The man walked toward him and said, “I would bid you good morning, Deputy Carver, but something tells me you are in no mood for simple pleasantries.”
“You’d be right,” Ryan said. “You obviously know who I am, but I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.”
“Chan,” the Asian man said with a slight smirk. “Jackie Chan.”
Ryan cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.
“You will have to trust me when I say it is infinitely better if you know as little about us as possible.”
“And you’ll have to forgive me when I say that’s a crock of shit. After what my friends and I have been through, I think we deserve a few answers.”
Fake Jackie Chan nodded. “Understandable, Deputy Carver, but I’m afraid that even if I were to offer you answers, you may find them unsatisfactory. A point that I would like to make perfectly clear, however, is that the events that have transpired over the last forty-eight hours were accidental. The result of an unplanned technical difficulty, you might say. You have my assurances that things have been restored to order. In fact, even as we speak, an aerosol agent is being administered by aerial means over the town. You won’t need to worry yourself over a future outbreak.”
A truck hauling a long flatbed trailer lumbered toward them from down the street. A hulking shape sat on top of the trailer, covered in a black tarp. Ryan stared past Chan to the truck. “I hope you got all of it.”
“We have taken every precaution.”
“If you had done that to begin with, we might not be having this conversation right now. And I’d have a lot fewer dead people to clean up.”
Chan nodded solemnly, but Ryan had a hunch (more than a hunch, when you got right down to it) that the man could give a shit less about Trudy and its residents. “You may be right.” Chan glanced over his shoulder toward the Lincoln. The driver stepped out, walked around to the trunk, and opened it. He brought out a large steel briefcase and walked it over to Chan. Chan took it and then offered it to Ryan.
“What’s this?”
“Restitution for our sins, Deputy Carver,” Chan said.
“You brought a plague down on our town and now you want to buy our silence?”
Only the words didn’t come out as vehemently as Ryan had anticipated. Weariness washed over him, and he found that he was too exhausted to argue. Chan went on staring at him. Finally, Ryan accepted the briefcase. It was heavier than it looked.
“With our apologies,” Chan said and walked back to the car. Before he slid into the passenger seat, he paused and said, “I am sure you can understand that if something like this were to leak out, despite a lack of details, the consequences could be…devastating. The detrimental effect on both of our countries would likely be irreparable.”
Ryan didn’t answer. Chan disappeared into the car and closed the door. The vehicles began to move, the truck with its secret cargo rumbled after them.
“What do we do now?” Becky asked.
“We’ll get those doors open. Get everyone that’s left home safe. After that, we’ll clean up the best we can. That’s one thing good you can say about this town – we take care of our own.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Derek said, “but I feel like I could sleep for a week. Like the dead.”
“Derek,” Kevin said.
“Yeah?”
“Shut it.”
Epilogue
Three weeks later…
They had the large corner booth in Jackie’s Up All Night Diner. It was early afternoon. The lunch rush was over, but the old-timers had already started to filter in for pie and coffee.
Kevin sat on the outside, his leg in a cast, crutches resting against the side of the bench. Rhonda sat next to him, her hair dyed blonde, wearing a pink t-shirt, the Goth girl look a thing of the past. Derek was on Rhonda’s right, his Mohawk matted down and combed over to resemble something approximating a normal haircut as he slurped Dr Pepper through a straw. Fred sat at the other corner, a metal hook where his left hand had been. He had trimmed his beard and was wearing a striped button-down shirt, looking respectable for the first time in his life.
The little bell above the front door jingled as Ryan and Becky entered and made their way over to the booth. “Shove over,” Ryan said and let Becky slide onto the bench first. He was in uniform, but now the brass star pinned to his shirt had the word SHERIFF written across the center. The waitress brought them each a glass of soda.
“You know,” Fred said to Ryan, “you’re the only guy I know who got a promotion by killing his boss.”
Rhonda looked at Becky and said, “Come on, let’s see it.”
Becky blushed and brought her hand out from under the table so they could see the whopper of a diamond ring on her finger. “I told him it was a little flashy,” she said.
“Did you spend all your share of the money on that?”
Ryan shook his head. “Not all of it. Besides, the Sheriff’s package came with a raise. What about you?”
“Pizza Delivery Man goes into production next month.”
“No shit? You’re finally doing it.”
“Filming it right here in Trudy. I’m finishing the script now. Got a distributor lined up. They think it’ll do well overseas. I’m thinkin’ it’ll go over well in China, if you know what I mean.”
“Don’t say that too loud,” Ryan said.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Sheriff Carter. I’m not the only one with delusions of grandeur,” Fred said and winked at Kevin.
“Spill it,” Ryan said.
Rhonda said, “We’re going to L.A.”
“When?”
“We fly out of Omaha tomorrow,” Kevin said.
“Just like that?”
“Rhonda wants to get back into the music scene, and me, well, I figure it’s time for a change of scenery. Have to go see about a girl, you know.”
“That was funnier the first time around,” Fred said.
“It isn’t necessarily permanent,” Rhonda said. “This is kind of a scouting trip to see if we can find a place, maybe network a little bit. Kevin thinks he could open another comic store out there.”
Derek appeared to be the only one devastated by this news. He stared at Kevin, his voice shaky when he said, “What about the store here? Do you know how hard it is to find a job in this economy?”
Kevin shook his head. “Actually, that’s where you come in.” Kevin dug his keys out of his pocket, removed one of them from the ring, and slid it across the table to Derek. “I was thinking you could look after the place while I’m gone.”
Derek picked up the key, turning it over in his hand and gazing at it with the kind of wide-eyed wonder one might reserve for examining the Holy Grail. The thing was, to Derek, that brass key was just as remarkable, if not more so. “You mean…you want me to run the place?”
“You’ll be the manager. I think you’re ready. What do ya say?”
“You’re not joking?”
“I’m dead serious.”
Derek looked ecstatic, eyes so wide they were in danger of popping out of their sockets. “Fuckin-A! The answer is YES, I will run the store with all my heart and every fiber of my being!”
“Okay,” Kevin said, laughing. “Settle down and quit drooling.”
“Really getting out of Dodge?” Ryan said. “Good for you.”
“How long have we been talking about it? Since high school at least. I always thought you’d be the first one to take the plunge.”
“Three weeks ago you would have been right.” He glanced at Becky. “Things change, I guess.”
“I sense a hero speech comin’ on,” Fred said.
Ryan shook his head and smiled. “No hero speech. I think it was more of a case of thinking things would be greener on the other side. Maybe you can’t really appreciate your home until something threatens to take it away.”
“Which in this case,” Kevin said, “happened to be the zombie apocalypse.”
“Yeah, go fi
gure.”
“We did save the town.”
“And got paid for it,” Fred said. “Not that anybody will ever know that.”
“We know it,” Ryan said.
Kevin chuckled to himself. Rhonda said, “What?”
“I was just thinking…not bad for a bunch of nerds, huh?”
“Heck yeah,” Derek said, raising his glass of Dr Pepper into the air. “Here’s to us!”
A few of the old-timers looked around to see what all the commotion was about.
“I’ll drink to that,” Fred said, lifting his own glass, and the others followed. “To us – the motherfuckin’ Z Club!”
Deleted Scene: Hummer vs Ice Cream Truck
Ryan surveyed the parking lot. They couldn’t risk taking two separate vehicles, but his patrol car wouldn’t hold all of them. Neither would Kevin’s Neon. There was a beat up Dodge truck, caked with rust, parked in one of the far slots. There was Darnell’s old ice cream truck, which at least ran, Ryan knew. Parked several spaces away was a big yellow Hummer. Even in the semi-darkness, it looked almost brand new; as though it hadn’t been driven off the showroom floor. It would be a little cramped, but it would seat the six of them comfortably enough, with room in the back for the guns and other supplies. He wondered what could have caused someone to abandon it in the lot. Could be one of Darnell’s new toys, he thought, but couldn’t recall seeing it parked in the lot before tonight.
“Let’s take a minute to reload. There won’t be time when we’re in the thick of it.” He thought about giving them a pep talk, informing them of the tiny errors that turned into grave and costly mistakes when a person is in the thick of battle, but decided against it. It wasn’t easy killing a man or woman, even if they were walking corpses with an appetite for brains. After all, Ryan had never shot anyone until the scene at the hospital earlier that day. He didn’t regret shooting Branagan (he could still feel the weight of Branagan’s blood caked Sheriff’s star in his shirt pocket), but shooting the kid haunted him a little. “And then we need to consolidate. There’s no sense in taking two cars. Makes it too easy to get separated if shit gets hairy.”
The others followed his gaze across the lot, settling on the bright yellow Hummer.
“No way somebody would leave the keys in something like that,” Fred said.
“They might if they were in a hurry,” Ryan said. The others gathered around him. “Besides, the only other choice is that.” He pointed to the ice cream truck.
“Okay, no-brainer,” Fred said.
“Can I drive?” Derek said.
“Shut it.” Kevin gave him a friendly shove forward. Rhonda stuck close to him.
As they walked toward the Hummer, Ryan’s cell phone began to ring. He took his phone out of his jacket and glanced at the caller ID. When he answered it, he could hear commotion on the other end of the line, muffled voices. “Hello? Jack? Jack, you there?”
He didn’t get a reply, so he listened until the line went dead several seconds later.
“Who was it?” Becky asked.
“My brother,” Ryan said. “He’s in trouble.”
“Did he say that?”
“I didn’t talk to him.”
“How do you know he’s in trouble?” Becky asked.
“Because he wouldn’t have called unless his life depended on it,” Ryan said, his eyes fixed on the two vehicles before him, but somehow looking past them, as though he had X-ray vision and was staring through them. His mind drifted momentarily before he reeled it back, moving forward again, toward the Hummer.
Fred said, “Million bucks says it’s locked.”
Ryan grabbed the door handle and gave it a yank. It was unlocked.
“Double or nothin’,” Fred said, “that they didn’t just leave the keys in it.”
Ryan opened the driver’s side door all the way, uttering a little silent prayer that when he leaned over the seat to get a glimpse at the right side of the steering column, that the keys would be hanging from the ignition.
But as he put his foot on one of the runners, lifted himself up, and ducked in, the driver’s seat backrest jerked forward, hitting him on the head. Hit him with enough force that had the seat not been cushioned leather, the impact most certainly would have knocked him unconscious. The Hummer’s stereo system came on, blasting rap music.
Fred looked perplexed. “Anti-theft alarm?”
The interior lights flickered off and on.
“Maybe it’s possessed,” Derek said. “Like in Christine.”
Ryan ignored this, reaching his hand around and sliding his fingers along the far side of the steering column, feeling for keys.
The rap music stopped abruptly. A CD flew from the CD player’s slot and streaked past Ryan’s head, inches from taking his nose off. The steering column shot forward, the wheel pinning Ryan between itself and the driver’s seat, the horn blaring.
“What the…”
After several seconds, the steering wheel released him, and he slid out. The six of them stood staring at the possessed vehicle.
“You’re the brain,” Fred said, looking to Kevin. “Explain this.”
Kevin shook his head.
Then came the sound of wrenching metal as the Hummer began to mutate, the wheels flattening out, the doors twisting on their sides as the body shifted and transformed itself. They watched in disbelief. The entire process took less than four seconds. And by the end of it, they all had their heads tilted, staring up at a twenty-foot tall robot.
“I knew it!” Derek said. “I knew Transformers existed!”
The robot’s head swiveled and it glared down at Derek. “I’m a Gobot, asshole.”
It lumbered past them, the asphalt cracking beneath its feet as they watched it stomp off across the parking lot, swatting Kevin’s Neon aside with a swipe of its hand as it disappeared into the night.
“Whoa,” Derek said. “That was awesome!”
“Wait a minute,” Fred said. “What the fuck just happened?”
“What’s really messed up,” Kevin said, “is that isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen tonight.”
PIZZA DELIVERY MAN
Treatment by
Fred E. Klemt
03/08/2001
Logline: Delivering murder…with extra cheese!
EXT. JENNIFER’S HOUSE – NIGHT. A peaceful suburban community. All the houses on the block are carbon copies of one another. Brightly painted, the lawns well maintained. This neighborhood oozes an upper-middle class vibe. We focus on a single house.
Inside, JENNIFER sits on the couch, channel surfing, provocative in panties and a t-shirt. She’s nearly thirty, but has retained the same knock-out good looks that she had in high school. Bottom line – she’s hot in that special way that makes other girls jealous.
The doorbell RINGS. Jennifer strides over to the front door like a model walking the runway. She opens it. Standing on the other side is a man/boy in a red and yellow striped polo, his greasy face pockmarked, remnants of a long and brutal battle with acne. This is GUIDO ROSSI (30), as awkward and nerdy as he was in school.
“Oh, it’s you,” Jennifer says in disgust and accepts the pizza box Guido thrusts at her. Guido’s wearing a goofy grin. “God, you’re such a perv. It’s creepy.” But a mischievous glimmer flashes in her eyes. “You know, it is kind of lonely here. Would you mind keeping me company?”
Jennifer runs a hand slowly down her shirt, over her breast, down to her panties, toying with him. She opens the lid of the pizza box and says, “Yum.” Guido is smiling broadly now, telling her that he put extra cheese on it. Jennifer’s seductive smile drops, replaced by disappointment. “Only you forgot to slice it. Let me just go get something to cut it with.”
Suddenly, Guido bursts into the house, pushes Jennifer down to the floor. He straddles her, knees pinning down her arms. “That’s okay. I brought my own.” He reveals a long, gleaming mezzaluna. Jennifer screams. He brings the mezzaluna down on Jennifer’s neck, rocking it back a
nd forth. He laughs maniacally as blood splashes his face.
Minutes later…Jennifer’s now headless body is positioned on the couch in a sitting position. Guido has his arm around her shoulders, feet propped up on the coffee table as he enjoys a slice of pizza.
INT. GUIDO’S CAR – NIGHT. Guido’s holding a LIST of names in his hand. He’s drawing a line through the name at the top of the list, when he has a FLASHBACK.
We see YOUNG GUIDO, scrawny, bad hair, full-blown acne, walking a long hallway lined with LOCKERS as girls pass, giggling at him.
A group of JOCKS wearing high school letter jackets brush past him, knocking the school books out of his hands. One of them says, “Watch where you’re goin’, freak.”
Young Guido stoops down, picking them up, when a HAND picks one of the books up and hands it to him. Young Guido glances up. A pretty girl, AMY HARMS, holds the book out to him, smiling. It’s a touching moment, a special moment for Young Guido in particular, when it is suddenly shattered by another girl saying, “C’mon, Amy, let’s go already. Quit helping the freakazoid.” We recognize this snotty girl as a younger version of Jennifer.
Amy says, “Sorry,” and hurries off to catch up with her girlfriends. Young Guido collects his books, watching Amy longingly as she walks away.
The flashback into this tender moment in Guido’s past ends. A single TEAR runs down his pockmarked cheek as he folds the list and shoves it in his pocket.
INT. HARMS VETERINARY CLINIC – DAY. Amy (29) is bent over an examination table. Her patient: a rather obese-looking GOLDEN RETRIEVER. She is as gorgeous now as she was ten years ago. She bandages the dog’s paw.
Amy helps the dog down from the table and leads it out into the waiting room, where a WOMAN and two CHILDREN jump out of their seats, showering the dog with love. The Woman thanks Amy before they leave, their loyal family pet in tow.
The Z Club Page 15
