In this one, I deal with something that I've thought about before. In most zombie novels and zombie films, no one has ever heard of the humans mindlessly rising from the dead to eat the living. That's why, I always figured, the pandemic spreads so quickly. It's not something the ignorant can deal with.
However, if my new novel, George A. Romero exists, as do his films, and many other zombie films and books. So what the government does is bring Romero in and interrogate him. They don't waterboard him, but I did consider putting that in the manuscript.
Here then, are several characters (government and health department officials) discussing the day George A. Romero was hauled in for questioning. (And, yes, I have a rough script outline for that scene.)
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| Every zombie novelist is George A. Romero's mutant child. |
THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH, an excerpt
By James Robert Smith.
“We’re encountering the infected again.” Raines
said.
Fear clutched as Cotter’s gut. Another outbreak
would be…problematic. The government knew now how to handle such a thing, but
the measures to control it again would be very harsh indeed. He didn’t like to
even think about it happening again. Survival wasn’t the issue, but freedom
was.
“Infected?” It came out as a whisper and his fear betrayed him. “Where is
it happening?”
“No, no. Gosh, no, Davis.” The eruption of
reassuring words from Rajh was almost comical. It was meant to placate him and
dampen his fear, but that would have to wait for more information, more facts,
something he could interpret as clinically as he did numbers and stats.
“Not an outbreak?”
“No. When I say that we’re encountering the infected
I am referring to some of the people who died and were never
accounted for. The missing walkers. The zombies,” he added.
“Hell, I swear to
God I hate that term. Zombies.” He seemed to spit it out.
Raines smiled then. “You know I was there when they
brought in that director after the infection had gotten out of control and no
one had quite figured out to get a handle on the situation.” He laughed. A
good, healthy laugh. This did more to contain and dampen the tension in the
room than had Patel’s clumsy attempt.
“I…uh…I heard about that.” A smile clawed its way up
from the realm of nerves to Cotter’s face. “Romero, right?”
“Yeah. George A. Romero.” Raines’ gaze seemed to
drift as he remembered. “Nice guy. Someone in the chain of command got the
bright idea to find him and haul his ass in for questioning. The guy seemed
almost to expect it, which made some people even more suspicious of him.” He
cleared his throat. “Goddamn. It’s a good thing I was there. Someone with a
sense of humor in that room.
“Hell! They were ready to throw his ass in Gitmo and
hook electrodes to his balls to get answers.”
“Heard that, too” Davis said. “Of course only rumors.”
“He had a good sense of humor about it,” the Colonel
said. “That’s what he meant when he said he’d expected to get hauled in. I
mean…hell…he made movies about this shit decades before it actually happened.
And those damned movies were so close to what was really going down that…well,
of course there were people who were suspicious. He even made some jokes about being water boarded and I didn't have the heart to mention to him that it had been discussed.”
Suddenly, and for no real reason beyond the sense of
paranoia that sometimes had gripped him since the early days of the infection,
Davis was suspicious. The Colonel had lulled him into a comfortable place and
he would have to be careful not to say something that might get him into
trouble with the brass. His life had been made exceptionally comfortable by his
labor and the work ethic he devoted to it. For all he knew, they were probing
him for weakness. He had always been suspicious of the kind of man who could
make you laugh too easily.
“What did he have to say about the situation? Did he
have any worthwhile insights? You never know where one can find useful
information,” Dr. Patel said. He was genuine in his comments.
“No. It really was all just a crazy series of
happenstance. He said the whole thing was a variation on a theme by another writer and it
was just weird synchronicity.” Raines seemed to examine a spot on Cotter’s bare
desk, his gaze piercing it to another time and another place. He chuckled,
coming out of his near-trance. “He asked us if we were going to haul in any
other horror movie directors and we told him he was the only one.” The man
cleared his throat. “But I lied. Those crazy bastards upstairs did haul in a
couple more of those fellows. That son of Mel Brooks who wrote that zombie
novel best seller. But I didn’t get to debrief him. After Romero no one took
that shit seriously.
“It was just a coincidence. For real.” And then his
piercing gaze returned and he was all serious Defense Intelligence again.
“Okay, Patel. Fill him in.” His eyes flicked from Rajh to Davis.
Patel leaned in, his forearms resting on Cotter’s
desk. Most people asked him why his desktop was so clean and free of the debris
of business, but so far that topic had been left out of the conversation. The
Pakistani’s face was passive and there was nothing of the level of stress that
Davis felt coursing through his own emotional state. “We’ve had some
interesting things come up lately, Davis. Nothing huge. Just what have been
some minor anomalies.”
“You mean anomalies when compared to my statistics
and graphs.” He smiled lightly for both men, as if to let them know he was not
concerned. But he was.
“Not per se,” Raines let him know. “But some things
you’ll have to consider now that we can provide you with some real numbers.”
“Real numbers? I take it that this has to do with
something that has been going on for a while?”
Patel sat back, removing his arms from Cotter’s desk
and crossing them in his lap. He was wearing a pale gray suit and not his usual
lab smock. For some reason, Davis had not noticed that Patel was in his
civilian clothes, and for the first time he gave him a hard look. The man had
obviously been going to the lab that morning, as usual. There were always
specimen to examine and patients to see, even now, two years on when the plague
had been placed well and under control. But here he was in civilian clothes instead of a lab smock.
“Yes, we noticed some things happening over the past
couple of months.”
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