No One Pays Their Bills During a Zombie Apocalypse!

No One Pays Their Bills
During a Zombie Apocalypse!
!

and other reasons why fiction helps us
understand what the hell is going on
!

Fred Smith

©2013 Fred Smith

Table of Contents
Introduction
or What the Hell is going on (in this story)?
!
!

The zombies are a metaphor.

What they stand for is real.
!
!

What does the zombie want?
A lesson in drama and humanity
!
!

Another Death Scene?
The importance of what happens next…
!
!

What the Hell is Going On??
The longer we keep asking, the better the story.
!
!

The Zombie’s Denouement
What have we learned?

Introduction

Independent filmmaker, author and self-proclaimed king of filth
and bad taste John Waters wrote a non-fiction book a few years ago
with a single passage whose message struck me then and hasn’t
wandered far from my conscience since.
!

“You should never read for "enjoyment". Read to make yourself
smarter. Or less judgmental. More apt to understand your
friends' insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick "hard
books". Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for
God's sake, don't ever let me hear you say, "I can't read fiction. I
only have time for the truth." Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear
of "literature"? That means fiction too, stupid.”
!

A good point (even if you can’t overlook the fact that the author’s
defining moment as an artist involves a drag queen and a handful
of dog crap.) We see it everyday. Whether you’re in high school, a
corner office or a nursing home, the people in our world do things
we don’t understand. My question, the one I ask before rendering
judgement, is why? Why is someone acting this way? What could
possibly be going on to make this person act this way? OK that’s
three questions, but the important one is:
!

What the hell is going on?
!
!

Introduction
!

This book attempts to explain how I believe that fiction can help us
figure out what the hell is going on in the world by exposing us to
new ideas about people’s behavior in a way that can make us all
better human beings.
!

A lofty premise I know, but I wanted to give you the chance to get a
sense of where I’m coming from since the catchy title and cover of
this book might lead you to think I was going to broaden your
zombie obsessed horizons. Don’t worry this book will do that too.
Just not in the introduction. Most people skip this part and that’s
OK because Elmore Leonard says so.*
*A disclosure: since many of my literary heroes have already made most of
my points better than I ever could, I’ll be citing them often- giving full credit
and then some. Since this is a digital book I’ll include links to my
inspirational sources so you can check them out for yourself on the world
wide web.
!
The John Waters quote is from Role Models. The drag queen/ dog poop
scene is in his 1972 film Pink Flamingos.
!
Elmore Leonard warned of introductions in Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of
Writing.

Metaphor noun

a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of
something else, esp. something abstract.

flesh eating metaphors



In a zombie story, the world as we know it ends. An apocalypse
ensues and no one has any bills to pay by the second act. Until
then, there is confusion. What’s going on here? What happened to
the world I know? The world I was comfortable in? We the
audience know it’s gone, but the characters must accept that
things have changed. A few harsh lessons in human sacrifice aid in
this adjustment period to the delight of the audience.
!

Once there is acceptance there is only one remaining course of
action: survival.
!

The forces of evil (the zombies) are closing in on a small group of
seemingly different humans who are surrounded by this advancing
wickedness. The group is forced into a confined but defensible
place where certain choices must be made: Who is the leader, who
will make the tough decisions to keep the group alive? Who are the
non-believers, those who can’t or won’t accept that the world they
know and were comfortable in is gone? Who is the defender of
virtue, the one who will question an inhumane act no matter how
desperate the situation? All of these questions must be brought to
the open, because we’re in the midst of an apocalypse. And during
an apocalypse, the menial distractions of the world have been
eliminated therefor no one has any bills to pay.
!


!

There are no distractions to the conflict in a zombie apocalypse.
There is ONLY the conflict. All frivolous responsibilities are shed
and only survival matters. The superfluous has been stripped away
and now only the fight against the advancing evil matters.
The well made zombie story isn’t about the walking dead. The
zombies are a constant threat, but they soon become one to which
the living adapt as the narrative evolves. The crux of the story lies
with the people who are fighting to survive. We know what the
zombies want. They want to eat flesh. We know what the people
want. They want to survive. What makes one zombie story pop and
another dud depends on the author’s ability to maintain a healthy
friction among the living characters as they contend with the
complexities of human nature strained by the life or death urgency
of every moment*. This is where the drama lies. Done right, this
tension will keep us asking the crucial question:
!

*The Walking Dead does this well. The show’s success is a testament to the
authors’ ability to convince fans (through a feat largely accomplished via
the re-cap show Talking Dead) that the story isn’t about zombies. It’s about
(so says the show’s legions of zealots) survival and humanity. It’s about
people.



The well made Zombie story’s ability to focus its audience on the
struggle to survive in a world gone to Hell is exactly what makes
the genre one of the most beloved in pop culture.
!

Every person on the planet is trying to make sense of a
complicated world. Along comes the zombie apocalypse and
suddenly the once convoluted rules of life are made to be
painstakingly simple.
!

Great fiction is an escape. But it can also teach us a few things
about ourselves.

I’m just an expendable nuisance
with no discernible feelings.

Tell me about it.


What they stand for is real. (cont.)

Back to the real world where bills and homework are due.
!

Here’s a pop quiz. What was the name of the Colorado high school
that saw twelve students and one teacher die when two students
opened fire with automatic weapons in 1999?
!

Depending on your age, you likely know the answer with a knee jerk
reaction: Columbine High School. Sticking with the dreadful topic of
school shootings, what was the name of the Elementary school in
Newtown, Connecticut that saw twenty children and six teachers
killed during a shooting in 2012? Everyone reading this likely knows
the answer: Sandy Hook Elementary school.
!

How about this one? What was the name of the Amish one room
schoolhouse in Pennsylvania that saw five girls killed during a
shooting in 2006? This one’s a bit tougher, isn’t it? Why? The act is
no less horrific than Columbine or Sandy Hook. In fact, given the
execution style of the murders, one could argue it was worse. The
incident dominated news headlines. You remember the images of
the aftermath. So why can’t you think of the school’s name?
!
!


What they stand for is real. (cont.)

The reason you and I (admittedly I had to look this up) don’t have
West Nickel Mines School at the forefront of our memories is
because we don’t live in a zombie apocalypse. We live in the chaos
of the real world where we all have bills to pay, responsibilities to
maintain and other personal challenges to distract us from the evil
that surrounds us.
!

By the third act of any zombie story, the survivors are hardened
and don’t bother confronting the living dead until the latter is
within a threatening range. No one panics, cringes or weeps at the
sight of rotten corpses until the victims are our own loved ones.
!

This is how we live in the real world. Numb and immune to the
threats that lurk around every turn.*
!

The shooting at West Nickel Mines was tragic, a startling reminder
of how treacherous the world can be. We (those who weren’t
victims or family of the victims) acknowledge the tragedy,
compartmentalize it and move on knowing that like characters in a
zombie story, we live in a world bound on all sides by a perpetually
advancing wickedness that will never tire of flesh.
!
*Great fiction slaps the apathy from our soul and makes us once again care about
complete strangers. The well made zombie story orchestrates and directs this
compassion well. Stephan King does it even better.
!

Tale of the Tape
The Woman

The Zombie

VS

single motivation (flesh)
numbers
advantages
tenacious persistence
no concept of failure
mindless
slow
expendable

handicaps

fully functional brain
speed
agility
access to weapons

fragile and precious life
human emotion
(fear and confusion)

esh.

a lesson in drama and humanity
Here’s a scene:
A woman walks alone down an alley. She’s confronted by a
zombie. What happens? We know what happens, but for the sake
of the exercise let’s ask the appropriate questions.
!

What does woman want? To survive. What does the zombie want?
To eat the woman’s flesh. How can this scene play out? Someone
should win (i.e. get what’s desired lest we have no drama).
Aficionados of the zombie genre applaud a creative resolution to
this otherwise hackneyed scene. The woman’s life is precious. The
zombie is expendable (plenty more where that come from). The
woman has advantages. A brain for one. Speed for another. The
zombie has no feelings and (like a fish) receives no sympathy. An
imaginative death is preferred. We know what happens next, all
that’s left are the details. Credit is due to stories that outdo their
ancestors.

“Brains.”

“Oh, Shit.”

a lesson in drama and humanity (continued)

Here’s a zombie free expression of the same scene:
Same woman walks alone down the same alley. She’s confronted by a
man with a gun. What happens? Now for the standard questions.
!

What does the woman want? To survive. What does the man want? We
don’t know, and neither does the woman. And now the audience is the
woman. In order for the scene to play out, we have to know what the
man wants. And in order to learn that, an exchange must occur. Human
to human. Does the man want money? Does he want violence? Rape?
Answers? Does he want to save her, thereby raising another question by
implying the woman was in danger before he confronted her?
!

The woman’s life is precious, yet the man has all the advantages. He has
the weapon. He knows why he’s doing what he’s doing which is to say
he has the answers the woman needs in order to act.
“What the hell is going on?” we ask
and so does the woman. No one on
the dangerous end of the gun
seems to know and so we don’t
know what happens next.
!

Two scenes. One imaginary. One
real. Both have been overdone.
Both are still done. Which scene is
the more dramatic? Better yet
which scene tells us more about
ourselves and the world around us?

“A gun? How romantic.”

Another Death Scene?
The importance of what happens next…

Think about that book you put down and never picked back up.
The movie that dragged. The job that made you feel like you’d been
paroled when you finally left. The boyfriend or girlfriend you
dumped when Friday nights became predictable.
!

In life and fiction we become bored when we stop caring about
what happens next. Great fiction tantalizes our expectations by
appealing to our inner child’s desire to be wowed with story.
!

As kids and adults we’re forever trying to figure out how the world
works and what part we’re supposed to play. Whether you’re four
years old or eighty two, stories are the currency to understanding
what the hell is going on.
*The idea that all audiences are like kids and only want to know is what
happens next has been championed for decades by Pulitzer Prize winning
playwright David Mamet in his work in theater and film as well as in books
like Bambi vs Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the movie
business and in True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor.
!
Author, actor and filmmaker (and personal hero of mine) John Sayles best
describes the dramatic importance of What the Hell is Going on? in this
series of videos on the nature of stories and why we tell them. The series
was filmed during the artist’s lecture at Duke University. I’ve devoted much
of this book to running with Sayles’ idea since he has often helped me
figure out on so many levels what the hell is going on in my writing and
storytelling

The longer we keep asking, the better the story

Just in case you’re the ignore-the-footnote-type… here is a recap
of author and independent filmmaker John Sayles’ explanation
for why we tell stories:
!

1. We tell stories to define ourselves.
Every tribe, nation and company has a creation story. It’s the
narrative that is passed through the generations that explains
where we’ve come from, who we are and gives the tribe a sense of
self-identity.
!

2. We tell stories to define ourselves to the world.
Knowing is not enough. Neither is being. The proud tribe uses
story to convey their history to the world in a compelling manner
that explains who they are as a people. We are the people who
(insert collective accomplishment here.) We’re the United States
of America. We are the people who broke from the autocratic rule
of the British and later made the world safe for democracy when
we kicked the shit out of the Nazis. Take your pick of American
war movies that fall under this theme.
!

3. We tell stories to help us figure out what the hell is going on.
Most great stories do exactly that, which is why the longer we’re
compelled to ask what the hell is going on, the better the story.
!


Let’s say we have a story that takes place in an American public
high school. There’s a boy. There’s a girl. What happens next? We
ask the usual.
!

What does the girl want? To gain the attention of the boy. What
does the boy want? We don’t know for sure, because he’s
mysterious (and good looking for if he were anything less than
attractive he’d be considered aloof and aloof doesn’t sell).
!

!

Usually we find out at the end of the first act. The boy is from the
wrong side of the tracks and knows he can’t get involved. He may
be a vampire in which case we’re in for a franchise. But now we
know what’s going on and only the author’s ability to intrigue us
with the moment to moment of the romantic chase will hold our
attention. Using attractive subjects helps, since the aloof tend not
to make it the sequel.


Rewind the scene. Ask the questions again. What does the girl
want? She wants to learn about the other. The boy is from the
wrong side of the tracks and the girl is curious to understand
what life is like there. What does the boy want? He doesn’t want
the girl to step into his world because he knows that she’ll be
harmed if she does.*
!

What the hell is going on? Good bet we’ll be asking this question
until the last page. Along the way, we’ll think we’ve got the
narrative pegged only to realize that the author was toying with
us. Then we’ll ask to be toyed with again and again as we joyously
wait to discover what happens next.

*A shameless plug for my debut novel The Coolest Labels, a work that
follows this basic plot and may or may not be published independently
in the somewhat near future. The final paragraph on this page is my
fantasy for audience reaction.


Now for an exercise in the hypothetical:
!

You’re in high school. You close your locker door and find a boy
standing next to you. What happens next? How can this real world
scene play out?
!

Apply what we’ve learned from fiction and we have a primer for
deciphering the moment. Now for the questions: What do you
want? To survive and figure out what the hell is going on. What
does the boy want? You don’t know and that’s the game. Figure out
what the boy wants and you’ve gained the leverage to steer this
scene in your favor. If the boy has his wits about him, he’ll try to
keep you guessing. Like a good author, he’ll give you enough
information to intrigue your curiosity but not enough to completely
get a hold of the situation. He wants you to ask what the hell is
going on for as long as possible. All the while he’ll toy with your
emotions by letting you think you have him pegged only to throw a
twist that makes you realize you don’t know anything. You’ll
become obsessed. Your friends will warn you it’s not worth it, which
will only make you more determined.
!

Fast forward in life. Now you’re an underling in a office working
environment. You’re working diligently in your cubicle when an
message appears indicating that your department’s manager would
like to see you immediately. What happens next?

Denouement noun

The final part of a play, movie or narrative in
which the strands of the plot are drawn together
and matters are explained or resolved.

And the living dead forever wander in search of flesh and brains…

I don’t usually write about zombies (and seldom do I draw them
though you’ve likely figured that out by now), but I fundamentally
agree that in the real world we live in a constant state of apocalypse,
forever pursued by a slow moving menace that surrounds us and
closes in with each passing moment. The difference is that the real
world (unlike that of a zombie story) doesn’t afford the luxury of
shutting down just because there’s an advancing threat on
humanity.
!

In our case the zombies are metaphors, but the things they
represent threaten us on a daily basis: racism, classism, corruption,
violence. These things touch our lives in waves, ebbing and flowing
through our existence depending on how close we choose to focus
on the water. And in the real world (my story world of choice) we
all have bills to pay, homework due and worldly concerns despite
our being perpetually surrounded by evil.
!

As characters we endure a state of confusion when we encounter a
new experience. What’s going on here? What happened to the neat
and simple world I knew? This is life, trying to figure out what the
hell is going on is what we do everyday. The past is easily resolved
because we have a resolution. We know what happened so we
reflectively invent narratives that help us understand why our story
turned out the way it did. “College is a waste of time anyway,” says
the high school stoner who didn’t get in. “My marriage failed
because I was an alcoholic,” says the man in the third act of his life,
“I know that now.”
!

The present isn’t so clear because we don’t know how things are
going to turn out. That’s what makes it so exciting. The
exhilaration is in the truth that we don’t know what happens
next. This is where the drama lies and it’s what I’m after as a
storyteller, consumer of fiction and roaming soul of the real
world.
!

Humans aren’t that different from one another, and the skilled
crafters of good fiction know that. They know and fundamentally
relate to the truth that each of us spends the better part of every
day wandering through scenes of our own personal stories trying
to figure out what the hell is going on.

Thanks for reading.
Please visit my site for more stories.
!

And be sure to like my Facebook page to
receive more FREE musings like this one on
a weekly basis.
TheOnlyFredSmith.com

About Fred Smith
A product of Florida public school system and graduate of the
University of Florida, Fred is a husband, father and storyteller who’s
authored several books, films and more TV commercials than he can
remember.
!

In college he played baseball with a future World Series MVP. After
college he played drums in a band that once opened for James Brown.
Since then he’s published a music magazine, made a feature film,
installed his own sewer line and married the greatest woman on planet
Earth.
!

Fred spends his days in Tampa, Florida enjoying every second he can
with his family that includes his wife, Marie; daughter, Madison; and
dog, Charlie (not pictured).

What are you still doing here?
!

I’m glad you’re curious, but this story is over.
(actually it ended 3 pages ago)
!

Now be a good human and make use of your
cognitive freewill that renders me jealous so.
!

Go to TheOnlyFredSmith.com and
pick out something else to entertain you.

No One Pays Their Bills During a Zombie Apocalypse!

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