Dream: Indie
Chuck, my animal handler, looked grim. "We have a problem."
The look on Chuck's face wasn't *that* worried, so not a panic-and-run problem. My eyebrows indicated he should continue: "Yeah?"
"Something's wrong with Stuart."
Hm. "Guess you'd better show me."
We made our way over to the cages where we kept the cast. Sure enough, Stuart was just lying there on his side and one leg was sort of kicking spasmodically. He didn't seem to be leaking any more fluid than usual, so it wasn't cellular breakdown...
"Did he break a bone or something?"
Chuck shook his head. "Doesn't look like it. As intact as he ever was. He's just sort of... checked out."
I looked around at the other cages. The others were all slightly more agitated than usual, rubbing against whichever sides of their containers were furthest away from Stuart's.
Chuck saw what I was looking at and nodded. "The others can tell something's wrong. Maybe it's infectious. Something they know to avoid, somehow."
"A disease...? Is there such a thing?"
Chuck shrugged. "Not that I've ever heard of but, you know, the science is still catching up. It's only been, what, eighteen months since the outbreak? Lot of studies still in progress, not yet published."
I looked at Stuart through the bars. Just the day before, he'd been vigorous. Alert. Stable. The single best member of the cast we'd managed to catch out in the Costa Rican jungle.
The biological research wasn't the only thing still catching up to the world's first and only outbreak of post-mortem reanimation. So far there weren't any laws prohibiting us from doing more or less whatever we wanted with the shamblers, at our risk, so long as we didn't try to bring them out of the containment zone or try to exit the zone ourselves without a clean blood test. At some point, the status of the reanimated - to be protected as a new species or eradicated as a threat - would be determined by international law. But our little faux-documentary would be in the can long before then... so long as my cast members didn't fall down and stop moving.
I sighed and ran fingers through my thinning hair. "Well, at this point we have too much footage to just start over with a new zombie, and Stuart's too distinctive for us to just replace him with someone similar-looking in the same clothes." I peered through the bars at my male lead once again. "See if you can get him on his feet with some raw meat, I guess."
Heading back to the camper, I once again reflected on the wisdom (or lack thereof) in my career choices. Film an indie zombie film on location with the actual zombies. It had seemed so obvious at the time. What could go wrong, other than maybe losing control of the critters and becoming infected ourselves? But, haha, turns out that wasn't the biggest problem facing us. No, as always, the biggest problem was coping with the freakin' talent.
Actors. Turns out, alive or dead, they're all the same.
------
For consideration: in my dream psychology I think zombies have long settled into the symbolic role of "mundane obstacles of life"
The look on Chuck's face wasn't *that* worried, so not a panic-and-run problem. My eyebrows indicated he should continue: "Yeah?"
"Something's wrong with Stuart."
Hm. "Guess you'd better show me."
We made our way over to the cages where we kept the cast. Sure enough, Stuart was just lying there on his side and one leg was sort of kicking spasmodically. He didn't seem to be leaking any more fluid than usual, so it wasn't cellular breakdown...
"Did he break a bone or something?"
Chuck shook his head. "Doesn't look like it. As intact as he ever was. He's just sort of... checked out."
I looked around at the other cages. The others were all slightly more agitated than usual, rubbing against whichever sides of their containers were furthest away from Stuart's.
Chuck saw what I was looking at and nodded. "The others can tell something's wrong. Maybe it's infectious. Something they know to avoid, somehow."
"A disease...? Is there such a thing?"
Chuck shrugged. "Not that I've ever heard of but, you know, the science is still catching up. It's only been, what, eighteen months since the outbreak? Lot of studies still in progress, not yet published."
I looked at Stuart through the bars. Just the day before, he'd been vigorous. Alert. Stable. The single best member of the cast we'd managed to catch out in the Costa Rican jungle.
The biological research wasn't the only thing still catching up to the world's first and only outbreak of post-mortem reanimation. So far there weren't any laws prohibiting us from doing more or less whatever we wanted with the shamblers, at our risk, so long as we didn't try to bring them out of the containment zone or try to exit the zone ourselves without a clean blood test. At some point, the status of the reanimated - to be protected as a new species or eradicated as a threat - would be determined by international law. But our little faux-documentary would be in the can long before then... so long as my cast members didn't fall down and stop moving.
I sighed and ran fingers through my thinning hair. "Well, at this point we have too much footage to just start over with a new zombie, and Stuart's too distinctive for us to just replace him with someone similar-looking in the same clothes." I peered through the bars at my male lead once again. "See if you can get him on his feet with some raw meat, I guess."
Heading back to the camper, I once again reflected on the wisdom (or lack thereof) in my career choices. Film an indie zombie film on location with the actual zombies. It had seemed so obvious at the time. What could go wrong, other than maybe losing control of the critters and becoming infected ourselves? But, haha, turns out that wasn't the biggest problem facing us. No, as always, the biggest problem was coping with the freakin' talent.
Actors. Turns out, alive or dead, they're all the same.
------
For consideration: in my dream psychology I think zombies have long settled into the symbolic role of "mundane obstacles of life"