Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Superhero and Horror Movie Reviews

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
21: A Trek for Food

It’s been two days since I last posted. To be honest, I forgot about you. See, there’s something about Selena that you need to understand: Time dissolves when she’s around. The passing of moments are barely acknowledged and if they are kept track of, it’s done on a subconscious level and never on purpose. You know when to eat, to sleep and all the rest, but I don’t recall looking at my watch until just this morning, the digital date informing me how long it’s been since I told you about Selena’s dream. Some reading this might say two days isn’t a long time. You don’t understand. In the world I live in, one filled to the brim with the undead, two days is a very long time. Add being reunited with the love of your life after you thought you killed her and Time has no meaning.
Hold on a second . . .
. . .
. . .
Selena asked what I was doing. I thought it might be best to keep this blog a secret. For now. See, girls are finicky like that: they want a guy who needs them, but not one who really needs them. The sad part is, it’s hard for us guys to find that balance.
Anyway, I just said I was writing down some thoughts about the zombies and coming up with a game plan to keep us safe. In a way, it was partially true, but it’s killing me to keep this blog from her. But this thing needs to be written in case something happens to me. There needs to be a record of trying to live on this zombie-infested planet. And if I’m going to be the one to write it, I’m going to do it my way and include the girl of my dreams.
Back to the task at hand: Selena. I know some of you are sick of hearing about her, but it’s important I share everything with you. You’ll understand in the end—if I live long enough to get to the end or even if there is an end.
Food is scarce. We’re not starving, but it’s becoming a challenge to find what we need as either what is found is already rotten, or I end up being the one to clean out an abandoned pantry or kitchen cupboard and there’s not much there to begin with.
Selena and I went on a food hunt yesterday. She insisted on coming, though I pleaded with her to stay at the apartment for her own safety.
“I’d feel safer if I was with someone,” she said. “Besides, I can hold my own, if we need to.”
“I’m sure you can,” I said, though I didn’t really think so. She never struck me as the warrior type. Further–and, yeah, think of me as a politically-incorrect/insensitive/ignorant fool—but, despite the whole “all for equality” mantra that was so prevalent in society, the reality is the children were the first to be eaten, then the women, then the men. Girls are just not as strong as guys. Save for a few exceptions, we dominate. Hunters and gatherers and all that jazz. As for Selena, she’s the kind of girl who, when you hug her, you can feel her frailness. Not that she’s weak, but her frame is small and I’ve never seen her lift anything heavy. Even when she used to give me a good squeeze, there wasn’t a moment where I went, “Okay, that’s enough.”
Digression over.
Selena and I hit the streets. I was armed with my razor-covered baseball bat. She had a cleaver from the kitchen. Unless we had to weave around fallen vehicles or rubble, I made sure she was beside me the whole time.
It took an hour, but we made a direct line from my apartment north to Chinatown. Back in the day, it was one of the most colourful areas in Comptropolis. The curved and rounded roofs with their swooping eaves stood high and proud over elegant shops, some made of solid glass except for their structural supports. Neon signs hung in windows; others naming the restaurant or store in big, bold oriental-styled letters. A tourist attraction, sure, but there was more to it than that. There was a sense of history and cultural pride, something that was lost in most other parts of the city when Comtropolis made its mad dash for modernism.
The downside of searching Chinatown for food was the Chinese used a lot of fresh ingredients in their cuisine. By now, all of it would be rotted. However, the Chinese were also wizards at drying foods and I hoped we could round up a bag or two of rice, noodles, powdered soups and dehydrated vegetables.
At the edge of Chinatown, Selena and I stood side by side.
It had been a quiet walk over. Any undead we saw were quickly avoided by us ducking in behind zipcars or under benches or in bus stops. But here in Chinatown, we had a big problem: the undead roamed the streets, many of them gathered in packs. I counted at least thirty zombies from where I stood.
“Think they see us?” Selena asked. Her voice wavered and I guessed she was still upset over her dream and what she saw before her was too much for her. But to be honest, it is too much. For anybody.
“Not yet, but they will. All it takes is one. After that, they all see you, like their brains are connected somehow.”
“What do we do?”
“Sneak around. I want to hit The Wok over there.” I nodded in the restaurant’s direction.
Selena peered down the street. It took her a moment, but it appeared she finally saw the burned-out sign reading THE WOK. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What’s the plan?”
It was then I really wished she wasn’t with me. If anything happened to her . . . (and yeah, I realize my feelings for her are messed up and I’ve done things too horrible to be forgiven for, but you trying living in a world filled with zombies and do better. No, really, go for it. I’ll be right here if you need me.)
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “Stay close. They come near, first try to avoid them. If you can’t, lay into them with that knife of yours. Just be careful it doesn’t get stuck in them and you lose it. Cool?”
“Okay. You be careful.”
“I will.”
We started in, cautiously, nearly tiptoeing. Less than five feet from where we started, and an undead guy with mottled deep gray skin saw us. He changed direction and started toward us, feet dragging. He brushed past another zombie—a girl with no nose and blood running from her chin—his shoulder scraping strongly against hers enough to turn her so she faced us. On our right, another one saw us.
“Keep going straight,” I said. “Don’t go out of your way to get them.” I did want to take my bat across their undead skulls, but with Selena by my side, getting to The Wok in one piece was more important.
We went around another vehicle, eyes trained forward on the restaurant. More undead saw us. More drew closer.
The moment the dead guy with deep gray skin brushed his fingers against my shoulder, I swung the bat into his head. The razors caught on his skin and peeled his nose and cheek from his face. I raised the bat high then brought it down on his head. The bone cracked and the creature fell to its knees. Selena yelped. I took the bat across the zombie’s head again. It’s neck broke and its head snapped to the side; the razors on my bat took more flesh and bone with it. The zombie fell over.
Selena screamed and an undead dude who was too overweight for even a zombie had his hand on her shoulder. Shrieking, she tried to pull away. The zombie gripped her right shoulder and jerked her toward her. About to come in with the bat, I was stopped when another zombie stepped in front of me. I jabbed the bat into its chest, then brought it around so I clocked it in the back of the head.
Selena turned on her heels, raised the cleaver, and brought it down on the zombie’s wrist. She wasn’t strong enough to have brought the cleaver clean through, but the force was enough to give the undead man pause and look at his hand. That was enough time for me to make two giant strides over to it and bring the bat across its skull. The creature fell to the ground. I went over to its arm, put my foot down on it, then ripped the cleaver from its wrist and handed it to Selena.
“Here,” I said.
She took it.
“Hold it harder. Try chopping instead of just slamming it into something.”
She nodded.
More zombies closed in.
“Watch out,” I said, referring to myself, not them.
I lunged forward, bringing my bat down into every undead head that filled my vision. Men, women, even children received a blow to the head. Some stayed down, others didn’t. Those that stumbled to the side or fell but got back up received another swing. One guy’s head burst on impact. I don’t know what that was about. It was almost like hitting a watermelon. Over-decayed, maybe, though his skin wasn’t in too bad of shape.
A little girl with no lips grabbed hold of my leg and tried to bite my thigh. I brought the base of the bat in between her face and my leg, then pried it back over my leg like a crowbar, loosening her hold on me. Taking a step away, I wound up and brought the bat into her face in a golf swing. The force was enough to lift her off her feet and go flying, a spray of blood hitting the air with her.
To my right, Selena hacked into an old man with no shirt. She ripped the cleaver from the side of his neck. Blood spurted out in an arc. She brought the knife in on the other side.
“I got it,” I said, moving in. She removed the blade and I took the bat across the old guy’s head. The flesh and bones of his neck gave way and his head went flying off his shoulders.
Taking Selena by the hand, I brought her close then ran with her past a couple zombies and in between two more. We were almost at the restaurant.
“Get behind me,” I said and began swinging the bat side-to-side. Every zombie that got close got struck. On one of them, my bat got stuck in between its neck and shoulder and I had to pry it loose while waving off the undead man’s hands as he tried to grab me.
With a shriek, Selena brought the cleaver down and into the man’s forehead.
“Nice,” I said.
“Thanks.” She grinned. It was the first time I saw her smile all day.
Forcing myself to remain focused, I took out another zombie and Selena and I made it to The Wok’s front doors. They were glass and the glass was smashed. Others had been here first.
We ran inside and was immediately greeted by a mound of bodies, mostly piles of bones and gobs of dry and wet flesh. Anything obviously humanoid was lost in the grue.
“Disgusting,” Selena said. “Stinks.”
“Awful, I know. Let’s go.”
The groans of the dead filled the air behind us, as did their banging and clamouring as they made their way into the building.
“We don’t have much time,” I said.
We ran through the dining room, past turned over tables and strewn-about white tablecloths smeared with blood. I accidentally kicked a severed arm when I ran by it.
We burst through the kitchen doors. Silver pots and pans lay everywhere. Metallic cupboard doors hung open and bare. The deep freeze door at the back of the room was also open.
“Pantry. Pantry. Pantry,” I said.
Selena stayed close to me as I walked around and scanned the room.
“Sure this place has food?” she asked.
“I didn’t say I was sure. Just never been here. Most everything between my place and Chinatown has been picked clean. This area was the next stop on my list.”
Footfalls thumped against the ground in the other room.
“Hurry, Marty. Hurry,” she said.
“I know.”
But I couldn’t see the pantry.
The kitchen door swung open.
The dead shambled in.
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Due to my pressing deadline of needing to finish Possession of the Dead by the end of this weekend, all my writing energies are focused in that direction.

Zomtropolis, though a regular thing, is a kind of side project so has the flexibility to be put on hold temporarily if the need arises.

Sincerest apologies, but it needs to be done.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Thanks for your understanding.

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
20: Selena’s Dream

Selena awoke screaming. I was in the next room about to write you something else, but instead was jolted from the first few sentences by Selena’s shrieks and her kicking at the couch. I ran into the room. She was on her back, arms flailing, legs coming down on the worn couch cushions heels first. I’ve seen her sleep before. Back when we were dating, she told me about the occasional nightmare, but not once did she talk about freaking out like she was doing on my couch just now.
Her eyes were closed.
I called her name.
She kept screaming, kept kicking.
I called her name again. Nothing. Just hysterics-while-sleeping.
I thought about going over to her and putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a little shake. I didn’t. Didn’t want her to lash out at me and besides, I figured, if she was flipping out this bad on her own, what was a little shake by me going to do? It was kind of like watching an epileptic having a seizure: the most you could do was wait it out and make sure they didn’t hurt themselves in the process.
Finally, after several long minutes, her screaming and flailing ceased. She opened her eyes, sat up abruptly, face shiny with sweat, and tried to catch her breath.
I waited a few moments before saying anything. “You okay?”
Still panting, she looked at me. “I saw them, Marty. I saw them. So real. So flippin’—” She coughed. It was a deep cough, one loaded with phlegm. She winced as she tried to stifle another one.
“I’ll get you some water,” I said and hit the kitchen. When I came back and handed her the glass—water jugs are still around, for those wondering; water doesn’t suddenly disappear when the world goes down; don’t trust the movies—she held it for a while before taking a sip. Once done, she set the glass down on the coffee table and kept looking around the living room as if expecting a zombie to jump out at her at any moment.
“We’re safe here,” I said. “We’re up high. Everything’s locked. It’s okay.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “Well, it is. The dream, Marty. So real. Vivid. Every face. Every sound. Every smell. Never had smell in a dream before.”
Come to think of it, she had a point. I don’t remember ever smelling anything in my dreams either.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked.
Back when she and I were together, we were real good at confiding secrets, talking all night and overloading each other with information. It seemed she remembered that because a calm came over her face and the way she looked at me indicated she trusted me to spill her guts.
I sat beside her and listened.
“I was in a hallway,” she said. “Dark. The walls were silver. I knew that because there was the occasional bit of light that seeped into the hallway from the rooms that ran off it and it illuminated the wall enough to see they were silver. You know, tinfoil-like, but not crinkled. The floors were silver, too. Same with the ceilings. I remember thinking in the dream that I wanted to find a light switch so I could see the light shimmer off the walls. It’d be like being inside a diamond.
“So that’s what I did: looked for a light switch.
“The air smelled like lemon cleaner, but also like compost. Real weird combination. As I went down the hallway, I heard footsteps behind me. I stopped, turned around and far away at the opposite end was a human-like shadow. I could tell by its posture that it was female and that it was dead.
“It started moving toward me.”
She took a deep breath. I already felt my heartbeat double with apprehension.
“I turned and picked up my pace,” Selena said. “The undead woman’s footsteps got closer together and I didn’t have to look back to know it was stumbling toward me with everything it had. I tried running, but no matter how hard I dug in, I still couldn’t get past going at a walking pace.
“Moans filled the hallway. Low, hollow moans that at first didn’t sound like it would come from the undead. Then groans started and the growls. That one coming up at me from behind wasn’t alone. The hallway I was in just kept going. Silver walls all looking the same, no sense of distance or goal at the end.
“I glanced over my shoulder. A pack of female zombies were, like, twenty feet behind, if that. Their grubby hands were already reaching out for me. Dark hair, their mouths open, all naked. What was bizarre was their pale skin didn’t appear all that decayed, from what I could see. Didn’t matter, though. That gray was disgusting. So lifeless, so wan and empty of blood. Makes me shudder just thinking about it. I could smell them, like cooking oil left on the stove hours too long after a deep fry.
“My thighs burned. I kept running anyway until it was like my legs were filled with sand and every step forward was like lugging tree stumps for feet.
“The undead moaned and growled.
“Dead hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back. I fell and hit the floor. I remember looking at the silver ceiling beyond their dead faces, the silver reflecting the scene below. There were over a dozen of them now, all naked and dead and crowding over me trying to get a piece. A pair of hands reached down and tugged at my clothes. I wore a hospital gown. They tore that off then sharp dirty fingernails poked their way into my skin, through the flesh and in between the bones of my ribcage. They just kept digging. Soon they were in far enough they were able to curl the ends of their fingers around those bones and they started to pull.
“I howled, but not from pain. I just howled because I thought that was what I was supposed to do.
“Blood sprayed everywhere. Bones snapped. They pulled my ribs away from my body, my flesh hanging off the bones like tattered rags. The undead women brought the bones to their lips and sucked the meat off before chewing on the bones themselves.
“I glanced at my chest and saw nothing but a wet, black bowl spurting blood and bubbling over with internal organs. They ripped my lungs from my body. I stopped breathing. My stomach, guts, liver, kidneys—everything—they tore free and brought the red and dripping chunks of meat to their mouths. Blood dripped from their faces and splashed onto my own. I wanted to scream but, again, I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was scream inside my head. I tried kicking and using my arms to push them away but I couldn’t move.
“The wet sounds of them eating . . . I can still hear them now. Those sounds.” She pressed her palms to her chest and stomach as if checking to make sure she was still intact. “They just ate and ate.”
Her lower lip began to quiver. I wondered if I should try and hold her. I was about to reach out for her, but she said, “Marty, it was so real.”
“You’re safe now,” I said.
“No, no one’s safe. They’re out there. We’ve both seen them.”
“They don’t know we’re here.”
She picked up her glass of water and took a slow sip. When she was done, she held the glass with both hands. “I don’t know how long that’s going to last.”

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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
19: Now, With Selena Here
Selena’s sleeping on my couch as I type this. I gave her a pair of underwear, socks, brown sweatpants and a green sweatshirt. They should keep her warm enough and provide some sense of security. I had wanted to rest, too, but I’m afraid that if I fall asleep, I’ll awake later and she’ll be gone.
I can’t let that happen despite what I did to her—to that zombie—earlier. I don’t know who that creature was back in her apartment, but obviously it wasn’t her.
The things I said.
The thing I did.
I’m pathetic.
The main question is: what now? What does this mean, her and I reconnecting? I can’t make too much of it. Not with the city the way it is. So far as I know, we’re safe here. I got some water, some food, clothing, the basics. Eventually that stuff is going to run out and we’re going to have to get more if we want to survive. Before, I didn’t really care all that much about survival. The original plan was to hang out as much as I could and then if one of those monsters devoured me or I simply died of starvation or dehydration, I was fine with it.
Now, with Selena here, suddenly everything’s changed.
Selena’s good at that: changing things.
I’m going to wait for her to wake up. When she does, the first thing we need to do is get some stuff settled. I’ll remind her that our survival is at stake.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into an argument.
Let’s just hope she doesn’t storm out of here and get herself killed.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
18: Selena

I’m not ready for this.
Selena’s supposed to be dead, and not just dead, but undead.
I would know.
I killed her.
Yet there she was, human, on the other side of my door. Through the fisheye lens of the peephole, there doesn’t seem to be a mark on her face. I can’t see the rest of her body, only a dark blur beneath the neck. I hope the rest of her is all right but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if I’ve finally lost it and all this is an illusion, some kind of wishful thinking that is manifesting before my eyes.
I can scarcely breathe. A dead weight is on my toe. I kick it away and hear my baseball bat roll awkwardly to the side, one of the pieces of glass glued to it breaking as it moves across the floor.
Hand shaking, one eye still glued to the peephole, I slowly unlocked the door, felt my way up the doorframe to the chain, unhooked it.
She stood there on the other side, brown eyes wide and uncertain, a million thoughts clearly racing behind them.
Something moves in the peephole, small, delicate, flesh-toned.
Knock, knock.
Then again, only louder.
“Yeah,” I said, but my voice is only a whisper.
Any strength I had within was gone and I found myself on the floor, a sharp pain racing up my tailbone and into my lower back.
“Marty?” I hear through the door. “Is that you? Please, let it be.”
For the longest time I would have given anything to hear her call my name again and now that it’s finally happening, I wish she was gone.
Like I said, I’m not ready for this.
Heart speeding, pulsing in my throat and thumping through every vein in my body, I braced myself against the door and, using it for leverage, slowly pull myself up.
“I’m here,” I said. Same thing. My voice was a whisper.
Fingers trembling, I turned the door knob and pulled, the door weighing a thousand pounds and then some. It took two hands to pry it open.
Still leaning against it, I took in the sight before me. My heart was empty, hollow, void of feeling and life.
Selena stood a couple feet from the door, barefoot, wearing nothing but a grubby garbage bag, which hung on her like a dress from the dark.
“You’re alive,” I rasped.
“Marty, I need to come in,” she said.
We stood there in silence, my mind void of thought. This was Selena, the girl from long ago and the one who changed everything for me. She was here, alive, at my door in a world of zombies.
“Then who’d I kill?”
I barely mouthed the words but she must have heard them because she said, “Who’d you kill?”
I killed you, I thought. I beat your brains out and unloaded on you all my hate and pain and— “Come in.”
I moved from the door and she stepped into my apartment.
Crnch.
Selena shrieked, dropped to the floor and cradled her foot. I knelt down beside her.
She had stepped on that piece of glass that had broken off the bat.

* * *

There was only one way to handle this: pretend she wasn’t her and clean her up. After that, I could figure things out. If living in a world filled with the undead had taught me anything, it was that sometimes you had to stop feeling, stop caring, stop being what it meant to be human and just go through the motions. Survival was like that whether physical or otherwise.
I always hated “otherwise.”
Selena was now sitting my cough, me kneeling before her, her foot in my lap. I ignored how good it felt to hold her heel in my hand and suppressed the memory of the time I kissed every inch of her body, starting with her feet. I gently removed the piece of glass with a pair of tweezers then pressed hard against the wound with a cloth. She winced. I told her it was going to be okay. A moment later she reached down and her hands replaced mine. Again I had to fight the resurgence of memory when her soft hands trailed against my own.
I stood, took several steps back, and began pacing.
It was silent for a long time and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was too busy attending to her foot or if it was because silence was what happened every time you ran into an ex.
But this wasn’t “running in.” She had come here intentionally.
“Everybody’s dead,” she said.
I stopped pacing. “I know.”
“Except me and you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You can’t.”
“I do.”
“No, you can’t,” I said firmly.
“The city’s empty, Marty.”
“Some might be indoors, like us. Besides” —I strolled over to my window and looked down onto the street— “they’re out there.”
“I know. I saw a million of them on the way over here.” I turned to face her. She glanced up from her foot. “I don’t even know how I made it here without them touching me.”
“Where we you?”
“Home.”
The last thing that I wanted was to come across as a creepy ex-boyfriend even though I was one hundred percent certain that was how she viewed me and she was only here because she had nowhere else to go and it was better to be with someone than no one at all, but I had to tell her. “Selena, I was just at your place.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Yeah, for real. I was there. I came to see you. I had to see you.” The last bit obviously made her uncomfortable because after I said it she immediately went back to tending to her foot.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Regardless, I was there. There were zombies in your apartment. You weren’t. I checked the whole place, so unless you were hiding somewhere over there that I don’t know about and didn’t bother even peeking to see what the commotion was about, you need to tell me where you’ve been and why only now you decided to come see me.”
She looked up from her foot but not at me. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Just listen and believe whatever you want. I was home. I heard the dead, the groans, the biting of flesh. I don’t remember you being there or seeing you and it may just be shock right now so I’m forgetting something, but I remembering walking and walking.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Wait.” She glanced down at the garbage bag covering her. “Oh no.” She sniffled. She glanced up at me, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I have lost something or something happened or…”
I came over to her, sat beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. She pulled away.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No, it’s just that I was walking and I don’t know for how long then I looked down on myself and…and I wasn’t wearing anything. Nothing. I—” She paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t know how I lost my clothes or if one of those things tore them off or what, but anyway I found this” —she touched the garbage bag— “put it on and realized I was close to your place.” She turned away and shame coated her voice. “I didn’t want to come.”
I took a deep breath. “I understand.”
“Sorry.”
“You need to get cleaned up. I’ll give you something to wear. We’ll take it slow and figure things out. Just know that we’re safe for now, okay?”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
I left the room and headed to my bedroom. Once inside, I leaned against the wall. She didn’t want to come here and only did out of desperation.
I wished I knew what happened to her.

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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.

17: Watersheds (redo)

Like I said, my life changed because of one girl. Now, it seems, it’s changing again thanks to the world’s decent into chaos and the living dead.
In that bedroom, sitting next to her body, covered in blood, I didn’t cry. Most people would. Anyone who kills the one they love would bawl till their eyes bled. But I do remember the buzzing inside my head, my brain feel soaked with alcohol and the lightheadedness that goes with being stoned.
I sat there, her head in my lap, my hands stroking her hair over what was left of her skull after I had dismantled it with the Louisville. Glancing around her room, I remembered that particular time I hinted at earlier.
It was the time she and I had first made love.
Both of us had been raised proper, the idea being not to have sex before marriage. Believe me, many nights after long make out sessions we fought with everything we had to not give in and go one or ten steps further. In hindsight—and perhaps this is only the part of me my parents raised talking—I’m glad we abstained as long as we did because the night we did first get glimpse into each other worlds was so powerful that I’m sure our abstinence played a huge part in it.
That hallway, the two of us, walking down it hand-in-hand, each breathing choppy due to racing and apprehensive hearts, was like a tunnel to a new world where discovery awaited and rebirth was just around the corner.
We went into the bathroom first, Selena turning on the shower, the room suddenly filling with the moist warmth of steam and the security that goes with it.
I was in a regular T-shirt and jeans that night. She wore jeans, too, and an oversized white sweatshirt from the high school she went to.
When she turned toward me after testing the water, she smiled, brown eyes glowing, both of us scared and excited.
We didn’t really plan this per se, but more so came up with the idea while watching television in her living room, ignoring what was on and instead focusing on each other. One didn’t even have to tell the other that we were going to take the next step. We both just kind of knew. I looked her, she looked at me, and we both nodded at the same time.
The shower part was her idea. Thought it might smooth any awkwardness that might come later.
She was right because as we slowly undressed and stole glances at the other as each piece of clothing was taken away, it felt almost natural, as if her and I had done this a hundred times before.
Once we were naked, we immediately held each other as if an indirect effort to conceal ourselves from the others’ eyes.
We went into the shower, kissing most of the time, talking at others, then went to her bedroom, each wrapped in a towel. When we got to her bed, we pulled the covers back together then, as a game, counted to three and ripped our towels away.
All that followed changed our relationship.
Changed my life.
Changed hers.
Changed everything.

* * *

I need to stop. I know you might be disappointed that I didn’t get into detail about what happened in the bedroom or anything that happened many times after that, but to be honest, all physical pleasure aside, sex wasn’t about the pleasure for us anyway. Yes, it was there, but the connecting, the falling deep into someone else, the revelation of that private side of them that was only reserved for one other was the cornerstone of our physical relationship.
It was about love.
Making love.
Making it real.
Making it last.
And it did last.
Sure, things ended badly, but the love part never did. At least on my end. That’s why I can’t begin to describe to you what it was like killing Selena because, I think, by having done that, I killed myself, too, the part that understood what it was doing despite the desperate survival instinct that took over, despite the rage and need for revenge for her ripping my heart out and ruining my life.
It was that love that was my watershed.
It was her death that was my watershed, too.
It was—
Um…okay. There’s a knock at my door or at least what sounded like one.
Hang on.

…
…
I dropped my bat on my foot.
I’m telling you now in case something happens.
I looked through the peephole.
It was Selena.

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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
16: Watersheds

What’s sick about all this is that my whole life boils down to Selena. There’s my life before her and my life after. No in between or some kind of transition period or years of maturing or anything that goes with growing up. I suppose every life, in the end, has some kind of watershed. Selena was mine. Just wish it wasn’t so painful.
I’m home now, writing this (obviously), thinking that perhaps a new watershed has presented itself.
Madness.
My new turning point.
I had beat whatever was left of life out of Selena.
Scratch that.
I had beat whatever was left of death out of Selena and…and killed her.
I…killed her.
Can’t finish this now.
Later.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
15: Before, Part II

The zombie came, arms outstretched, reaching for my neck and shoulders. I stepped to the side; she narrowly missed me. The zombie had its back to me but before I could raise the bat, long, matted brown hair swirled around and a pair of yellow teeth burst forth from a pair lips along with a terrible hiss. Those eyes, sunken and dead, looked at me with such hunger that I couldn’t believe Selena would—Selena…Selena…it wasn’t Selena.
The zombie grabbed hold of me, locking its arms around my waist. My own arms were free. I dropped the bat on purpose and shot out my hands and held back the dead girl’s head so her snapping jaw wouldn’t take a bite out of my face. I had to know for sure. The girl’s skin was bumpy and boiled, gray and lifeless. Chipped, yellowed teeth snapped up and down in front of a shriveled tongue. Vacant eyes kept staring straight ahead, just past me, as if seeing something that wasn’t there. It just kept snapping its mouth open and closed and open and closed and…those eyes.
They weren’t brown.
They were blue—faded—but blue.
Thank God.
I shoved the dead girl away from me, quickly crouched down, picked up the Louisville, then let her have it across the skull. The shards of glass along the bat’s weighted end lodged themselves into her head. I ripped them clean out, dragging along bits of flesh and bone with it. Syrupy blood splashed against the floor. The zombie teetered to the side. I came down on her head with the bat again. She fell. I stepped on top of her stomach and plowed the slugger into her face at least twenty times.
She made me think she was Selena.
After her face and head were good and gone and was nothing more than a stringy mess of skin, blood and bone, I finally stepped off her and moved to the side.
Then I heard something coming from the direction of the bedroom.
I kicked what was left of the dead girl’s head just for good measure.
She made me think she was Selena.
She made me think…
That sound again.
The bedroom.
I moved toward it.
Selena’s bedroom was just down the hallway, the room on the right just before the bathroom at the end. I’ve been down that hallway hundreds of times before and there was one time in particular that I’ll always remember. More on that in a second.
The Louisville unexpectedly grew heavy, my heart pounding knowing what I might find. The hallway’s white walls seemed oddly out of place all of a sudden, the white an awful contrast to the dark world Comtropolis now found itself in never mind the darkness in my own heart telling me I didn’t belong in such a bright place as this.
I hoisted up the bat shoulder height and stood in front of the bedroom door. Inside, dull thunks echoed, at first just one then a whole series of them. They stopped then resumed. Stopped then resumed. Then kept on going, each thunk nearly matching the frantic beating of my own heart. It took a moment for me to realize that tears had formed at the corners of my eyes. I thought I was already all cried out over her. Now…
My breathing sped up and no matter how hard I tried to slow it down, I couldn’t. Throat dry, I clenched the bat, reached out—and opened the door.
Thunk, thunk, thunk. Thunk, thunk, thunk.
Across from me, in between a pink-quilted bed high enough above the ground for a princess and an ornate dresser up against the wall beneath the window, was a girl who I’d recognize anywhere, back turned to me, repeatedly walking into the wall, her head smacking against it as if trying to beat out black and tormenting thoughts.
Selena.
She wore black pants, a gray sweater a couple sizes too big, no shoes. Her wavy brown hair hung loose halfway down her back.
My arms ached to reach out and hold her.
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
I wanted to speak, to get her attention. My voice caught in my throat and the words didn’t come.
I stepped in further, each foot dragging a dumbbell.
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
“Se—Selena…” I barely managed.
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
I went closer, about ten feet away.
“It’s me. Marty. Are you—” My voice caught again. I cleared my throat. “Are you—” I wanted to ask if she was okay but something inside me said that if I asked that, that when I saw her it would hurt even more.
Only a few feet behind her now, my bat still raised.
She kept pounding her head against the wall.
“Selena…” I reached out and touched her shoulder.
Selena kept hitting her head.
I tried again, this time pulling a bit on her right shoulder to help turn her around.
She did.
She was dead.
Her gaunt skin was like skim milk, her brown eyes pale and vacant. Dry, cracked lips that hadn’t seen a drink in who knew how long grinned then displayed yellow teeth just like the other girl.
My arms dropped, the bat suddenly too heavy for me to carry. I still held onto it though I couldn’t bring it up in between us when she lunged at me. A dull thump boomed inside my skull and the back of my head lit up in dry pain. It took a second to realize I was on the carpet, Selena on top of me, seeming to weigh twice as much as she did when she was alive though no extra weight showed.
Growling, her mouth went immediately to my neck. I jerked my head to the side, bought a few inches, the let go of the bat and pulled my hands up between us and pushed her off. Rolling over, I scrambled to my feet, Selena somewhere behind me. Running to the opposite side of the room near her closet, I planted my feet firmly, raised my fists and got ready. She darted toward me, low, guttural groans dripping from her mouth like drool. She didn’t recognize me or care who I was.
The realization almost paralyzed me then, her not caring. Felt too much like how she treated me after we’d finished dating.
My bat was on the other side her.
She latched onto me with both hands, her grip hard and firm, squeezing the life out of the muscles just beside my neck. On instinct, I shot my first out, punching her in the chest, the force strong enough to cause her body to bend at the waist. She straightened in no time then came in again, this time forcing me into her. I went with this, shooting my weight forward, knocking her to the ground so this time I was on top. Of all things to think or feel or notice, when I drew my hands in between her arms to break her hold on my neck, it reminded me of the time she had once put her arms around me, drawing me in for a kiss. I had similarly reached in between her arms, gently pulled them down then ran my hands across her cheeks and brought her face close to mine. Our lips locked, tongues searching the other’s, nothing but passion and love.
A kiss of need.
Now, I put my hands to her face again, this time gripped her hard, my fingers close to her ears, my thumbs on her cheekbones. I bent my arms at the elbow then shot them straight out, slamming the back of her head against the floor.
I did it again, this second time fazing her.
I got off her and ran for my bat. When my fingers wrapped around the wooden handle, it was like coming home. Movement behind me. Spinning around, I was greeted to a blur of brown hair and gray material. I cracked the bat across her face. Her body reeled to the side. One giant step closer and I brought it down on the back of her skull. Her neck cracked. She dropped to her hands and knees.
Whatever tenderness for her that was in my heart vanished and was replaced with the life-giving breath of rage.
“You took everything from me!” I screamed.
The bat came down, plowing once more into her skull. Her body dropped by my feet, prone, face down. I got on my knees, rolled her over, her dead eyes now blood shot, her face a mish mash of ripped flesh and blood.
“I loved you and you destroyed my life! I hate you! I hate you!” And I brought the butt end of the bat down into her nose, crushing it.
Selena coughed, threw up blood, then tried to attack me though the attempt was feeble.
“How could you!” I shrieked. “How could you!”
Nothing but low groans escaped her lips.
She didn’t hear me.
She didn’t care.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
14: Before

I couldn’t take it anymore, the wondering.
I had to know if Selena was alive.
Though the world got screwed up a long time before, not knowing was killing me.
I did the math: everyone dead equaled she was dead, too.
Still didn’t compute. That’s the funny thing about hope. No matter how bleak the circumstances, no matter how unlikely things would work out, it still nagged at you, telling you that somehow, some way, some when everything would be all right.
I go on-line, did some searches, feeling something like a super spy able to discover whatever I wanted at the touch of a button.
See, nowadays everybody’s plugged into the Net. Most people are users; the only ones who aren’t are those who live on the streets. Communication was everything before the dead rose. Still is now—if you could find somebody to talk to. Have a job? There’s a trail somewhere in Cyberspace. Have money? Your transactions are wired into the Net, too. Like movies? Same deal. All rentals are done on-line. No more going to the video store, but even if you do shop at the few left, those rentals are still tracked via the store’s Web site.
I digress.
Finding Selena’s address didn’t take long. Got her phone number off a video receipt of Rents-‘R’-Us. Stuck her phone number into 411 and, wholla, there she was.
Address committed to memory, I grabbed my Louisville and stood by my door. Was I really going to do this? Go out there, try and evade the dead and see if she was home? I must have stood there for a half hour just thinking about what I was going to do. See, Selena didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Long story there, but let’s just say I didn’t handle the break up very well. Had a thing for trying to contact her after the fact even after being repeatedly told the show was over.
But this was different. It wasn’t every day the world ended. I figured she’d cut me some grace and let the past be the past.
If I found her, that was.
When I finally went outside, it was evening, the cool air just setting in, the silence of a dead city almost soothing to the nerves (if I made an effort to not think about what was out there).
I began walking. For every zombie I saw, I made sure I had ample time to either hide or take a different route. It caused the walk to Selena’s to take forever. I got there, however, some two hours after I left (I think). She lived in a highrise called Sweet Iris, the building’s name making zero sense (as did a lot of the things named in Comptropolis). I didn’t know how long she had lived there for since we last spoke. It didn’t matter.
Sweet Iris looked to be about fifty stories tall. Her suite number was 4912, so I assumed that meant the forty-ninth floor.
The front door, all glass, had been smashed a long time ago. I went in, the stench of rotting flesh thick on the air. I stepped back outside and breathed in deep and readied myself to get back in there and “take it like a man.”
Once back inside, I kept taking big gulps of air, holding it, as I went further in, thinking the less I breathed the better off I would be. Then I realized that by holding the air in, I was allowing my lungs ample time to fully absorb whatever microscopic organisms were in the air. Even diseased.
Breathing normal, I finished crossing the expansive lobby, one lined with wilting trees and a no-longer-running stream with gold fish floating belly-up on its surface. Must have been nice back in its heyday.
The elevators were dead and the thought of climbing forty-nine floors made my stomach do a flip.
Then I remembered it was for Selena.
It was always about Selena.

* * *

I nearly died by the time I finally reached her door. Panting, heart rapping inside my chest, I had to put a hand against the doorframe to deal with my dizzy head and the stitch in my side.
Selena’s door.
I’ve been here a million times before, both when I was with her and in my mind ever since. This door was a gateway to a world of love, pleasure and the infilling of something that only happens when you meet the one person you’re sure you’re destined to be with forever.
The feeling of her safety was there, overwhelming me, and for a moment I forgot about the creatures lurking outside and how the rest of the world was dead.
Then reality came back and there I was, ready to find my girl.
I kicked down the door.
Selena’s apartment was rank, the funk of death immediately bringing bile up to the back of my throat.
The white walls and ivory-colored doors that lined the foyer still looked like they had the last time I was here.
I closed the door behind me and checked the light switch, just in case. No power. I inadvertently glanced back at the door and felt tears well up in my eyes at what I saw: blood, dark smears of the stuff all up and down it as if Selena had tried to beat down the door and busted her hands open in the process. Why she hadn’t used the handle, I didn’t know, unless—
Then it hit me.
She couldn’t escape. Something or someone stopped her.
Movement behind me.
I spun around, Louisville ready, just itching it plow it into the skull of the monster that took my sweet girl.
The floor was coated in blood, black and dried.
Slowly, I stepped forward, gently placing one foot in front of the other as lightly as I could so as not to make a sound. Too late. The dried blood on the wooden floor cracked as I walked on it.
I passed the kitchen on the right, the one where we cooked our first-anniversary meal together. Heart aching and throat dry, I pressed on. The living room was next and it was just in behind the ornate swinging door in front of me.
I thought about getting out of there, about running for safety.
But I had to know.
I gently pushed open the door.
That’s when she charged me.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
13: Home Again

So I’m sitting here, writing all this stuff out for you, my body still lined with a sticky film of sweat about an hour after this all occurred. I can’t even remember why I went outside to begin with.
Wait. Let me check.
Right. Needed some peace and quiet so decided to bust some heads. Got a little carried away, I guess.
My hands are sore, achy, and if I stop and just let them “sit” for a sec, I can still feel the flesh and bone tingling from smacking those zombies with the slugger.
It feels good.
Before, just as I was approaching my apartment, I was partly delighted yet disappointed to see only a handful of the dead standing outside my building. Despite how tired I was, I want to take out a few more.
Overpowering another life, yeah, that’s what it was about. More like overpowering an unlife, but still. You do it once, you’re left in a state of shock, wondering what just went down and it’s even possible for you to kill someone else. Do it again, it suddenly becomes about survival and self-defense. Do it a third time and it becomes a game because you realize that what you’re killing isn’t a person anymore and whoever they were had check out a long time ago and all that’s left is a skin-and-bones piñata without the candy inside.
The five that still hung around my building were taken care of easily enough. I drove the end of the bat pretty good into the face of one and sliced the neck of another so much so she that her trachea spilled out. The other three came at me all at once, slow and clumsy, and each one was dropped with a cracked skull. I had to step around the brains to get back in the front door.
And now I’m here, still covered in blood, stinky and sweaty, the memory of being out there killing zombies something that happened to someone else yet at the fore of my mind all the same.
…
…
This is the first time for me to write anything, I mean really write something long and, hopefully, with meaning, so I just went back to the first entry and skimmed it over. I was going to tell you about what happened “six hours ago.” Guess it’s not six anymore. Too much has happened since. Let’s just call that time period “before” and call it good.
Let me tell you about what happened before.
Selena. She was my before. Even before I met her, she was my before. I’ve always known her, saw her in different people (as you know) until I met her for real one day. You also know the overview of it not working out and all the rest.
But there’s another before you need to know about.
One involving Selena, a zombie, me, and a whole lot of blood.
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