Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

“Are they going to find him?” Bega asked.

Joshua didn’t even bother to look in his direction.

“They might. They’ll have to make it out first,” Joshua said.

“Well, let us know what happens,” Graham said. “Nearly everything in the world hinges on it.”

“I think they should find him,” Alice said.

* * *

Graham slipped out without asking about the lunch with Billy/George; he must have received a full report and was pissed for wasting his influence. Joshua took his time packing his computer and his notes. Dillon lingered too, pretending he was browsing through Graham’s paperbacks, until he abruptly turned to Joshua and said:

“Can I like ask you a question?”

Joshua looked up and Dillon was blushing to his ears, biting his lips compulsively.

“Would you like to have like a drink? Maybe?” he asked, grinding his teeth in a grin of awkwardness. His trucker hat was at an angle; there was a visible smudge on his thick-rimmed glasses; he was sweating.

“I don’t think so,” Joshua said. “I don’t think we can go on a date or even be friends, Dillon. Because I think you’re an idiot.”

His phone buzzed and he finally took it out of his pocket to read the goddamn message. Dillon sat back down on the futon, looked up at Joshua, and said:

“You know what, Joshua? You’re an asshole.”

EXT. WOODS — DAY

Major K, Ruth, Boy, and Cadet leap over rocks and logs, branches whipping their faces. The refugees stumble forth in their wake, all pursued by zombies who, extremely skinny and slow as they are, come from all directions. We can recognize Goiter among them, as well as Cancer Patient. Boy trips, slams his head against a rock and goes out. Cadet stops to help him, as Major K and Ruth hesitate, then turn around to rush back. The zombies begin to close in on them, which allows the refugees to keep running and escape. Cadet looks at Major K, who understands instantly what needs to be done. As Cadet takes his rifle off his shoulder, Major K picks up Boy and runs on, followed by Ruth. Cadet faces the advancing zombies, picking them off one at a time with precise shots that blow off their heads. Many zombies drop, but more keep coming. In no time they are too close for him to shoot. He swings at them, smashing a few heads with his rifle, until the undead snatch it out of his hands.

From a distance, Major K and Ruth watch in shock and trepidation.

RUTH

I didn’t even know his name.

MAJOR K

Angel. Angel Rodriguez.

Major K puts Boy down and takes the rocket launcher off his back. The ravenous zombies pile on Cadet Rodriguez, who HOLLERS in terror. Major K loads his launcher with the only grenade he has and rushes back. The zombies are unperturbed, too busy tearing into the fidgeting flesh, Goiter the most voracious of all. Cadet Rodriguez keeps SCREAMING as Major K comes close enough to be able to aim at the heap. In the mayhem, for a brief moment, Major K’s and Cadet’s eyes meet. Major K launches the grenade. Cadet Angel Rodriguez and the zombies are all swallowed by apocalyptic flames.

Bernie was on his back beetle-like, his left leg immobilized, his arm attached to a despondent drip, the rest of him tucked under a blanket like a shameful secret. Something somewhere beeped occasionally, petulantly. The hospital window looked out at roofs strewn with air-conditioning behemoths, at all the unreal estate and other windows, at solid, reflective, downtown nothingness. Bernie’s eyes were half-closed; still, he smiled when Noah attempted to break into the red medical-waste box on the wall. A TV set in the upper corner showed Saddam’s statue coming down like a lost erection. This year we are slaves. Next year, may we all be free. And the year after that we’ll probably be slaves again.

“Leave it. Noah! Leave it,” Janet barked and pressed, impatiently, the call button on the bed remote.

“You’re too young to fall in the shower,” she said to Bernie. “The minimum age for that is seventy-nine.” Then, without even looking at Noah: “Leave it, I said!”

The boy finally abandoned his attempt, only to turn his attention to the bathroom, into which he troublingly disappeared. Bernie’s smile remained unchanged, even if he closed his eyes to indicate that he heard her.

“Yes!” the screeching voice of the nurse came through the speaker.

“Could I talk to Dr. Hashmi again?” Janet said. “This is the third time I’m asking. Did he go back to Pakistan or something?”

“He’ll be there as soon as he can,” the nurse said. “He has many other patients, you know.”

“I just need to talk to him about my elderly father. Are his other patients elderly?”

“His other patients need his attention right now,” the nurse said. “He’ll be there as soon as possible. Thank you!”

Bernie was thoroughly out now, loaded with painkillers to his contented gills. Despite all their philosophical differences, the Levins had always been firmly united in their faith in pain management. The consensus was that pain was no gain, whereas absence of pain was a great gain. There was the sound of the shower coming from the bathroom and Janet hurried to limit the damage, which, this time, was only Noah’s Northwestern University sweatshirt becoming soaking wet. Janet ordered her firstborn to sit down in the chair under the TV and not move. He did sit down, still eyeing the red box with a mixture of mischief and malice, plots ever hatching in his head. As his not moving was obviously of a very temporary nature, Janet excavated a Spider-Man comic book from her purse and shoved it into his hands. When could she find time to simply love him, always so busy with getting him under control?

“Dr. Osama says Bernie’s hip is bruised but not broken. He will need replacement down the road, though,” Janet whispered, as Joshua provided a requisite brotherly squeeze. “Whereas I need a martini drip presently.”

She was taller than Joshua, so that she had to bend down to put her head on his shoulder. They were both uncomfortable in that position, but the rules of sibling consolation demanded that they stay attached for a while. An old man, thin as a stick, regressed down the hallway, pushing very slowly the walker on which his half-full colostomy bag hung. His hospital gown was not closed in the back, so his withered, doughy ass was there for all to behold. Noah’s face lit up with the joy of bearing indecent witness. Script Idea #185: A teenager discovers that his girlfriend’s beloved grandfather was a guard in a Nazi death camp. The boy’s grandparents are survivors, but he’s tantalizingly close to achieving deflowerment, so when a Nazi hunter arrives in town in pursuit of Grandpa, he has to distract him long enough to get laid. A riotous Holocaust comedy. Title: Righteous Lust.

“It will be okay,” Joshua said.

“Don’t tell me it will be okay,” Janet said, pulling away. “I can’t even remember what okay looks like.”

“It’s just a bruise,” Joshua said. “He looks good.”

“He looks good? This is not a beach pageant. He almost smashed his hip to pieces. And, soon to come to a life near you, dementia and diapers and daily guilt trips to the nursing home.”

Bernie was blazingly pale, which allowed his age spots and moles to multiply. He was drooling on the pillow, a wet spot growing under his cheek. Everything in Joshua wanted to call Kimmy to tell her about his father having stepped into his dotage as on a land mine. She’d had to take care of her parents as they slipped out of life, breaking their half-desiccated bones along the way. She was the kind of person who could talk him through all this — in her wise therapist voice, she could tell him what to do, how to do it. But he’d never dare to ask her for advice or succor, or call her again, as a matter of fact. And then he also wanted to watch Ana’s lips telling him life was not misery. In a perfect universe, he could talk Kimmy and Ana into a permanent ménage à trois and be forever snug as the meat in the comfort sandwich. This was not a perfect universe, however; it was barely a world.