Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

First appearing last year in the awesome anthology, Metahumans vs the Undead, I’m now making available to all Axiom-man fans my story, “There’s Something Rotten Up North,” as a short story download.

It is currently available on Kindle, Smashwords and Drivethru Fiction, with other e-outlets to shortly follow once their systems update.

Here’s the write-up:

When Axiom-man is notified of the dead coming back to life in Flin Flon, Manitoba, he takes flight and heads north to verify the terrible news. Upon his arrival, he is greeted by hordes of the walking dead and wonders if this outbreak is tied to his visit to a parallel Earth where the undead had replaced the living. As he struggles to combat the undead and search for survivors, Axiom-man soon discovers the problem is far worse than he thought.

Note: This story takes place between The Dead Land and City of Ruin.

Please take a moment to download this story at any of the e-outlets mentioned above and likewise share this announcement with any superhero and zombie enthusiasts you may know of. Thanks. Hope you enjoy it.

Copyright 2010-2011 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
41: A Perfect Night Gone to Hell

Have you ever watched someone sleep? Have you ever taken the time, or are you too focused on your own fatigue?
Selena captivated me that night the way she lay perfectly still beside me, mouth slightly open, her eyes closed, a strange world of dream and thought dancing before her vision, a secret known only to herself.
She had the blanket right up to her chin, only her head peeking out, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest a balm to my aching heart.
We’ve been here before, both before the undead plague and after. I’ve seen her sleep many times, wondering if she’s resting comfortably or if she’s merely dozing. Wondering if there’s peace inside her or if sleep was her escape from this wretched world filled with the undead.
I could watch her forever, but, I admit, a part of me wanted to wake her. Every moment she spent in sleep’s embrace meant one less moment with me, and moments with Selena were always precious, especially these days.
I gently kissed her forehead, then placed my lips upon hers. Even though she didn’t return the affection, there was still an electric tingle when our lips met.
“Good night, princess,” I whispered, and lay down my head beside hers. I looked her over one last time, then closed my eyes.
All was dark. No dreams came, none that I could recall.
When I woke up, it was still dark, and a tired headache hovered behind my eyes. My body ached to reach over and hug Selena and fall asleep pressed against her. I looked over. She wasn’t beside me.
Probably gone to the bathroom, I thought. I closed my eyes, thinking she’d come back to bed any moment.
I don’t know how much time passed, but I was jolted out of my sleepy haze by low, gurgling gasps and ear-splitting coughing. I bounded out of bed, and followed the noise, made a beeline for the bathroom. I started to shake immediately upon seeing her. Selena knelt before the toilet, naked, blood and partly-digested food smeared on the seat and the floor around her. Her body shook with each gut-based lurch. A splash of red throw up gushed from her mouth, half landed in the toilet, the rest running down her chin and chest.
If this was the old days, I would have called 9-1-1 immediately. These days there was no one to call.
Heart galloping, I grabbed the towel off the rack and draped it over her shoulders, and pressed my hand to her back. Her body shook beneath my touch, then lurched as another gob of blood and stomach fluid burst from between her lips.
“Let it out,” I said, not sure if that was even good advice.
Right after I said that, she started dry-heaving, her body rising high then settling low as everything within her locked and nothing came out of her mouth. It kept happening, and I could see she was trying to gasp for breath, but everything was so spasmed inside she couldn’t get air into her system.
“Come on, Selena, breathe,” I said, tapping her back, thinking maybe my effort would somehow shake something loose.
Her whole body quaked as it locked up again, her eyes wide behind the sweaty and blood-coated bangs dangling above them. It looked like she wanted to speak, but didn’t have the strength to say anything.
“Talk,” I said. “Scream, yell, burp—anything! Breathe!”
She kneeled there, frozen, not a single muscle moving. Her body was like stone beneath my touch, every muscle taut and strained over her bones. More blood oozed out of her mouth. She remained still, letting it run over her lips and onto the toilet and floor.
Everything was so tense she shook head to toe—then released and fell to the bathroom floor.
“Selena!” I brushed her hair away with my fingers, her face smeared with blood and puke.
She lay perfectly still, eyes closed, mouth slightly open—as if she was sleeping.
Except she wasn’t. She wasn’t breathing. I put my hand to her chest and confirmed my suspicion that her heart had stopped.
She was dead.
Again.

____________________________________________________________________________
I sat just outside the bathroom door, Selena’s towel-covered body not two feet from me. I needed the wall against my back to keep me from slumping over. I started blankly at the wall across from me.
“Over and over and over again, I wish you were here, my sweet tender friend.”
Don’t know where I heard it, but it seemed to fit. Every time I glanced over at the blood-soaked towel covering my ex-girlfriend’s body, a wave of electric emotion ran through me, the kind filled with numbstruck awe, hate and frustration. Longing and pain.
“Over and over and over again, I wish you were here, my sweet tender friend.”
A perfect night gone to hell. Imagine a world where all is well. “Tell me again, Selena, my dear; tell why you’ve left me here.”
The rhymes somehow helped me think even though they were awful. This wasn’t a poetry contest.
Just couldn’t believe I lost her again.
And even when her body stirred beneath the towel, I wasn’t surprised.
Jay’s words from before came back to haunt me: you’ll be dead by morning.
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Copyright 2010-2011 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
39: The Disappearing-Reappearing Girl

When I came to, I was lying on the kitchen floor. Jay stood over me. To my right, Selena was tied to a chair, hands and body bound with stato-rope. Red streaks ran down her pale cheeks.
It broke my heart to know she had been crying.
“Jay . . .” I managed, then had to take a deep breath. What I really wanted to say was, “I’ll kill you.”
Jay held out his hand and helped me up. The moment I got to my feet, a sharp pulse of pain blossomed at the base of my skull. My temples ached and my kitchen went fuzzy.
“Just chill out, dude,” Jay said. “You hit the ground pretty hard.”
I rubbed my head. “Yeah, you sent me there.” I didn’t know if I should pop him one first then rescue Selena, or simply go after the girl.
My sweetheart looked at me, her eyes pleading for help.
“You son of a–” Before I could finish, my fist snapped out and caught Jay square in the jaw. He fell back against the counter. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, threw him by the kitchen door, then slammed him into the wall beside the fridge. I leaned into him hard, pressing my forearm into his neck.
His eyes already began to bulge out of their sockets. When he spoke, his voice was rough and squeaky. “She’s . . . dangerous. Don’t . . . trust . . .you have to . . . please . . . let me . . . breathe.”
I glanced over at Selena. “Don’t kill him, but give him one for me.”
I nodded and punched Jay in the gut with my free hand. I let go of him and he slumped to the floor.
“See . . .” he said, coughing. “She’s dangerous.”
I opened the drawer next to me and pulled out a steak knife, then immediately got to work loosening Selena’s bonds.
The moment she was free, she stood, marched over to Jay and kicked him in the head. “Bastard!”
She recoiled into my arms. Violence wasn’t her thing.
“It’s okay,” I said softly. “I’ll send him on his way.” I took her face in my hands. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, sniffled, then said, “I’ll live.”
Jay held out a hand. “Wait.” He coughed. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Then you can explain to me what you were doing tying her up and knocking me to the ground.” I looked at my knife, making sure Jay saw me do so. “Don’t think I wouldn’t.”
“Just hear me out,” he said, and carefully got to his feet. He held out his hands in front of him in a seeming gesture of trust.
“Marty, who is this guy?” Selena asked.
“Someone I met while trying to outrun the undead. How do you know him?”
“I don’t.”
“He sure acts like you do. Ex-boyfriend?”
She wrinkled her nose. “As if.”
“Better start talking, Jay. I’m giving you ten . . . then I’m throwing you out.”
“Her” –he pointed at Selena– “I’ve seen her before.”
“So?”
“No, you don’t get it. I’ve seen her, man. Outside, on the street. She walks with the dead. Sometimes she’s all nice and pretty, like she is now. Other times she barely has a face left. But I recognize those eyes. I’ve seen her at least a dozen times. I’ve seen her . . . eat.”
I took a step closer, but Selena jerked me back to my place.
“He’s not worth it,” she said. “Just get him out of here.”
“Please, Marty, I’m telling the truth.” Jay’s eyes were wide, sincere.
I didn’t know what to believe. How was it possible that he’d “seen” her a dozen or so times?
But I’ve seen her several times, sometimes like this, sometimes deadly. She dies, comes back, dies, comes back, I thought.
I turned to Selena. “I don’t know what to say, baby.”
“I do,” she said. “Give me the knife.”
I lifted the hand with the knife high up so she couldn’t reach it.
“Give me the knife, Marty.”
“No.”
“Now.”
“No.”
She walked toward me. I backed into Jay. Instead of attacking me, he caught me and helped me stand up straight again.
He leaned over my shoulder. “She’s dangerous, man.” He pulled my arm with the knife down. “Come on, do it. Just end her before she eats us.”
“She’s not a zombie,” I said. To Selena: “You’re not, are you?”
“No, of course not! How could you even say–you know what? I was a fool to come here. Forget it. I’m done. I’m leaving.”
Selena turned around and took the other way out of the kitchen.
I blocked her before she could get to the main door. “Wait.”
“No.”
“Jay?”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Get out.”
“Fine, man, whatever.” He went passed us and opened the door. Before he left, he pointed at me and said, “You’ll be dead by morning.”
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
32: On the Move Part One

I’m writing this on a telecom handheld, one I swiped from a corpse after I drove my razor bat into its head. Please excuse any typos or lowercase words. My hands are shaking.
The telecom seems to have a signal. At least the display says it does. Whether this is joining up with the regular entries I’ve posted, I don’t know. I’m doing this “just in case.”
Selena was like the last one–if I could say such a thing–in that she was worn and tired. She napped on my couch. I paced the room, out of trance of “at least we were together” and looking at her as objectively as I could, wondering what or who it was I was really looking at. Like before, wondering if the girl in front of me was actual real so some mad hallucination. Regardless, I watched her, reminisced a little bit, then grew so uneasy with her presence that bile snuck up the back of my throat and spilled over into my mouth. I left the room to go spit in the kitchen sink. Right in the middle of doing so, selena screamed. Glass broke. I spat out the wad in my mouth then ran back into my living room only to find selena had smashed the front window and was up against the frame, my lamp in her hand.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
She didn’t reply but instead searched the ground below. I went beside her and saw the walking dead gathered outside my building, six of them.
I pulled her away from the window. “They’ll see you.”
She elbowed me in the gut, ran up against the window frame again, and this time threw the lamp out the window. I heard it crash somewhere on the other side, down below.
“Are you crazy?” I asked.
She shoved me aside again with both palms to my chest, searched the room, then grabbed my clock. She hurled it out the window, too.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked at the living corpses below.
“Selena!” I said.
She ran past me, went into the kitchen and ripped the pots and pans from the cupboard. She tore back into the living room like a savage waving a couple spears, each hand clutching a pot by the handle.
She swung one at me the moment I came near, so I jumped out of the way. She was back at the window and hurled the pots down at the dead.
“Now they know someone is in here for sure,” I said. “There will be others. Lots of them.”
She ignored me and was back in the kitchen for more pots. I ran after her and the moment she stood with a pan and a pot in her hands, I jumped on top of her and took her to the floor.
“Stop it!” I said.
“They have to die,” she said, her eyes wild.
“You’re not going to kill them with you got. Think about it.”
She jerked around beneath me. “Get off me!”
“No! Shut up and listen to me. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I can’t take it anymore.”
“neither can I, but don’t you know what you’re doing. Your throwing pots out the window, for crying out loud.”
“I have to hurt them.”
“Not like this.”
“Please! Let me kill them!”
“Snap out of it.” I reached for her hands and managed to pull the pots away. I tossed them to the side of the kitchen floor; they crashed against the cupboards.
Selena lay there, arms spread out, wailing at the top of her lungs.
A shudder ran through me. She was crazy.
At least right now.
I got to my feet and carefully walked over to the window. I peeked out as best I could, hoping I wasn’t seen. The dead stood below, a couple of them looking up, the rest just rocking side-to-side as if they didn’t know what was going on.
From the kitchen, Selena spoke, her voice thick with tears. “never again. Never again. Never go on top of me again.”
I didn’t know if I could let her cry it out, clean out her system, or if she indeed was having a meltdown and any interference on my part would only make things worse.
The zombies remained below.
I went back to the kitchen, knowing that to leave selena alone would be a bad idea. When I came back, she was still on the floor, this time with her hands covering her eyes. I sat down beside her, tears of worry forming in my own eyes.
“it’s dark,” she said. “so dark.”
“What’s dark?” I asked as gently as I could.
“This world. Me. So many of them.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.” What I meant was I got what she was saying, but I didn’t know the exact circumstance she was referring to. Then I asked, “before, when you were sleeping, was it a dream? Did you dream about . . . them?”
She slowly pulled her hands away from her eyes, her gaze blank. “Yes.”
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
29: Recap

In case you’re only tuning in now, or something has happened to the webfeed and this broadcast of my journal is only now reaching you thanks to undead interference, I just simply want to start by saying my name is Marty. I’m the sole survivor of the planet Earth. I don’t have great power, nor do my abilities exceed that of mortal men. I didn’t get here in a rocket ship, nor am I fighting for truth, justice and decency.
These days, I’m just fighting to stay alive and this journal is helping me do that.
I’ve recorded everything I could for you as things happened. Sometimes I had to wait before I could sit down in front of my screen and type out my thoughts. To be honest, my thoughts are all a jumble and I’m hankering for the soothing arms of alcohol to keep insanity at bay. At the same time, I’m too scared to booze up because there’s the chance I could lose myself once inhibitions are shed and, possibly, might never recover. You might even noticed my abstaining for alcohol by how–what’s the way to say this? “Better-worded”?–these entries have become.
I need to keep my head together, need to stay grounded, especially after what happened.
In case you’re just joining me, Comtropolis–and the world over–has been invaded by the undead. We’re talking zombies, reanimated and deceased human beings. They kill, and they eat us, and if they don’t devour you completely, their bites infect you and transform you into one of them. You still die, but you do come back, moving, hungry, having a thirst for human blood and flesh.
This whole journal started as a way to not only try and document my survival–maybe even a call for help across what’s left of the Net–but also as a way to cope with a relationship gone bad, and the loss of true love.
You see, I live in a world of death: physical and emotional. Aside from my pulse, some days it feels like I’m no different than the zombies that stalk the city streets.
Selena, my ex-girlfriend and love of my life, surfaced at my apartment recently. She came to me because everyone else she knew was gone and she knew that, if I was still alive, my door would always be open to her. We even spent some time together, but on a food run we came under attack by a horde of zombies. She got sick while we were out and eventually collapsed. I tried to carry her here–home–so I could care for her. Instead, the undead overtook us and I had no choice but to leave her body to be devoured.
I hate myself for it. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. Not only did I lose her all over again, but I lost what might have been a chance at happiness.
Death came for me, but instead of taking me out directly, it once again had its way by destroying what was left of my heart.
I apologize to those out there reading this and recapping things like I am, but I ask for your indulgence because there might be those out there who don’t know what’s going on and might be wondering what this partial journal they’ve stumbled upon is all about. We’re all in this together, remember? Strength in numbers and all that.
Are there any numbers, though? The haunting feeling that I’m all alone has been with me since I got home. I was already giving into the notion when I first started writing this, but when Selena showed up, I admit a part of me considered there were others out there, too. And if not, then maybe who- or whatever finds these bytes of information can catch a glimpse of what it was like to live during these dark times.
I just hope the darkness doesn’t last forever. To have a break . . . even a hope . . . the words escape me.
Are you there? Is anyone reading this? Or is this just once giant exercise in catharsis and that’s all?

. . .

. . .

My heart’s racing. Something knocked on my door. It could be them, the undead.

. . .

There it goes again. Something’s not right. If it was a zombie or more, they’d just slap at the door with decaying palms, hoping that eventually it’d give and fall down.
I don’t have any weapons. I dropped my bat coated with razorblades when trying to fight off the dead earlier.

. . .

I can’t take this. The bangs are becoming more urgent now. Hold on. I’m going to check to see what’s going on.

. . .

. . .

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

28: Release

The more I walked, the easier it became. Like most things, all you needed was a little distance. The alley I stood in was bare, just me, litter, a couple quick-disposers, and the smell of an unattended sewer thickening the air.
It’s one thing to say you knew what to do in a survival situation, quite another to actually do it. However, there is one secret: priority. So I channeled the notion inward, setting aside images of Selena being torn apart, our time together, the words exchanged, and simply focused on the task at hand.
I needed to get home. I could let loose there, cry, drink, just go crazy, if I really needed to. But until then, yeah, I just simply needed to get there.
My plan to elude the undead coming after me succeeded and that horde was somewhere else. It didn’t matter where, as long as they were away from me. I wandered down the alley, ears cocked and fists ready.
At the mouth of the alley, the street running adjacent to it was cluttered like most of the others. All those crashed vehicles, windshields splotched with blood, scraps of dried leftover flesh dotting the pavement. I used to be one for peace and quiet. I used to enjoy sitting in the silence of my place, the silence itself almost audible, but in that oh-so-good soothing way. (You know the kind.) Nowadays, what I wouldn’t give for a little noise, the human kind: chatter, skyvans and zipcars tearing through the sky, people laughing, folks yelling, horns honking, sirens blaring. All I had now were my thoughts and whatever songs I could remember play through my brain in an effort not to go mad from all the quiet.
As much as I wanted to run that oldie but goodie, “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” through my mind, I fought it back and decided I’d sit in my living room later and replay then. For now, I needed to focus on my exact location, my exact task.
Weaving my way in between the smashed cars, stepping on glass-littered pavement, I headed across the street, hoping the next alley about a block to the right was just as empty as the one I came out of. When I reached it, my heart sank at the sight of a lone undead, shuffling his way toward me. His arms hung loose at his sides, one of his hands missing. His feet were turned inward, making his steps all the more awkward. I was surprised he was even able to maintain balance at all. The guy wore a dark gray suit, a bow tie loose against his scrawny neck. The man’s skin was so sickly gray that had he been naked, he could almost camouflage directly with the surrounding pavement. Dark red and black scabs dotted his skull, their presence growing all the more thicker around his deeply-sunken eyes. Part of his nose had dried up and rotted off a long time ago.
I made my way towards him, not directly at him, mind you, but in his general direction. At first I walked the left side of the alley. When the creature finally took notice of me, he started to stumble in my direction. I went to the right. The man stopped, seemed to debate some kind of decision, then began shambling to my side of the alley.
He was only ten feet away when I realized I could feign going to one side, then sprint past him along the other.
Instead, I choose to adjust my path to the middle of the alleyway. I checked once over my shoulder to make sure the path was clear behind me. It was. The zombie by now had adjusted himself as well and he and I walked toward each other.
Four feet now.
Already the creature’s hand and arms were raised, ready to grab me.
For a microsecond I almost wanted him to . . . just so I could be with Selena again. Another microsecond, that thought was gone and I brought my forearms down along his, snapping his arms back down to his sides. Fist cocked, I threw a hook across his jaw, my knuckles connecting with his chin so perfectly his jaw bone snapped and tore through his rotted flesh on the follow through. The crusty-skin-coated jaw bone hit the pavement, and almost before I even noticed, I came up with my left fist and hook punched his head from the other side. The force of the blow threw the zombie’s head to its left. It raised its arms and, using the same maneuver, I slammed them back down again. This time I brought my foot up and kicked it in the stomach. Its body rocked back a step.
Then I let loose, hammering my fists against its face so hard and quick the thing didn’t even have a chance to lock eyes with me again. Once more it tried to raise its arms. I grabbed its right arm and pulled it with all my might. The creature’s body jerked forward, then a dry rip like a piece of toast being torn cut through the air as I dislodged its arm from its socket and pulled it through the creature’s suit sleeve. I swung the arm across the zombie’s head like a bat before letting the arm go and going back to work on beating the hell out of the thing.
I punched its face, kicked it in the neck, slapped at its chest, then sent it to the ground by kicking its knees out from under it, breaking them in the process. The thing landed on its back and I pounced on it like a bloodthirsty jaguar. Its one remaining arm–the one without the hand–swatted at me from the side while I brought blow after blow down into its skull. Its cheekbones cracked beneath my fists, then busted inward. Its dried skin and powdery blood blew up around my fingers.
Not wanting to breath any of that crud in, I got to my feet and brought my heel down on its face over and over until their was nothing left but a nasty mess of crusty skin and brittle bone. I even brought my heel down on its neck–as if it needed to breathe–and stomped on its neck so much the bone, cartilage and flesh tore clean from its body.
I spat on him, cursed him, and kicked his head down the alley like a soccer ball.
I got back on its torso and hammered away on its ribs, digging and clawing at its chest, tearing away the suit and shirt and delivered punches and slaps to its rotted frame.
Fatigue hitting me like a bear hug from Hell, I only stopped when the thing’s rotten innards started flying up around me. I fell over to the side of the body and lay there gazing up at the sky. So blue. Very few clouds.
Normal . . . just . . . normal.
I nearly forgot where I was, and what I’d just done.
The calls of the undead broke me from my trance. I sat up, still alone in that alley, the decapitated monster beside me, and took a deep breath. Finally, I stood and made my way home.

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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
27: Tremors

It was a few blocks away when the tremors started. At first I thought it was the monstrous horde of undead causing it, their decayed and rotted feet smacking against the pavement so hard that it caused the ground to shake.
But it wasn’t them.
It was me.
Every bone in my body shook as if I had my finger in an electrical socket. The next thing I knew my legs gave out under me and I fell to the sidewalk alongside the old theatre, the kind that played holographs once they left the “real” theatres with the bigger auditoriums. I remained there on my knees, rocking back and forth, my muscles locking, my heart slamming against the inside of my chest a trillion miles an hour. It would only be just a few more seconds, I thought, until the heart attack kicked in and I’d keel over only to find myself reanimated a few minutes later.
Selena.
She was dead.
And I . . . I left her there. I left her!
For all my bravado and pining over her, for all the endless fantasies where I told her I’d do anything for her, even give up my life–I left her there.
I could barely glance over my shoulder, my muscles were so stiff. The undead were a good ways off, but I could see them shambling down the road towards me.
Let them come. I deserved what they’d do to me. I deserved having my guts ripped out and used as spaghetti.
I deserved to die.
It was only a scant few minutes ago I was with Selena. Just a few minutes.
A few minutes ago she was alive, still here on this earth with me.
A few minutes ago there was hope for a future together. A small hope, but a hope nonetheless. Now all that was taken away both by my cowardice and those blasted zombies.
Death knew no bounds.
But if I stayed, I’d be dead, too. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know what’s worse right now. The pain inside is so large, so alive, that even the memory of any other emotion cannot be recalled.
On that sidewalk, my heart pounding, my body shaking, I tried to get on my feet only to find myself crawling like a baby instead. I could barely move, only able to manage an inch at a time. The undead behind me were moving faster than I was.
I heard their moans on the air. I checked back over my shoulder again. I estimated it’d take them maybe two minutes to reach me if I didn’t somehow get away.
For a moment I thought about what it would be like to have them dig into my flesh, to pull my skin and muscles apart like tissue paper. I imagined the pain, and to be honest, it seemed better than the sharp, deep hollow agony that pierced my heart and made me sick to my stomach.
Three thoughts were very clear, as if each were being projected back at me as if from a mirror: one was losing the girl I loved again. To see her so helpless, to see her murdered. To never see her again.
The second was the loss of myself all over again because I knew what was it like to go crazy and see your life in the bizarre before-and-after mirror of losing someone you love.
The final was the zombies. And though their presence almost seemed peripheral at that moment, it was hard to believe that that moment was actually real and there were real dead people walking toward me that wanted nothing more than to eat me.
I crawled, forcing my limbs to move, my palms scraping against the sidewalk, my feet dragging behind me, my knees grating against the ground.
The zombies moaned.
I cried out, full and loud. Pure sound, raw emotion.
Selena and survival were my only thoughts.
Selena’s survival . . . my only thought.
Her death.
My own inevitable to come.
Let me run. Oh, God, please hear me and let me run. Could there be redemption? Would there be a miracle?
I crawled faster, grunting and growling as I propelled my body across the pavement.
The stench of the undead grew fuller. I checked again to see how far away they were but the tears in my eyes made everything a blurry mess; it was too difficult to tell.
“Push yourself,” I said. “Come on. Go.” I moved as quick as I could, now moving at a slow walker’s pace along the ground.
My muscles still shook, but the painful vibrations surging through my bones had subsided to a dull hum.
“Stand,” I said. If not for yourself, then for her. “Get up.”
I pulled my feet under me and held my hands out for balance as I slowly got myself upright. Head woozy, everything within tingling, I stepped forward. It was like walking on a tight rope and I thought I would go down again. Instead, my steps increased in speed and I was able to move at a brisk walk down the sidewalk. I turned at the corner, hoping I’d lose the dead.
I needed to get home.
The undead calls of the deceased droned on the air.
My heart ached.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and headed across the street, traveled down another sidewalk length before turning into a back alley. There were no zombies here and I hoped my little zigzag pattern was enough to elude the undead behind me.
On last thought became clear: Selena was back there . . . what was left of her.
It was all my fault.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.

26: I Left my Life

“No!” I ran over to her, dropped my bat and got down beside her. “Selena, wake up. Come on, you have to wake up.” I leaned over and listened for breathing. I had my ear nearly right against her lips. All that came out was a soft wheeze. I put my head to her chest. Her heart still beat, but the beats were very far apart.
“Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease . . .” I said and gently cupped my hands around her head and lifted it slightly off the ground. “Wake up, Selena. We can’t stay here.” Tears licked the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t lose her. Not again.
Moans drifted on the air and an immediate shudder went through me. I checked back over my shoulder. A string of undead had rounded a corner not far from us and were stumbling down the road in our direction.
“Selena, get up! They’re coming!”
She lay there, still, almost peaceful. I listened for breathe again. The groans of the dead must have obstructed my hearing because I couldn’t hear anything escaping her lips. I checked her chest once more. Her heart beat so slowly, barely there.
The zombies drew nearer. There were six of them.
“Come on,” I said, and scooped my arms up under her. I adjusted my grip around her small frame and got to my feet. She was light, maybe around a hundred and twenty pounds. I took a few steps further from the dead, then quickly rounded back.
My bat.
The undead were maybe forty feet away. They’d be here any moment.
Selena still in my arms, I crouched down and with my right hand felt around between the back of her knees and the ground, searching for the bat’s handle. I found it and got my fingers around it–backwards, so my thumb and forefinger were at the bottom of the handle–then pushed my heels against the ground and stood. The bat dangled beneath Selena’s legs. I checked her face. Her head and neck were limp. She was completely unconscious.
As fast as I could, I started jogging down the road, already thinking three or four blocks ahead, the goal being to get back to my place as soon as possible if I couldn’t find another hideaway spot on the way there.
More zombies came out from the alleys and from around corners. The nearest group of them, all decayed, their stink reaching my nostrils, were a mere twenty feet behind me.
Heart racing, blinking the tears from my eyes, I moved as quickly as I could. I went down the road, hopped over a curb, and rounded a black skyvan that had marooned itself there in days long gone.
“Wake up, Selena!” I screamed. I didn’t mean to, but the words just busted out without restraint. I needed her awake.
I needed her alive.
The next corner was a messy intersection of an upside down waste truck, a few zipcars, and bunch of debris and litter. The ground was cracked in a wild spider web all around the vehicles. These no doubt fell from the sky when the world changed and everything started dying.
The street was blocked, so I jogged as fast as I could to the next corner.
Undead moaned behind me.
I checked over my shoulder. More must have joined their kin because as rotted hand with one finger missing went to grab me. I pushed my jog into overdrive and the creature missed.
I rounded another fallen vehicle, then my foot caught something hard and slick and my right heel went out from under me as if I was on ice. I fell on top of her Selena, her limp form rolling with the impact. My knee scraped the ground under her. My elbows were scraped as well.
The moans of the dead loud and raspy, I worked quickly to get my arms back under Selena, but before I could, I was grabbed from behind and a rotted face came down on my shoulder. Immediately, I thrashed about, elbowed the creature in the face, and got to my feet.
There were four of them at first, two old ladies with open stomachs and their guts hanging out, and two young men, one with an eye missing, the other just a mess of torn-up flesh and flaky gray skin.
The two young men knelt down beside Selena and pawed at her body.
“Get off her!” I yelled, and ran over to them. I kicked one in the head, knocking him back. I spun around to do the same to the other, but one of the old ladies grabbed my wrist and jerked me in her direction. I kicked her in the shins, her rotting bones snapping from the blow. She fell down and I jumped a couple steps back.
My bat. It was under Selena. I went to grab it, but more undead crowded about the two young guy’s clawing at my girl.
“No!” I screamed. My eyes immediately clouded over with tears. I wiped them away and started to push through the undead. Many shoved me back, as if Selena was more important to them then me, another live human being trying to rescue a loved one.
When I was able to poke my head between them, my heart cried out within me. Their fingers dug into Selena’s flesh, blood gushing from the holes they tore. They ripped at the meat beneath her skin and brought it to their foul lips.
I wanted to scream, to curse them, to cry out to God for help–but my voice caught and all I managed was a weak rasp.
A big undead black guy shoved his hand against my stomach, his fingers opening and closing as if trying to dig into my flesh. For a moment, I considered letting him, but then–at that time, as if a new idea and something never thought of before–I realized I could run.
I could get away from there and survive.
But Selena . . .
The undead’s lips smacked; their moans escalated. More zombies joined the horde.
I ran. I didn’t want to, but I ran.
Adrenaline surged through me and I gave it everything I had.
I left Selena.
I left my love.
I left my life.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
22: Just Keep Moving

Selena and I dropped behind a counter loaded with scattered spoons and pots. Both of us breathed quick and short, our breaths echoing the fast beat of our hearts. We looked at each other with wide eyes, knowing the slightest sound would alert the dead to our location. Selena’s lower lip began to tremble. I don’t know why it happened then, of all times, but tears dripped from the corners of my eyes–not because of fear, but of seeing her so scared. I wished so badly I could just wrap my arms around her and shelter her from the undead lumbering into the kitchen, their groans echoing off the walls.
But I couldn’t.
To sit there, eyes closed, pretending we were somewhere else would only ensure our deaths.
So we sat there, as still as statues, hoping the undead wouldn’t shamble around the whole kitchen. If only they’d just leave. The moments ticked by, time seeming to be caught in a slow drip of molasses.
Selena squeezed her eyes shut when a zombie let out a raspy howl. She broke down, sobbing. She did her best to stifle each choking gasp, but the best she could do was make it sound like some kind of inverted sneeze.
The zombies’ footsteps drew closer.
“We’re going to have to run,” I whispered.
She opened her eyes and nodded, her expression clearly displaying she knew it was her fault the undead heard us, her gaze asking me for forgiveness. Even if we were going to die, of course I’d forgive her.
The dead drew nearer and I guessed they were right up against the other side of the counter. How many were there, I didn’t know.
“Arms up and plow through,” I told her. “Let me go first.”
I duck-walked past her then drew my arms up so my forearms were held in front of me like a couple battering rams, my bat held vertical like some kind of flag of land and country. Selena held her cleaver aloft.
“Now,” I said, and stood quickly. Ignoring the head rush, I rounded the counter and propelled myself forward through a pack of zombies about four bodies thick.
“Run!” Selena screamed from behind.
We headed for the kitchen door, leaving the shamblers behind us. We emerged back into the dining room proper, which was now swarming with the undead. Bat in hand, I went to work bringing its razor-covered end into every rotting head I saw. Blood and skin tore from decaying skulls, sailing through the air like a black, red, and gray mist. Selena grunted behind me as she took the cleaver to anything that came near her. Bodies dropped, and I learned a secret to fighting the undead at The Wok: keep moving. You cannot let yourself become stationary when under attack. Just move, move, move and cut your way through like a madman.
My bat sliced open the chest of a woman, the interior of her breasts sliding out like moldy chicken from a couple wet paper bags. I brought the bat up into the stomach of an dead old man, removing his guts, making them drop out to the floor.
“Get to the door!” I said.
“Should have seen if there was a back one,” Selena replied as she drove the cleaver home into a dead teenager’s skull.
“Didn’t see one running off the kitchen.” I took a deep breath, brought my bat against the head of another zombie, then called to her, “We get outside, go right. I think there was an opening there.”
“Opening?”
“Not as many zombies.”
“Okay.”
With a shriek, I ran for the doors, swinging my bat side to side, its bladed end tearing into some of the undead, other times serving more as a battering ram, helping to clear the way. Selena was right behind me. The blade of her cleaver nicked the back of my arm. I barely felt it; just a mild sting. I don’t think she realized it because she didn’t say anything.
We emerged through the broken front doors of The Wok, the zombies out front ambling about in different directions, the majority, however, stumbling toward the restaurant.
“Move!” I shouted.
We headed to the right as planned, taking out as many of the undead as we could. We only fought those who were too close for comfort. When fighting zombies, you see, you don’t make active work of it. The goal is to get away and do what needs doing in that regard. Try to take them on like some kind of He-Man and you’re dead meat.
Half-eaten bodies lined the streets; all missing their heads. Whether that was from other folks killing the undead or from the undead themselves going after the brains, I’m not sure. Some of the bodies were missing arms and legs. Some just a hand or foot. Guts and blood coated the pavement as if a truck filled with paint cans had crashed and spilled black and red and brown and gray everywhere.
The stench of rot was so thick I think I heard Selena throw up while running behind me. I was about to ask her if she was okay when an dead Asian dude stepped in front of me, hands outstretched. I brought the bat down on his arms, tearing through the rotting skin. The bones within broke and what was left of his arms just dangled there at the elbows. I took the bat to his face and dropped him. Selena and I jumped over the body and kept going.
Finally we were able to turn a corner into an alley. Fortunately, it was open-ended so if worse came to worse, we wouldn’t be trapped.
We stopped and put our hands on our knees.
Selena did have a bit of throw up on her mouth. She must have saw me wince because she quickly brought a hand to her face and wiped it away.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
“No.”
“You hurt?”
“No. Just . . . shaky, grossed out. Sick.”
“I know the feeling.”
We kept an eye on the mouth of the alley as we caught our breaths.
“So thirsty,” I said. “Feels like I’m swallowing a washcloth.”
She nodded. “Yup.”
A shudder ran through me; my legs were weak. I didn’t want to admit it in case Selena was more or less sturdy now. Didn’t want to be the weaker one. Not right here.
“Come on,” I said, and slowly began backing out of the alley the opposite way we came.
“We’re going home, right?” she asked.
Never thought I’d hear her refer to my place as home. “I don’t know. We still need food. I’d rather just get it all in one go instead of coming out later.”
She didn’t reply, and I didn’t want to press the issue in case we’d fight or something.
At the mouth of the alley, opening up onto a new street, I stopped, turned around and surveyed the area to get a handle on things.
I didn’t like what I saw.

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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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