A Good Night for Shooting Zombies

by Jaco Jacobs

  ‘When did you last set foot outside this house?’ asked Cindy with a grunt. ‘You have no clue what’s going on in the world.’

  I hated it when Cindy spoke to Mum like that, but felt it best to keep quiet. Since she’d started her course in beauty therapy at the beginning of the year, we hardly ever saw her. Most evenings Bruce fetched her, and then they partied in the city until who knows what time at night. Mum’s complaints were a waste of breath.

  ‘Maybe I don’t know what’s going on in the world,’ Mum said softly. ‘But what I do know is that I would never have dared to speak to your grandmother like that when I was your age.’

  ‘When you were my age–’ Cindy started in a shrill voice, but fortunately the doorbell rang at that very moment.

  Cindy jumped up to open the door.

  ‘Evening, evening,’ announced Bruce. ‘Sorry for pitching up during dinner.’

  ‘That’s OK, we just finished eating,’ Cindy said quickly. She hadn’t touched the sausage rolls that Mum had made.

  ‘How’s the egg entrepreneur?’ he asked and ruffled my hair as if I was five years old. ‘Mark my words, Cinds, before your little brother leaves school, he’ll have made his first million with those chickens of his.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Cindy said curtly and picked up her jacket.

  But Bruce spotted the Lotto ticket on the small side table in the lounge. ‘Is Uncle playing the Lotto again? Nice! I hope you’ll share your fortune with me when your ship comes in.’

  Uncle Hendrik didn’t say a word. Nor did I.

  Bruce put his arms around Cindy’s waist. ‘Well, off we go, you and I.’

  ‘Cindy got home goodness knows what time the other night, Bruce,’ said Mum. ‘You know my rule…’

  Bruce laughed. ‘Sorry, Auntie. Everything’s hunky-dory. Don’t worry, she’s in safe hands. C’mon, Cinds.’

  They walked out with their arms around each other and, a moment later, Bruce’s pickup truck roared outside.

  ‘That boy is much too big for his boots,’ said Mum.

  Uncle Hendrik picked up the remote and turned the TV louder. The Lotto programme had started.

  ‘Thanks for the food, Mum,’ I said quickly.

  I grabbed my plate to go and put it in the sink. I couldn’t watch the Lotto draw on TV. The times I did watch while Uncle Hendrik checked his Lotto numbers, I had lain awake for hours afterwards because the sums made my head spin. The chances of guessing all six numbers correctly are 1 out of 13,983,816. You’re seven times more likely to be struck by lightning. Once during a computer lesson at school, I read on the internet that if you bought a Lotto ticket every week you’d have to play for about 269,000 years before you could be sure to win the jackpot.

  I wondered what Uncle Hendrik would do if he won millions of rands. We certainly weren’t rich but Mum always said we had enough to get by. Dad’s life insurance had been enough to pay off the plot, and his pension provided for the rest. Uncle Hendrik also earned some money as he was the verger at church. And thanks to my egg money I had enough pocket money. But I saved most of that. Soon my savings would be enough…

  On the way back from the kitchen I walked past the lounge and peeped inside. Mum and Uncle Hendrik were still glued to the TV. This was my chance.

  I tiptoed down the passage and stopped in front of Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I opened the door and quickly slipped inside. The room smelled musty after having been closed for so long. I took the torch I had sneaked out of a kitchen drawer from my jacket pocket and flicked it on. The torchlight played over the neatly made double bed with the green duvet. I felt like a real criminal when I opened the wardrobe door. Mum’s words about young people loitering about and getting up to no good echoed in my head.

  At the bottom of the wardrobe Dad’s shoes were arranged in neat rows as if they were still patiently waiting for him to return and put them on. His shirts and jackets were lined up neatly on the rail. I reached out my hand to touch them and then pulled back. The wardrobe, the whole room, felt like an exhibition at a museum that no one was allowed to touch.

  I shone the torchlight over the row of clothes. At the end of the row I saw what I was looking for. The black leather jacket Mum gave Dad the Christmas before he died. ‘Next Christmas I want the motorbike that goes with this,’ he teased. He was crazy about that jacket.

  ‘We need a jacket,’ I whispered softly. ‘For Vusi’s movie.’

  I don’t know why, but for a moment I stood still, as if I was expecting to hear an answer.

  The house was as quiet as a grave, apart from the voice on the TV in the lounge. ‘It’s number nine – and everything’s fine with lucky number nine!’

  The leather felt cool under my fingers when I took the jacket off the rail.

  A Bike, an Escape and an Action Scene

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  Vusi gave Miranda, who was standing with her hands on her hips, an imploring look. Even Cheetah took notice of the pleading face he pulled. ‘Please, Miranda. My mum and dad don’t have to know about it.’

  ‘Vusi, you’re not even supposed to be out of bed. I’m not going to allow you to get on a bike,’ Miranda said in a strict voice.

  ‘It’s my quad bike,’ pleaded Vusi. ‘It was my Christmas gift last year. Dad never used to mind when I went riding on my own on dirt roads.’

  ‘That was before you got ill.’

  ‘But I’m feeling fine today.’

  It was true: he looked much better. He said he wasn’t feeling tired, and there was some colour in his cheeks.

  ‘C’mon, Miranda, it’s going to mess up this whole thing. I have to make my getaway on the quad, otherwise the zombies will get me.’

  ‘You’ll just have to think of another way to get away from the zombies, Vusi,’ Miranda said with a that’s it voice. ‘I don’t mind if you boys want to stay outside for an hour or so, but then you have to come inside. And don’t take off that jacket – you’ll get sick.’

  ‘Can’t we just shoot a different scene today?’ I asked after Miranda had gone back into the house.

  Dad’s leather jacket was way too big for Vusi. It looked like he was drowning in it.

  ‘Just one spin on the bike,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I want to get a shot of Cheetah and me riding in the veld and a zombie almost yanking me off the bike.’

  I frowned. ‘I’m not really getting the story. What exactly is going to happen? In the movie, I mean.’

  Vusi smiled. ‘Just wait, you’ll see. Look what I got…’ He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a rubber mask. ‘This is for you. For the scene in which you almost drag me off the bike.’

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I saw the zombie mask. The eyes were a spooky, milky white and part of the zombie’s bloody jaw was hanging to the side.

  Cheetah growled threateningly.

  Vusi looked at his watch. ‘My dad only gets home from work at five and my mum’s gone shopping. She’ll be away for at least an hour…’ He pulled a key out of his pocket and twirled it round his finger.

  My mouth fell open. ‘Oh no, Vusi,’ I said anxiously. ‘Your parents are going to find out about this.’

  ‘By the time they find out, we’ll have shot the scene,’ he said. ‘C’mon, the quad is in the garage.’ He picked up his backpack and started walking in that direction, with Cheetah at his heels.

  I hesitated for a moment before I ran after them.

  Cheetah’s tail started wagging when he saw the quad bike and he barked excitedly.

  ‘Shut up!’ Vusi scolded.

  ‘Vusi, I really don’t think this is a good idea…’

  What if something happened to him? He could fall off the quad. Or have an accident. Or get sick. What was I supposed to do then? What would I tell his mum and dad?

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘Quick, open the garage door. Once we’re outside, you can jump on.’

  The door creaked open, making a terrible noise. Then the quad bike roared to life. Vusi revv
ed the engine loudly once or twice and rode out of the door, with Cheetah on the back.

  ‘Jump on!’

  I made it just in time before he pulled away, scattering gravel, and I had to cling on for dear life.

  ‘Vusi!’ called Miranda. ‘Vusi, come back! I told you not to–’

  The quad’s engine swallowed the rest of her sentence.

  ‘Whooo-hoooooo!’ screamed Vusi.

  Cheetah barked elatedly. He was obviously used to riding on the quad with Vusi.

  We raced around the back of the house and followed a bumpy little dirt road that snaked through the dry winter grass. The cold wind was whooshing in my ears. The plot that belonged to Vusi’s family was much bigger than ours – it had a dam with a few cattle grazing close by and a clump of bare trees that looked as if they were feeling the cold in the pale afternoon sun.

  Vusi slowed down and stopped. We were at the boundary fence of their plot.

  ‘Right,’ he said and took his backpack off. ‘Now we’re going to start shooting.’

  ‘Miranda’s going to kill you,’ I said.

  ‘We can worry about that later.’ He scouted the area. ‘OK, you’re going to put on the zombie mask and then you have to jump out from behind that tree and try to grab me as I drive past.’ He held the mask out to me. ‘Go on then, put it on so that I can see if you can walk like a zombie.’

  I pulled the mask over my face. It smelled of rubber and I could hardly see through the two little holes for my eyes.

  ‘OK, now walk,’ ordered Vusi.

  I walked a few steps.

  ‘No, wait, you have to walk like a zombie!’

  I took the mask off. ‘How am I supposed to know how a zombie walks?’

  He sighed. ‘Haven’t you ever watched a zombie movie? Look, hold your arms stretched out in front of you,’ he explained, ‘and then walk with your legs slightly stiff. And say “Ahhh”.’

  ‘Ahhh,’ I said.

  ‘No, man, not like when the doctor tells you to stick out your tongue. Like, “Ahhhhh!”,’ he groaned. ‘It must sound like you’ve been dead for days. And you’re hungry for human flesh.’

  I’d never been dead or felt like eating human flesh, but I pretended to understand exactly what he wanted.

  ‘AHHHHH!’ I growled.

  ‘Much better.’ Vusi sounded satisfied. He took the camera from his backpack. ‘OK, let’s start. First listen to what I’m saying into the camera, then you’ll know exactly what you need to do. I’ll tell you when to put on the mask and go and hide behind the tree.’

  He cleared his throat and stood next to the quad bike. Then he held the camera in front of his face. ‘Three… two… one… action!’ he said and pressed the red button on the side of the camera. ‘Fortunately, Killer and I could escape in time.’ He swung his camera around to Cheetah, whose tongue was hanging out from all the excitement. ‘But it was touch and go. If one of those zombies gets hold of you, it’s curtains. Just one bite and you’ll also change into one of them. Had it not been for the quad…’ he aimed his camera at the bike, ‘…we would have been done for. Oh well, we have to hit the road again. We need to find a place to hide before it gets dark. If we’re outside after sunset, both of us will be goners, Killer.’ He rubbed his dog’s ears. ‘And… cut!’ he called and switched off the camera. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Erm… I think you’re very good,’ I stuttered. ‘I mean… to just talk off the top of your head like that.’

  ‘I thought up the entire scene last night while lying in bed. C’mon, we have to hurry – my mum will be home soon and then there’ll be trouble.’

  He didn’t really sound worried though. I sort of understood why – it wasn’t as if his mum could ground him or anything like that because he had to stay home all the time anyway.

  We walked a short distance to one of the trees and Vusi showed me where to wait. With the tip of his shoe he drew a line in the dust and told me to put on the mask.

  ‘Remember, don’t jump out before I’ve crossed this line.’

  I nodded. My face was glowing hot under the zombie mask. From behind the tree I watched Vusi walk back to the bike. He and Cheetah got on and the engine started roaring.

  ‘And… action!’ shouted Vusi.

  The quad bike was approaching fast. I tried to remember how I was supposed to walk and what I had to do. When Vusi crossed the line, I stumbled forward from behind the tree.

  ‘AHHHHH!’ I groaned and grabbed at Vusi.

  The next moment I heard an angry growl and something got hold of my trouser leg. ‘Let go of me!’ I hollered. ‘Help! Vusi!’ I yanked the mask off my face. ‘Cheetah, it’s me! Let go!’

  Cheetah let go and backed off. Vusi stopped in a cloud of dust and ran back to us.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  I nodded. Fortunately I was wearing jeans.

  ‘Relax, Cheetah, it’s just a game. Sorry,’ he said to me.

  ‘No worries.’

  Both of us were quiet when we suddenly heard a noise. It sounded like someone was howling with laughter.

  ‘Hey, who’s there?’ called Vusi, sounding peeved.

  Cheetah ran in the direction of the noise.

  There was a movement on the other side of the fence, and someone appeared from the bushes. A girl. Cheetah licked her hand through the wire fence.

  She laughed. ‘That was officially the funniest thing I’ve seen in my entire life.’

  ‘Hi, Chris,’ I said sheepishly.

  A Conversation

  ‘A movie? About zombies?’ She guffawed again.

  ‘You promised not to laugh if we told you,’ said Vusi.

  Chris tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and smiled at him. ‘Sorry. I promise I won’t laugh again.’

  Vusi looked at me and then at Chris. ‘How do the two of you know each other?’

  ‘From the bus,’ said Chris. ‘We ride to school together every morning.’

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ Vusi still sounded slightly peeved.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I live here.’

  ‘In the bushes?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘No, Einstein, in a house. This is our plot. Hello-o-o, the one where the school bus stops every morning!’

  My face felt as if it was on fire. I didn’t understand why I always had to say the first dumb thing that sprang to mind.

  ‘So what’s the story?’ Chris asked. She looked at Vusi. ‘I guess you’re the fearless hero of the movie since your head doesn’t have a single hair standing on end.’

  Vusi said nothing, but he touched his hairless head self-consciously. I immediately felt sorry for him about what Chris had said. And I felt sorry for Chris too because she didn’t know he was sick, otherwise she would never have made a joke like that. Hopefully not anyway.

  ‘Vusi is also the director of the movie,’ I said to break the silence.

  ‘And the cameraman as well, I see,’ said Chris. ‘Clucky, it looks like your only part in the movie is to be eaten alive by a dog.’

  I wasn’t quite sure, but it felt as if she was poking fun at us again.

  She leaned against the fence. ‘Now tell me, what’s going to happen next, now that the dog has ripped one zombie to pieces?’

  Cheetah grinned with an open mouth, all innocence – as if he hadn’t tried to wolf me down a few minutes ago.

  ‘Vusi is looking for a place to hide for the night,’ I said. ‘Otherwise the zombies will get him.’

  ‘In the movie my name is Brad,’ Vusi corrected me.

  Humph. That was the first I’d heard about ‘Brad’. I immediately stopped feeling sorry for Vusi. Why hadn’t he told me earlier that his movie name was Brad? I thought we were both supposed to be in the movie.

  ‘I’m going to hide in an old shed for the night,’ Vusi continued, ‘and then I’m going to discover a girl who’s also hiding from the zombies.’

  I glowered at him. That was also the first mention of that. No doubt he was makin
g all this stuff up on the spot.

  ‘And where d’you reckon we’ll find an old shed?’ I asked. ‘And a girl to play that part?’

  For a moment Chris stared at Vusi and me with a slight smile plucking at one corner of her mouth and a sparkle in her eye. Seeing her like that, it was difficult to imagine that she had given a rugby player a black eye.

  ‘I know the perfect place,’ she said. ‘A dilapidated old shed…’

  ‘And you’re a girl,’ Vusi added.

  ‘Huh?’ asked Chris, and then she started to laugh. ‘Oh no! Don’t even think about it!’

  The Word ‘Dead’ and the Number Zero

  To me, words are more difficult to figure out than numbers. Take, for example, the word ‘dead’. We say something is ‘dead easy’ but why? Who says dying is easy?

  ‘Dead quiet’ makes more sense to me. But on the other hand, maybe death isn’t quiet at all. Maybe you hear music all the time when you’re dead. Or maybe you hear what other dead people are thinking. Or maybe you hear what the people who are still alive are thinking. Anything is possible. It isn’t as if the first guy who thought of calling something ‘dead quiet’ knew what you could hear when you were dead.

  I lay on my bed with my eyes wide open, not moving. It’s strange, the moment you think it’s so quiet that you can’t hear a thing, you start hearing all kinds of things. The fridge humming in the kitchen. The wind stirring outside. A dog barking somewhere in the distance. One of the chickens in the coop, making a sound in its sleep.

  I wondered if Vusi also thought of death sometimes.

  The doctor said that there was a 40% chance he would get well again. The doctor hadn’t told Vusi that himself, but he overheard his mum telling someone else on the phone. It meant that there was a 60% chance that he would die. I wondered how doctors work out something like that. It didn’t sound to me like their calculations were very accurate. Why did no one ever have a 39.426% chance to get well again?