by Kevin Shamel
Itsy was rarely seen away from the rat after that. Except when interrogating the prisoner with Filthy Pig—off camera.
Dirty Bird, who had hoped to be the new production assistant, became the gopher instead.
Cage became nearly feral.
The shooting time extended to three weeks. Itsy made some changes to the end of the script that needed some additional scenes shot.
Stinkin’, Itsy and a camera chicken spent five days hidden in and around the yard where they’d abducted Cage. Itsy wanted some shots of the boy’s house. And of his parents driving in and out of the driveway. And of them pacing in front of windows. And of police coming and going. And of his mother sobbing.
Two weeks and six days after they began filming, Stinkin’ and his crew threw a two day-long wrap party.
On the second morning of the party, the animals let Cage out of the toilet and gave him a bath with three changes of hot, herbed water. They fed him fresh food for breakfast. They bathed him again. No one beat him. He did not even see the pig. They gave him a shower. He let the animals lead him around. He stared straight ahead and shuffled his feet when he walked.
While Cage was in the sauna, Stinkin’ addressed the crew from on the table, toppling against one of Dirty Bird’s human-sized martinis. “Congratulations, everyone! We’re only a week over schedule, and that counts two days of partying!”
The rats, cats, pig and dog cheered. The chickens clucked. Dirty Bird burped. The zombie-cats silently watched Stinkin’ with unusual attention and anticipation.
Stinkin’ tipped the huge glass and poured the drink on him, managing to slurp some up. He said, “All we have left is editing, a little bit of animation and killing the kid.”
More animal cheers echoed around the table.
“It’s almost time for the feast! Crank up the tunes!” Stinkin’ fell off the table and popped up laughing. He waved his paws.
One of the rats cranked up the tunes.
Stripey and Scaredy began dancing with each other. The other animals clapped and stomped, watching the actors. The chickens began strutting in circles around the pair. The rats began hopping, and Dirty Bird leaned on one foot and then another, shaking his tail-feathers. The zombie-cats milled around in a mob.
Stinkin’ danced his way to Itsy and Filthy Pig. He yelled loudly in the pig’s ear, “Jus’ go pull that kid outta the sauna and break his fuckin’ neck. I’m hungry!” He laughed like an idiot, spitting and slapping the pig on the head.
“Really?” squealed the pig.
“Really!” shouted Itsy. “I’ll go with ya.”
Stinkin’ nodded wildly.
Filthy smiled at the dog and the rat. “A round of shots or two first.” He snuffled around for a bottle of Jagermeister.
The three drank a few shots of Jager. Stinkin’ Rat slid off to dance beside a giggling chicken. He winked to Itsy and Filthy Pig as they went out the door.
Dirty Bird stumble-flew behind them, having seen the wink from his boss and having paid much more attention to what was going on in general than anyone would have suspected.
Filthy Pig was telling Itsy a joke as they entered the spa. In the center of the room was the toilet grate. They continued past it to the locker room. Neither of them noticed that the two rats who were supposed to be guarding the kid weren’t there.
“So the squirrel says, ‘Who’s nuts are those?’!”
Itsy laughed, though it wasn’t a funny joke. He could see the steamed-up window of the sauna. He caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye and a whiff of something rotten—just a fraction of a second too late.
Fortunately for Itsy, Filthy Pig was completely oblivious to the ambush that lay waiting. He walked straight into the middle of the locker room, laughing his pig head off while the horde of zombie-cats swarmed him.
“Holy shit!” Itsy batted a patchy black cat away as it came at him with slobbery jaws wide. He backed out of the locker room, snarling.
Behind Itsy, Dirty Bird was tip-toeing through the spa doorway. He froze when he saw the cats jump out of hiding. He squawked and flew back the way he’d come.
The zombie-cats surged over the pig.
Filthy let out a piercing squeal and rose onto his hind hooves. He flung zombie-cats in every direction.
Unfortunately for Itsy, zombie-cats shot toward him as he turned to run. Two of them hit him—one square in the side and the other taking out his hind legs. Itsy tumbled across the floor and bounced over the circular grate in the center of the room. His head smacked into the metal, and he was knocked unconscious. He slipped through the grate and tumbled into the toilet room below.
Cage came out of his sauna-stupor to the most unnatural yowling, hissing, snorting, squealing, howling and spitting sounds ever heard by a human. He looked out the little window and saw the pig covered in cats, and the floor covered in blood and fur.
Filthy Pig charged around the room with eleven zombie-cats sticking to various parts of his massive pig body. A zombie-cat jumped on Filthy’s screaming snout. The cat bit into the soft pink part of Filthy’s nose and raked its claws across one of the pig’s eyes, cutting it open.
Filthy lost his mind. He went screaming around the room and out the spa door with every able zombie-cat not already stuck to him chasing close behind.
Naked Cage stepped out of the sauna in a cloud of steam. Blood covered the walls of the locker room and pooled on the floor. Broken zombie-cats lay scattered about.
It took precious seconds for Cage to realize that he was unguarded and alone. When he did, he ran for the exit. He slipped in blood, hit the floor and slid into the tile wall of the locker room. He broke his left wrist.
Screaming in pain, he stood and backed into the poop-grate. He caught his foot between the bars and fell backward onto the grate, rapping his head on it, tearing his scalp and giving him a concussion. Gingerly, he managed his way off the poop-pit lid and crept out of the spa into the hall.
The pig and the zombie-cats rounded the corner ahead of him and came charging his way. Cage fell back into the spa, landing on his butt and cracking his broken wrist. He yelled as the pig screamed past, still wearing an undead coat of yowling zombie-cats and hotly pursued by the rest of the undead feline gang. They paid the boy no attention.
The boy knew the way out. He’d seen it when they filmed his transformation and liberation scene. When he was sure the pig and zombie-cats were gone, Cage rolled off the floor, peered into the hall to be sure it was clear and ran. He heard Filthy Pig squealing somewhere down the hall as he pushed open the secret door to the animals’ production studio.
Cage burst out the door into full sunlight.
Dirty Bird flew into the party. He swooped over the dancing chickens and rats, screeching for Stinkin’ Rat over the Daft Punk song, Steam Machine.
He found the rat fucking a chicken under the table.
“Boss!” the bird yelled.
“Get out of here! I’m fucking a chicken!”
“But the zombie-cats!” Dirty couldn’t help but watch the rat and chicken go at it.
The chicken’s head was pushed into the rug. She was cooing and cawing with each ratty thrust. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. Stinkin’ had her wings crossed and pinned behind her with one paw. He was grinning and frothing at his yellow rat mouth. He pulled at her tail-feathers with his free paw. She clucked loudly.
“Oh, uh, Boss. That’s, uh… Boss! The zombie-cats! They’re killing Filthy Pig and Itsy!”
The rat froze. “What?”
The chicken opened her eyes and looked back at Stinkin’. “Don’t stop now,” she clucked.
Stinkin’ pushed her off.
She squawked.
“What did you say?” Stinkin’ demanded.
“The zombie-cats ambushed Itsy and Filthy! They’re killing them!”
The rat grabbed Dirty Bird and pulled him along as he ran from under the table. The chicken followed.
“What do you mean the zo
mbie-cats are killing Filthy and Itsy?” He pulled the jay through the party. Music blared.
“You know, killing them! Eating them, tearing them apart, zombie shit!”
Stinkin’ stopped just outside the dining room where the music wasn’t so loud. “Zombie shit? What the fuck?!”
“You know… Zombie-CATS, doing zombie shit like eating brains and shit!”
“They’re real zombies?!”
“Fuck yes they’re real zombies! You told Julio to get you zombie-cats! He got you zombie-cats! Why do you think they just stand around moaning and eating buckets of brains? Why do you think they work for free? What about the zombie-love speech you gave at the martini party last night? Where the fuck have you been?!”
“What?” The rat seemed genuinely confused. “Real zombies?”
The chicken poked her head around the corner. “There you are!” she shouted.
“It’s not the time,” said Stinkin’.
“Boss, we need to—” Dirty Bird was interrupted by a horrifying squeal from down the hall.
The animals turned to see Filthy Pig running straight toward them—zombie-cats riding him down the hall like patchy little jockeys. A posse of undead kitties loped behind.
“Fuck!” screamed Stinkin’. “Why are they doing this?” he asked as he and Dirty Bird turned and ran back into the party.
“You told them last night they could kill the kid!” The bird yelled over the music.
“I did?!”
“Yeah! And you said they could have his brains!”
“I did?!”
“Yeah!” Dirty followed Stinkin’ to the stereo.
The rat pulled the plug from the wall, and the party was silenced. He yelled, “What the fuck was I thinking?!”
“You weren’t,” said Dirty Bird quietly.
The zombie-cat-pig-train crashed through the door.
“Zombies!” Stinkin’ shrieked. He held onto the jay. “What do we do?”
“Run!”
“But what about Pig? What about Itsy?!”
Dirty Bird shucked the rat and flew toward the ceiling as the pig careened into the table, scattering zombie-cats throughout the room. The heavy dining room table and its load of booze and desiccated foodstuffs slammed into the wall, dropping two full gallon bottles of very expensive vodka, which shattered on either side of Stinkin’, coating him in potato alcohol and blinding him.
The zombie-cats sprang off the floor and furniture and attacked any animal in the room, mewling and droning, “Brains!”
Dirty Bird swooped down and grabbed Stinkin’ Rat by the scruff of his neck just as two zombie-cats leapt at him. “Filthy and Itsy are zombies!” he screamed.
“Zombies?!” screamed the rat, wiping vodka from his face.
A chicken head flew past them as Dirty swooned with his heavy rat load. Zombie-cats jumped for them. The headless chicken body staggered across the room, spraying everyone with blood.
“What do we do?!” screamed Stinkin’ Rat, his vision coming back so it seemed he was looking through a fish-bowl filled with colorful vomit.
Dirty Bird flapped over to the table. Zombie-cats ran behind him. Filthy Pig, freshly zombified, saw the bird and director/producer/poop-bombardier making their way to the table with a pack of zombie-cats in tow. Filthy slipped and fell in the growing puddle of vodka, wriggled to his zombie hooves and barreled toward the action.
The jay dropped Stinkin’ on the table and skittered to a landing. He shouted, “Everyone out of the room!” and grabbed a lit candle from an overturned candelabra. He snatched a napkin from the table and soaked it in a puddle that he hoped was one of his martinis. He touched the candle to it. Blue flames sprang over the napkin as it began to burn.
Scaredy Cat and Stripey jumped up from behind the bar and dashed for the exit, yelping, “Ew! Ew! EW!” as they ran.
Chickens squawked in panic.
The rat crew, those not already out of the room and those not slowly changing into horrid little rat-zombies, made for the door.
Dirty bird handed the burning napkin and the candle to Stinkin’ and said, “Don’t let these go out!” and dug his dinosaurish bird claws into the rat’s little rodent neck. He lifted Stinkin’ into the air just as Filthy Pig smashed into the table top, his mean pig teeth snapping at the rat’s tail.
Zombie-cats jumped from the table at the swooping duo.
Dirty gained altitude. He flew over the broken bottles of vodka with zombie-cats falling behind him, zombie chickens just coming back to life, and Filthy Pig oinking something nearly intelligible, but mostly just scary, and skittering after them.
“Drop it!” he yelled to Stinkin’, who was just starting to understand the bird’s plan and burning the fur off his abdomen.
The rat dropped the burning napkin and the not-burning candle.
Dirty Bird banked to the left, avoiding Filthy’s last effort to snatch the rat from him with his piggy mouth. Dirty thought, “Hamtini. No, flaming hamtini.”
The bird and his rat passenger shot out of the dining room as a pillar of vodka fire erupted behind them.
Dirty Bird yelled, “Close the doors!”
Zombie-cat yowls and an ear-melting zombie-pig screech punctuated the whoosh of the explosion.
The remaining rat crew, the non-zombie-cats and three chickens slammed the doors behind Dirty Bird and Stinkin’ Rat as they tumbled across the threshold. A cloud of smoke that smelled sharply of bacon puffed into the hall, and burning zombie-cats thumped against them.
Stripey and Scaredy toppled a bookshelf in front of the doors, just in case the burning zombies figured out a way to open them.
“What the fuck?!” screamed Stinkin’ from the floor.
“Zombies,” panted Scaredy Cat.
Stinkin’ Rat crawled over to Dirty Bird. “Itsy’s a zombie? Where is he?”
The bird nodded. “I think so. The cats got him and the kid.”
The rat coughed. “The kid’s a zombie?!”
Dirty stood and looked toward the smoking doors of the dining room. Feeble thumps came against them now and then. He said, “Yes. The kid is a zombie. The kid and Itsy. We have to kill them.”
A stinking Itsy spoke up from behind them, “I’m no fucking zombie.”
Everyone yelled, “Yikes!” (Or something like it.)
“Good Gaia, Itsy, you scared the shit out of me!” Stinkin’ shouted.
“I see that,” answered the dog, nodding at the pile of rat poop under the director/producer/zombie-killer.
Stinkin’ moved over and sat down. “Well that sucked.”
Burning zombies popped and cracked behind the door.
“We got it on film,” offered a chicken.
“No shit?”
“Yes, sir. We were filming the party. The cameras in there are rolling. They’re flame-proof. Control room’s getting it all.”
The rat smiled and smacked his paws together. “I can use that on the zombie film! And I don’t have to pay those fuckers!”
“What about the kid?” Itsy asked.
“Dead,” said the jay.
“You saw it?” asked the dog. “Where did they get him?”
Dirty nodded and took a step backward.
An explosion tore through the wall behind Itsy, throwing the animals off their feet. Flames, smoke, bricks, drywall, bits of kitchen utensils, meat, vegetables, pieces of the oven and the remainders of Filthy Pig and two zombie cats splattered down the hallway.
While the animals picked themselves out of the rubble, Itsy asked Dirty Bird again about the boy.
“Where did the zombie-cats kill the kid?”
“In the kitchen,” said Dirty, pointing through the dust and smoke toward the ruined wall of the burning kitchen.
“We need to put out this fire,” said Stripey.
“Itsy, rats, put out the fire!” shouted Stinkin’ from under half a spice rack. “Let’s clean this shit up and edit a film!”
The surviving chickens clucked half-hea
rtedly.
The animals finished their film.
They closed off their ruined kitchen and dining room, after cleaning it up as best they could. They scattered the ashes from the burned-out rooms in the overgrown cemetery behind the crumbled church.
Itsy voiced his concerns that the boy wasn’t dead. He said Dirty Bird lied about the kid being done in by zombies in the kitchen. No one paid him much attention. The kid was gone. The movie was done. The past was past.
Stinkin’ Rat entered their movie, A Boy Named Cage, in the Animaux Film Festival held yearly in France. It won several awards, including audience favorite and best FX, and put Stinkin’ Productions into an international spotlight.
With its success at Animaux and subsequent popularity, A Boy Named Cage took the remaining crew into instant fame and fortune—it was a groundbreaking and industry-bending film. It was an amazing experience, an emotional rollercoaster, a must-see triumphant adventure of the animal spirit. It was a phenomenon. Everyone wanted to kidnap a kid. Everyone wanted to explore their person side and turn people into pigs. Everyone loved everything about the movie.
The number of knock-offs rivaled any ridiculous human trend. Every animal production company wanted a piece of the human transformation movement. Of course, no one else had a kidnapped kid. Not even the dolphins figured out a decent human automaton. The octopi came up with some terrible CGI.
Stinkin’ Productions shone. And made money.
When the Animal Academy Awards came around nine months after the film’s release, Stinkin’ was packing up his production studio/apartment complex/human torture facility and moving everyone onto a small farm just outside of town.
Only the rat’s personal effects—clothes, people porn, unedited footage from the abduction, the original copies of the finished film on various media and some random movie-making equipment—remained in the bomb shelter under the basement. He planned on secretly moving all the footage to an undisclosed location after the Awards.
The Animal Academy Awards, as always, would be held in the crew’s hometown of Olympia, Washington in the great Underground Opera House built in 1947 by the Mole Masons and the Animal Academy of Film. Olympia is the birthplace of the animal film industry and center of the growing animal independent film movement.
