Episode 18.0 - Welcome to Zombieville, USA

Episode Credits:

Episode 18 - Welcome to Zombieville, USA. Catch up with Cali, fifty years after the 'Goldengate Incident' and return once more to the Wild Wasteland! Speaking of wastelands, follow us on Twitter for news and updates! Better yet, if you're on Bluesky you can find us there! Join us in hitchhiking on the Red Fathom discord to hang out with cast and crew! Want to support the show? Please check out our Patreon to find our new Red Fathom Entertainment subscription model that gives you access to EVERYTHING we make!

Hannahpocalypse is intended for mature audiences on account of mature language, theme and violence and horror elements. Please be advised.

Episode Credits:

Amanda Hufford as Hannah

Abigail Turner as Cali

Jordan Rudolph as Mel

Will Handford as Jameson, Bogart, Ol' Blind Pete, Raider 1

Tom Schalk as Rictor, Charles

Ryan Hoyle as Reggie

Madeline Dorroh as Raider 2

Yenni Ann as Ashley

James Holyoake as Billy

Leslie Gideon as Morgan

Writing and Sound Design by Damian Szydlo

Sensitivity and Script Reading by Mak Shepard (where required)

TRANSCRIPT

[FADE IN]

[Scene: The sounds of the creaking Golden Gate Bridge, gulls calling and the waves below fill the soundscape. CALI is humming ‘Hannah’s song’ while hanging her legs over the edge of the bridge.]

CALI

“Hey, well isn’t it… you! You’re the ‘Listener’, right? Sorry, it’s been basically forever! How the hell are ya?! You know, I’ve got to say, I always thought ‘The Listener’ was a pretty stiff handle. Ominous, almost. We’ve GOT to figure something out for you. What do you even call a genderless force of static-y nature only perceivable as long as you clock in on some level of the zombie barometer? As long as I don’t call you ‘Zoey’ lest I never be allowed to forget it. Leave it with me.

It’s been an AGE though, hasn’t it? Me? Thanks for askin’, even if you didn’t. Yeah, I’m good. Surprisingly good despite how truly weird life has become. Not going to lie, things were kind of rocky for a while there. Figuring out exactly why shouldn’t be too much of a leap.

Leap. No, wait! Shit. Phrasing! I mean this probably looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, I’m not out here to jump or anything. A girl needs her space is all, and I like to come out here to get it. Get some space. Dangle my legs off the bridge, read a comic, and take in some rays. The zombies don’t like to come out this far from the settlement gates which is fine by me ‘cause it turns out I kind of got used to being by myself during my scouting days. Between you and me? I kind of miss it. Getting out on the road. Looking for adventure in all the wrong places. Feels like an actual lifetime ago at this point. Suppose it was. [sigh] But, those times… They were back in the old days before my zombie girlfriend tore through this place. Ate everyone I grew up with. Yup, that’s right. Just about everyone I ever knew walks without rhythm now. [pauses] It’s kind of hard to tell if you’re getting what I’m putting down, but they’re zombies. All of ‘em. And if you think walking is the only thing they don’t have any rhythm for, I’m going to warn you not to show up on karaoke night. 

Pretty fucked up, right? How many years do you think it takes to fully process an event like that? To be ‘okay’ with it? Cut me a bit of slack if you think joking about it comes in bad taste. I mean, what else can I do? We’re making some lemonade out of lemons out here.”

[takes a moment, lets the wind blow, the gulls cry]

“Like, I don’t think I need a shrink to tell me I’m still dealing with it. At least a little bit. ‘She’ knows it too. Might even feel a little guilty about my own part in the mass… zombification of this place. My ‘only’, and I mean ONLY, consolation is that they’re not actually gone. Because as it turns out, ‘zombie’ doesn’t equal ‘dead’. Just… different. We’re still learning just HOW different everyday. Needless to say, it’s not all bad mojo around here.” 

CALI (Standing up, cheering up a bit)

“Come on. Let me show ya! We’ve gonna catch you up the old fashioned way! Get you learnt. And we’ve made about… what, probably fifty years of progress since the last time you were around? Yeah, that’s about right. Damn, imagine that! We’ve gotta be coming up on the big 5-0! The fifty year anniversary of the day this place got a critical case of the shuffles and your girl got her ‘mutant’ card. Don’t act shocked! Time passes! We get up to stuff. Sometimes we build new societies. Civilize zombie hordes. No biggie for the two most capable ladies in the wasteland, right? Don’t believe me? Onwards, oh great static cloud in the sky. I’ll show you what I mean.”

[walks into the settlement that was once Goldengate, the sound of a random zombie moaning as Cali passes it, upbeat music playing]

CALI (Putting on her Trans-Atlantic accent)

“Welcome to Zombieville, USA. The self proclaimed Capital of the Wasteland. Brought low by the angry hands of a single, heartbroken zombie. Look now as the settlement of Goldengate stands before you reborn in her very image! Please do keep up and avoid flash photography because this town’s got bite!”

[Record scratch, cut the music, Returning speech to ‘normal’]

“Imagine having to talk like that all the time. Do you know it was actually the law here? Part of Goldengate’s great vision to roll back the clock to a specific, ideal image of an America that never was. As far as I figure it, anyway. Not the biggest fan of how we got ourselves to this point, but tell me that this place isn’t a little better off under the care of ‘Mayor’ Hannah. Or, at least that’s what I call her. She pretty much runs this place. [jokingly] I’m just her assistant.

Oh, shit! Wait. Without context that sounds really fucky, doesn’t it? Like, I’m not saying it’s a good thing everyone's undead or something. Let’s be ultra clear: Everyone being a zombie is pretty bad. Super-bad, even. But as it turns out, with a little rehabilitation and a boatload of patience, anyone can live a good, full life. Even if it’s an unlife. Need an example? Look no further than right over here. That’s right. Go on and meet Old Maggie before you get all judgy.”

OLD MAGGIE

[Zombie sounds]

CALI

“Old Maggie used to make the most amazing meat pies back in the day. Mostly pigeon, maybe chicken if you were lucky, or rat if you weren’t, but honestly? If you didn’t think about what was in ‘em, these things were incredible! This old lady really knew what she was doing! And look, she’s still making them! Mostly. I mean we don’t actually let them bake or anything but, she’s still putting what could be loosely described as ‘pies’ together. Just don’t get too close. Or ask what’s in said… gross, raw pies. Your experience is guaranteed not to match up with mine. But, that’s not the point.”

OLD MAGGIE (Confused zombie sounds)

“... Oh do stay. I made pie…” [in a normal old woman's voice]

CALI

“Alright, moving on.

So all this… it’s kind of creepy, right? A whole town of zombies pretending to do what they did when they were alive? Sure, maybe it is. But, it’s progress. They’ve come such a long way since they were turned, and maybe after another fifty years this place will be full of Hannah’s. And fifty after that? Maybe Old Maggie is able to bake a real pie, you don’t even know! That right there is what keeps me going. I mean, think about it: What if becoming a zombie isn’t the end? What if it really is just a reset? To ‘us’ as a species. Or the next step. Isn’t it worth finding out? If we’re really lucky, maybe there’s a little bit of salvation left over at the end of that rainbow for us, too.”

ZOMBIE CHARLES (Interrupting, Angry zombie sounds)

“... god-damn zombie lover!”

CALI

“Oh, don’t mind him, Listener. That’s Charles. I think you’ve already met him, actually. He used to run this settlement when it was still Goldengate. He’s… well let’s just say he’s having some trouble adjusting to the whole zombie-life thing. Still. Can you calm down, fucker? You’re giving some big ‘old man shakes fist at clouds’ energy, Chucky-boy.”

ZOMBIE CHARLES (Attacks)

CALI

“Oh for shit’s sake, here we go again. So, this happens sometimes. I like to leave this chair over here in case this one gets a little too rowdy. He hasn’t figured out how to bypass these four treacherous legs of doom yet, thankfully. [snarling zombie meets chair] Hey! Charles! Charles, no! No! I swear, I’ll pin you to the ground again. I’ll read a book while sitting on this chair, and you’ll be squirming away under it. Looking ridiculous, I might add! You know it and I know it. Everybody knows it! And they’ll all be laughing, Charles. Laughing in zombie, and then what?”

[Zombie Charles dismissively moans, backing off]

CALI

“You see? They get it. Not going to lie, though. That shit right there? It gets pretty damn old, pretty damn fast. Fortunately, it doesn’t really happen as often as you’d think it might. This one’s just a show off. Yeah, you heard me, you’re a show off!

Let’s get out of here, Listener. [breathes out an exhausted breath] Sometimes this job is pretty exhausting. That guy? He’s… kind of lonely. The others, as a rule, don't like the angry ones. They avoid ‘em. So a zombo like Chuck would get picked off in the wild, or probably fall down a well or something if not for Hannah. Who would have thought, right? Turns out zombies are actually a pretty happy bunch overall. That makes things way easier for me and means my days are mostly a lot more peaceful, filled with fixing stuff and coming up with ways to better accommodate the people of Zombieville. Like coming up with activities like movie night, like we used to do here before things got complicated. Or simple, maybe? I don’t know, it’s confusing. Stick with me and you’ll get all the dish on life as this city's lead (and only) custodian. But, that’ll have to wait. ‘Cause we’re here. And you probably want to see ‘her’, right? Betting you two have a lot to catch up on… but, just to prep you, there have been… changes. Mostly for the best but still… You know, I’m starting to realise I’m not all that great at filling people in on weird trauma from fifty years ago. Gonna need some of that slack I asked you for, okay? So, why don’t we bring out the projector for a little show-not-tell. Run it all the way back to the start. Hannah-style. Alright, folks in the booth! Punch it!” 

[SCENE END]

[Projector running flashback. Scene starts in a dreamscape, a nothing space where the first thing we hear is Hannah’s song to Cali, stirring her from what feels like the longest sleep of her life. Slowly we bring the real world into focus through sound as Cali realises she can hear this song.]

CALI (Sleepy, confused)

“What… What’s that sound? Is that… singing? Who…?”

HANNAH (Surprised but cautious)

“Cali? Oh my God you’re… You’re awake!”

CALI

“Holy shit… I feel like I’ve been asleep forever. Where am I? [let the question hang as things set in] Wait… Zombie-girl? Is that you? How can that be you?”

HANNAH

“So, Listener, welcome to our unfortunately timed flashback into the awkward mess that is my current unlife! Nice of you to show up right at this exact moment to review, to no doubt judge, my pretty desperate bedside manner. It’s no coincidence that Cali brought you here, I’m sure. Smack-dab in the middle of a proverbial crossroad and I’m going to go ahead and say, for the record, that past-me was not nearly prepared enough to navigate this situation. What-so-ever. Consider me a silly little deer standing on her wobbly legs; staring directly into the headlights of the universe's most sick joke yet… and let’s be crystal clear, that’s not sick in an ‘Oh that’s so sick, bro’ kind of way but actually in a pass me your ugly baseball hat, I ate way too much cotton candy and need to… well you get it… kind-of-way. At this point it’s been weeks. WEEKS of me singing my stupid, embarrassing song over her feverish comatose body. Wondering if she was ever going to wake up, and then suddenly, there she was! Eyes open. All glassy and milky like mine are. And she’s talking. At me… and I’m pretty sure she might have somehow actually heard my singing? How do you see that coming? Now, before you go and criticise me for what’s to come, just keep in mind that I’d never actually met a ‘mutant’ before today. As of this moment, I had no idea anything like that was even possible. Which might be confusing for you, I know, thanks to fourth wall breaking narratives in our story regarding Mel… but honestly, there’s a big difference between what I know and what I actually KNOW. Like seriously, have you ever heard of an unreliable narrator? I’m the very portrait of one!

Ugh. I’m sorry. For snapping at you. It’s… well this is already a lot, and unwinding narrative paradox isn’t super easy so we should probably… I don’t know, let it ride, I guess? Besides, we can’t stay in this inbetween moment forever, no matter how nervous I am about it. Let’s just say I had choices on exactly which Hannah Cali got to meet first. I could have answered in a cool way, or alternatively, I could have responded to this miracle in a very ‘me’ way. Guess which one I was about to choose? Actually, please don’t guess. Oh God, here it comes…” 

HANNAH

“Are you kidding me?! You can hear me?! Oh… OH! Can you… Holy cannolis. You can actually hear me!?”

CALI (Sitting up, still drowsy)

“Kind of. It’s… this is so weird. I can hear you but not in words as much as… the idea of words? The idea of lots of words. How… how is this possible? 

It’s a dream. I’m still dreaming, right? It’s the only explanation.”

HANNAH

“No. You’re not dreaming. Correction, we’re not dreaming. Neither of us. This is really, real. Or, at least I hope it is. You can actually hear me… and this… Is definitely not the best way of handling things… what I mean is, it’s not ideal. Oh wow, hey, look at me. It’s foot in mouth o’clock, isn’t it?! Try words, Hannah. Really.”

CALI

“What…? I don’t understand… What’s happening right now?”

HANNAH

“I don’t know. I’m rambling and awkward. And I’m so sorry that this actual verbal disaster is the first thing I ever got to say to you. It’s just, I’m really excited… It’s been like a hundred and fifty years of nobody knowing I’m actually still in here until you went and kind of figured that out on your own? Like with the comics and my over the shoulder reading? Remember? And now THIS?”

CALI

“Yeah… yeah, I remember. I think. It’s coming back to me. Everything. The crash, Rictor, the robot. You saved me. The trip across the USA. We made it to Goldengate. We should have been out of range. Bogart… started shooting at you and I… I jumped in the way, didn’t I? I couldn’t let you… Shit. This is coming at me really fast. Do you know what happened next? How did I get in this bed?”

HANNAH

“Ha… ha. That’s a really weird story and not super great! If I’m being honest, I was really hoping you might not ask about that one for a little bit.”

CALI

“Hannah… What. Happened.”

HANNAH

“It was really traumatic! For everyone! Ohhh… The whole thing was a lot to handle, you know? I kind of mentally checked out for a little while and when I got back? Zombie-Me might have got a bit… ummm, carried away? Basically, everyone’s a zombie now.”

CALI

“You fucking killed everyone?” 

HANNAH (Panicking, emotions getting real)

“No. No, I didn’t. I was somewhere else. I couldn’t… Zombie-Me saw all the blood, saw you laying there and I… I couldn’t. I honestly don’t know what would have happened if the Listener hadn’t taken me with them. It was too much, Cali.”

CALI

“And that’s how I became a mutant. Okay. Alright. That actually explains a lot. Including how I feel strangely okay with being able to somehow talk to you right now. It’s… this is going to be a lot to work out… and it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have ever brought you here… I’m so fucking stupid. How else was this ever going to go? You can’t expect to change things overnight.”

HANNAH

“Yeah… that would be wild, right? Oh boy.”

CALI

“Oh boy? What’s that supposed to mean?”

HANNAH

“It’s just that we kind of did? Didn’t we? Change things overnight, I mean? What I’m trying to say is that being a zombie isn’t the end. They're not gone, Cali. The Goldengaters? Physically or proverbially. 

CALI

“I don’t get it.”

HANNAH

I… sort of convinced them to stay. Up here.”

CALI

“As zombies?

HANNAH

“Yeah. Turns out I can do that. And I thought as long as I could keep them up here we could… stop the whole Hannahpocalypse from getting out of hand. That’s what I’ve been calling this new apocalypse. That I accidentally started… It's kind of a working title. 

Anyway, as it turns out… zombies are a little more complicated than I thought we were. 

Also, for the record, you’re taking this a lot better than I expected you would.”

CALI

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m screaming on the inside. You… I think you said something about a ‘Listener’? The one that took you away somewhere? It’s completely against my better judgement to ask this, but you know? Fuck it. Let’s dive right in. Who’s the Listener?”

HANNAH

“Wow. Okay, well, you just prepare yourself to be astounded because…! Drumroll, please. [actual drumroll] ‘Ta-da’! May I present to you, The Listener.”

CALI

“What are you… are you supposed to be pointing at something… Okay, what the hell is that?!”

HANNAH

“That… That’s the Listener. They’ve basically been here the whole time. Listening. It’s honestly way less creepy than it seems.”

CALI

“The whole time? Like even in… Nebraska? In… in Blind Pete’s barn?”

HANNAH

“Yuuuup.”

CALI

“Well, that’s embarrassing.”

HANNAH

“Yeah. A little bit. I mean, to be fair, you weren’t the one that had to get all naked.”

CALI

“In my defence, that dress was SO gross, Hannah. And you were covered in dead guy. Smelly, disgusting dead guy.”

[Cali and Hannah laugh it off a bit. Let it trail off, pause, let the scene breathe]

CALI

“Why… how - does this feel so natural? It’s like I’ve… known you all my life. My heart’s beating fast and nervous, racing and excited… like I’m crushing hard on you. And I know I should be freaking out, right? Like, really freaking out. I shouldn’t be laughing about your dress, or remembering how all over the place I felt in that barn in ‘Braska. How warm your skin was when I thought you’d be… dead and cold. I should be losing it right now, shouldn’t I? Or fuck, maybe I am? Maybe this is what crazy feels like. It’s… that everyone I ever knew, everyone I grew up with, is apparently outside that door and they’re zombies now and… I’m… fine with that? I’m so confused I want to scream, but also smile with relief at the same time? I’m hot and cold, Hannah.”

HANNAH (sombre)

“I think it’s me, Cali. Somehow… I think it’s because I don’t want you to… hate me. I’m influencing you, like the zombies, and I don’t know how to stop. But I’m going to figure this out. For both of us. If you let me. If you want to stay, that is.”

[FADE OUT]