Greatest Zombie Movie Ever (10 page)

“When the movie is done, I promise that I'll think about that comment, and we'll both have a big laugh about how amusing it was. For now it's maybe not the best time to be correcting my puke comment.”

“I wasn't trying to be amusing, but I get your point. If we hurry, you can cram in a few minutes of studying before he hands out the tests.”

• • •

In the long, proud tradition of pretending that certain events in history never took place, Justin decided to pretend that the history test never happened.

“I have a title,” Bobby said at lunch. “
Dead Skull
.”

“That's perfect,” Justin said. “The instant we make a movie about a dead skull, that's the title we're going to use.”

“I knew you were going to make fun of me,” said Bobby. “That's why I made this poster to explain the concept.”

He held up a sheet of paper. It was a drawing of the outside of the school with the title
Dead School
on the wall. The word
School
was then crossed out with spray paint and replaced with
Skull
.

“
Dead Skull
,” said Bobby.

Gabe thought about it for a moment. “My mind says, ‘No, that's dumb,' but my heart says yes.”

“My heart says yes too,” said Justin. “
Dead Skull
it is.”

“For now,” said Gabe.

“Right. For now.”

“Because I'd like to believe that we'll come up with something better while acknowledging that so far we haven't.”

“And if you say it really fast, it kind of sounds like
Dead's Cool
,” said Bobby.

“
Dead Skull, Dead Skull, Dead Skull
…no, it sounds like
Dead's Cull
, which I guess could be like the culling of the grim reaper or something.
Dead's Cool
isn't a bad title actually, though I don't like it as much as
Dead Skull
.”

“What about
Dead Is Cool
without the contraction?” asked Gabe.

“I'm not sure our movie has any evidence that being dead is cool,” said Justin. “Killing zombies is cool, yeah, but being dead is kind of a miserable existence. You're all rotted and stuff, and people are always trying to shoot you in the head.”

“Fair enough.”

“Thanks, Bobby!”

• • •

The night before he was to shoot his first feature film, Justin stood in his kitchen, making peanut butter sandwiches.

He was not a great chef by any stretch of the imagination. (He could make mushy macaroni and cheese or crunchy macaroni and cheese but nothing in between.) But a peanut butter sandwich did not exceed his skill level. The challenge was maximizing the number of sandwiches he could get out of his available peanut butter without being stingy to the point where somebody said, “Hey, there's insufficient peanut butter on this sandwich!”

He had dozens of small bags of assorted chips and a cooler full of bottled water, which were technically just bottles he'd refilled from the faucet.

And Mom had made cookies. Lots and lots and lots and lots of cookies. Cookies of almost every variety imaginable, except for peanut butter for obvious reasons. They had so many that by the end of the shoot, every member of the cast and crew would instantly become physically ill from the mere sight of a cookie. But it was a small price to pay for their art, and until that moment was reached, nobody would go hungry.

Though he had approximately 2,164,798 things to do before production began tomorrow, Justin was determined to get a good night's sleep. He could sleepwalk his way through the rest of his life (apparently) but not the first day of shooting. He had to be alert. You didn't hear famous filmmakers saying that their movies fell short of being masterpieces because they'd been sleepy.

He brushed his teeth, washed his face, brushed his teeth again because he was so tired that he'd forgotten he brushed them the first time, and then climbed into bed.

He fell asleep immediately, and if he did dream of ferocious zombies dragging him down into a dark pit, he didn't remember it when he woke up.

• • •

Justin woke up exactly one minute before his alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. As far as he could remember, that had never happened in his entire life. Usually his brain was good at plunging into the deepest possible sleep when the buzzer sounded.

He got out of bed and took a shower. He put on a pair of jeans and his favorite
Night of the Living Dead
shirt. (He had four.) Then he looked at himself in the mirror. Wow. He was having a good hair day. It didn't matter since he'd be wearing a baseball cap, but it was still a good omen.

He whistled his favorite song, “The Gonk,” as he put on his socks and shoes. This surprised him because he'd never been able to whistle before. He hoped he wasn't still dreaming.

He poured himself a bowl of Extreme Sugar Flakes, drowned it in milk, and took a bite. Extreme Sugar Flakes had never tasted so good. In fact, milk had never tasted so good, and it hadn't even had time to absorb the natural flavor of the cereal.

This was shaping up to be the most perfect day ever.

He should play the lottery.

No, he didn't have time. And he was a minor.

Still, all signs were pointing to this being the best day of his life. Nothing could spoil it. Nothing! He didn't even care that by constantly thinking about how awesome everything was, he was tempting the forces of irony. Whoever was in charge of irony didn't scare him. This was going to be amazing.

The first location of the day was the park where they'd failed to make
Vampire Tree
. It was only a couple of blocks away from his home, so Justin could walk there. When he was a hugely successful director, he'd take a limousine, even if he was filming in his own driveway, but for now he'd have to be a lowly pedestrian.

Before he went to bed, Justin had put all of his food and equipment in the red wagon he'd gotten for his sixth birthday. It was not the most glamorous way to transport materials. But he only had his learner's permit, and Mom and/or Dad were not inclined to get up this early on their days off to drive him two blocks.

Justin was the kind of ambitious person who would choose the most elaborate, complex scene of the entire movie and put it first in the shooting schedule. Fortunately Gabe had overruled him, and the scenes in the park were relatively straightforward.

When he arrived on location, Gabe was already there, setting up lights. (Well, light. They only had one.) Bobby was also there, lying flat on the ground.

“Hi, Gabe,” said Justin.

“Hi, Justin.”

“Hi, Bobby.”

“Hi,” said Bobby in a croak.

“Any special reason you're lying there?”

“I'm dying.”

“What's wrong?”

“Everything.”

“Narrow it down.”

“I think I have the flu.”

“For real?”

“I've got a sore throat, and I ache all over. My nose is also running, and I can only tell it's you because I've seen you enough times that I recognize you as a blur.”

“Do you need to go home?” Justin said, asking it the same way his mother might ask a yes-or-no question where there was truly only one correct answer.

Bobby shook his head. “I don't want to let you down.”

“If you're really sick, you can leave. It's okay,” Justin lied.

“No, I'll power through it. Just let me know if you need me to stand up for anything.”

Okay, so it was possible that the first day of shooting might not be flawless from beginning to end, but as long as Bobby could stand upright and not drop the boom mic on somebody's head during a take, they'd be fine.

He pulled the wagon over to the park's one picnic table and began to set out the sandwiches, cookies, and water.

“Can I have a cookie?” Bobby asked.

“No. Cookies are for healthy people.”

They didn't have an official production designer, but there was no production design necessary for this particular scene since it took place at a regular park and did not require anything to be on fire in the background. Alicia and Christopher were the only two actors in this scene, and they'd been given a 6:30 a.m. call time, so Justin still had half an hour to make sure everything was ready.

“Did you bring everything?” Gabe asked.

“Yep.”

“Camera?”

“Yep.”

“Extra batteries?”

“Yep.”

“Battery charger?”

“We don't have anything to plug it into, but yep.”

“Slate?”

“Yep.”

“Bribe money?”

“Yep.”

“Clown shoes?”

“Those aren't for the park scene.”

Gabe glanced at the clipboard he was holding. “You're right. Prop rifle?”

“Yep.”

“You should say check instead of yep.”

“Do we need to start over?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Green bedsheet?”

“Check.”

“Clothespins?”

“Check.”

“Laptop computer?”

“Check.”

“Browsing history deleted?”

“Check.”

“Waffle iron?”

“Check.”

“Tape measure?”

“Uh-oh.”

“It's okay,” said Gabe. “I've got three.”

“Why do you have three?”

“People like to walk off with tape measures.”

“Oh.”

“Squirrel food?”

“Why do we need that?”

“In case squirrels swarm us. We discussed this, Justin.”

“If squirrels swarm us, we'll break up one of the sandwiches and throw it.”

“If squirrels swarm us, it'll be because we have sandwiches lying out. We spent, like, twenty minutes working out this contingency plan.”

“Okay, we'll just have to go into filming unprepared. If squirrels force us to cancel, you can punch me in the face. But not hard. Maybe not in the face. You can punch me in the stomach. Also not hard. Actually, having to cancel the shoot will be punishment enough. Don't punch me.”

“Clipboard?”

“You're holding one.”

“This is mine. You need one for you,” said Gabe.

“I'll just use the back of my arm.”

“Release forms?”

“Those were your responsibility.”

“I know. I'm getting to my own checklist now.”

“I'm going to do something else.”

“All right.”

“Uuuuuuhhhhhhh,” said Bobby.

Justin walked over to him. “Can you really not hold your tongue in your mouth, or are you faking?”

“I'm not faking.”

“Are you exaggerating?”

“No.”

“Because you fake being sick a lot to get out of school.”

“I really don't feel good. I'm not going home though. I'm here until the end. I don't care how much my head aches or how much my nose runs or how much my back stings.”

“Your back stings?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn't sound like a flu symptom.”

“Maybe I have something worse.”

“Did you look at the ground before you lay down?”

Bobby did not immediately respond.

“From where I'm standing, I can see three different anthills. You checked for anthills before you lay down, right?”

“I'm pretty sure I did.”

“I think you should probably stand up now.”

Bobby reached out his arms, and Justin pulled him to his feet. “Are there any ants on my back?” asked Bobby, spinning around.

Justin didn't have time to do an accurate count, but it looked like there were at least eight million. “Get me something to brush them off with!” he shouted at Gabe. “An ant brusher-offer! Hurry!”

“It's not on the checklist!”

“Anything! Hurry!”

Gabe grabbed the green sheet out of Justin's wagon.

“I think they're multiplying!” Bobby wailed.

“They're not multiplying,” said Justin, frantically brushing them off with the back of his hand. “There are just a lot of them.”

“I think one's a queen and it laid eggs!”

“Stop talking! You're enraging them!”

“One's in my ear! One's in my ear! Now two are in my ear! Now I've got two in one ear and one in the other! Help me!”

Gabe used the sheet to brush the ants off Bobby. “Stop moving!”

“I have to move! I'm panicking!”

“If you keep moving, they'll sting you!”

“I don't want to die! There are still items on my bucket list! I haven't swam in a moat yet!”

“I think I got most of them,” said Gabe. “Are there any still in your ears?”

Bobby stuck his fingers in his ears. “I'm not sure. You can't feel stuff crawling on your brain, right? It doesn't have nerves.”

“They're not on your brain.”

“There are a few in my mouth!” Bobby chewed for a moment and then swallowed.

“Did we get all of them?” asked Gabe.

Bobby scratched under his arms. “I think so. No, wait. There's one squirming around in my belly button.” He reached under his shirt and removed the ant. “I hate having an innie.”

“Maybe you should go home,” said Justin.

Bobby shook his head. “No, overcoming adversity just makes me stronger. I'm all right.”

“Your eyes are looking in two different directions.”

“No, I'm fine.” He took off his shirt. “How many times did they sting me?”

Justin and Gabe inspected his chest and back. “It looks like only twice,” said Justin. “That's pretty good for being covered with eight million ants.”

“I'm going to lie down some more, if that's okay.”

“Maybe pick a different spot.”

“I'll lie on the jungle gym.”

“There are probably better options.”

“The picnic bench?”

“Someplace where you don't get plague germs all over the craft services table.”

“My warm bed at home?”

“That might be for the best,” said Justin.

“No,” said Bobby. “I won't abandon you. You can't make me. I'm just going to go lie on the merry-go-round for a while. Please nobody spin it.”

Bobby wandered over to the merry-go-round, and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, he lay down on it, closed his eyes, and began to softly moan.