Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

“You think that man is job. In the morning you go to work to be man. You think that job is everything. But it is nothing. It is just job.”

“What job? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ana shook her head, forgiving of his thickness.

“You are not strong.”

“Thank you!” Joshua said. “Finally! Thank you for your honesty!”

He instantly realized, of course, that he would’ve preferred if she’d thought him strong. She grabbed both of his hands and held them in hers, as if about to propose. Baruch was wrong about one thing: desire that arises from sadness is much stronger, other things equal, than that which arises from joy. It could be, in fact, that desire arises only from sadness, the daily devastation of constant dying. Ana was much larger than him, or anything he would ever be. On his way through the desert, he was passing through her as through a memory of a verdant forest.

“You are better,” Ana said. “You are sad. You blush. You are warm.”

“Warm? It’s probably stress.”

She put his hands on her hips and drew closer to him to press her coffee-flavored lips upon his.

He felt like a guest in his own bed, which made it more comfortable. This time, he wasn’t cheating on Kimmy, technically, so Ana’s body felt different. For one thing, there was more of it: she was dripping wet and he licked her cross-eyed nipples in concentric circles, until the shape of her breasts led him toward her armpits and then he went down her sides and across to her belly button and she was spreading her legs as his tongue inched down toward her picture-perfect clitoris. Deflated she was not. His cheeks were smeared with her wetness, so much of it that he had to swallow it, and his tongue was burning with it. He thrust his tongue inside her, as she lifted and twisted her hips, and slid it up to her clit and back, and put two fingers inside her, and she came, hitting his back with her heels, reciting something in Bosnian, speaking in rhymes and tongues.

Then he slid up her body and his cock was inside her, and he was kissing her, the same whetted tongue now inside her mouth. Far in the back of whatever was left of his mind, the light of reason was struggling against being finally extinguished and he was aware that wearing a condom would’ve been a good idea, but there was no way that he was getting out of her, because she took him in and he was with her in every move, in every gasp, kiss, and lick — she let him in so deep he didn’t have to think about her, and therefore he didn’t have to think about himself, but of course he was thinking about not thinking about himself and he was about to start thinking about himself when she bit his cheek, as if eager to spread the pain, and it hurt and he loved it and he could feel the skin was broken and he started coming and so did she.

EXT. ROAD — DAY

Major Klopstock, Ruth, Cadet, and Boy walk with exhaustion and hunger evident in their strides. Here and there, a burnt vehicle is in a ditch. A huge plume of smoke hovers on the horizon. The waddling shadows of zombies climb up a distant hill toward a lonely house on its top.

Major K’s crew come upon a cistern truck. The driver’s body at the wheel has clearly been devoured by the ravenous undead, his rib cage wide open and devoid of organs. Major K rummages around the cabin, checks the glove compartment, finding nothing useful. He breaks open the box on the truck’s underside to discover two jerry cans, both empty. He thinks quickly, takes out the jerry cans and gives one to Cadet. First he, then Cadet, climbs the ladder on the cistern toward the hatch at the top, but Cadet’s jerry can CLANGS against the cistern. Everyone freezes: they can clearly hear CLANGING in response from the inside — they exchange glances. Major K clangs again: TWO TIMES LONG, TWO TIMES SHORT. The response: TWO TIMES LONG, TWO TIMES SHORT. Cadet descends, puts the jerry can down and cocks his weapon. Major K pulls out his gun and goes all the way to the hatch.

MAJOR K

Hello! Any humans inside?

He can hear VOICES, but no words. He calls again. Now he distinctly hears words spoken back to him. He reloads the gun.

MAJOR K

(to his crew)

Step back!

Ruth takes a few steps back, but Cadet gestures toward her to tell her to get as far from the truck as she can and take Boy with her. They move to stand at a distance. Cadet points his weapon at the hatch. Major K unlocks it cautiously, jumps off the cistern, and runs to stand by Cadet. They watch, their weapons ready.

The hatch opens. One by one, living, filthy people crawl out to be blinded by the sun. It is clear they do not know where they are or what has been happening. The refugees look around, flummoxed. They seem to be a family. PADRE (50) climbs down the ladder.

PADRE

¿Qué está pasando?

His cheek still hurt; there were still Ana’s teeth marks on it. The shameless complicatedness of it all made him feel exhausted yet mature, as if he’d been initiated into a brutally authentic domain — not a commercial for an idiotically happy one — where people were lost but still managed to struggle and live. Now he had a wound to show for entering the real world. Now he was ready to step in front of the truck named Billy Cooperman.

Billy was on the up, even if his name seemed to belong to the realm of chintzy porn. Graham had known him for years and sometimes sent students his way, because Billy seemed to have figured out the ways to sign up good local creative talent before they ended up in California to have their souls crushed by the Morlocks of Hollywood. He placed his bets early, he lost some, he won some, but overall, Graham was convinced, he was bound to be a winner, for one simple reason: he believed in himself like a motherfucker. Zombie Wars looked pretty promising, Graham thought, and it was time Joshua should meet the people and learn the skill of being in the room. Of course, he could go crazy and fly out to LA to meet the people (Who were the people, actually? Joshua had wondered. What’s a real room?), but that meant hotels and plane tickets, bling and fancy dinners, all the dazzling shit required for minimum respect, never actually provided. Or he could begin at home, before Billy hit it out of the park. The worst-case scenario: Joshua would learn a thing or two about pitching his stories.

The whole thing, smallish as it was, had a kind of movie-business orchestration about it: Graham connected them; Joshua sent pages from Zombie Wars ; Billy agreed to meet him. But as soon as a lunch meeting had been scheduled, Joshua became overwhelmed with embarrassment, as if he’d gotten drunk and naked in front of his grandparents (which had indeed happened at least once upon a time). By now it all was as if it had been arranged decades ago, in those happy times before the Bosnian wrecking crew had entered his life and Kimmy escaped, before Ana had laid a claim on him, before Bernie sent him his cancerous text message. The intents and purposes neither of his life nor of Zombie Wars were easy to recall, but he was just too fatigued not to go with the flow. And the little man clamored in the crawl space, hungry for notable experiences.

Billy was waiting for Joshua at Sushi Samurai, at least one baby bottle of sake already consumed. He reminded Joshua of someone else, yet someone irretrievable from memory: short and taut, like a ballet dancer, with a pointy nose, small mouth, and playboy pompadour. He wore a slick navy jacket, as if he’d just parked his yacht around the corner, his white shirt unbuttoned to reveal a wedge of hoary chest. He said nothing as he spread his arms for an embrace Joshua walked right into. Billy rubbed his back and squeezed him, as if checking for wires under his clothes. In the limelight of Billy’s Botox-survivor grin, Joshua placed his ass in the chair.