Christopher sighed with exasperation as he watched the latest dailies on his monitor. The scene had taken all day to shoot, nearly driving everyone to tears, and yet it still wasn't right. The actors were stiff and wooden, giving underwhelming performances that showed little in the way of emotion, but he could hardly blame them, given what they had to react to.

He had always hated the idea of extensively using CGI, but the test shoots with the makeup and prosthetics had proved extremely unsatisfactory; he had seen children on Halloween wearing better zombie costumes than that. So, against his better judgment, he had decided to try filming in front of a greenscreen.

This was proving to be no better, though; how was he supposed to get convincing reactions out of his cast when all they had to look at was a tennis ball on a stick? On top of that, judging from the pre-visual effects the animation department had sent him, the CG zombies would probably end up looking more like a Looney Tune than a convincing monster. It looked like he was going to have to try his backup plan.

He walked over to the mini-freezer on the counter and opened it up. Inside was a tiny vial of black liquid that an intern had swiped from a nearby biological laboratory. The label was gone, but he knew what was inside: samples of SARS-CoV-2, ebolavirus, bubonic bacterium, and a hodgepodge of other viruses all mixed up, augmented, and mutated into the ultimate biological weapon. He smiled.

Two weeks later, Christopher sat back and watched the infected extras tear into the lead actress, biting her throat open and spraying blood all over the set. She screamed and begged for help, almost bringing a tear to his eye. Now that was genuine emotion.

Even after he yelled "cut", they continued their rampage, attacking the crew and pulling their entrails out. Christopher kept filming; they were on a roll, why not let them ad-lib? He smiled with satisfaction. This would nab him the Oscar for sure.