A Vietnamese woman and teenage boy prepare to infiltrate a refugee work camp to free interned Asians and Arabs. They discuss their bleak options for where to take the refugees, as most regions are hostile to outsiders or overrun with zombies. The woman believes they must try to help fellow refugees, even though success seems unlikely. She and the boy walk together down the hill toward the camp, ready to begin their risky mission to "start the revolution."

1. REVOLUTION HUSTLE
Written by
Chelsea Adamczyk

2. FADE IN:
EXT. MOUTAIN PATH - DUSK
A couple of ZOMBIES mosey along the path, GROANING. A BANG
rings out. A ZOMBIE drops. ANOTHER RINGS. The remaining
ghoul’s head explodes.
Enter WOMAN (30s). BOY (teens) eventually catches up. Both
are of Vietnamese decent. She sits in the grass, drops her
PACK down besides her. She drums her fingers on a PISTOL.
WOMAN
Here.
BOY
Are you sure this is the spot?
Long pause. Woman looks through BINOCULARS.
WOMAN
Yep.
Silence. Boy shifts. Long beat. She lowers the binoculars.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
What’re you thinking about, kiddo?
BOY
A messy plate of nachos. You?
WOMAN
A hot bowl of pho.
BOY
What about that lady with the
snacks out by that one camp? You
remember, that one just outside the
remains of Kansas City?
Boy squats next to Woman.
WOMAN
Dirty beef water and instant
spaghetti does not good pho make.
You of all people should feel me on
that one.
BOY
Certainly wasn’t as good as my
gram’s. That’s for sure.
Woman LAUGHS.

3. 2.
In the distance, the silhouette of GIANT METAL PISTONS rise
into the sky. The hydraulic arms lift the pistons
repetitively jackknifed and then stretches with a GROAN.
The drums of steel hang suspended in the air for a moment,
like the hammers of gods poised to strike, then drops dully
to the earth with loud THUMPS. The ground SHAKES.
The Boy points.
BOY (CONT'D)
At least the pistons at the camps
keeps the zombies away...
WOMAN
At what cost? Hm? You know about
the work camps. The Asians and
Arabs forcibly interned there would
probably have a more enlightened
view.
BOY
Oh, boy, I got her started again.
WOMAN
(heated)
Fed lies that the incarcerated are
doing a service for their country
by maintaining the pistons. Keeping
them fueled, repairing them. It’s
sick.
BOY
Just trying to be an optimist...
Woman leans back. Pulls off boots. Curls red toes in grass.
BOY (CONT'D)
I see you chose red.
WOMAN
I did them myself this time.
BOY
(dryly)
You didn’t let me do it? You took a
job away from a fellow immigrant?
Woman smiles and reaches into her PACK. Begins to load
bullets into spare magazines for an AK-47. Boy notices two
zombies at the bottom of the hill shambling slowly towards.
2.

4. 3.
WOMAN
Bad television. I miss bad
television.
Boy readies his RIFLE and looks through its scope.
BOY
I miss reading trashy magazines at
the dentist’s office.
The zombie ambling closest to them wears a dirty RED
TRUCKER’S CAP. Boy puts TRUCKER ZOMBIE in his crosshairs.
BOY (CONT'D)
Think they caught a whiff of us?
WOMAN
Shouldn’t have. We’re downwind.
(beat)
You sure you want to go down there
with me?
BOY
I mean, there’s no easy way to
answer that. We’re here, after all.
Boy does not take his sights from the walking corpse, nor
does he reply. Woman shrugs.
WOMAN
Don’t blame ya. One of these days,
I’m going to get both of us killed.
BOY
You’re damn right. This feels like
a suicide mission.
Woman LAUGHS. She unloads several GRENADES from the PACK. She
counts them to herself.
WOMAN
Better than being locked up in a
prison camp like a fucking sardine.
BOY
I see your point.
(beat)
You know, even if we succeed in
getting into camp, some of them
aren’t going to want to come with
us.
3.

5. 4.
WOMAN
I know. I mean, you’re getting
three square meals a day, and
you’re living in a camp protected
from zombies by the U.S. military.
BOY
No, no, it’s “armed private
militarized contractors.”
Boy shifts his footing. Keeps eyes on the wandering dead.
BOY (CONT'D)
For the ones that follow us, where
do we take them? Alaska?
WOMAN
We’d have better odds of creating a
time machine and going back to try
to prevent all this from happening.
BOY
Hawaii?
WOMAN
No way they’d let us in. We’re like
dogs with rabies to them.
BOY
Out East?
WOMAN
East Coast, no way. They might be
the most racially mixed region
left, but a group of Asians and
Arabs walking out of the middle of
nowhere? They’d shoot us before
we’d get within sight of that
ridiculous wall of theirs or ship
us back to one of those prison
camps. I don’t want to get into
that fight between Mexico and the
new nation-state of Texas in the
South. Southwest is New Aztlan and
the other united Native folks,
they’ve got their hands full
shoring up against raiders and
zombies.
Boy readies his RIFLE. Shoots. TRUCKER HAT ZOMBIE falls.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
Nice, kiddo. You’ve improved a lot
these past five months.
4.

6. 5.
BOY
It’s already been five months?
WOMAN
Mhm. Ten since the pandemic
started.
Woman LAUGHS nervously. She grits her teeth. Closes her eyes.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
It’s absurd. I’m still not over it.
Seventy percent of the American
population turns zombie, and those
that didn’t had to blame someone.
BOY
If only they had just tried to talk
to us about it.
WOMAN
You’re so innocent. Many of the
people who were taken by the
wasting disease happened to be
white, and God was not a viable
culprit.
BOY
Maybe up North they’d let in one or
two of us.
WOMAN
With an entire group of Asian and
Arab refugees recently busted out
of federal labor camp? They’d
probably get threatened with a
drone bombing for agreeing to help
any of us.
BOY
Even further North. Canada?
WOMAN
Where all the white hunters and
survivalists have dug in? Deer have
got a better chance of going into
those woods and surviving than we
do.
BOY
Don’t mess with Ontario.
(beat)
The homeland? Somewhere in Asia?
5.

7. 6.
WOMAN
No. It’s right in the middle of
America for our people, or nothing.
BOY
And we’re just going to one camp?
WOMAN
The first one, at least.
BOY
Are you kidding me? There’s no way
we can do this.
Boy begins to walk off. Woman stands.
WOMAN
Do it for gram.
BOY
Do not bring her into this. She’s
been dead a lot longer than those
zombies out there.
WOMAN
I understand you’re scared. I am,
too. But we have to try, kid.
Boy turns around. GROANS and trudges back. Boy walks over and
looks downhill.
BOY
How many more camps are there just
like that one? We can’t save
everyone.
WOMAN
I don’t know.
She walks over to Boy. Embraces him gently.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
I need you with me. I wouldn’t be
much of a leader if I didn’t have
at least one follower.
BOY
It’s too much to ask for a happy
ending?
WOMAN
I don’t know if there are happy
endings left.
6.

8. 7.
Long pause. She gathers her PISTOL and PACK.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
I miss hotel rooms. I used to love
to travel, you know? Before all of
this. Sure, hotel rooms were never
yours. But I loved that you came
back to a place that wasn’t yours,
and someone made the bed for you.
Woman puts a hand on Boy’s shoulder. They stand in silence
for a moment. The pistons swallow the moonlight.
BOY
We’ll make it out alright, won’t
we?
WOMAN
I have faith in two things: that
there’s good pho still out there
and that our arsenal gives us a
damn good chance.
She pats her pack. They stride down the hill together
straight to the camp.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
Let’s go start the revolution.
FADE TO BLACK.
7.