Get Zombie: 8-Book Set (77 page)

The
man slaps the woman’s hands from his penis. He yanks at his
hair as sperm fly out in strange chunks and splat against the wall.
“This is not professional!” he says, throwing fistfuls of
his hair at the bouncing amputees.

The
technicians yank and yank yank yank yank on the rubber ropes, looking
to the director and waiting for him to say Okay enough. But Mr. Snake
doesn’t say that.

He
watches, eating another large brick of tofu from his messy hands –
eating like a horse – his mouth going down and munching.

He
doesn’t care if tofu gets into his nose.

I
find that most disturbing.

The
couple stares in fright as the man’s penis shakes like
something weird and machineguns more white stuff. The woman cries out
to Jesus.

“My
contacts! They hurt me! It’s like when I’m driving and
dirt gets in them!”

She
stands on the bed and jumps up and down, hands covering her eyes. She
gives a MIGHTY jump and flies over the room with a “Blahhhhhh!”
She tucks and rolls across the floor, straight into the bathroom
where she slides into the toilet. The door slams shut behind her,
somehow.

The
man complains, “Not my mess! Not my mess!” He runs to the
bathroom and pounds on the door. “I love you! Not my mess, I
says!”

Mr.
Snake points at me, then to the bathroom. I understand and point the
camera at the actors and their drama.

Is
this all scripted?

Because
I’m sweating.

Mr.
Snake looks to the technicians and gives them the signal to stop
yanking it.

And
so they stop, breathless.

The
amputees fall onto the bed and bounce into the air and then land on
the floor. They rest for 5 seconds, dead-looking, their limbs tangled
over limbs, and then rise as if nothing has happened. They stand
around the monitors, analyzing the shot while scratching their itchy,
naked parts. One amputee, with no legs, appears to have a rash. She
scratches at her neck furiously, to the point where she pops a vein
and blood streams into the air, sparkling under the hot lights.

A
female teenager screams out in disgust and collapses, then stands
right back up and vomits into her hands. She looks down on her filth
and says, “What have I become, what have I become?”

She
collapses and doesn’t get back up.

Two
female-coworkers pick her up and carry her on their shoulders, like a
log, and march off toward a room.

“HUT
HUT HUT HUT HUT HUT,” they chant.

The
women lock the door behind them. There are the curious sounds of a
drill, ice cracking, and giggling.

I
want to see what’s going on in there, but something in my
stomach says, Please don’t do that to me.

The
black man, standing naked at the bathroom door, gets down on his
hands and knees and peeks under the door, his buttocks kissing sky.
As I fear, Mr. Snake wheels his way next to me and tugs on my arm,
then whispers into my ear something horrific.

“For
the love of all that is good…get a close up.”

I
exhale, depressingly, and do as told.

I
put my hand to my mouth, trying to hold down the acidic vomit that’s
rising and settling in my throat. Dear God, it burns so bad.

Mr.
Snake massages the area between his thighs. He sees that I see him
and puts his hand down. He smiles at me, waving, but I don’t
smile back.

From
under the door, the bathroom lights click off.

The
door creeks open.

All
is silent.

It’s
dark inside.

The
naked man steps inside, tippy-toeing.

HIS
NAKED WIFE JUMPS OUT FROM BEHIND THE DARKNESS AND HITS HIM OVER THE
HEAD WITH THE HEAVY LID THAT COVERS A TOILET’S INNER-WORKINGS.

She
runs to the door and opens her mouth, wiggling her tongue at us and
yelling “Blahhhh!” and making devil horns. She SLAMS the
door shut.

We
all listen.

Something
is being torn.

Then
it sounds like she’s eating something.

I
remember Mr. Snake looking up to me and saying:

“Eating
something?”

He
then eats his nails, scared.

The
men in film crew walk outside – some of them bow their heads as
they leave, while many kick invisible trash. The women stay, out of
concern.

From
the bottom of the door, the lights flick on and off in a lunatic
fashion.

Mr.
Snake looks up to me.

“Broken
light now?”

He
bites his nails.

THE
SOUND OF A WINDOW CRASHING.

I
run to the door – camera still rolling on the tripod –
and kick down the door. The entire room gasps!

The
bathroom is empty.

The
window has indeed been smashed to tiny bits.

Feet
run behind me.

I
hop over the tub and peek outside the window, expecting to see the
woman running into the woods, meat jiggling.

But
nay.

Nothing.

Just
darkness.

And
loud crickets.

I
look down into the tub and see the naked black man. His tongue lolls
out from a jagged hole in his cheek, and his stomach has been eaten
out. His weewee is covered by a strange family of clear bubbles.

Eyes
open, he gives a sharp yelp, followed by many short, sharp yelps (I
zoom in on his face as he does this). The women try to stop his
foolishness by punching him on the face and biting his feet, but it
is no good. He is far gone.

Mr.
Snake golf claps.

“Cut!”

I
don’t remember much after that. Runaway images of alcohol…and
praying to a giant tree…and flying on a swing. Now I’m
waking up on the roof alone with a pillow and blanket, staring at the
moon and smoking a roll’em up cigarette that I proudly made.

Over
the black hills I see the blue & red rainbow of police lights.
They are speeding down to the house. (Did all of that stuff really
happen? Good God.)

I
run back inside to tell the others, but they already know about it.
Appropriate, fast-drumming, Middle Eastern music plays from a room,
LOUD. Everyone is in a panic – running here and there and
nowhere. The amputees are lifted and thrown out a window, where
people outside hold a mattress, awaiting their fall.

I
make to slide my shoes on and find worms inside.

What
the fuck, right?

Dumping
them out, I put my shoes on and turn around and see:

A
baby girl is crying on the floor.

I
pick her up, due to bad memories, and run around, asking speeding
faces about her parental unit. No one stops to listen. I manage to
actually stop a few people, but they all seem to do a kind of panicky
dance, running in place and flapping hands. This blasted kid is
screaming in my ear now, but I keep my cool.

A
Middle Eastern woman runs past me and snatches the baby away. Must be
the mum – seeing how the baby stopped crying.

Polly
takes my hand and we climb over the kitchen sink and jump out the
window and bounce off the mattress.

We
run into the van and zippidy dooda away.

I
look behind us and see all the police cars in the tiny distance,
parking at the house, kicking up clouds of dust that swirl in the
headlights.

I
notice something in the attic that frightens me.

Someone
is standing behind the window: A still shadow behind licking flames.

I
can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.

Why
can’t I look away?

I
FIND MYSELF frustrated by my old school chums. As for my current
“friends”: It’s been a few weeks since I last saw
Polly and Mr. Snake and the amputees. I’m lonely and again have
my eyes on a girl that I enjoy being around. Unfortunately, my
friends are prejudice to where she hangs out, and because I’m
afraid of conflict of any kind, I don’t date her.

I
don’t want my pals mad at me.

Sheesh.

I’m
giving up my happiness for them.

I’m
miserable! I can’t talk to them about it.

Because
all I’ll get is: I don’t care.

Just
be happy for me, guys.

All
I want to hear is, “GO for it. True, we don’t agree with
your choice, and true she annoys us just in general, but you like
her. She makes you happy, no? Yessm. GO for it. And if you happen to
fall, we’ll pick you up.”

But
something tells me I’m not going to hear that. So I feel that I
have to distance myself from them, and have. I find myself very
interested in other things now, in doing many things, creating many
things…just enjoying life, dammit.

September
19th. It’s my birthday today. I turn 26. As I feared, none of
my friends remember. I can understand if pals that I’ve only
known for about a year don’t remember, but when it’s
someone you knew since age 16…then it’s a tad sad.

Uh
oh…depression sets in.

What
am I going to do with them? Do they hate me now? Are they now
starting to realize what an idiotic fool I really am?

(points
to self)

Stop
talking.

Man
up.

Days
later…

After
the death of Mr. Snake, and hours of silence, we find a beach to film
the last scene on. The place is called China Man’s Hat because
it looks like a china man’s hat. Or a witch’s hat, in my
opinion.

I
throw out the option of filming during the day because it’ll be
a bitch bringing in lights, and on a beach of all places, where it’s
hard to run, let alone walk. And since I’m the director, Polly
and all the tech-heads agree. None of them argue with me or anything.
It’s amazing. I’m getting my ass kissed and not handed to
me and it fells a little good, and tingly. Power is interesting, and
like a great poet once said, “With great power, comes great
responsibility.”

That’s
from Spiderman.

I
try my best not to let it get to me. I have a job to do. Time to grow
up. People are depending on you!

Speaking
of Spiderman, or in this case, Spider-Man, the movie was directed by
one of my favorite directors, Sam Raimi (The Quick & The Dead,
Darkman, A Simple Plan), who also revolutionized the horror genre
with his film The Evil Dead, starring the funniest actor in the whole
wide world, Mr. Bruce Campbell. And I stress on Camp.

Haha.

My
all time favorite director is David Lynch. His films aren’t
movies so much as they’re moving paintings with sound. If you
don’t like looking at paintings, though, then stay away from
his films – like Lost Highway or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
– because you will fall asleep.

Earlier…

Polly
drives me to the set and on our way I start to get the monkeys. A
fight is in my stomach. What if no one listens to me? What if
everyone LISTENS to me, but with empty eyes? What if I bend over to
pick up a cute crab and my pants split. What if I start stuttering,
badly, even more than I usually do? W-w-what if they look at me funny
because it looks like a 16-year-old is giving them orders. Adults
hate getting orders from kids because it’s embarrassing –
although I really am 26 now.

To
ease my stupid, stupid brain, I keep my mind focused on one thing.

Have
FUN.

Later…

Everyone’s
here, ready to go. I walk on the sand, barefoot, and pace back &
forth, reading the scene. And this is what it says, seriously, word
for word:

EXT.
BEACH – DAY

Main
character (lady) and man. Sex.

THE
END.

I
ask Polly if I can have the sex synopsis for this scene. Things will
go a lot faster if we just follow what’s already written and
not improvise, but she tells me that Mr. Snake urinated on all those
pages because he thought the pages were laughing at him and then he
burned the pages and then urinated on them and then ate the soggy
ashes, just to show them who’s the boss.

I
say something like, “Jesus Christ!”

Polly
says that Snake didn’t like writers who tried to direct through
their scripts, and that it made him mad and, in his own words, feel
“devilish”.

My
eyes are popping out of my head. What am I to do now??

“He
seemed happy with the old scripts, that fiend.”

“Yes,
well, that was before he was bald.”

Hey,
Lord in Heaven, I don’t want to adlib directions –
this’ll be like going to a stranger’s house naked and
putting on their clothes in the dark. Lord, I don’t want to
come out wearing a dress.

The
sea is calm.

The
sun yawns.

In
the distance, I see a dark storm brewing, a growing ink stain in the
sky. We have to go NOW. No time to dillydally. My mind races. The
creative juices are flowing.

By
God, I’m alive!

I
tell Polly to instruct some of the techs, who seem to be just
standing around, sniffing their salty arms, to circle the main (naked
characters) with reflectors. They do, and the actors immediately
complain.

“It
burns, it burns!” they both say, hands covering their naughty
bits.

I
soothe them and say how great their tans will be. They take their
hands off their genitalia and smile at me, then smile at each other,
then bring their faces together and then open their mouths and eject
their tongues.

They
roll around on the sand.

I
bring the camera closer and give them a single direction:

“Adlib.”

They
give me the thumbs up and continue making love as the winds picks up
and caress the palm trees and fling sand into the actors’ hair
and onto their finger foods.

Actors
like being free to do what they do best, their way. Isn’t that
true of everyone?

If
you don’t like how an actor is working the scene, then you
shouldn’t have hired them. It’s no good controlling them.
You end up with something, like, “How about you do it your damn
self!”

The
script has changed so much.