Greatest Zombie Movie Ever

by Jeff Strand

  Inside the room there was nothing.

  Well, there was stuff, just no zombies.

  She and Christopher walked into the room very slowly to build suspense. Gabe, Bobby, Justin, Daisy, and Spork followed them, being careful not to make any noise or cast any reflections. These smooth school floors were not ideal for walking around in socks. If Justin slipped and fell, he wasn’t sure if he should try to land on his left arm and break it worse or land on his right and have two broken arms.

  Alicia and Christopher continued walking through the room in a suspense-building manner. Nothing continued to happen because nothing was supposed to happen until the third room.

  “Cut,” said Justin.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “Is it just me, or is this is boring as crap?”

  “It is kind of boring,” Bobby admitted.

  “Yeah, it’s boring,” said Christopher.

  “Very boring,” said Spork.

  “I’ve been less bored,” said Daisy.

  “The only reason I didn’t scream out in boredom is because I didn’t want to mess up the shot,” said Gabe.

  “I was too focused on my performance to judge,” said Alicia.

  Justin sighed. “This won’t work. We can’t do this for half an hour. What were we thinking?”

  “We?” asked Gabe.

  “Bobby, go round up the zombies.”

  “I just put them in their rooms!”

  “We need them all in one hallway. Veronica Chaos and Runson Mudd can fight their way through a thick horde of them.”

  “You don’t have to use my character’s full name every time if you don’t want to,” said Christopher. “I know we’re trying to speed things up.”

  Bobby left to gather the zombies. Justin felt bad about ditching his astounding technical achievement of a final shot, but he was proud of himself for realizing that it wasn’t working before he wasted any more time. That was the sign of an excellent director—knowing when to finally accept that the person who had earlier warned you that something was a bad idea was correct.

  When they walked out of the home economics room, Justin noticed that his shoes were gone.

  “What happened to my shoes?” he asked.

  “They’re over there,” said Gabe, pointing to them. “Right where you left them. You were looking the wrong way.”

  “Oh. Yeah, okay, I see them now. The school looks a lot different when you’re here without…” Justin almost said, “without permission,” but fortunately he managed to prevent himself from finishing the dumbest sentence he’d started to say in a long time during an era of his life when a great many of his sentences weren’t brilliant.

  He walked over to retrieve his shoes, hoping that Gabe wouldn’t ask him to say the remaining words.

  By the time he put on his shoes plus another twenty-eight minutes, Bobby had brought all of the zombies back to the hallway. Many of them looked annoyed, but Justin chose to believe that it was simply because of their makeup.

  “I apologize for making you sit alone in a classroom waiting for a camera crew that never showed up,” said Justin. “I appreciate your continued patience. Rest assured that every one of you will get your name on the screen by itself during the opening credits.”

  “Say what?” asked Gabe.

  “I’ve decided that zombies work better in large groups. A pretty obvious part of the zombie mythos, I’ll admit, but like I’ve said many times since I began this venture, I’m very tired. So I need you all to channel your inner corpse and be as scary as possible. I want to hear moans that chill me to my very core. Those of you with rotted fake teeth and the guy with real ones, I want your mouths open as wide as possible. I want your eyes to look so frightening that we don’t need to digitally replace them, even though we will anyway. I want to feel the absolute unimaginable, nightmarish agony of being dead!”

  One of the zombies raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “I thought this was going to be a fun movie.”

  “No, it’s unrelenting horror.”

  “Gotcha. May I be excused?”

  “Yes. Turn in your chin gash to Bobby on the way out. The rest of you, this is your moment! This is the reason you’ve given up a perfectly good Saturday to be with me, and this is the reason you won’t mind when I tell you that you’ll need to sleep in your makeup because we still need you tomorrow, and we can’t afford to redo your faces. This is your chance to live forever. Most people don’t get this chance. I think we all know somebody who was long forgotten. That won’t be you. I’m not promising to make movie stars out of all of you, but in two hundred years, when civilization has crumbled to dust and been replaced by a newer, better civilization, somebody will excavate a Blu-ray player. And in that Blu-ray player will be a copy of Dead Skull or whatever we end up calling it. And they’ll watch the movie, and you will be remembered!”

  One of the zombies applauded. The others didn’t join in, so the zombie stopped applauding and looked sheepishly down at his feet.

  “So be scary, my zombie friends. Be scary! When I call, ‘Action!’ I want to experience genuine fear! I want to capture the true essence of the living dead on the silver screen! You and you and you and you and all of you—please don’t take it personally if I didn’t point to you individually because I was just going left to right—you are going to make me proud! You are going to make millions of zombie fans happy! You are going to make millions of non-zombie fans into zombie fans! You are going to make millions of people who have no particular opinion about zombie movies into people who do have an opinion about them! This is your destiny!”

  “I was with you until you said the destiny part,” said one of the zombies. “That’s taking it a bit too far. I’m starting to feel like you’re patronizing us.”

  “Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, I’m not emphasizing your destiny enough! I’ll drop it if that’s the way you all feel, but I really was working toward something big with this.”

  “I wasn’t trying to speak for everybody,” said the zombie. “I apologize if that’s the way it sounded. Please continue.”

  “I’ve kind of lost my momentum. Oh well. All I’m saying is that I want to be terrified!”

  And when Ms. Weager walked around the corner, Justin felt all of the fear he desired.

  29

  The biggest problem with trying to inspire a group of zombies to be as frightening as possible was this: When your principal showed up to investigate the report that unauthorized students were making a zombie movie in the school, the zombies were so worked up to express their zombie nature that they pretended they were going to eat her.

  Ms. Weager was not the most receptive audience to this.

  It was very unlikely that she believed they were real zombies that were going to devour her flesh even in the moment. She probably just thought they’d gone berserk and were trying to take a bite out of her arm like a rabid person might. Either way, she fell to the ground, shrieking.

  If somebody had said, “Hey, Justin, one day Ms. Weager is going to be surrounded by zombies, and she’ll be on the floor screaming her head off!” Justin would have said, “Ha-ha! I bet that will be an amusing sight for sure! I look forward to that day!” To an uninvolved spectator, it probably was a delightful thing to witness, but for somebody as emotionally involved as Justin, it was stomach-churning terror.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  Ms. Weager’s fright was short-lived. Her next reaction, after she stood back up, was to start knocking zombie heads together.

  Three pairs of zombies were down before she stopped.

  Gabe dropped the borrowed camera, which broke into four pieces.

  “Hey, Ms. Weager, are you here to be in our movie?” asked Bobby.

  “Cut,” said Justin.

  “You never
said, ‘Action,’” Alicia informed him.

  “I know. Just…cut.”

  • • •

  Justin sat in Ms. Weager’s office with his parents, who were not happy to be there.

  Everybody else had been sent home. None of them seemed to be big fans of Justin as they left.

  “Mistakes were made,” Justin admitted.

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Ms. Weager.

  “I don’t know what to say. I take full responsibility for this.”

  “We knew he was excited about this movie,” said Mom. “We didn’t know it would lead to misdemeanors.”

  “Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t expel you?” Ms. Weager asked.

  “Yes,” said Justin. “Given time I can.”

  “Do you know what I think should happen?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I think you should be suspended for two weeks. This means you’ll miss all of your final exams and have to take your freshman year over again.”

  Dad stiffened. Mom put her hand over her mouth but didn’t quite block the sob.

  “That’s, uh, yeah, that’s harsh,” said Justin. “I did come up with the reason why you shouldn’t expel me. We didn’t break anything.”

  “That remains to be seen when we check the lock you say you picked. Besides, we’re now discussing suspension, not expulsion. Best-case scenario for you is that you make the classes up in summer school.”

  Justin’s face burned like Uncle Clyde’s house.

  Ms. Weager leaned back in her chair. “When I was your age, I was impulsive. Even a little reckless. I had that spirit crushed out of me, but every once in a while, I miss it. Mr. Hollow, I am going to cut you some slack that won’t be cut for you when you enter the real world. This is only because you didn’t act in a malicious manner, and you didn’t touch my intercom. You will remain a student here in good standing if you can prove that you didn’t ignore your education in favor of the living dead.”

  Justin brightened. “You mean…discuss the symbolism in my movie?”

  “No. I mean get As on all of your finals.”

  “I will. I’ll do it. I promise.”

  This meant that he had no chance whatsoever of finishing the movie before Gabe left, but Justin felt like he was becoming more educated already, and he didn’t protest.

  “And the footage of me with the zombies,” said Ms. Weager. “I don’t expect it ever to surface.”

  “It won’t.”

  “I mean it. I’m comfortable telling you right in front of your parents that I will bury you if anybody ever sees it.”

  “I understand one hundred percent,” Justin said, and he meant it. Because some things just weren’t worth being buried alive in a shallow grave over.

  • • •

  Justin threw himself upon the mercy of Gabe and Bobby, who reluctantly granted it after they watched his confession video.

  “What about the movie?” asked Bobby.

  “We’ll finish it in the fall when Gabe gets back. Or maybe we’ll change gears and make the best action movie ever. Or,” he said, immediately feeling their twin glares burn into his skin, “we’ll figure something out later.”

  • • •

  “Am I in focus?” Justin asked.

  “Yep,” said Spork. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Action!”

  Justin grabbed his history book, opened to chapter seventeen, and began to study.

  This was the first shot of what would be a thrilling studying montage.

  Over the next two weeks, Spork got amazing shots of Justin sitting at his desk, highlighting passages in four different textbooks.

  He got shots of Justin sitting in both the school and the public library, reviewing notes with the concentration of a natural movie star.

  He got more shots of Justin at his desk as Justin started reviewing the same notes he’d reviewed at the library.

  He got an exciting action shot of Justin going to bed at a reasonable hour to get a full night’s sleep.

  He got well-framed, well-lit scenes of Justin studying with Gabe, Justin studying with Bobby, and the three of them studying together. (Admittedly that last shot was staged because there was no class that all three of them shared.)

  He got shots of Justin in the lunchroom, studying while eating a nutritious lunch.

  He got a quick shot of Justin moping about the fact that he hadn’t seen Alicia since production on Dead Skull was halted, but Justin grabbed the camera from him and deleted it.

  He got a shot of Justin giving the thumbs-up sign before he went in to take the first of his exams. This shot was also staged since there were two days until exams started, but he didn’t want any shots of him looking like he was going to throw up.

  And when they set this montage to music, it rocked!

  • • •

  And then he saw her.

  It helped that she’d purposely been waiting by his locker. “When will you find out how you did?” Alicia asked.

  “I already know how I did,” said Justin. “It’s weird. When you study and know the answers, it’s a lot easier to gauge how well you did on a test.”

  She grinned. “Then…good. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I just want you to know that whether we finish the movie or not or however it turns out when we do finish it, I had a great time. I’ll never forget it. But please finish it because I’ve decided that I hate my hair and I don’t want to have done that for nothing.”

  “We’ll finish it,” Justin promised.

  “Cool.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “See you soon.”

  Would she ever decide that it was okay to date her director? Would he find some sort of sneaky loophole to change her mind? Justin didn’t know. What he did know was that right now, with the sensation of her lips against his cheek still fresh and, he hoped, the remnant of some lipstick as proof, he was truly content.

  30

  Five months later…

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the cast and crew screening of Florizombies, formerly Dead Skull. As you know,” said Justin, “we had some challenges in the making of this motion picture, but I’m proud to say that we mostly kinda finished it. You will notice some incomplete special effects and some lighting issues, and, yes, there are some scenes that are just voice-over narration against a black screen. We’ll fix that in the final version. Also, it’s only seventeen minutes. Enjoy!”

  Justin walked to the back of the theater (folding chairs in his backyard) and stood next to Gabe and Bobby. Finally everybody would see the result of their long hours of hard work.

  • • •

  “They hate it even more than we thought! Turn it off! Turn it off!”

  “Don’t bother turning it off! Just run!”

  Epilogue

  Thirteen more months later…

  Everybody in the sold-out movie theater applauded and cheered.

  “Was that a treat or what?” asked the programming director of the Woodriver International Film Festival. “You can see why it’s won so many awards. And let’s meet the filmmaker responsible for this gem. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Otto Harrison!”

  Spork walked to the front of the theater, waving to the crowd.

  “So, Otto, what’s the secret to making a documentary like this?”

  “I just point my camera and wait for the train wreck.”

  “Sound advice for all of you aspiring documentarians. Let’s bring out the cast!”

  Justin, Gabe, Bobby, Christopher, Alicia (who’d decided to keep the Mohawk after all, though it was now orange), Daisy, three of the zombies, and Ms. Weager joined Spork up front.

  “I’ve gotta say, The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever: The Not-Making of Florizombies is so
me of the most entertaining footage I’ve seen in quite a while. Admit it—the part where you accidentally blew up the car was staged, right?”

  “Nope,” said Justin. “Uncle Clyde did blow up his car. Fortunately nobody was hurt. He wanted me to tell everybody that he wishes he could be here, but the new Star Wars movie wouldn’t give him the day off.”

  “Christopher, I understand that you’re starring in the new Vin Diesel movie.”

  “Well, no, technically Vin Diesel is starring in it. But I’m in it.”

  “That’s great. And Alicia…or should I say Veronica Chaos? No, I’ll say Alicia. I’m sure that joke has worn thin. What are you working on now?”

  “I’m in the new Justin Hollow movie.”

  “That’s right!” said the programming director. “The big-budget zombie movie remake of your original film!”

  “Low-budget,” Justin corrected. “Very, very low. But it’s still cool.”

  “It sure is. I bet your original investors never expected to get their money back and then some!”

  “I assure you it did feel good to write that check.”

  “I can’t wait to see the flick. Having seen what you, Gabe, and Bobby can’t do, I’m looking forward to seeing what you can.”

  “Thanks. We start shooting in two weeks.”

  • • •

  “Action!” Justin said through the megaphone.

  The actors playing zombies, all six hundred of them, began to shamble down the street. The sight was so beautiful that it brought a tear to Justin’s eye.

  “Don’t cry,” said Gabe. “You’ll lose the respect of the rest of the crew.”

  Justin’s personal assistant, Melissa, who was also his girlfriend, dabbed at the tear with a handkerchief.

  Bobby watched the action in one of the monitors. He’d retired from his job as a sound engineer in favor of his role as an associate producer, which meant that he didn’t really do anything but got his name prominently featured in the credits. Daisy did a much better job with the sound.