by Mike McCarty
My best guess is all the movie’s fans created that personality, that black-and-white world of death–all those watchers in the dark, thinking about that movie, those zombies, and of course, poor little Arlene Schabowski. All that feverish brain energy. What is reality, anyway? A mental collective, that’s all. The result of multiple minds, mulling over enthralling stories. I’m sure that somewhere, out there, Moby Dick is still swimming and the House of Usher is still falling. I’m sure Dorothy is still wandering down the Yellow Brick Road, having new adventures, fighting more witches and flying monkeys. And I’m sure she’s still a tiny young thing, just as Arlene Schabowski is still a tiny dead thing.
But let us return to Arlene. She walked down a gravel lane until she came to the highway. Car lights were heading toward her. She held out her bloodstained, skinny arms and waited. The driver would stop. Of course they would. She was just a little girl.
So she waited. And the driver stopped–a fat, middle-aged man with a bulbous nose and horn-rimmed glasses.
“Was there an accident?” He ran up to her, crouched and thrust his fat face near hers.
“Help me, Mommy,” she said.
“You poor thing,” he said in a low, sad voice. “What the Hell happened to you?”
Another one who thought she was simply a poor thing. She smiled, leaned forward and bit off his nose–it was too large and juicy a target to resist.
He screamed, so she bit off his lower lip, which made him scream that much louder.
She gnawed and gnawed until he was too cold for her to stomach. Then she began shambling down the road. And because that entire movie took place at night, the daylight never came. She wandered an eternal night of fields and rural backroads and farmhouses, feasting on innocent country folks who only wanted to help her.
And Lorraine...She endured Arlene’s adventures in her head, and finally even got used to them. A person can get used to anything, really. Folks who live near airports soon learn to ignore the roar of planes coming and going. Lorraine grew into a tall, willowy lady. Always slender. Having a zombie in your head is enough to spoil anyone’s appetite. There were plenty of times when she would sit down to dinner, and Arlene would suddenly go on a rampage in her mind. Little zombie-girl would rip apart a couple farmers, tear out their guts and gobble them down, and suddenly that plate of lasagna would seem like a hideous, visceral thing. But Lorraine wouldn’t scream over it–wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. She’d just push the plate away.
As I mentioned, Lorraine eventually became a school teacher. Because a part of her was still a little girl, she liked being around children. She lived in a big nice apartment building, surrounded by families–all the kids her thought she was great. Some of the people in her building had seen her movie, and they were always telling their friends that their neighbor was a movie star. Sometimes folks who had seen the movie would call her Arlene. She’d smiled to be polite, but she didn’t like it. “Hey, Arlene–‘Help me, Mommy!’” was the favorite greeting of the fat guy who lived six doors down. She’d always try to take a different route to avoid him if she saw him coming.
Eventually she started dating the school’s janitor, and all of her friends made fun of her for that, joking that the lovers were probably always sneaking off to the boiler room or some such place. The janitor, whose name was Kurt, was a good-looking man, only in his mid-thirties and in fine physical shape. And truth to tell, the two did sneak off together sometimes. To Kurt’s office. His door had a fancy title–environmental control specialist–but it still meant janitor.
Once while she was in his office, Lorraine saw a key hanging from a little nail on the wall behind his desk. The key had a scrap of paper taped to it. The word ATTIC was written on that scrap in blue ballpoint ink. She waited until Kurt’s back was turned, and she took that key.
Even while she was reaching for it, she wasn’t sure why she was taking it. She just knew she had to have it. After school, she stayed behind, waited until everyone was gone and then went up to the attic. It was all storage up there, and the things that had been packed away up there so long ago were now all but forgotten.
Remember where little Arlene ate her parents? In the attic. That’s where the movie-family went to hide from the zombies. The movie-attic had a bed in it, where Arlene used to sleep. She says her four-word line while she’s in that bed. The school attic had a broken cot among its various odds and ends. Obsolete schoolbooks, tennis shoes, sacks of that pinkish, pulpy stuff to sprinkle on barf to soak it up and make the smell go away. Lorraine strolled among rows of dusty boxes and stayed up there for about an hour, looking at spiderwebs and old papers and outdated globes. She realized then that this was the first time she’d been in an attic–any attic at all–since the filming of that movie. Her parents had always lived in apartments. Her dorm room in college had been on the ground floor. A life without attics. She now felt oddly at home–but was it a good home?
When she came down from the attic, left the building and went to her car, the world around her seemed different somehow.
A little less–colorful.
A moment later, Arlene Schabowski saw red in her night-world for the first time. Usually the blood of her victims was shiny black. But she looked down at the hitchhiker she had just torn to bits and saw red, red everywhere. Then she saw that her dress was stained not merely with various splotches of gray, but horrible gouts of rotted filth and gore–red, yellow, brown, green, a veritable rainbow of decay. It made her smile.
A few days later, Kurt was completely confused by Lorraine’s birthday gift to him. “Rainy,” he said, for that is what he called her, “this tie–don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great. And silk, it must have cost plenty. But purple? I don’t know if I’m the purple type...”
“Oh,” she said quite softly. “Is it purple? I thought it was some kind of dark silver. Are you sure it’s purple?”
Lorraine sometimes would bring a book to school to read in the attic, after hours. In the days to come, her students became more and more confused by some of the things she said–especially during art class. Whenever one of them did a drawing, she would ask things like, “What color is that horse?” Or, “That’s a very pretty mermaid–which crayon did you use for the hair?”
Arlene began to notice green leaves among the gray, when car headlights hit them just right, and some of the towns she meandered through were bigger than the little country burgs she usually came across. One even had a supermarket. She would hide in the bushes bordering the parking lot and watch the front of the supermarket. Watch all the people rushing in and out. It made her hungry. Sometimes one of the shoppers would hear something rustling in the bushes and go see what it was, worrying that it might be a lost child. They were right to worry.
Lorraine found that the drive back to her house seemed a little shorter every week. And there were fewer cars on the road. Not as many buildings behind the sidewalks. Less kids in the school, but more birds in the light-blue sky. There was still a bit of color in her world, but not much. The changes were all huge yet gradual. Kurt usually wore a nice polo shirt and some jeans to work. It didn’t even surprise her when he started wearing coveralls, or when his voice started to take on a rural twang. He even took to calling her ‘Honey.’
Arlene just kept on wandering–she was so good at it. Wandering and eating, eating and wandering, always keeping to the shadows, which was getting harder, since there were so many streetlights around. But she was finding more homeless people, so at least she had been eating more regularly. No more fields–she was in the suburbs now, and the skies were starting to lighten. Night was slowly giving way to a light-blue morning.
You see what was happening, don’t you? They were starting to meet in the middle. Why do you suppose that was happening? Maybe it was because Lorraine was spending so much time up in that attic. I suspect attics have strange powers. They come to points at th
e top, like pyramids. They’re rather intriguing, aren’t they? And bear in mind, zombie movies were becoming more modern–perhaps the imaginations that had pulled Arlene into existence were pulling her into the present day.
Lorraine was getting pulled, too, but in a different way. Into something–but what? One morning she thought she saw a tractor drive past the school. Later that day, she knew she heard cows mooing in the distance. She broke off her relationship with Kurt. He was becoming more and more rural, like some of the extras in ‘Fear-Farm of the Undead.’ He was growing too much hair and losing too many teeth. That wasn’t the kind of boyfriend she wanted and this certainly wasn’t the life she wanted to lead. She didn’t like it. No, not one little bit.
Especially when she found herself chewing on what was left of the Algebra teacher, late at night up in the school attic. She couldn’t even remember what she had done to get him up there. Not that it mattered. There were shreds of flesh under her nails, and her belly was swollen with food.
She wasn’t sure if what she had done would turn the skinny old teacher into a zombie, but better safe than sorry. She went down to Kurt’s supply closet, grabbed a hammer, and used it to cave in the old man’s gnawed head.
Then she waited.
Pretty soon she heard the tappity-tap, tappity-tap, tappity-tap of little-girl heels coming up the stairs to the attic. And then–That’s when you walked in, Arlene.
You walked in and said the four-word phrase that you said in the first half of that movie, in the scene when your mother was putting you to bed: “Tell me a story.” Most people don’t remember that you said that. But you did, in that sweet, soft, cheery voice. Though that’s not what your voice sounds like now. You sound like a record that’s slowly melting as it plays.
So. Did you like my story, Arlene? It was all about you–and me, too. But I said “Lorraine” instead of “I” because...Well, I don’t really feel like me any more. But I’m not you.
I don’t know who I am, where I am or even what I am.
Hmmm...?
No, I’m not your Mommy, and I’m afraid I can’t help you.
But who knows. Maybe pounding your head open with this hammer will help me.
The Wizard of Ooze
by Linnea Quigley and Michael McCarty
Scottie Thomas was used to dealing with all kinds of Hollywood slime-ball types. He’d seen them all over the years. The sleazy producers who wanted to sleep with the stars, male or female–or robotic, if it was a sci-fi epic. The diva writers who threw hissy-fits if an actor changed even one precious word of their screenplays. The egomaniacal actors who wouldn’t budge an inch out of their doublewide luxury trailers until everything went completely their way.
Normally Scottie was able to project a nonchalant manner–but sitting outside of the windowless office door stenciled ‘Jeffrey Terronez: Special-Effects God’ had him sweating like a crack addict and made his heart pound like he’d just run the Boston Marathon. He felt like he was waiting forever, but actually it had only been twenty minutes.
In his career, Scottie had worked with some of the crème de la crème of special-effects artists–Rick Baker, Stan Winston, Steve Johnston, Rob Bottin and Tom Savini. He had always wanted to do a film with Terronez, who had made a cottage industry for himself for his realistic gore effects, earning him the nickname “The Wizard Of Ooze.”
The petite blonde secretary had popped into Terronez’ office five minutes earlier, and now the door opened and she slipped back into the waiting area. She didn’t even look at Scottie as she trotted on her stiletto heels back to her desk. She wore dark sunglasses, a white mini-skirt and a tight white pullover that showed off a bosom that was more implants than flesh. “What was your name again?” she asked, popping her bubble gum between your and name.
“Scottie Thomas, director of–”
She tapped a button on her intercom with a long red fingernail. “Some director guy named Scottie Thomas wants to see you.”
There was a moment of silence. Then a voice on the other end finally said, “Send him in.”
The first thing Scottie noticed was the office’s minimal decor. There was only four pieces of furnishing in the whole place–a massive white oak desk with a white chair behind it and another one in front of it, and a white turntable console.
Who had record players in this age?
The soft, slightly crackling strains of Bach’s “Ave Marie” played softly in the background.
Everything in the room was immaculately hospital-white: the walls and ceiling, the shag carpet and thick curtains, even the rug-runner leading up to the desk.
Jeffrey was dressed in white silky pajamas and stood at the window, looking out over the city. All Scottie could see was his back and his long, long flowing black hair.
“Have a seat,” the special-effects man said. The director did as he was told.
Jeffrey turned around. He wore a pair of black horn-rimmed sunglasses. PJs and shades? Pretty weird outfit for three in the afternoon–even by Hollywood standards, Scottie thought.
“Why did you come here and interrupt my transcendental meditation?” Jeffrey asked.
“I have a movie–”
“Ahhh,” he said, clasping his hands together. “Another script. Everyone seems to have a script for me to read. Every busboy, bartender and taxi driver and golf caddy. Even my secretary, and she only types sixteen words a minute. Go on.”
“My producer, Jerry Buckingham the third, has a generous offer if you want to do the film…” the director said, handing him a slip of paper with a figure written on it.
Jeffrey took a look at the paper and sneered. “I don’t care about your chicken feed.”
“We have a great script, written by hot new screenwriters Kevin Weston and Josh Yuspa,” he said. He set the script on the desk.
“I don’t care about your soporific screenplay,” the special-effects guru said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Scottie started to sweat more. “We have Lisa England, star of Attack of the Giant Leeches from Outer Space, and Danny Carpenter, star of the cable-TV series Vampires of Vegas.”
“I don’t care about your has-beens and wannabes.”
Scottie paused and thought about the situation. “What do you care about, then?”
Jeffrey drew closer, then leaned against the desk to lower his face to Scottie’s level. “Does the movie have a lot of gore? Lots and lots of stomach-churning violence? Is it bloody? Buckets of blood, blood and more blood?”
“Yes. It is filled with gruesome, gratuitous, senseless violence.”
The special-effects man finally smiled. “Then I will do it.” He pressed a button on the intercom. “Ermelinde, I’ll be doing business with our visitor, Mr. Thomas. Please bring in the appropriate documents.”
Within seconds, the busty blonde entered the office with a pile of papers that must have weighed at least twenty pounds. She dropped the bundle on the desk and strutted back to her office.
“Maybe I should have my lawyer look at all this first…” Scottie said, leafing through the papers. Some of the pages even had phrases in Old English and Latin.
“Successful working relationships are built on trust, not arguments made by debating ambulance chasers. I’m sorry I misjudged you. Obviously there is a lack of trust here and…”
Before the special-effects artist could finish his sentence, Scottie picked up his pen and said, “Where do I sign?”
Jeffrey flashed him a devilish grin. “For starters, here on page 68 at the bottom, and on page 69 on the top, and…”
Scottie sat in his director’s chair and checked his watch for what seemed like the thousandth time. Jeffrey Terronez was three hours late. He called the special-effects man’s office, cell-phone, even his pager–no answer. This was the first day of filming the effects and
the director was as nervous as a man with pants covered in honey, sitting on top of a South American fire ant mound.
A bus came roaring down the road and came to a screeching halt in front of the film crew. The bus looked like the one at the end of The Gauntlet minus the bullet holes and Clint Eastwood. Every window was covered with a steel plate and on the side of the vehicle in big white letters was painted “The Wizard of Ooze.” The bus even had vanity license plates that read, FX GOD.
Ermelinde was the first to step off the bus. She was dressed in white, but it failed to make her look virginal: tight white slacks and a white tube-top that barely covered her plump implants. Her dark shades were her only item of apparel that wasn’t white. She held a megaphone to her mouth and popped her bubble-gum, which sounded like a gunshot when amplified.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the secretary said. “Please give a hand to the legendary Jeffrey Terronez.”
The film crew applauded and Jeffrey stepped off the bus. He still wore white satin PJs and dark sunglasses. The tall man slowly descended the steps with his hands in prayer position.
Cristopher Garton, a young redhaired gaffer, ran up to the FX expert with a notebook in his hands. When he spoke, his high-pitched voice was reminiscent of a certain cartoon mouse. “I’m such a big fan of yours, Mr. Terronez. I’ve seen all your films at least ten times each. You’re the reason I’m involved in the film business in the first place.”
Jeffrey smiled. “It is good to worship me.”
“Can I please have an autograph?” Christopher said, pushing the notebook in front of the special-effects man’s face.