The Tycoon’s advisors were ambitious, cutthroat men. Generally, he liked these traits. But it could also make them a bit overeager and pollyannaish. These advisors had assured the Tycoon that any rifts here in the heartland (where he did not connect with voters) would be ably bridged by his running mate. The Tycoon hoped that this was true. That the Governor of the adjacent Hoosier state was indeed the man for the job.
Why his advisors had selected the Governor was no mystery. The Governor of Indiana had proved just what could be done with (and to) a place like that.
Under his watch, Indiana now dumped more toxic chemicals into its waterways than any other state. More than West Virginia. It also maintained some of the largest coal-fired power plants in the world. The coal plants in the thirty-mile stretch around Evansville alone released more greenhouse gas than any other municipal area in the USA. By the reckoning of some agencies, no other state now contributed more to climate change.
Back in the early 2000s, the Hoosier state had been a large investor in (and subsidizer of) wind power. Giant wind farms dotted the fields between Indianapolis and Gary. When the Governor had taken office, he had cut those programs entirely. He had also made Indiana into a right-to-work state, busting up the unions wherever he could. But beyond any formal adjustment to policy, the Governor had also ushered in remarkable changes to the culture. Made it a place where they weren’t all up in your face with the artsy stuff and the transsexual gender-business, and so forth. The Governor had passed laws that let businesses forbid service to anybody they liked, as long as the urge to do so stemmed from a “religious conviction.” And all this, somehow, magically, in a state that had fought with the North in the Civil War. It was as though this Governor had smuggled a state from the Deep South north of the Mason-Dixon line, convinced everybody to drop their accents, and passed it off as part of the Union.
That was an accomplishment. The Tycoon did not doubt that this man was capable. Hell, this man deserved a medal!
By why? Why had the Governor of Indiana done all of these remarkable things?
That was the remaining question which puzzled the Tycoon.
For what did such a man want? His appetites were famously few. The Governor did not overeat. He did not smoke. He did not seem to drink. Whenever the governor danced with his wife, he held her at arm’s length. They looked like teachers at a Catholic high school, demonstrating the acceptable distance for students before prom. (The Tycoon, when he danced, held his wife close. So close it could make observers uncomfortable. This came not from any intoxication with his wife’s anatomical gifts, but rather from his total dedication to the role. He must position himself as a groper and an ogler. He must leak tapes of locker room japery. He must make comments even about the shapeliness of his own daughter. All so that the truth might never be guessed—that his flaccid zombie penis had not worked in that way since he had become a member of the walking dead and lost any blood pressure entirely.)
In sharp contrast to the Governor, the Tycoon was ruled by desire. Once implemented, his plans for the country would result in a hedonistic blood orgy the likes of which the world had never known. The Tycoon’s every step inched him toward this scenario of excess and carnal satisfaction. But the Governor? Did he truly seek only to sit on the porch beside his matronly spouse, sipping unsweetened iced tea in the shadow of the coal plants? Was that a consummation devoutly to be wished? Was that anything? Even men who were not zombies—normal, healthy men—wanted more than those things.
What did the Governor want?
A limousine brought the Tycoon from the private airport where his plane had landed to the hotel that would serve as his headquarters for the convention. The Tycoon smoothed his hair and checked the Scotch tape on his tie. Then he exited the car and made his way into the parking garage elevator that would take him up to the executive suite where the silver-haired leader of the Hoosiers was waiting.
What indeed?
The elevator doors opened directly into the suite. It was not as fine as the executive rooms in the hotels that bore the Tycoon’s own name, but it would do in a pinch for the Midwest. The Governor was already there. He sat on a couch, reading from a Bible so old it had doubtless been his grandfather’s.
The Governor smiled genially at the Tycoon, closed the book’s paper-thin pages, and stood. His broad smile revealed pearly, almost perfect teeth, unstained by tobacco, wine, or impure thoughts.
The Tycoon shook the Governor’s hand hard, and found the Hoosier’s grip surprisingly soft and yielding. But this man rode motorcycles! He split wood with axes in campaign commercials! Yet his handshake was weak and his skin felt as though he had not done a day’s real work in his life. (For his part, the Tycoon loathed handshaking. Making his peace with the humiliating practice had been one of the most challenging parts of the campaign. People who knew him knew that he disliked shaking hands. For years, he had cultivated a reputation as a germophobe. His enemies and detractors, meanwhile, characterized his aversion to pressing the flesh as a sign of his contempt for the poor and working class—as the sign of a man who saw average Americans as riddled with disease and contagion. Little did they guess the truth. That the Tycoon avoided touching others because he was contagion. He was the deathless flesh that should not walk, but walked still. And he worried—with every how’s-your-father, up-and-down pumping of his wrist—that the person shaking his hand might notice how cold and lifeless it was. Might fail to detect a pulse. Might feel the settling of the blood that had not been properly pumped by a heart in many years. [This same subterfuge explained the Tycoon’s penchant for sporting a healthy coat of foundation wherever he went. Let them call him an orange Creamsicle. More importantly, let them blame it on his vanity and pride. But most of all, let no one suspect that his makeup concealed the corpse-pale sheen of the unliving.])
And so the Governor of Indiana wore no makeup, and also did not even attempt to muster a strong handshake. No matter, the Tycoon decided as he released his grip. The Governor would still serve a purpose. Useful idiots often did.
Both the Tycoon and the Governor understood the way in which they were meant to counterbalance one another. The Tycoon was associated with the hedonism of the 1980s, but the Governor of Indiana could reassure voters that these days of youthful indiscretion were far, far behind him. On the other side of the coin, the Governor himself was an outright bore. A goddamned human sleeping pill. The Tycoon’s colorful antics would show the electorate that the next four years would not be completely devoid of mirth and excitement.
The private moment between the two men did not last long.
Into the room stepped Jay McNelis, chief media advisor and manager of the Tycoon’s campaign. He would be the one ghostwriting the speech the Tycoon would deliver on the final day of the convention. However, the Governor’s own staff had insisted on writing the vice presidential nominee’s remarks. McNelis had convened this meeting to ensure that the candidates were—at least figuratively—on the same page.
Handshakes out of the way, the three men sat around a circular oak table. (Fine for Ohio, thought the Tycoon. Yet he would never have such a drab, functional item in any of his own hotels.) The candidates listened as McNelis outlined the function of the speeches that they would give. The future vice president should outline the problems, McNelis explained. He should bear the bad news, and describe everything wrong with America that the Tycoon could fix. Then, the next night, the future president would ride into town on the white horse. Here was the solution. Here was the hero arrived to save the day. That would be the function of the Tycoon’s remarks.
As McNelis spoke, the Tycoon nodded along and tried to pay attention.
McNelis was famous for his stewardship of a successful news website, and brought many skills to the table. The Tycoon had worked with him to formulate all the main policy points of his platform. Though McNelis was both oleaginous and wise—a Harvard MBA and a career on Wall Street attested to that much—it had nonetheless taken him man
y months to piece together that the master he served might be something other than alive. And while McNelis was one of very few who “knew” about the Tycoon, he still did not seem to fully grasp the motivation behind the Tycoon’s platform. The world the Tycoon wanted to create.
The Tycoon preferred it that way. He would trust McNelis as far as he could throw him.
McNelis opened his laptop and prepared to begin. His complexion—which hovered somewhere between W.C. Fields and greasy, rancid meat—glistened in the reflected light from his computer screen. The Governor of Indiana bowed his head like a man in church preparing to receive a blessing.
“Alignment is key, gentlemen,” McNelis began. “Voters do not expect you to be identical, but they need to see you stand together on the issues that matter. You come from different places. You have different jobs. Different life stories. That’s fine. But on the key stuff, they need to expect the same things from both of you.
The candidates nodded.
“So let’s do the list one more time, shall we?” McNelis said, looking over the top of his glasses at both men.
The Tycoon smiled. He loved the list. He loved it all the more precisely because McNelis and the Governor sitting beside him had no sense of what it actually meant. What the actual project was.
“First and foremost, the border wall,” McNelis began. “We don’t say this explicitly, but it really is the foundation of our platform. It’s the core. In your speeches, you can’t talk about it enough. Border wall. Border wall. Border wall. It’s the symbol of everything we hope to accomplish.”
Yes, the Tycoon thought to himself. The border wall. That wonderful, wonderful wall. Which will keep all those delicious people in, where the zombies can get them. No escape to Mexico. No escape at all.
“Right behind the wall is a complete overhaul of our healthcare system,” said McNelis. “You both need to touch on that for a significant portion of any speech. You need to characterize the current system as broke and bloated. Unsustainable. Making people sick and bankrupt. Say that doctors don’t like it. Say that it’s too confusing for the average American to use. But the good news is we’re here to fix it! We’re going to have it right-sized in no time. We’re going to repeal and replace. Always make clear that there will be a replacement. We’ll figure out what it is later.”
Oh yes, the Tycoon thought. Anything that made Americans hale and hearty and free from disease had to go. People were so much easier to catch when they were sick or injured or had lingering medical conditions. It was simpler for the zombies when the humans were hobbling along on homemade crutches or confined to wheelchairs. The weaker and sicker the better. Healthcare absolutely needed to be eliminated.
“Next, voters hate political correctness,” McNelis said. “I’m sure you gentlemen do too. Let the voters know it! We need to paint the other side as more concerned with pronouns than with policies that will improve people’s lives.”
The Tycoon understood that, at this point, Newspeak was probably too ingrained to counter effectively. But no matter. The Tycoon had decided to use it to his advantage. When the populace became aware of the murderous, brain-eating zombies in their midst, the president himself would ensure these “differently-alive” Americans were not discriminated against, were not “othered,” and that their “vibrant, dynamic culture” of murder and carnage was respected just like any other. After all, colonialists had kept zombies literally hiding in the shadows for centuries. Were they not the most in need of restorative justice? Was not it time for them to shamble forward with their rotting heads held high, to take their place alongside other Americans?
“Then there is the biased, liberal media,” McNelis said. “You need to remind the voters that the media is not treating you fairly. Their coverage is always prejudiced against you.”
“Them!” the Tycoon snapped, quite unable to control himself. “I hate them so much! They’ve been against me my whole life. Just because I’m successful!”
“And don’t forget the media’s war against the church,” the Governor piously added. “They’ve taken every opportunity to slander and criticize Americans of faith. You saw what happened in my state when I signed that legislation—you know, the one allowing people to practice their faith as they saw fit. By not serving gay people. The media went crazy! It wasn’t the good people of my state. They were fine with it. It was the media! Always making something out of nothing. Always stirring up trouble.”
“So true,” said the Tycoon, nodding his head sympathetically. “So very true.”
The Tycoon truly did despise the mainstream media, but only because it was in the habit of telling people true things. For all its incompetence, the mainstream media was—now and then—accurate. And that would not do during a zombie outbreak. A news agency that would correctly inform the populace where the zombies were and in what direction they were headed? Outrageous! But because the Tycoon realized he could not stop them entirely, he believed his best course was to dilute them. To cast doubt on the veracity of their reports. And to provide Americans with alternative news outlets, featuring alternative facts. (These outlets would one day provide alternative broadcasts in times of national emergency, with different takes on where the zombies were, what they were doing, and whether they were really anything to worry about in the first place.)
“It all comes back to personal freedom,” the Governor said confidently. “The freedom to believe what you want to believe. In each and every sphere of your life. Nothing more American than that.”
McNelis and the Tycoon nodded along vigorously.
Not all parts of personal freedom suited the Tycoon. The Tycoon realized, for example, that more personal freedom meant things like the freedom to own firearms. And few things annoyed zombies more than being taken out with a clean headshot. Even so, the Tycoon had calculated that the present course still worked in his favor. (From what he could tell, neither major American political party ever took a significant step toward banning guns. However, the opposing party was reckoned as wanting to. For this reason, gun sales actually went up when they were in power—based on the unfounded fear that they might pass restrictions … and so one ought to get while the getting was good. In this way, it seemed to the Tycoon that running as a member of the party that wished to provide unrestricted access to firearms might help ensure that there were fewer in the hands of civilians when the dead really did begin to rise. Sometimes the way forward could be a little counterintuitive.)
“Finally, then, there is globalism,” McNelis said soberly. “That is the last major tentpole of our campaign. You hate globalism. It is everything your opponent represents. She is a globalist to her core. Everything she has ever done provides evidence of that fact.”
The Tycoon and the Governor nodded along.
“We’re running for President and Vice President of America … not of the world,” the Governor chimed in. “It is the people of America who will elect us. We must put America first in all things.”
“Yes,” said the Tycoon. “And I intend to use my powers of negotiation to make sure we negotiate better deals for America. If other countries won’t play ball, I’ll show ’em the door. I’ll show ’em there’s a new sheriff in town who means business. Big business.”
The Tycoon smiled in what he hoped was a confident, convincing way. The Governor seemed to buy it.
America must be first, the Tycoon reasoned. It must be first at the expense of all others, and at the cost of alliances and allegiances. Isolating America in geopolitical terms was just like building the wall. It was the 3D-chess version. When the dead rose and the carnage began, other countries should not be tempted to intervene or assist. They must understand America’s conviction to go it alone. To refuse all help, whatever the circumstances.
McNelis seemed very pleased by their alignment around these core messages of the platform. The three men spent several minutes more reviewing talking points for the upcoming speeches, but all seemed to be in accord.
As
they prepared to adjourn for the evening, the Governor asked the Tycoon if they might speak privately for a moment. He suggested the balcony of the suite. McNelis—ever alarmed at the notion that anything substantive could be decided in his absence—looked on warily as the two candidates opened the sliding glass doors and walked out onto the cheap stucco balcony. The Tycoon gave McNelis a stern look to say he should relax. (He knew McNelis would do no such thing. It was physically impossible for the man.)
The Governor pulled the glass door shut behind them. The hotel was not tall like buildings in New York were, but there was still a nice view. The wind whipped up. The Tycoon’s hair was tousled. The Governor’s remained as still and solid as something carved from Indiana limestone.
“I just wanted to take a second,” the Governor began awkwardly. “I know that we haven’t really chatted since this whole thing got started. What we just did in there … We may have been ‘aligning’ on the principles of our platform, but it doesn’t really feel like we’re being genuine with one another, does it? Being real?”
Could it be? Was this puritanical man—famous for being so hard of heart—secretly a softy who wanted to be pals? The Tycoon began to wonder …
Zombie-in-Chief Page 3
