said Bobby. “If you cast her in the movie, she’d think of you as her director. Girls love directors. You’d stop just being that guy she sees in her peripheral vision every once in a while.”
“We don’t know if she can act.”
“So we’ll write lines where she doesn’t have to act much.”
“I’m all in favor of Justin getting together with Alicia,” said Gabe, “but this isn’t how you go about the casting process.”
Bobby slid out of the booth and stood up. “I’m going to offer her a part.”
Justin had a sudden moment of panic. “What? No. Don’t.”
“You said you wanted to do this without a safety net, right? Without any excuses not to finish? Then cast Alicia.”
Justin had to admit that offering Alicia the lead in his movie would give him the motivation to get it done, but his idea of committing himself to the film had involved “risking and perhaps losing enormous sums of somebody else’s money” and not “risking Alicia Howtz thinking he was a complete loser.”
“We should wait,” said Justin.
“If we wait, we might wake up tomorrow and decide that this was a terrible idea.”
“Exactly! That’s why we should wait!”
“But then you’ll wake up tomorrow and not be making a movie with Alicia Howtz as the star.” Bobby took a step toward Alicia’s booth, where she sat with four or five friends Justin didn’t know. “Are you coming?”
“If you do this, I will kill you,” said Justin.
“Don’t do it,” Gabe told Bobby. “I won’t help him kill you, but I’ll be really mad. We’ll write the part with an eye toward casting her in the lead, and if she passes the audition process, then we’ll offer her the role. And if she accepts, then Justin is more than welcome to be the kind of sleazy director who would hit on his lead actress.”
“I wouldn’t hit on her,” said Justin. “I would maybe—maybe—be open to forming a friendship during our time together on the set. We can see where it leads at the end of the shooting schedule after our professional relationship is over.”
“Look how much you’re sweating,” said Bobby.
“I promise we’ll try to get her involved in the movie,” Justin said. “Just wait for us to have a title first.”
Bobby slid back into the booth. “Okay, but I’m not going to let you wuss out on this.”
“Fine.”
Justin wiped the perspiration from his brow. No doubt it was from the chili and not the terror.
• • •
As Justin lay in bed, too wired to fall asleep, he wondered if his idea had perhaps been just a tiny little bit overly ambitious.
Nah, he decided.
Maybe they’d fail. Maybe they’d only make the third or fourth greatest zombie movie of all time. That was okay. There was no shame in that.
One month—actually, twenty-nine days—was not a lot of time to write a script and shoot an entire movie, especially since they had school and part-time jobs and curfews. But when Justin set his mind to something, whether it was getting one hundred percent on a chemistry test or watching forty-eight hours’ worth of horror movies in a row, he always succeeded.
Okay, that wasn’t completely true. When he was eleven, he’d set his mind to being the ultimate Hollywood stuntman, and four years after the cast came off, he still couldn’t lift his right arm all the way. Last year he had set his mind to stop being afraid of the neighbor’s pit bull and to befriend the animal instead. That hadn’t worked out in the best possible manner either.
In fact, now that he was thinking about it, there had been many, many, many instances in which he’d put his mind to something and the end result had been pain, humiliation, or a combination of the two. But Justin was fine with that. Pain was temporary. On his third movie, he’d been conked on the forehead by a baseball bat that had slipped out of his lead actor’s hand during an intense “bash the mummy with a baseball bat” sequence, and the pain had gone away after only two days.
Perhaps brain damage was forever, but pain was temporary.
And humiliation? Justin didn’t purposely invite humiliation into his life, but unless it involved the potential for having his heart crushed by girls, he thought of most incidents in terms of how good of an anecdote they’d provide for talk show interviews. It was fine to look stupid on occasion. Nobody liked people who were popular all the time.
He really needed to get some sleep, so he tried counting zombie heads. When he counted his five hundredth zombie head, he settled for planning out his Oscar speech.
He wasn’t going to be one of those people who rattled off a list of names, thanking studio executives who could help their careers. He’d thank Gabe and Bobby, of course, and his parents, and the girlfriend he would definitely have at the time, which would almost certainly not be Alicia; however, he saw no need to eliminate her from this particular fantasy.
He’d start with a killer joke. He hoped something would happen during the ceremony that would give him an idea for a hilarious ad-lib. But he’d have a planned bit ready just to be completely prepared.
Maybe he’d say, “I never expected to win!” but read it directly off a piece of paper. He’d read it slowly in a monotone voice so that the audience got the joke. Then he’d do the ad-lib that would delight both the live audience and the millions of viewers at home, thank people in a heartwarming manner, and then say something inspirational, all before his time ended and the band played him off. It wouldn’t be generic inspiration like, “Kids, follow your heart and your dreams will come true!” It would be inspiring yet also practical advice. There wasn’t a lot of practical advice in Academy Awards acceptance speeches, so he’d get a lot of positive press for that along with his hilarious ad-lib.
Even as the applause filled his imagination, Justin knew that his chances of winning an Oscar for his zombie movie were slim at best. He probably wouldn’t tell Gabe or Bobby that he was planning his acceptance speech.
• • •
His alarm—the cruel, rotten, trai
torous, heartless, demonic piece of junk—went off at 6:00 a.m., as it did every Saturday. Justin got up, scratched in seven or eight places, and then stumbled into the bathroom to take a shower, wishing he could just curl up in the bathtub and go back to sleep.
But he couldn’t be late to work, or Mr. Pamm would yell at him even more than he did when he wasn’t mad. Mr. Pamm loved to shout. He didn’t shout to deliver constructive criticism or even to express disapproval of bad behavior. Mostly he yelled about purely hypothetical situations, such as, “Dang it, Justin. If you drop that dang box of apples, it’s coming out of your dang paycheck!” or, “Mop that dang floor before somebody dang falls. Dang it!” Obviously a freshly mopped floor was a greater danger for falling than one that merely had some dirty footprints on it, but questioning Mr. Pamm’s logic was unwise.
Working at the craft store warehouse was a terrible job. (The aforementioned apples were decorative plastic ones.) But at least it was better than washing dishes, cleaning fish, swinging a pickax in a coal mine, digging ditches, unclogging toilets that had been clogged weeks ago, testing the acidic effects of mascara on human flesh, being punched by a sadistic millionaire who paid people to let him punch them, or working airline customer service.
And unlike Gabe’s job, which required him to think about how much whipped cream to put on the sundae, or Bobby’s job, which required him to prioritize which groceries were best suited for the bottom of the bag and which were best suited for the top, Justin’s job required very little brainpower wattage. When he wasn’t actively being yelled at, he could think about pretty much anything he wanted.
So at 7:15 a.m., as he unloaded boxes from a truck, he thought about his zombie movie.
How deeply should he really commit himself to this idea?
It would be very easy to keep the stakes low. Not make a big deal out of it. Tinker with a screenplay and see what happened. Despite peer pressure from Bobby, Justin was the director, so he didn’t have to cast Alicia if he decided that his nervous system couldn’t handle it.
And if they failed, they could have the following conversation:
“Whoops,” Justin would say. “Apparently we did not make the greatest zombie movie ever after all.”
“Nope,” Gabe would say, shaking his head but not in a vigorous manner. “We didn’t even finish it, film any scenes, cast any actors, or even write anything. But that’s all right, because we kept the stakes low!”
“It’s fun to fail when there’s no accountability!” Bobby would say.
That wasn’t acceptable.
To make sure he finished this project, Justin had to set up legitimate stakes. He needed to tell everybody he could about the movie. Create so much buzz that people would demand to know when it was coming out. Make it so he’d have to scream, “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Quit bugging me about the zombie movie! Let me live my life in peace!” if he failed to deliver.
He’d post it everywhere online. Make a quick teaser trailer. Create posters. Let the world know that something incredible was on the way.
Mr. Pamm noisily told him not to drop a box that he’d been nowhere close to dropping.
Mr. Pamm. That would be the perfect name for the first person to get eaten by zombies.
• • •
The first official preproduction meeting took place that afternoon in Justin’s bedroom. As Gabe and Bobby dined on chicken salad sandwiches that were provided by craft services (Justin’s mom), Justin flipped to a blank page of his easel pad, took the cap off a red Magic Marker, and wrote, Greatest zombie movie ever.
“You should make the words look like they’re bleeding,” said Bobby.
“No,” said Justin. “That’s the first thing we all need to understand. This isn’t going to be the kind of movie where the title is in bleeding letters. We’re not doing a cheesy zombie flick. This is going to be true horror.”
“Awesome,” said Bobby.
“And we’re going to get this movie done, no matter what.”
“You’re pretty passionate about a project with no title, characters, or story,” Gabe noted.
“Yes, I am. Now after giving it some consideration, I’ve decided that Gabe is right about the three-hour running time not being such a great idea. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to reduce our scope. This is going to be epic.” He wrote EPIC on the pad. “If anybody in this room does not feel that they can deliver on this word,” he said, tapping the word EPIC, “then they should get out now.”
Neither Gabe nor Bobby left the room, though they didn’t let out mighty roars of assent either.
“This is our first meeting, not counting last night, which wasn’t a real meeting, so it’s just for brainstorming. This is a safe, judgment-free time for sharing. Remember, there are no stupid ideas.”
“The zombies should live in piñatas,” said Bobby.
Justin glared at him. “Is this how you’re going to act?”
“You said—”
“I know what I said, and you know what I meant. This is a real thing, and we need to take it seriously.”
Bobby nodded. “I withdraw my piñata idea.”
“Thank you.”
Gabe raised his hand.
“Yes, Gabe?”
“We don’t have any money.”
“That’s why we have to be inventive. Did the makers of The Blair Witch Project have any money?”
“Yes, they had twenty thousand dollars. We don’t have twenty thousand dollars.”
“We don’t need it.”
“And that’s a low estimate of how much they spent. They spent way more after the shooting was done.”
“Right, but that was studio money after they got a distribution deal. All we care about right now is the cost of shooting the movie.”
“We don’t have twenty thousand dollars,” said Gabe.
“No, but do you know what we do have?”
“Twenty dollars?”
Justin scowled. “Why are you being so negative?”
“I’m the producer. My job is to be practical.”
“Compromise my creative vision in our second meeting, okay?”
“Will do.”
Justin cleared his throat and tapped the word EPIC again. “We can do this. And while I was at work, I came up with the perfect title.” He wrote Lifeless on the pad.
“Lifeless?” Bobby asked.
“Right. Without life. Dead. The perfect name for a zombie movie.”
“I don’t know,” said Gabe. “I can see a critic saying, ‘Lifeless is an accurate title for this lifeless film.’”
Justin crossed out Lifeless. “Other ideas?”
“Dead Zombies,” said Bobby.
“Zombies are already dead.”
“These are even deader.”
Justin reluctantly wrote Dead Zombies on the board.
“Hmmmm,” said Gabe. “How about Zombie Night. No, Dead Night. No, The Dead in Florida. The Florida Dead. Florida Zombies. Florizombies. Maybe something about humidity. Hurricane Zombies. Zombie Hurricane. Zombie Tornado. Zombie Volcano. Zombie Earthquake. Earthquake of the Zombies. Earthquake of the Dead. The Earth Quakes When the Dead Rise. DeadQuake. Maybe something about flesh eating. Dining on Flesh. The Dead Dine on Flesh. Dead Flesh Diners. You’re not writing these down.”
“You’re going too fast.”
“I like Florizombies,” said Bobby.
“What was the one after Zombie Night?” asked Justin.
After a couple of minutes, they recreated the list of titles and added a few more, including Zombies with Flesh Stuck in Their Teeth, even though Justin was insistent that this would not be a zombie comedy.
Bobby’s cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, looked at the display, and then hurriedly put it away again.
“Who’s calling you?” Justin as
ked.
“Nobody.”
“I saw it,” said Gabe. “It’s Alicia.”
“You called Alicia?”
Bobby pressed his hand against his pocket as his phone continued to ring as if muffling the noise would make Justin ask fewer questions.
“You seriously called Alicia?” Justin asked.
“No! I texted her! I didn’t know she’d call! Should I answer it?”
“No!” said Justin.
Bobby took the phone out of his pocket. “I should answer. She might never call back. I’ll put her on speaker.”
“No! Don’t put her on speaker!”
Bobby touched the screen of his phone. “Hello?” he said.
“Is this Bobby?” asked the beautiful and melodic yet frightening voice of Alicia Howtz.
3
“Yes, this is Robert Green,” said Bobby. “I’m so glad you called to discuss this professional opportunity. We’re currently in the midst of a preproduction meeting, so your timing is perfect.”
Justin gestured frantically at him. Put her on mute, he mouthed at Bobby.
Bobby gave him a quizzical look.
Justin pointed at the phone. Put her on mute, or I will grab you by the ears and bash your head into the floor. He mimed the ear-grabbing and head-bashing as he said it.
“I’m sorry, Alicia, but our director insists on speaking with you directly. Please note that by speaking to him about the project, you are verbally signing a nondisclosure agreement. Is that acceptable?”
“Uh, sure,” said Alicia.
“Excellent.” Bobby handed the phone to Justin.
Justin stared at the phone for a moment as if it were a python about to strike.
“Hello?” said Alicia.
Justin continued to stare at the phone as if it were a great white shark about to bite him in half, lengthwise.
“Are you on mute?” Alicia asked.
Justin kept staring at the phone as if it were a genetically engineered hybrid of a lion, a piranha, and a tarantula.
Gabe gave him a look that said, I disagree with the tactic our friend just used, but now that he’s done it, you might as well talk to her.
