Movieland

Chapter 29

He wasn't hard to find.

It was either hop on a ship to the island of the corpse army or watch the poker game that defined his career.

Applewhite said, "We don't have time for this."

"Hold on," Mr. Stowe said. "Artists don't get a chance to watch themselves like this. Let him be."

Standard stood in the shadows and watched Qwin, himself, the character he created, swindle his dock mates out of hard-earned cash.

"Ha! I told you, the river is pleasant this time of year. You just need to have a little faith." Qwin flipped an Ace of Spades over and fanned the rest of his straight flush on the table. "Start weeping, boys!"

The other men threw peanuts and bottle caps at him. He tried to catch the peanuts in his mouth. They stood up and resigned themselves to another shift of packing the dead into drums.

"Come on, what's the matter? You're bailing on me? What'd I always tell you? Spend the first hour studying. Everything after that is gravy train, baby. Guys?"

Standard mouthed the words in perfect synchronization.

"Next boat leaves in an hour," a ginger bearded man in blue jean overalls and gray thermal shirt said. "Make sure you're on it." He was played by a character actor whose name I always forgot. He was a perennial that guy. Dad would know.

"You got it, boss," Standard and Qwin said. Standard's voice was deeper and harmonized with the younger Qwin.

Qwin dressed himself in a rubber suit like a mortician going deep sea diving. Metal plates ran along the arms. He slid his hands into chain mail gloves and grabbed a scratched and faded Detroit Lions football helmet.

A semi-truck backed up to the dock. One of the men in a chain mail vest dragged an ax behind him. The metal scraping on concrete sounded like a death sentence.

"Psst." I called over to Standard. "Psst."

Standard was long gone. Something had cracked inside of him. His eyes had gone distant like space. They weren't empty. Something profound was taking place but we didn't have time to wait for it.

The man in chain mail cut the lock off the semi door and grabbed the handle. "Order up!"

"Just another day in paradise," Standard said, leaving the shadows for the feverish light of the loading dock. I caught hold of his wrist. Applewhite grasped him back by the collar.

Qwin said the same line only with less enthusiasm and better pacing. He held a wooden baseball bat like a sword. The door of the truck opened and a corpse with one dangling eyeball lunged out. Qwin swing a line drive cut into the corpse's exposed rib cage. It crumpled like a bag of bones.

The man in chain mail was Satchel, played by Randall Colburn, a sloppy 90s sidekick with a weasel nose and a cleft chin. He also starred in The Worst Man with Kirk Cameron as a part-time zookeeper. He wielded a cricket bat that Edgar Wright called "God's weapon" before referencing it explicitly in Shaun of the Dead.

His fate in Death to the Dead was the most iconic in horror history, all thanks to Tom Savini's wizardry. With any luck, we'd be long gone before we witnessed the disembowelment.

Satchel watched a corpse in a green army jacket shamble up, and with one swoop chopped it down at the kneecaps. He did the same to an older woman with half of a chomping jaw. A corpse in a maize and blue tracksuit sprinted out of the truck, a rage spin of arms and chewing teeth. Qwin had his back turned to smash the first corpse's jaw. Track suit jumped him before he could move. He spun in a circle, chain mail hand punching backwards.

I wanted to help. Mr. Stowe wanted to help. Applewhite held Standard back. "It has to happen," Mr. Stowe said.

"Nothing has to happen," Standard said.

The corpse clung to Qwin's back like a rodeo clown on a bull. "Get this damn thing off of me!"

Satchel smashed the cricket bat against its back. A corpse being numb to pain made for difficult work.

"Get it off of me!"

Standard closed his eyes.

The corpse found a crease between metal and bit into Qwin's shoulder like a child with an ice cream cone. A little bit went a long way. He howled and flipped the corpse over his head and onto the cold concrete. The baseball bat took on a life of its own, smashing the corpse's face and dead head into dead meat. Green goo oozed out and distilled with puddle water into whatever the corpses became: useless goo.

Qwin dropped the stained bat and stumbled against a drum. Satchel kneecapped another corpse and then closed the truck door before more could exit. He shoved one corpse into a steel drum and sealed it and did the same with another. He made it look as easy as packing up any old retail goods like socks or cereal boxes.

"Qwin! Qwin! Stay with me here. Come on, man." Satchel stopped the blood flow with a rag.

"Get away from me," Qwin said. "Not you, too."

Satchel smacked his hand away. "Hang tight, daddy-O."

He ran off to a set of storage lockers that were off screen.

"We can help him," Standard said.

"It's the entire plot device," I said. "We need it. Sometimes bad things have to happen to make things better, to make us stronger."

Standard looked at me like a clown. "Spoken like a true 18-year-old."

Satchel returned with a glass vial and a long needle.

"What the hell is that?" Qwin croaked.

"My cousin Ned owns a pig farm across the border. He invented a temporary cure. Or he thinks he did. He tried it on my aunt after she got bit by a creeper. Although to be honest I can't tell the difference in her personality before and after the bite and shot. Everyone else agrees she's 100% not a corpse. He keeps having to redose her until someone finds a cure."

He drew fluid from the vial into the needle, tapping bubbles out of it.

Qwin couldn't afford much doubt beyond a simple questioning glance. Once bitten, most turned to corpses within thirty minutes. Others changed within minutes. Some never changed and lived out their days in maximum security prisons.

"Give it to me," he said, slapping his biceps.

"Bend over," Satchel said. "And pull 'em down."

Standard couldn't help but laugh.

"Bend this," Qwin said, flipping the bird. He acquiesced by pulling one side of his pants down. His butt cheek was the pale white of the moon.

Mr. Stowe cackled again. Applewhite said, "Nice ass." Standard rubbed his backside.

The needle hung in the air like a scythe. A droplet of green liquid hung from the point. Qwin's butt cheek smiled. The needled plunged in and injected.

"Damn!" Qwin said, yanking his pants up.

The ginger bearded man in overalls walked up. Satchel chucked the vial and needle into the shadows. Applewhite dodged the needle by an inch.

"What's going on?" the man said. "One poker game and you guys think you own the place? Damn slackers. Get back to work."

He lifted the truck door. "Be careful with this batch. They have some snappers in there."

Qwin and Satchel took a stance with their respective bats.

"Now what?" Qwin asked.

"You just bought yourself 24 hours," Satchel said.

Qwin clocked a countdown at 24 hours on his wristwatch. "Or else what."

Satchel sized up a corpse wearing a pinstriped suit. "Or else you end up on the wrong end of my bat."

Qwin sneered before dispatching a truckload of corpses to the loud thrashings of AC/DC.