Ich Bin en Zombie

In a deserted apple orchard, the gaunt zombie’s rotting hand clamped onto the shoulder of the scantily clad, well-endowed young woman. Her scream liberated an apple.

“Ramona,” wheezed the zombie, “my love for you overwhelms my desire to eat your flesh.”

Ramona’s face twisted in disgust.

“Cut!” yelled Santiago, the director, pulling a few hairs out of his patchy black beard. He approached his star with the slow gravity of a manager walking to the mound after his pitcher just gave up back-to-back homeruns. “Emmanuel, that’s not your line.”

Emmanuel scratched his forehead, pieces of skin falling to the ground. “You said we could ad-lib if we felt inspired and it improved the script.”

“In your dreams I said that. This is a grade Z production. We don’t have the time or money to experiment.”

“I’m not satisfied with my part.”

Here we go, thought Santiago. When he’d started his company, Behemoth Productions, he hadn’t set out to become a haven for out-of-work monsters, but because real monsters saved on makeup, and because Santiago was a once-a-month werewolf himself, he’d ended up hiring a number of unorthodox actors and actresses.

“What’s wrong with it?” asked Santiago.

“It perpetuates stereotypes about zombies. I want something with more range.”

“Emmanuel, we’ve been through this. Our audience is not looking for zombies with feelings. It’s looking for horror tropes. It doesn’t know what tropes are, but that’s what they’re looking for.”

“Zombies that walk stiffly, grunt, and devour human flesh?”

“That’s right. And if we don’t meet their expectations, no one goes to the next movie, and we go out of business. It’s a simple arrangement.”

“But it’s so unimaginative. How long did it take the writer to come up with the title Attack of the Zombies?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, but that’s what the movie’s about. What do you want to call it? Citizen Kane 2?”

Miffed at his director’s sarcasm, Emmanuel stomped into his dressing trailer. When zombies got a bee in their bonnet, the only thing to do was wait for the bee to sting, disembowel itself, and die. For the next three hours, Santiago shot around the zombie. After Emmanuel still hadn’t emerged, the director approached the star’s trailer. From inside, he heard a hoarse voice croaking “We Are the Champions.” It sounded like a dying lawnmower. Santiago banged on the door. The singing stopped and the door opened. Emmanuel squinted at the director.

“OK,” said Santiago. “We’ll try the apple orchard scene your way, but it has to be quick. I have to leave early tonight.”

Emmanuel’s face tightened, though it was still loose. “You mean it?”

“What kind of a director would I be if I wasn’t open to new ideas?” asked Santiago, not sure he wanted to find out. Clarisse, who played Ramona, was sure she didn’t.

“He just wants to eat me,” she said, taking Santiago aside after they’d filmed another scene.

“Clarisse, don’t worry. He’s been through the sexual harassment training. Besides, if he ate you, it would ruin his career.”

“What?”

His wife warned him about making jokes. Maybe she was right. It was just that gallows humor came so naturally in this business. “Look, he’s got it in his head that he’s the next Henry Fonda, when what he really is, is the next Tor Johnson.” Clarisse gave him a blank look. Yes, his wife was definitely right. “Just play off him as best you can. Maybe we’ll end up with something we can use.” They both knew that was BS, but Santiago was the boss, and Clarisse didn’t want to work at Hooters for the rest of her life.

Emmanuel and Clarisse took their places in the apple orchard. He grabbed her shoulders. She screamed.

“Please, stop screaming! It’s proven that there’s no correlation between an increase in volume and an increase in communication,” he said.

Santiago wondered who did that study. Dr. Phibes? Clarisse was equally flummoxed, muttering something that sounded more like a zombie than anything Santiago had said, then she went silent.

“That’s better,” said Emmanuel. He stared at the ground. “It’s not easy being a zombie.”

Clarissa nodded weakly. “What’s so hard about it?”

“Everyone thinks we are mindless slaves whose only desire is to devour humans.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but we could be so much more.” Emmanuel stood up straight as a telephone pole. “We’re a product of our environment. If people would drop their preconceived notions, they could see that what a zombie really wants is acceptance. We’re not that different. If you prick us, do we not bleed? Actually, we don’t, but mark my words. A day will come when every person will say, ‘Ich bin ein zombie.’”

“Cut!” said Santiago, with the same volume that the monster of Frankenstein might yell Fire! “In the history of the world, no one except you is ever going to say ‘Ich bin ein Zombie’. They’re more likely to say, ‘How can I get away from this touchy-feely, self-absorbed cretin?’”

Emmanuel glared at the director. “I don’t think I like your tone.”

Santiago stiffened. “My tone? Is it really my tone when it’s a direct byproduct of your acting?”

“What are you trying to say?”

Santiago took a deep breath and counted to three.

“What I’m trying to say is, it’s getting late. Let’s call it a day.”

Emmanuel looked poised for an argument, but then relented. “All right. Could I look at the rushes?”

That would be difficult as Santiago, in a cost-saving measure, hadn’t put any film in the camera. “Sure, as long as you do it before I delete them,” said Santiago, walking away.

Emmanuel followed him. “Is that your final word?”

Santiago’s jaw clenched. “I certainly hope so.”

“Then I’m sorry to inform you that you’re fired.”

Santiago halted and laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know if you were aware of this, but the financial backing for this production comes from the Bad Juju silver mine group in Haiti, the first mine with a majority ownership of zombies. They agree with me that this movie needs a new direction. They’ve rewritten the script and renamed it You Really Opened My Eyes After I Died.”

Santiago couldn’t believe his ears, but then, this what was he got for trying to treat monsters as if they weren’t really monsters. He could feel his blood pressure rising and needed to leave, but it was too late. A full moon had emerged from the horizon. In seconds, fur covered his body. His newly sprouted claws seized the zombie, threw him to the ground, then launched a lupine body slam. Fortunately, Emmanuel was as strong as a werewolf, if not as quick. He held off Santiago’s attack, then repelled it with the kick of his size 13 right foot.

“You’re finished!” Emmanuel growled, limping away.

Even in his werewolf body, Santiago realized that though he probably wasn’t finished—bad publicity never hurt in the grade-z horror movie field—his participation in this film probably was. The takeaway lesson here was, if you wanted to save money in this business, it was more cost-effective to hire actors instead of creatures from black lagoons, or especially zombies. Let them make their own movies. The thought that all monsters would declare some kind of brotherhood with zombies, in German or any other language, was laughable. With rare exceptions, monsters went their own way. That’s what made them monsters.

Tomorrow was another day. A bulging file of scripts for potential movies awaited him. He fought the desire to rip someone else’s head off. What he needed to do was go home, calm down, and sleep on this.

Fortunately, his wife was uniquely equipped to help.

She was a succubus.