Greatest Zombie Movie Ever (3 page)

“I'm the producer. My job is to be practical.”

“Compromise my creative vision in our second meeting, okay?”

“Will do.”

Justin cleared his throat and tapped the word
EPIC
again. “We can do this. And while I was at work, I came up with the perfect title.” He wrote
Lifeless
on the pad.

“
Lifeless
?” Bobby asked.

“Right. Without life. Dead. The perfect name for a zombie movie.”

“I don't know,” said Gabe. “I can see a critic saying, ‘
Lifeless
is an accurate title for this lifeless film.'”

Justin crossed out
Lifeless
. “Other ideas?”

“
Dead Zombies
,” said Bobby.

“Zombies are already dead.”

“These are even deader.”

Justin reluctantly wrote
Dead Zombies
on the board.

“Hmmmm,” said Gabe. “How about
Zombie Night
. No,
Dead Night
. No,
The Dead in Florida
.
The Florida Dead
.
Florida Zombies
.
Florizombies
. Maybe something about humidity.
Hurricane Zombies
.
Zombie Hurricane
.
Zombie Tornado
.
Zombie Volcano
.
Zombie Earthquake
.
Earthquake of the Zombies
.
Earthquake of the Dead
.
The Earth Quakes When the Dead Rise
.
DeadQuake
. Maybe something about flesh eating.
Dining on Flesh
.
The Dead Dine on Flesh
.
Dead Flesh Diners
. You're not writing these down.”

“You're going too fast.”

“I like
Florizombies
,” said Bobby.

“What was the one after
Zombie Night
?” asked Justin.

After a couple of minutes, they recreated the list of titles and added a few more, including
Zombies with Flesh Stuck in Their Teeth
, even though Justin was insistent that this would not be a zombie comedy.

Bobby's cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, looked at the display, and then hurriedly put it away again.

“Who's calling you?” Justin asked.

“Nobody.”

“I saw it,” said Gabe. “It's Alicia.”

“You called Alicia?”

Bobby pressed his hand against his pocket as his phone continued to ring as if muffling the noise would make Justin ask fewer questions.

“You seriously called Alicia?” Justin asked.

“No! I texted her! I didn't know she'd call! Should I answer it?”

“No!” said Justin.

Bobby took the phone out of his pocket. “I should answer. She might never call back. I'll put her on speaker.”

“No! Don't put her on speaker!”

Bobby touched the screen of his phone. “Hello?” he said.

“Is this Bobby?” asked the beautiful and melodic yet frightening voice of Alicia Howtz.

“Yes, this is Robert Green,” said Bobby. “I'm so glad you called to discuss this professional opportunity. We're currently in the midst of a preproduction meeting, so your timing is perfect.”

Justin gestured frantically at him.
Put her on mute
, he mouthed at Bobby.

Bobby gave him a quizzical look.

Justin pointed at the phone.
Put her on mute, or I will grab you by the ears and bash your head into the floor.
He mimed the ear-grabbing and head-bashing as he said it.

“I'm sorry, Alicia, but our director insists on speaking with you directly. Please note that by speaking to him about the project, you are verbally signing a nondisclosure agreement. Is that acceptable?”

“Uh, sure,” said Alicia.

“Excellent.” Bobby handed the phone to Justin.

Justin stared at the phone for a moment as if it were a python about to strike.

“Hello?” said Alicia.

Justin continued to stare at the phone as if it were a great white shark about to bite him in half, lengthwise.

“Are you on mute?” Alicia asked.

Justin kept staring at the phone as if it were a genetically engineered hybrid of a lion, a piranha, and a tarantula.

Gabe gave him a look that said,
I disagree with the tactic our friend just used, but now that he's done it, you might as well talk to her.

Bobby replied with a look that said,
Talk, dork!

“Hello, Alicia,” said Justin. “This is Justin Hollow. We've seen each other around school and talked a couple of times.” He didn't tell her that it was eleven sentences because the fact that he knew the exact number might seem creepy.

“Yep, I know who you are.”

“Oh, good, that saves time. Anyway, I wanted to offer you the lead role in my new movie.”

Bobby seemed much happier about Justin blurting out this offer than Gabe did, so Justin decided to only look at Bobby for the remainder of the phone call.

“What's the movie?”

“It's a zombie movie.”

“Okay.”

Was that a pro-zombie-movie okay or an anti-zombie-movie okay? Justin couldn't tell.

“It'll be a feature film. Probably not three hours but way more than ten minutes.”

“What's it called?”

“We don't have a final title yet. The working title is
Zombies with Flesh Stuck in Their Teeth
.” Justin could tell that Gabe was frantically shaking his head, but he focused his attention on Bobby's nose.

“It's a comedy?”

“No, that's just a temporary title. Doesn't really reflect the movie. We may or may not have any shots of flesh stuck in a zombie's teeth. That may not even be the final temporary title. This is all still in the early stages.”

“Okay. So what's the character like?”

“Well, her name is”—
Think! Think!
—“Veronica Chaos, and she's in a postapocalyptic world”—Gabe's shaking head was a blur of motion in the corner of his eye—“with mutant zombies everywhere”—Gabe smacked him on the shoulder—“and she has to find the lost”—
Medallion? Skull? Child?
—“book that can save humanity. She carries a”—
Sword? Chainsaw? Lightweight lawn mower?
—“cat and wears a”—
Cloak? Corset? Chain mail bikini?
—“tattered white wedding dress.”

“That sounds pretty cool,” said Alicia.

“Oh yeah. It's going to make
Return of the Living Dead
look like
Return of the Living Dead, Part 5
.”

“Is it going to play in theaters?”

“Of course. Maybe not in the summer but definitely a wide release.”

Gabe got up and walked out of the room.

“When does it start filming?”

“The shooting schedule is still being put together. We're working on the final polish of the script, and I'll have it to you on Monday.”

“Well, this sounds great, Justin! I'd love to be in your movie!”

“I'm very pleased to hear that,” said Justin. “My people will draw up the contract and get it to you ASAP.”

“Thanks! I'll see you at school.”

“Good-bye.”

Justin disconnected the call.

He and Bobby stared at each other for a while.

“Okay,” said Justin. “I probably shouldn't have told her that we were going to get a wide theatrical release.”

“Probably not.”

“Aside from that, it went fine, right?”

Bobby shrugged. “She took the part.”

“Yep. We've got our lead. That's one big hurdle out of the way. How mad is Gabe?”

“His face was pretty red.”

“But his face is red a lot of the time. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. He can't help his complexion.”

“Nope.”

“Hey, Gabe?” Justin called out.

Gabe walked back into Justin's bedroom. His face was still quite red.

“We've got our lead actress,” said Justin. “So that's, y'know, one less thing you'll need to worry about. We're well on our way.”

“Our working title is not
Zombies with Skin Stuck in Their Teeth
.”

“It's flesh, not sk… Actually I'm not going to correct you. You're right. But what was I supposed to do? I didn't call her! Bobby shoved the phone in my hand! He's the one your face should be so red about!”

“I'm mad at Bobby too.”

“Why are you mad at
me
?” asked Bobby.

“Because you texted Alicia about the movie without clearing it with either of us! This is your fault!”

“But that's the only thing you're mad about, right?”

“Right.”

Bobby smiled. “I can live with that.”

“Don't do it again,” said Gabe. “We can't have crew members going rogue. But we're not going to talk about that anymore. We're going to talk about the greatest zombie movie ever, which apparently is going to get a wide theatrical release and feature Veronica Chaos.”

“Not a bad name off the top of my head, huh?”

“Be serious.”

“I am serious. I just…” Justin trailed off as the realization of what he'd done trampled over him like a mechanical rhinoceros. “I…I…I…I…I…I…I…”

“Go on,” Gabe prodded.

Justin lifted his shirt to wipe the perspiration off his forehead. What had he been thinking? They didn't have a script or time or money, and he'd promised Alicia that she'd see herself up on the big screen. She was going to find out that he was a total fraud. Girls of her level of quality weren't attracted to total frauds.

“I think I'm going to throw up,” said Justin.

“Go ahead,” said Gabe. “It's your room.”

Justin mopped up more sweat. “Okay. So. Um. Yeah. I wanted to be fully committed to the project, and now I am. If we fail, none of us will have a girlfriend until we move to a new town, so this is exactly what we wanted, right?”

“I'm not sure it is,” said Gabe.

Justin said, “We have twenty-eight days to shoot this movie. Twenty-seven if you don't count today. But we'll count today, so twenty-eight. Lots of people have made movies in twenty-eight days. It'll be fun.”

“I'm in,” said Gabe. “Completely in. I want to make that clear because I'm about to say a bunch of negative things.”

“All right. Let's hear them.”

Gabe stood up and walked over to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers calendar that was on the wall. Justin didn't like football or any other sports. But his dad had bought him the calendar, and displaying it was a small price to pay to make Dad happy.

“We have twenty-eight days before I leave,” said Gabe. “But only three weekends, if you don't count this weekend.”

“Let's count this weekend.”

“Fine. Three and a half weekends. So technically we only have seven full days. We're not skipping school to make this movie.”

“I never would have suggested such a thing,” said Justin.

“That doesn't count work. I don't know my schedule yet, but I'll probably have to work two or three of those seven days. Bobby works Tuesdays and Thursdays. You work Thursdays and Saturdays. What are we going to do about that?”

“I've thought about that,” said Justin, even though he really hadn't, “and I figured we could call in sick.”

“For a full month?”

“Not every day of the month necessarily.”

“What happens when they find out we were making a movie?”

“Then they'll know it was a noble cause.”

“No way will my mom let me call in sick,” said Bobby.

“Does she have to know about it?”

“If we're trying to make a giant epic spectacle, then yeah, the news will probably get back to her.”

“And also you're forgetting one big thing,” said Gabe.

“What?”

“Finals week.”

“Okay. Yes, that's a pretty big thing. We'll work around it.”

“We have to study.”

“I know. I'm not saying that we have to flunk our exams for our art. We'll figure it out.”

Justin went over to the easel, turned over a new page on the pad, and wrote
Things to Worry about Later
at the top. Under that, he wrote
Schedule
.

“What about money?” Gabe asked.

Justin wrote
Money
underneath
Schedule
.

Gabe shook his head. “As the producer, I say we stress about money now.”

“We're going to keep this cost-effective. We've already got the camera. Cast and crew will work for a screen credit obviously. We'll use locations that we can get for free like the school. We take it for granted, but our school has tons of production value. What about product placement? If we show the Monkey Burger logo up close, they might give us free food.”

“Would they want their restaurant featured in a movie called
Zombies with Flesh Stuck in Their Teeth
?” asked Bobby.

“That's not the name of the movie! That was never going to be the name of the movie! For now, let's call it
Untitled Epic Zombie Movie
. Does that work for everybody?”

“If this is just a temporary title, how about
The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever
?”

“No, that sounds egotistical.”

“UEZM isn't a very good acronym,” said Bobby.

“Then don't acronym it. We're getting sidetracked.”

“Right,” said Gabe. “Let's get back to money.”

“If we can get free food, then really we wouldn't have to pay for much except makeup and explosives.”

“We need machine guns,” said Bobby.

“Right, right,” said Justin. He looked at Gabe. “
Prop
machine guns, Mr. Oh No, We're Gonna Accidentally Kill Somebody.”

“I knew that you meant props.”

“If it were up to me, we'd do all old-school practical effects, but that's not realistic at our current budget level of zero. So our rule is no CGI blood, but helicopter crashes and giant cracks in the earth and stuff will be computer-generated. Everybody okay with that?”

Gabe and Bobby nodded.

“Good. Now we just need a story.”