Carole Douglas - Silver Zombie

“They’re real nuisances,” the guy answered, taking a bead on Miss Almira Gulch’s hat.

“I said, don’t,” Torbellino ordered through gritted teeth. “This isn’t a carnival shooting gallery. This is our Armageddon, ass. Either grow or die, and those snoops on our Kansas drug-drives are threatening my operation going international. We’d be outa here with our prize if some damned necromancer hadn’t turned all the elevator wires to silver.”

“But, boss, you want this silver thingamajiggy.”

“I want the power of the ultimate Silver Zombie. I’ve had these cheap Mexican models for the digging up, sure, for decades. But the Silver Zombie would be able to find and dig up whole armies of new undead meth-heads. I’d be King of the Zombies. I could run this continent. Hell, I could run this hemisphere with that one heavy-metal piece on the crime game board.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“You don’t need to. If the weather witches’ storm doesn’t knock those holdouts out of their pretty glass tower, our zombie cattle-drivers will finally reach the top and throw them off. It’s just bad luck some rich guy made off with the Silver Zombie before we did.”

“Won’t all this throwing off and knocking off lose you the Silver Zombie?”

“Nope. No more than your bullet can kill these kinky CinSims running around here. They’re zombies too and already dead.”

“But they … look normal and talk and wear clothes and don’t eat anybody’s brains. That one there acts just like my Aunt Clara and I’d really like to clean her clock. One shot, boss, please?”

Almira was heading through again, like the clockwork CinSim she was and would be until she became a full-fledged hotel-casino attraction and some of the actress underneath her, Margaret Hamilton, a perfectly nice lady, came out to soften the film persona.

“Shut up,” El Demonio shouted, “or you’ll end up in my local body farm and get raised to run with the cattle, like these stupid zombies. Don’t push me. I really need a better grade of zombie.”

Thanks to the broken door, I’d heard everything. I parted my Green Room–permed hair and pulled it forward into two pigtails. The silver familiar obligingly split and clipped each tail into place.

I played director and gave Quicksilver a short but key nonspeaking role.

The moment Miss Gulch vanished, I nodded at my dog.

Quick padded silently through the broken door and slunk around the furniture so he could appear right behind El Demonio’s chair.

Toto zipped out again, thanks to Miss Gulch’s absence. While the men’s eyes were automatically drawn to the streaking little dog, I eased on down the lobby’s trashed yellow brick road and into the armed thugs’ view.

Interacting with them at just the right level was the biggest difficulty.

“Where has my little dog gone?” I said sadly. “That awful witch in the even more awful hat wants to take him away to be killed.”

“Say, are you Dorothy?” one guy asked. “You came through here before. You should be in the storm shelter.”

“Oh, dear, I’ve got to find my dog first. And then I’ll go.”

By now I had edged over and past Torbellino’s whip and was even with his chair.

Quick whisked out from behind the chair and ran into the hall.

“There he is,” I cried, dashing after him.

“Hey, boss,” the dazed thug was saying. “This whole scene looks more like that Alice down the rabbit hole thing, only with dogs.”

I heard the real Toto following our trail, arf ing all the way.

“Say I can shoot this one, please.”

No one or no thing guarded the elevator bank. I pressed a button and hoped.

“You, there. Dorothy. I want that dog!”

Miss Gulch didn’t seem to notice Toto had added a hundred and forty-six pounds. Or that Dorothy had added a bust and a business suit. Like feral zombies, feral CinSims seemed to degrade. I was getting a whole new insight on CinSims, but probably wouldn’t live long enough to come to any conclusions but my own.

“Shaddup in the hall,” came from the office area. This order was followed by a sharp crack of a whip.

“I’m not Dorothy,” I told Almira, “and your hat is horrible.”

“Well, of all the nerve, you young whippersnapper. You’ll be sorry.”

The elevator doors opened … on another CinSim, garbed in checked pants, brocaded vest, and black hat.

“Almira Gulch,” he said, “you’re a mean, wicked woman. I’ll see Dorothy home before the big storm turns into a tornado. You’d better find your bicycle and ride like Hell for home yourself. Come on, Dorothy, and your big dog too. There’s no time to be lost.”

Professor Marvel grabbed my arm to hustle me into the elevator car, with Quick behind me turning to snap at Almira Gulch to stay behind.

“This is very kind of you,” I told my CinSim escort, “but I hear the elevator cables don’t work.”

“Not for their kind. I’ll have you know, young lady, I have been to Kansas City in my travels, where everything is up-to-date, and have ridden in these new-fangled things called elevators for years. Oh my, I have ridden in even more exciting aerial transportation, my dear. Now. Up, up, and away.”

We did indeed whoosh upward in a working elevator.

A PERFECTLY SOUND Ben Hassard awaited us in the penthouse suite entry hall, although he wore a roomy Asian robe over his trousers.

“I’m so relieved that you and the dog made it past those vicious criminals, Miss Street,” Hassard said. “Who’s this guy?”

“No one to worry about at all,” said Professor Marvel, sketching a bow. “I must leave now. I’m expected in a storm cellar. Or was it a storm?”

The doors automatically closed on him. The future Wizard of Oz was running out on me, just as he had on Dorothy, at the end.

“Another CinSim,” Ben, er, marveled. “I must say they do put on a show, popping up here and there. Glad you look hale and hearty. Tallgrass and the other FBI man and Mr. Christopher are conferring in the screening room.”

“Screening room? What are they doing there?”

After my impulsive exit, I’d expected a warmer welcome back.

I followed Quicksilver into the main room and saw the storm churning like the contents of a giant blender outside the glass doors to the balcony. It sounded as loud up here too.

Ben Hassard followed, apologizing. “There’s something wrong about the film I sold Mr. Christopher. I’m afraid it’s the source of all my troubles. That demonic mobster wants something on it. Perhaps some hidden material that’s incriminating.”

I had no time to disabuse Hassard of his relatively safe and normal worldview as I headed for the home theater, opening the double doors so all three could enter at once, Hassard, Quicksilver, and I.

The movie was unreeling, but standing silhouettes obscured most of the screen.

“So I get it’s a priceless piece of film history,” Ric was arguing. “Am I supposed to believe you just wanted it as a collector? A little something the Mexican drug cartels were so hot to have they’d torture and kill for it?”

Snow’s powerful stage voice sounded weary, as if Ric had been grilling him for a long time.

“I’ve told you, Montoya. I’m planning to model the centerpiece of my billion-dollar Inferno Hotel and Casino expansion on the look of this film. It cost almost three million dollars to produce in 1927, a phenomenal amount for the time, and I plan to re produce the sets in reality at a phenomenal amount for our time. The film is a guide, but also the crown jewel of my new multientertainment facility. I have no idea why an international thug like Torbellino would want a cultural icon such as Metropolis. ”