Movieland

Chapter 31

The square room had one door, no windows, and a smell of desperation. It also had the silver ventilation duct.

"Get real," Standard said. "Do you know how small those things really are? None of us will fit in there. Fat guy in a little coat. What else do we have?"

"Why not try? You know what happens next, right?"

Standard looked shy suddenly.

"You know, right?" I asked.

He didn't. Mr. Stowe's look of acceptance was enough.

"How is that possible?" I said.

"What? What? I never watched the movie. Okay? I never watched the movie. There was a lot going on back then. It's always onto the next project. Sleep is the time you find between filming and parties and red carpets and photo shoots and interviews. I love movies. With the little time I had, I didn't want to see the schlock I was schilling. I'd rather watch classics like T2."

Applewhite tinkered with the doorknob. "You know what happens in the script, right? You read it?"

"This one, yes. They're training this army of the dead and they have a wicked scene where they instruct a zombie to dismember a roomful of people, one limb at a time. If I'm not mistaken. The description was dull and left a lot to the imagination. Thank the lord for Bill Turnbill."

Mr. Stowe cleared his throat. He did the same thing in class when he had a point to make. Or he wanted us to stop messing around with the Bunsen Burner.

"I've watched Death to the Dead 48 times, more than any other movie. It's one of my favorite movies, not just because my best friend starred in it, but because it captured a certain attitude, a certain belief in the early 90s. We were pre-Y2K then, but the sentiment was growing. Machines were becoming aware. There's that T2 for you. It felt timely and necessary and zombies? Return of the Living Dead came out in '85. What else? We were thirsty. For brains. For anything. It was about time. And to show technology controlling the undead? You know the dead are controlled with technology, right?"

Standard clenched his teeth.

"It doesn't matter. Your performance is incredible. You laugh, but there's a reason why people still talk about it, why you're still largely respected around Hollywood. You made stupid decisions but that didn't stop people from appreciating you, then and now. You deserved more than a Cronie. Genre's always going to get screwed. It's all great. Great acting, great directing, great special effects. And the scene that's about to happen takes the cake. It won awards, Standard. It's cited on every 'Best Of' list. How you haven't seen it is beyond me. The gore is real. There's no CGI here. I don't know if this is a simulator or a portal to another universe. I don't want to find out by watching us all get eaten alive. I don't care if we crawl through that vent, or if we ambush a guard, or if we sing a magical tune to conjure a genie to wish our asses out of here. We need to do something. And we need to do it right now."

He looked like he wanted to say something else but stopped.

I would've given him a slow clap, but the door opened, and Sgt. Slaughter stomped in with three more thick men in camouflage. I would've loved to have seen the selection process for his team.

"Hern," he grunted.

The mountain men snatched and wrangled us away.

"There's a way," I said to Applewhite. The beast squeezed my neck harder. A bolt of pain shot down my shoulder blades. So much for a simulation. "If something happens, I'm going to need you to stall."

He wrenched my neck again and things went black. I awoke shackled to a post in an all-too familiar room. On the surface it was clean with neon lights showcasing shiny metal surfaces. The wall curved upward with a glass observation window halfway up. A row of lab coated men and women with clipboards watched us. Dad taught me to never trust rooms that are overly clean. It might've just been that he was lazy.