Today, our narrator is in a bar. There’s this very involved explanation about how every Caribbean island has a “Special Economic Zone”, quotes there in the original, which is walled off from everywhere else.

catering to a culture of chaotic violence and debauchery, the Special Economic Zones are engineered specifically to separate “off-islanders” from their money.

So either the islanders don’t have issues with drinking screwing and fighting, they have their own established places, or the government decreed that they’re just not allowed in this place because they don’t want to watch their own citizens stupid themselves to death.

We’re visiting a Texan.

You know what’d have helped? If this book wasn’t the narrator’s sole project. If he was just one of many interviewers across the world, like the way oral histories are actually done, and each of whom had their own focus, the way this is America-heavy wouldn’t be such a big deal. You could brush off all sorts of complaints about how it’s so white America male focused by saying that those people totally were interviewed, just not by this guy. We’d still have the issue of but that’s what you actually published the book of, but it’d be making it another step removed and avoid the sense that things actually did mostly focus on America.

They haven’t come up with a name for what I used to do. Not a real one, not yet. “Independent contractor” sounds like I should be layin’ drywall and smearin’ plaster. “Private security” sounds like some dumbass mall guard. “Mercenary” is the closest, I guess, but at the same time, about as far from the real me as you could have gotten. A mercenary sounds like some crazed-out ’Nam vet

I’m not sure if this is just the book being outdated or if this was already outdated at the time but mercenaries really picked up some changed associations sometime around when we started using them to fight our current war while hiring them to protect our richest and most deserving of assassinations.

I mean, really, the lol mall cop era? It’s past. You say “private security” and I picture the bodyguards around the villain who are about to brutalize or kill someone. “Private” means accountable to no one, and I can’t be totally alone in this given “privatize” did a complete 180 from the buzzword you used to get people to support something to the buzzword used to get people to oppose it. This book wants to be edgy and cynical, and it’s stuck in the 90s.

Maybe I was a mercenary, but you’d never know it to look at me. I was clean-cut, nice car, nice house, even a housekeeper who came in once a week.

What’s also possible is the author actually does have the standard cultural associations for the word and just inexplicably thinks he’s the only one while the rest of us sheeple haven’t caught up yet.

I mean, god, this is how the movies depict this. You are thoroughly mainstream.

Most importantly, I worked for a company no different from any other before the war. There was no cloak and dagger, no back rooms and midnight envelopes. I had vacation days and sick days, full medical and a sweet dental package. I paid my taxes, too much; I paid into my IRA.

No, seriously, this is not news.

Even if I were to accept this smug bullshit grows more annoying the longer time passes and the more things move on so that’s why this seems so stupid by now, that just switches this to a complete failure to write a future narrative. This is taking ten years after the zombie apocalypse, which in turn takes place after the “bushfire wars”, which means this is set significantly after America stops being at war, which you may recognize as our current state. Even if we’re kind enough to say that the author just stupidly underestimated how very long that last part would take, the private security and mercenary connotation shifts were current as of the Bush wars. No one decades later would be still talking the way people did prior to those.

Anyway, because the oversea wars suck (and apparently continue without end) he works as a bodyguard instead, but apparently that word doesn’t exist which is why he has to ramble about how there’s no word to describe it properly so he’s a mercenary private security independent contractor.

You don’t mind if I don’t mention any names, ’kay? Some of these people are still alive, or their estates are still active, and…can you believe, they’re still threatening to sue. After all that’s gone down?

I can’t help but suspect we’re supposed to agree with this because fucking sue-happy celebrities lol, but actually we’ll see they’re totally right to do this.

So anyway, he works for a rich guy who loves celebrities and being popular, and hits on the brilliant plan of building a luxury fortress for them all to crash at during the apocalypse.

And you know what, they fell for it.

This is in turn trying to set up for the idea they deserve it all, but avoids two crucial questions:

1) Why is it stupid to retreat to a fortress in the face of the apocalypse?
2) What else were they supposed to do?

Knowing what happened, you might argue they should’ve retreated and built up their own personal private fortresses, but consider that the enemy was at or through the gate already. This is set after the panic’s actually hit. Heading to the place already set up by someone who seems to know what he’s talking about seems like a decent idea. If you’re at all smart, you know enough to know there’s a hell of a lot of stuff you don’t know enough about setting up a sealed bunker. If nothing else, you don’t have the time to decide what’s absolutely necessary and what bits are good but will take too long to get started on now, while this is already done and ready for you.

Furthermore, they bring their entourage, which in turn means it’s really likely a lot of other people, ones who couldn’t be assured they’d have a place in a slapped together private bunker, were probably pushing for it because they knew this was their only chance at being safe.

The actors, and singers, and rappers and pro athletes, and just the professional faces, like the ones you see on talk shows or reality shows, or even that little rich, spoiled, tired-looking whore who was famous for just being a rich, spoiled, tired-looking whore.

You can tell where this is going. Incidentally, the tired whore the author totally isn’t bitter he can’t fuck would’ve been 24 when the book was written, if my math is right.

He also takes shots at the record industry, then, being fair and balanced, adds

There was the political comedy guy, you know, the one with the show. He was snorting blow between the air bags of this teeny Thai stripper while spewing about how what was happening wasn’t just about the living versus the dead
…It all actually kinda made sense, until he started spewing about high fructose corn syrup and the feminization of America.

I mean, look. I’m as in favor of eating the rich as the next disgruntled person. But it’s not with malice. It’s just I think their continued existence is detrimental to everybody else’s and utilitarianism has always made the most sense to me.

But celebrities? Not really the right aim there. Celebrities are just people who get more attention paid to them, and the ones who are crazy off the walls are generally the ones self-destructing under the pressure, so the vicious hatred people have for them just seems petty. Plus, while their excess and general stupid business decisions may be stupid, at least they’re circulating their money. That’s how capitalism is supposed to work. If Paris Hilton works in television solely because people already know her from television, so what? At least she’s working, and it’s obviously something that has enough value that people keep paying for it as opposed to living off the labor of others (“investments”) or actively ruining people’s lives for personal gain.

Proving our interviewee is not the sharpest bayonet in the bunch, he’s shocked that the celebrity’s entourage come with them, because the idea things would continue as usual now that there’s a fuckton of additional incentive to do it? Mindblowing.

Some time is then spend on how okay, not every last one of those people should be drawn and quartered, just some of them for being rude and pushy, nevermind that being rude and pushy tends to actually get things done. (An awful lot of the insane behavior you see with stars and their handlers will suddenly click and make sense if you realize it’s less about actually believing it’s actually the most important thing imaginable and more about playing a game of chicken to get the most concessions.) Also, apparently the fact this place is super secure and safe from the zombie apocalypse has absolutely no bearing on why the main character is hanging out there, going by how he seems to completely ignore that factor.

One guy sticks out in my mind, only because he wore this baseball cap that read “Get It Done!”

Seriously?

Look, I’m sorry you don’t like Hollywood. I’m sure it’s been very annoying to deal with, and there are these people and you’re just so sick of them and you can’t get away and it just keeps building. I think everyone feels that way about someone eventually. But at the same time, Max Brooks, I don’t really care. Get a therapist to talk about how the bitch won’t stop eating crackers. This section is less about lol celebrities dying  wacky cultural commentary and more about your personal hate-on.

This is a matter of just pushing way too hard. I’ve mentioned before that the book does not get subtlety. Here, it’s fucking up by screaming about how much everyone sucks well before the fatal flaw is revealed. There’s not an ounce of sympathy for people flocking to a place that’s promised to be safe. Nothing about this is allowed to be a tragedy, which ends up making this chapter hover between “why the fuck should I care about anything?” and “the author’s just as much of a dick”, and it just gets worse the longer you make the mistake of thinking about it. It’s designed to coast by on the idea you too hate celebrities, and that’s it.

Proving the character’s boss is nowhere near as stupid as he insisted and will keep insisting, his boss factored the entourages into his calculations.

He’d transformed his home into a survivalists’ wet dream. He had enough dehydrated food to keep an army fed for years, as well as an endless supply of water from a desalinizer that ran right out into the ocean. He had wind turbines, solar panels, and backup generators with giant fuel tanks buried right under the courtyard. He had enough security measures to hold off the living dead forever: high walls, motion sensors, and weapons, oh the weapons.

So again, it’s less a matter of the other people “falling for it” and more a matter of this actually being a good place to hole up.

Of course, because this is counting down to celebrities being murdered, there has to be a flaw, ideally one to further hammer in that they’re celebrities about and we hates them precious. In this case, he’s got cameras in every room broadcasting constantly so everyone knows he’s cool with cool friends.

Merc guy is still the dumber one, since he’s also shocked by how there’s lots of reporters.

I honestly never knew how big an industry entertainment journalism was. There had to be dozens of them there from all these magazines and TV shows.

I’m sure that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact this is supposed to be a safe place. Absolutely no reporters normally handle other stuff but were willing to follow celebrities around if it meant four walls between them and death. No, it’s just entertainment journalism is insane.

CUTTING SOCIAL COMMENTARY.

For me, the most surreal moment was standing in the kitchen with some of the staff and other bodyguards, all of us watching the news that was showing, guess what, us! The cameras were literally in the other room, pointed at some of the “stars” as they sat on the couch watching another news channel.

This isn’t really that surreal. You’d think someone working in security would be familiar with watching people on security cameras in a nearby room, which is basically all this is. You want surreal, imagine watching celebrities in one room watching the TV news showing the celebrities in the next room watching TV news.

But it’s time for another aspect of Brooks hating people.

dead were coming right up Third Avenue, people were taking them on hand to hand, hammers and pipes, the manager of a Modell’s Sporting Goods was handing out all his baseball bats and shouting “Get ’em in the head!” There was this one guy on rollerblades. He had a hockey stick in his hand, a big ’ole meat cleaver bolted to the blade. He was doing an easy thirty, at that speed he might have taken a neck or two. The camera saw the whole thing, the rotted arm that shot out of the sewer drain right in front of him, the poor guy back flipping into the air, coming down hard on his face, then being dragged, screaming, by his ponytail into the drain. At that moment the camera in our living room swung back to catch the reactions of the watching celebs. There were a few gasps, some honest, some staged. I remember thinking I had less respect for the ones who tried to fake some tears than I did for the little spoiled whore who called the rollerblading guy a “dumbass.” Hey, at least she was being honest.

Yes, truly the freak accident that doesn’t even fit how every other zombie in the story is slow moving proves he was in error. Hell, forget the zombie, apparently moving at thirty miles an hour, tripping and continuing to move forward while you flip then falling face-first somehow positions your head closest to the place you tripped. If it wasn’t in The Zombie Survival Guide and you do it, you’re a dumbass, physics be damned. (To say nothing of that zombie’s super senses and brilliant planning allowing it to aim ahead of him so that it’d pop up right when this fast moving target was in position! Plus dragging him down rather than coming up and exposing itself.)

Incidentally, while I’d be dubious of a meat cleaver being sharp enough, the idea of skates is a really good one given the main issue with zombies is outpacing them – humans can run faster but tire quickly. Google tells me that even poor skaters can move double human walking speed and competent ones triple it, which seems like it’d be a real boon when engaging zombies. Really help with hit and run tactics, which is what you should be focusing on given their strength is in numbers alone. Also good in principle is just the general idea of putting your weapon on a long stick.

This would actually be a great match for the katanas Brooks slavers over as magical zombie killers. Kludge them into an approximation of a naginata, which, as Wikipedia explains, were favored for womento keep opponents at a distance, where any advantages in height, weight, and upper body strength would be lessened or precisely what you should be concerned about when facing super-strong zombies.

Anyway, this prompts the Russian guy to mutter about how peasant uprising incoming, since apparently everything else was tolerable but watching news feed of zombiekilling screwups is the last straw. And indeed, the uprising hits with the pressure sensors going off everywhere.

I heard him shout “They’re running! Holy fuckin’ shit, they’re fast!” Fast zombies, that turned my gut. If they could run, they could climb, if they could climb, maybe they could think, and if they could think…now I was scared.

Again: The camera saw the whole thing, the rotted arm that shot out of the sewer drain right in front of him, the poor guy back flipping into the air, coming down hard on his face, then being dragged, screaming, by his ponytail into the drain. That is your fast, climbing, planning zombie. It also has what I can only assume are mutant powers to alter momentum and make sure the person it trips spins in midair like a cartoon before faceplanting, so it’s even worse than you were thinking. Humanity is fucked!

But yeah anyway it’s humans. Maybe the other one was also humans? Someone in makeup looking for a chance to get some murder in.

They were booking it for the front gate, big tough steel that was supposed to stop a thousand ghouls. The explosion tore them right off their hinges, sent them flipping into the house like giant ninja stars. “Fire!” the boss was screaming into the radio. “Knock ’em down! Kill ’em! Shoot shoot shoot!”
The “attackers,” for lack of a better label, stampeded for the house.

No, attackers is precisely the word for the idiots who just blew open the gates. You just said they had ladders! They should’ve used those before smashing a hole in the walls. Walls don’t work with holes in them.

The courtyard was full of parked vehicles, sports cars and Hummers, and even a monster truck belonging to some NFL cat. Freaking fireballs, all of them, blowing over on their sides or just burning in place, this thick oily smoke from their tires blinding and choking everyone.

This whole section requires you agree that celebrities just inherently deserve murdering, because otherwise the fact the other people’s opening move appears to be to destroy everything they touch would seem a little weird for the good guys.

A lot of them demanded that their entourage protect them. Some did, these poor twenty-year-old personal assistants who’d never fired a gun in their lives. They didn’t last very long. But then there were also the peons who turned and joined the attackers. I saw this one real queeny hairdresser stab an actress in the mouth with a letter opener, and, ironically, I watched Mister “Get It Done” try to wrestle a grenade away from the talent show guy before it went off in their hands.

I don’t see how this is ironic, but then I’m not entirely sure why joining the attackers = stabbing an actress in the mouth.

And that’s the problem. The broad strokes of what the chapter’s supposed to be are all here – rich hedonists partying as the world ends, hoarding the food and the safety. But their greatest crime isn’t selfishness but being celebrities, and the good guys appear to be aiming to kill everyone and take their stuff (or blow it up) rather than just demanding a share of what they have in abundance. Partly it’s how rushed things are, like the author got bored – people don’t retreat toward the house and try banging on the gates or entering by ladder first, the first people appear to show up ready with bombs and guns to blast their way in, and the switching sides bits appears to establish that the goal is to murder everyone in the house before taking it over.

I met the whore’s rat dog as we were both heading for the back door. He looked at me, I looked at him. If it’d been a conversation, it probably woulda gone like, “What about your master?” “What about yours?” “Fuck ’em.”

There’s also the part where every second of this is such a cliche. One thing that’s never explored properly in this book is the concept of unreliable narrators. What if none of this went down the way he says and this is just him pasting together a story out of all the stuff everyone already wants to believe?

I mean, just look at this. He’s evoking the twin similes of the dog abandoning its master (they’re so hateful even their dog hates them!) and the rat abandoning the sinking ship (things that look like rats are gross and evil!) when even limited exposure to chihuahuas contradicts the idea one would act like this.

That was the attitude among a lot of the hired guns, the reason I hadn’t fired a shot all night. We’d been paid to protect rich people from zombies, not against other not-so-rich people who just wanted a safe place to hide.

So why do we spend ages on the fact this guy is a mercenary fuckhead?

It’s entirely possible to be a decent person as a bodyguard. But if the only reason you’re not murdering people for money overseas is it seemed like more work than staying in America, no, I don’t buy ethics has anything to do with this decision. It’s a much better thing to say than that you bugged out on your employers because you realized you were outnumbered, but you’re a monster, it’s not actually the truth.

It isn’t hard to make this work. Have the guy be a bodyguard, have him be disgusted that facing the end of the world just makes the celebrities even more narcissistic, have him mountingly concerned as he realizes this fortress retreat isn’t just rich people being extravagant in their fears just like everything else but actually needed to protect people, and something, anything, about the people inside actually laughing at the suffering of the people outside, more than just a few people watching the opening fighting and some acting sad and one person saying another person’s death was stupid. Have them talking about how great it is to watch the poor rabble torn to shreds by zombies or something. Have them mocking people trying to barricade themselves in to survive, how if those guys weren’t such losers they’d be safe in the fortress right now but only the best deserve a spot here.

There’s a last gasp to make this a good guys vs bad guys thing:

You could hear them shouting as they charged in through the front door. Not “grab the booze” or “rape the bitches”; it was “put out the fire!” and “get the women and kids upstairs!

But he was already walking out the door by then, and from the way he says this it sounds like he thinks not raping the bitches is a shocking show of conscience, so he presumably was expecting them to get raped along with murdered when he left. Really, the very fact he’s sure he has to leave says a lot about the fact the people here are attackers and they are apparently planning on killing everyone inside.

But it’s okay, because John Stewart and Ann Coulter are fucking on the beach so all celebrities are evil and disgusting and deserve their deaths.

Sometimes I ask myself, why didn’t they all just shut the fuck up, you know? Not just my boss, but all of those pampered parasites.

His boss was a non-celebrity who appears to have earned his wealth somehow and then planned to leverage it into celebrity, and sure seems to be pretty on the ball when it comes to planning a fortress. We’re looking at one hell of a broad definition of pampered parasite here. Also, seriously, you want to talk about parasites? I’ll make a list. Let’s start with the banks. Somewhere around page five hundred we may reach a celebrity.

Anyway, he says that if they’d run farther or just shut up about where they were they’d have been fine, but because they were all attention whores they died. Which would be a great moral if only the flow of the chapter was entirely based around them inherently deserving their deaths and the noble mob who comes to kill them all, and not that it’s dumb to tell everyone how great your safehouse is.

In conclusion, like so many chapters of this, this really only works if you take the basic idea of it and fill in the blanks yourself with something less shitty. Personally, I’d forgotten that the only negative thing said about the people fighting zombies was the narratively endorsed dumbass comment – when thinking back to this chapter, I just assumed the celebrities were actually being dicks about it all because that’s how this usually goes.