Clarksville: Prop maker spends time dreaming up ways to kill zombies on locally filmed ‘Z Nation’

She goes to bed and wakes up obsessing about the same thing:

Zombies.

And how to kill them.

And, no, Kalise Wallace isn’t nuts.

She’s the prop maker for “Z Nation,” that “other” apocalyptical TV zombie series. “Z Nation,” which airs on the SyFy channel, has been picked up for a second season and – best of all – is filmed and produced right here in Spokane.

“How to kill zombies, that’s all I think about,” said Wallace, an athletic 36-year-old with a blond Mohawk and a punk rock vibe.

“Wherever I go. Everything and anything I look at. I’m constantly thinking if it can be used.”

Actually, I wasn’t at all surprised when my hometown became center stage for a series about zombies.

Hello? Have you ever been to a City Council meeting?

But our political undead aside, Wallace’s job isn’t as easy as you might think. The sticking point is that fans of the gory genre have tired of all the now-clichéd ways to put a zombie down.

(Bullet to the brain, knife to the brain, hammer to the brain …)

You get the idea.

The pressure is on this affable woman. She must keep coming up with new and unusual weaponry that can be used to dispatch flesh-eating cadavers that are no longer bound by the laws of mortality.

Take the ice ax Wallace found the other day in a mountaineering store.

She picked it up. She hefted it.

This baby could slay a lot of zombies, she mused.

As her imagination kicked in, Wallace began waving the ice ax around and making loud and menacing “Hi-YAH!!” karate sounds.

She really enjoys her work.

People in the store naturally began to stare. At which point Wallace began trying to explain how she, um, needs props to kill, um, zombies for a TV show and …

Few civilians ever understand.

“But I’ve found a lot of cool stuff,” she added. “There are things in Spokane that L.A. just doesn’t have.”

Which is good for “Z Nation” since the show takes place several years after the so-called zombie apocalypse has set in.

The American bullet supply has pretty much been double-tapped out. The economy is wrecked. The whole country looks completely ravaged, even worse than Detroit if you can believe it.

The war against zombies must be waged with whatever the heroes can salvage or make.

Speaking of which, “Z Nation” is centered on a wandering group of humans that just might have the cure to the zombie plague, which would also be a great name for a heavy metal band.

Unfortunately, that lab is way way off in California.

The good news, however, is that there are lots of zombies to kill along the way.

Just don’t get bit. That’s Rule 1 of any decent zombie show.

When I heard about Wallace and her quest, I knew I had to meet her – and not just for my own selfish story purposes.

The image of my late-father’s “clinker grabber” popped into mind. I knew Wallace would want it.

See, back in the 1950s our home on the South Hill was heated by a giant smelly coal furnace.

The trouble with using coal is that as it burns, the black fossil fuel turns into rocklike waste called clinkers.

Every few days, said clinkers must be removed to make room for more coal.

Enter the grabber: a long greenish steel rod with a handle at one end and three nasty pincher claws at the other.

My old man used it to grab the still-hot clinkers, which he placed in a metal ash can.

To my mind, that grabber would make one fine zombie killer.

As it turned out, Wallace and I have a mutual friend in Marianne Guenther Bornhoft. At my request, she set up a meeting in the furnace room of the old Clark homestead and …

“Ooh,” Wallace exclaimed, hefting the strange heirloom and working the claw. “This makes me jolly.”

Before she left, Wallace took possession of my grabber, the ornate handle to a wood stove and an ancient hoe that my grandfather used to decapitate weeds.

My heart was swelling with pride.

Wallace may embellish the tools with extra blades or sharpened barbs. Part of her job is to give the weapons an over-the-top lethality.

The curvy mace she made out of sharpened motorcycle sprockets is a good example. The good folks at “Z Nation” dubbed it “The Spokesman” in honor of Spokane and this fine family newspaper.

Wallace’s varied background makes her well suited for such an offbeat job.

Born in Richland, Wallace is an artist who sold a painting at age 15. She’s also worked as an electrician, a carpenter and even an auto mechanic.

“Life is not just an uphill journey to success,” she said. “I believe it’s more of a crooked road.”

Once a weapon is completed, Wallace then makes a harmless but exact replica for the actors to use.

That’s logical. It would make a lot of extra work for the writers if, say, one of the characters accidentally sheared off a co-star’s ear during a scene.

Filmmaking, after all, is about magic and illusion. And the trickery doesn’t stop with Wallace’s weapons.

“Z Nation” is a road show with characters traveling from one city to another. Yet the series is shot entirely in the Spokane area.

It’s up to the behind-the-scenes artists to turn sections of Spokane into a believable Manhattan, New Jersey or Philadelphia scene.

“That’s the fun, challenging aspect,” said Vince De Felice, the “Z Nation” production designer.

Spokane, he added, has a lot of different looks. With the right amount of artistic chicanery, it can become whatever the script calls for.

Hide the wheelchair access ramps. Rebuild the sidewalks. Turn parking meters into vintage mailboxes.

De Felice has done all these things over the years for cinematic purposes.

One of “Z Nation’s” wackier first-season episodes called for a row of zombies to be mowed down by a runaway Liberty Bell.

No kidding.

Season two also has “some pretty crazy stuff coming up,” he vowed.

As campy as “Z Nation” may be, Wallace and De Felice know the effects and artwork must always pass the audience sniff test.

The “willful suspension of disbelief,” it’s called.

“It’s gotta be real. It’s gotta be true,” said Wallace, adding that everything she makes has to look plausible and authentic enough to actually work.

Trust me, Kalise. That grabber is the real deal.

Of course, I know that it’s a crapshoot whether or not any of my donated implements make the show.

But as I watched my new friend drive away from the home I grew up in, I couldn’t help but feel a deep satisfaction in knowing that I had done my small part in the war against the zombie menace.

Hi-YAH!!