Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

“That Stagger. Well, it was fair fight.”

“Fair? Please don’t talk to me anymore.”

“Okay. No talking.”

Wedge by wedge, Bega devoured the orange, then dropped the peel in the bin. Motherfucker! Joshua thought.

“Hey, listen to what your friend Rumsfeld said,” Bega offered, but Joshua showed no sign he’d heard him. Instead he pulled up the Zombie Wars file and it came up to conceal his screen wallpaper: a shot of the newscaster in Night of the Living Dead failing to explain the cataclysmic developments. He set out to read through one of his freshly written scenes, scanning for wrylies, wondering where Graham was. His cheek hurt, feeling swollen. The room smelled of Bega’s orange as he read from the papers:

“‘There is among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into that bombing campaign. It was not a long air campaign. It didn’t last for weeks. And there was minimal collateral damage — unintended damage.’ That is beautiful! Rumsfeld is genius! You should be thankful too, Joshua. Just one fat cat is minimal collateral damage.”

Bega’s pronouncing words with his Bosnian accent— bombing as “bomBing,” damage as “damach”—made Joshua even more annoyed.

“Fuck you,” Joshua said. “You know nothing. Not about the cat, not about me, not about this fucking country.”

“What I know is that you had sex with Esko’s wife.”

“I thought you were my friend. You brought a killer into my home.”

“It’s Kimmy’s home.”

“We split the rent. And it’s none of your business anyway.”

“Nobody was killed. You must have respect for care and precision.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“I thought that I must be there to protect you if Esko goes real crazy. You don’t know him. He could’ve break your neck just like that.”

“Could’ve broken my neck,” Joshua said gleefully.

“Broken your neck,” Bega said. “You don’t want to be alone with Esko, believe you me.”

“Thanks for saving my life, then!” Joshua said. His phone buzzed, but he ignored it, immersed in a vision of punching Bega’s face in, complete with the sound of his cheekbones cracking. Unleashing a few extra voracious zombies to rip the flesh off his bones could be pretty enjoyable too.

“Are Ana and Alma with Kimmy now?” Bega asked.

“Even if they were, I wouldn’t tell you. And they’re not at my place either.”

“Esko’s taking the whole thing hard. Drinking, a lot, talking to himself. He can get ideas, you know.”

“Why don’t you just leave me alone and take care of your terrorist friend instead?”

“I understand you’re angry. I’m there for you.”

“I’m here for you.”

“What?”

“You say: I’m here for you. Not: I’m there for you.”

“I’m here for you,” Bega said.

“Well, get the fuck out of here,” Joshua said.

Dillon walked in and took the far end of the sofa, inserting his presence between the two of them. “I just saw the craziest thing,” he pronounced.

But neither Joshua nor Bega showed any interest in the craziest thing. Graham entered, threw down his papers, and dropped in his chair. All of the splotches on his forehead stood united in one solidly red front.

“If any of you utter the words weapons of mass destruction ,” Graham said, “I am going to projectile vomit directly in your face.”

“I just saw the craziest thing,” Dillon repeated for Graham’s benefit, but he ignored him as well. Joshua’s phone vibrated, yet again. There was a time when the phone was not embedded in you, the time when you could be alone with the people you were with. And when there was no one around, you could be by yourself, with yourself. Now your spiderweb was always being tugged.

Alice emerged from the bathroom and smiled angelically at everyone, her hairdo perfectly blown dry. It’d been a while since she’d been at the workshop. She was in her pudgy forties, with a moony face and saucer eyes, which Joshua did not find pretty but, rather, comforting to look at, like a cloud in a perfectly blue sky. Last time he’d seen her, he’d imagined himself curling up in her arms.

“Good evening, gentlemen!” she said.

“I just saw the craziest thing,” Dillon tried again, and, mercifully, Alice said: “And what did you see, Dillon?”

“I saw this dog with like wheels instead of his hind legs.”

“That’s amazing,” Alice said and smiled at Dillon, who fidgeted with the pleasure of her attention.

“It was like half dog, half skateboard,” he said.

* * *

Joshua read from his computer screen, enunciating every word carefully, as if auditioning:

“Ruth opens the cage door and walks in. The boy lies still, facedown. She kneels next to him and rolls him over. His eyes are closed, he looks peaceful, as opposed to the tormented zombie face he wore before. Suddenly, his eyes open.”

Alice gasped.

She was in the middle of a spiritual self-liberation journey, working on a script about an Idaho woman who lived in the same shack for forty-seven years, communing with angels every day. “True story,” she’d said. “She once even went to heaven and sat at God’s throne.” Alice could see this scene in her head: the throne of gold; the divine light around it; angels prancing everywhere; and there was Candy, fresh from the shack to rub elbows with the Lord. “That’s going to be expensive,” Graham had said. “A godless set is considerably cheaper.”

“Ruth takes the boy in her arms and strokes his long hair lovingly,” Joshua continued. “Feebly, he smiles. Wounds on his face are now slowly bleeding. He raises his hand with some effort and touches the woman’s hair. She smiles at him. Boy groans. She sits him up. Boy: ‘I’m hungry.’”

Joshua looked up. No one said anything. Graham gestured toward the others to suggest an offering of comments. Bega conspicuously sucked on an unlit cigarette.

“That’s pretty good,” Bega said. “Better than before.”

“I really like that she like risks her life by like going into the cage,” Dillon said.

“I think that’s beautiful,” Alice said.

“But the boy was dead, no?” Graham said.

“Undead, strictly speaking,” Joshua said.

“I know, but his brain was dead, right?” Graham said and pressed his forefinger against his mandibular cleavage. He never used any other finger to help his chin climax. “Don’t know much about history, or zombie physiology, but humans can’t live without the brain. If he was dead, or undead, then his brain was dead. Am I getting this wrong?”

“Zombie brains are infected by a virus that makes them undead,” Joshua said.

“It’s like it’s shut off, like in deep-sleep mode,” Dillon said.

“My point is that the boy’s brain might well be beyond repair,” Graham said. “He can’t just wake up and ask for a fucking sandwich.”

“Suspension of disbelief,” Bega said. “There are no zombies unless you believe they are there.”

“It’s the power of love,” Alice said.

“The power of love?” Graham looked at Joshua, then at Bega, then back at Joshua, like a lawyer before a jury. Saint Pacino gloomily observed the scene. Then Graham exploded in snickers, and Bega joined in and even Dillon chuckled. Alice did not laugh, but she did doodle. I’d fold up in her like a foal, Joshua thought. Graham wiped away his tears of laughter.

“The power of love!” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

Heroically, Alice ignored the insult and asked Joshua: “What happens next?”

“The boy recovers, but they have to escape because the soldiers find the lab. They all go looking for his father.”