Stan’s knowledge of and familiarity with the undead pretty much started and ended with the reanimated corpses dancing backup in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. He had never been a huge fan of horror films, although he once attended a midnight campus screening of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, considered the masterpiece of the genre, at least the most original and groundbreaking. A lot of imitators and flat-out rip-offs followed, including Romero’s own sequels, but the idea of the walking dead never appealed to him the way it did for most of his peers in school. It was the student film of choice these days, the more gore and the higher the body count the better. It was so popular that the Film Studies program added a special effects makeup class to its curriculum, including an optional prosthetics lab to teach the craft of creating authentic-looking severed limbs, disemboweled internal organs, and the requisite gook and entrails to spread around a mass slaughter scene.
For the most part, Stan dismissed most myths and urban legends as pure hogwash. Abominable Snowman? Loch Ness Monster? If they existed, why hadn’t they been captured by now, he wondered? Scores of experts and amateur sleuths alike had sought them out, but no one had come up with definitive proof, just some grainy photographs or a snippet of dubious fuzzy footage. Then again, his skeptical nature surfaced early on in life. Stan was the kid who stopped believing in Santa Claus long before his friends accepted the impossibility of some jolly fat dude in a sleigh powered by airborne reindeer delivering gifts to every boy and girl in the world over the course of one night. So the idea of rabid ghouls busting out of their graves to feed on human flesh and swell their ranks by infecting their victims just didn’t pass his sniff test. Of course, he couldn’t disprove it. But he hadn’t seen any indisputable evidence, either. The undead had been portrayed so many times in so many ways, however, that just through sheer volume of exposure they had gouged their way into the popular culture and consciences of the general public as if they were more real than not. Perceptions, Stan mused, could be tough to overcome. Like now.
The arrival, or at the very least, the possibility of decades-dead hoodlums showing up to disrupt the production of Letter13 was not something Stan could have ever anticipated. Weather delays? Yes. Equipment breakdowns? Sure. Mobsters who were pushing up daisies coming back to life hell-bent on revenge? No way. It defied logic. It made no sense. Every rational bone in Stan’s body told him it couldn’t be true and he was certain that any reasonable, sane person would agree with him. Which brought him to Munyon. Reason and sanity were about as plentiful inside his cranium as tofu an imported Camembert were in his refrigerator. However, through a combination of physical intimidation and his overbearing personality, Munyon had managed to achieve a Svengali-like stranglehold over the Letter 13 cast and crew. If Stan didn’t break that spell and ease his colleague’s fears, his movie was dead as Dutch.
“Okay wait, hold on, time out,” Stan told Munyon. “So you expect us to actually believe that the Dutch Schultz gang is alive and wandering around out there in the woods?”
“Nope,” Munyon answered, “they’re long dead all right. Just mighty ticked off right about now since you all disturbed their eternal sleep.”
“But, you told us that you couldn’t see them clearly, correct?” Doubt was Stan’s strongest ally at this point. Puncture holes in Munyon’s account, and his credibility would break down faster than a jalopy with four flats.
Munyon eyeballed Stan like a stand-up comedian would a loudmouth heckler in the audience. “Tell ya what, big cheese. Next time gimme that camera of yours and maybe I’ll get ’em to smile for me real nice, git ya a pretty picture to hang on your wall. How’d you like that?”
Stan recognized Munyon’s technique: He was stonewalling, deflecting Stan’s very specific question with an answer that sidestepped a direct response. Plus, making light of Stan’s inquiry by diluting its serious intent, was another way to undermine his position. Munyon might be more of a formidable foe than Stan had anticipated, but he wasn’t invincible. His case was weak and wafer-thin, based on the testimony of one eyewitness—himself. It could never hold up to the take-no-prisoners grilling Stan was about to launch. “So you’re admitting there’s no proof.”
Munyon remained unruffled by Stan’s contention. “Smelled ’em. Proof ’nuf for me.”
“Which, of course, proves absolutely nothing,” Stan countered. “Maybe you just ran into somebody who needed a bath.”
“Yep, that they surely did. Course, you’d be kinda ripe, too, after bein’ six feet under for so long!”
While Munyon reveled in his retort, Stan stomped across the room, grabbed the ax, and lifted it up like it was Exhibit A. “How do you explain this then?” He swiped his hand across the blade. “Not a speck of blood anywhere on it!”
“Wiped it clean,” Munyon replied, no more concerned with Stan’s insinuation than a skillful safecracker handed a piggy bank to open.
Stan pursed his lips, set the ax aside, and strode up to Munyon. “Okay, what about you? Not a mark anywhere. No scrapes. No bruises. What do you have to say about that?”
Once again, Munyon dismissed Stan’s inquisition, this time with the addition of a carefree shrug. “Lucky, I guess.”
Now what? Nuking Munyon with a barrage of questions wouldn’t work, Stan realized. Instead of crumpling like a cheap tent in a wind storm, Munyon had a pat answer ready for everything he threw his way. No hesitation. Not even the hint of a stumble. Either he was telling the truth, Stan concluded, or Munyon was a very accomplished fibber.
Stan tossed up his arms in frustration. “The whole thing’s ridiculous. Why should we believe you?”
Munyon appeared hurt that someone would take a pot shot at his impeccable integrity. “Why shouldn’t ya?”
“Well, I believe him,” Dana interjected. “I heard them, Stan, you didn’t.”
The grating sound of his sister airing out her opinion was never at the top of Stan’s wish list. In this case, however, Dana did him a favor by disengaging him from the head-butting confrontation with Munyon that had gone nowhere. Better to spar with an easier foe and regain his traction, Stan figured, than continue to be thwarted by a wily opponent. “You heard something, Dana,” he said.
Dana was quick to fire back. “And so did Keisha. And Irv. And Bryce.”
“Well, I also think it’s just a bunch of crapola,” Bryce chimed in. “Everybody knows there’s no such thing as z—”
Irv clamped his hand over Bryce’s mouth. “Don’t say it, Bryce,” Irv cautioned. “Never say the z word. Understand?”
Bryce nodded and Irv released his muzzle. “And why not?” Bryce inquired.
“It’s one of the undead rules.” Irv pointed out. “Violate them at your own risk.”
Bryce backed away and wiggled his fingers. “Ooooo, I’m SOOOO scared,” he uttered, a look of mock terror on his face. “The undead rules. ‘Never say the z word, Bryce.’ Ha! What’ll happen? Like they’re going to attack us?” Bryce scoffed.
“They’ll do that regardless,” Munyon declared.
Bryce marched to the door, pounded on it twice and flipped the bird with the middle fingers of both of his hands. “Bring it on dead dudes!” he shouted.
“Uh, I don’t think that’s such a wise move, Bryce,” Keisha warned.
Bryce was undeterred. “Oh, no? Okay, then, here’s a better one.”
He dropped his trousers to his ankles, bent over with his rump aimed at the door and tugged down his Tommy Hilfiger striped boxer.
Munyon’s jaw plummeted and his eyes narrowed. “Watcha doin’, whiner?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“That’s disgustin’,” Munyon grumbled.
“That’s the idea,” Bryce replied, as he gritted his teeth, squeezed, and let loose with a loud, sustained fart. “Take a whiff ZOMBIES!” he shouted. “Oopsie, I broke the z word rule. My bad.” He yanked up his undies and straightened as he addressed the others, still flabbergasted by his gross-out performance. ??
?So where are they, huh? Helloooo, I’m waaaaaiting. Ha! I told you it was just a load of bull—”
A booming thump on the outside of the door interrupted him. Bryce froze and his eyeballs bulged as he turned and peeked behind him. The startling intrusion silenced the room, all attention focused on the doorknob as it rotated back and forth, squeaking with every twist before revving to a furious spasm as if possessed by some enraged demon.
“THEY’RE HEEEEEEEERE!” Bryce screamed. He tried to run, but tripped over himself, tumbled to the floor and crawled on all fours into the nearest corner, where he hiked up his pants and curled into a fetal position.
Everyone else held their ground. Too petrified to budge even the slightest, they waited and listened.
Nothing.
“Most likely gone,” Munyon proclaimed, prompting the whoosh of a collective exhale to fill the shack.
Dana hurtled toward Stan and slapped at him as he tried to deflect her whirlwind of blows. “It’s your fault. You woke them up!” she accused.
Stan ducked and shielded himself from Dana’s frenzied swats. “Did not!”
“Did too! You don’t know the rules!” Dana wailed, as she ended her assault, drained and punched out.
Stan coiled and threatened to retaliate against his sister, but held back. “Neither do you!”
“I told you Letter 13 was unlucky,” Bryce whimpered from his corner retreat.
Munyon repositioned the shotgun across his hips in a firing position. “Everybody just shuddup—and that goes double for you, whiner!” He turned to Stan. “Still think it’s ridiculous, smart-ass?”
Not anymore, Stan thought. Not after he was just witness to something that defied explanation and left him reeling with doubt. Maybe Munyon was right after all. And maybe, Stan surmised, it was he who was wrong and the ridiculous one here. Or maybe the odd incidents were just some sort of cosmic coincidence, a confluence of unrelated events occurring that was being misconstrued. Conclusions being reached based on assumptions and not facts, guesswork instead of solid proof, overactive imaginations conjuring up irrational fears. That’s what he wanted to believe, not Munyon’s gobbledygook. Every corpuscle in his body told him so. Problem was, his failure to poke any holes in this “undead” theory and discredit Munyon had backfired. Even Irv, whom Stan regarded as the epitome of reasoned, logical thought, seemed to give credence to the existence of these resurrected stiffs. There were smatterings of egg smeared all over his face, Stan realized, and now his task was to wipe it clean, reassert himself, and get his movie back on track. Kind of like when Spielberg shot Jaws and the mechanical sharks kept malfunctioning. Despite the problem, the director devised a plan to work around it and finished the film, one of the greatest of all time. And so would he, Stan vowed. Somehow. He just had to figure out the “how” part.
“What should we do?” Keisha whispered.
“Nothin’. They was just testin’ us,” Munyon explained, as he doused the candles with his fingertips and turned the lamps back on. “They’ll be back though. Best get prepared.”
“You mean like…to fight them?” Dana asked.
“More like put ’em out of their misery in the permanent kind of way,” Munyon replied, as nonchalant about the mortal combat ahead as a veteran exterminator about to confront a platoon of carpenter ants.
Dana shuddered and latched onto Keisha’s arm. “But how do you kill someone who is already dead?” Keisha wondered.
“Only two ways to stop the undead,” Irv noted. “Shoot them in the head for one thing. Destroy the brain. Hit them anywhere else and you’re just wasting ammo.”
“And the second?” Stan inquired.
“Burn ‘em,” Irv said.
“Now, speakin’ of burnin’, that’s why me and one of you movie stars are going out to get some timber to get a fire goin’,” Munyon stated and pointed at Stan. “You’re elected.”
“Me?” Stan gulped.
Munyon smirked. “Unlessin’ you got a twin.”
“Come on, Stan,” Dana urged her brother. “You’re the only one who hasn’t been out there yet. What’s the matter, are you going to be a fraidy cat again?”
“Me? A fraidy cat? Ha! Heck no, I’m no fraidy cat!” Stan contended, vehement in his denial of Dana’s thinly veiled accusation that dared question his manhood.
Bryce perked up, like a predator on the prowl locked on to the scent of a wounded prey. “What did she mean by ‘again’?”
“Nothing. She meant nothing,” Stan responded, as he glared at his sister. “Past history. No big deal.”
It wasn’t a big deal, Stan reminded himself. He just wished Dana hadn’t chosen this exact moment to bring it up and try to make it one. The truth was, there was one time when he had been a fraidy cat.’ And Dana knew it. She knew because her status as his sister gave her inside knowledge of one of the most infamous, painful, humiliating episodes in Stan’s life. And just in case anyone forgot about it, his brother Chuckie was sure to resurrect the story at the annual Heberling family gathering, every relative in attendance eager to lap up mortifying morsels of the tale. But no way was he about to recount in this present setting, in front of this particular group, how he had to be rescued by his middle school gym teacher, Mr. Conroy, after he froze halfway up a required rope climb. Now, fear of heights was a common affliction, of course, and even back then he was aware that it was nothing to be ashamed about. However, the fact that Mr. Conroy made an emergency call to the janitor for a ladder in order to retrieve Stan and carry him down in his arms like a petrified two-year old in front of his classmates, the principal, and a nurse, was. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Conroy doubled as a football coach at the high school and regaled the entire team—including Chuckie, who served as equipment manager—with every detail of the incident at practice that same afternoon like some late-night talk show host entertaining the audience with his opening monologue. The torment and ridicule dished out by his fellow students lasted for years before the “fraidy cat” label withered and died off. To this day, it was a memory Stan kept concealed, only to be resurrected by family members like Dana and Chuckie at the most inappropriate of times.
“So if it’s no big deal, why not tell us what it is,” Bryce proposed.
Stan hesitated a few moments as he grappled with his response. “Look, if you must know, just like a lot of people, I have acrophobia,” he admitted. “I’m afraid of high places. I panicked once a long time ago. That’s all. And since we’re not stuck on the top of a skyscraper at the moment, my condition is irrelevant. So can we please just move on to more important things?”
Irv tossed Stan his flashlight. “Don’t worry, Stan. They’re slow. You can probably outrun them.”
“Probably?” Stan replied, cocking his eyebrows.
Munyon shoved the ax into Stan’s hands. “’Sides, Bad D here ’ll protect ya.” Stan looked as comfortable holding it as a ballet dancer with a grenade launcher. “As for the rest of you, keep your pie holes shut and your peepers open. No tellin’ what Dutch’s crew got planned.”
Munyon unbolted the door, opened it, and bowed as if Stan was a visiting sultan. “After you, big cheese.”
Stan swallowed hard, headed out, and took long, careful looks in both directions like he was crossing an L.A. freeway at rush hour before proceeding across the porch and into the yard beyond.
Munyon followed, but paused and turned toward Bryce, still hunched up with his knees tucked against his chest. “And whiner?” Bryce lifted his head. “Suck it up,” a repulsed Munyon told him, as he hoisted the shotgun atop his shoulder. Once he hoofed it out, Dana, Keisha, and Irv all rushed to slam the door shut behind him and lock it. Nothing left to do but ponder the macabre possibilities that might lie in wait for them on the other side.
Chapter 17