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

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
34: On the Move Part Three

Telecom handheld transmission:

It was happening again, me caught in a world of death.
Selena shook and convulsed in my lap, a yellow milky foam dribbling out the corners of her lips.
The zombies banged on the door to the laundry room, the incessant thuds making it difficult to concentrate.
“Selena, please, you have to stop,” I said, but why I said it I didn’t know. Probably just voicing my thoughts.
She kept shaking, her body bouncing up and down in rollercoaster-like waves.
Heart racing, I asked her if there was anything I could do. She didn’t reply, and her eyes were rolled back in their sockets. For a brief moment I thought she was trying to look up at me, but I had lost her beautiful brown-eyed gaze as the whites of her eyes became all I saw.
The undead beyond the door continued drumming against it.
Selena stopped shaking. Her body kicked out a few more jolts then lay still.
Tears in my eyes, I gently brushed her hair off her face and leaned in, listening for breath. There was none. I put her head on the ground, got beside her and started CPR. Each press of my palms against her chest grew more and more intense; each time it seemed her nonresponsiveness intensified even though I know now it had only been my imagination.
Why was this happening? How many times could I lose her?
I didn’t know what was worse right then: losing Selena from my life, but knowing she was alive somewhere, possibly happy, or losing her and watching her die. After all, they both ended with the same result: her absence from me.
Seems selfish, I know, but unless you’ve walked this road, you can’t say anything. More specifically, unless you’ve walked this road several times like I have, you have no right to say anything.
The zombies kept beating their decaying fists against the heavy door.

* * *

Around an hour later I was alone in that room. No longer able to look at Selena’s deceased form, I carefully laid her down in the janitor’s supply closet in the room and closed its door. It was cruel because she deserved a proper burial, but at the same time, I needed space and given all that I’ve been through, I decided to cut myself some slack.
The zombies had stopped their beating on the door, but they hadn’t left. Their hollow moans still filled the hallway beyond, their deathly groans coming in through the gap between the door and floor.
I lay in a foetal position on the ground, balling my eyes out over my loss.
Over my life.
Over myself.
Yeah, it was a real pity party, but you’d have one too if you were in my shoes.
I don’t how much time passed, but a dull thump came from the janitor closet. Immediately, I leapt to my feet and cautiously approached it.
Another thump came from behind the door.
No, it couldn’t be. Not like this. She was dead. She was–
Not Selena. Please, God, don’t let her become one of them.
The thumping grew consistent, and I could imagine her behind the door, stepping up to it, bumping into it, stepping back, then coming at it again. Over and over.
My baby. Not you, too.
If I opened the door, I could be dead really soon. If I didn’t, then there was a good chance the bumping into the door would grow more aggressive and alert the others in the hallway outside the laundry room that there was still something for them to get at.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please be okay.”
I put my hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it. I took a large step back as I let the door swing all the way open.
Out of the shadows, Selena emerged, her head cocked slightly to one side. Her mouth hung slack; her eyes remained rolled back in their sockets. She stumbled toward me.
“Selena?” I said.
She stopped, turned her head more in my direction, then adjusted her footing, this time coming more directly at me. A few seconds later, she raised her left hand. I touched her fingers. They were ice cold. Her hand gripped mine and she started to pull herself closer. I yanked my hand away and darted for the far side of the room, and scanned it up and down for something to defend myself with. Nothing. Nothing lethal, anyway.
Selena slowly walked toward me.
I stepped to the side. When my foot came down, it landed on the ground harder than I wanted. Her head immediately craned in the direction of the sound and then she started heading that way.
My girl was gone.
It was a feeling, it was a thought. Its reality sunk in quicker than I expected and immediately I knew I had to get rid of her otherwise I’d be her lunch soon enough.
I let her get close to me before carefully moving out of her way in a semicircle. My goal was to get to the closet she had just come out of. There had to be something in there I could use to defend myself with.
Keeping one eye on her, the other on the closet, I inched my way there, each footstep I took as light as I could possibly make it.
Once at the closet, I peered in and scanned the shelves. Nothing but a bunch of cleaning supplies, a mope and bucket, a broom, some boxes and–the broom.
I pulled it out. It wasn’t too thick, but thick enough I couldn’t break it over my knee.
Slowly, I kept my circular pattern and went to the far corner of the room while Selena was at the other, her head weaving side-to-side as she tried to find me.
I had only one chance at this, and I had to make it quick. I held the broom handle with one hand, leaned it on an angle and put my foot down on its head. Quickly, and as hard as I could, I stomped down halfway between the top of the handle and the broom’s head. Crack! The wood splintered, but didn’t break.
Selena turned around and faced me. She raised her arms, her fingers rigid like claws.
I stomped down on the broom again. It snapped this time, but not cleanly. I had to–
She was real close, like six feet away.
I flipped the broom over and came at it from the other side. The wood broke. I let the straw end fall to the floor, and I got the handle end ready.
“Please, Selena,” I said. “If you can hear me, you need to stop. I don’t want to–”
But there was no response in that dead face. No sign she recognized my voice. Not the slightest hint of contemplation.
So be it, I said, and came at her with the broom handle.
The sharp end plunged directly in her middle. I kicked out against her chest and pulled on the handle at the same time. The handle came out, bringing with it blood and stringy flesh. I brought it across her face like a baseball bat. The force of the blow was enough to knock her off balance, and with another kick I sent her on her back to the ground.
“Forgive me,” I said, and plunged the sharp end of the stick into her eye. Her body twitched a couple time then lay still.
I stumbled back a few steps and couldn’t believe how fast I had taken her down. For some strange reason, my heartache was gone. So was the confusion. Instead, I felt . . . nothing.
Just . . . nothing.
Who was I? What had I become?
I had to get out of there.

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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
33: On the Move Part Two

Telecom handheld transmission:

We didn’t stay in my apartment long. The undead below broke into the building. I don’t know how. They’re strong, sure, but smart? No, and in order for strength to be effective, you need to have a certain amount of wits about you. Either way, they got in, not long after I asked Selena about her dream.
In a panic, and knowing going out the front door was a deathtrap, we ran down the hallway and headed for the back door. The undead were there, too. They hadn’t gotten through the door, but we heard them outside just beyond it.
We were trapped.
The only option was to hole up in the laundry room. It was in the basement, the door heavy, and it had a lock. I should know because when I first went to use the washing machine when moved in here, I locked myself in, not knowing where the lock release was on the door.
Anyway, we ran that way. Just as we entered the room, I saw the dead at the other end of the hallway, making their way toward us. There was a pack of them, probably around ten.
For a moment, I thought I saw Selena among them, her face bitten off at the cheek, dried blood running down her jaw and neck. Then I glanced forward and was relieved to see she was still with me at the laundry room entrance.
What that little episode was, I don’t know.
We got into the room, closed the door, locked it, and a few seconds later endured the dull thumps of dead fists banging the metal-lined door on the other side.
Sitting in the dark, Selena and huddled next to each other, our hands over our ears, the dull beats of the dead against the door in time with the rapid beat of our hearts.
They wouldn’t be getting in. As said, the door was too heavy and it was locked.
Our problem was how we were going to get out.
“I guess we can wait until they’re gone,” Selena shouted above the thumping.
I bobbed my head side-to-side. “Maybe. Who knows when that’ll be, though.”
She merely nodded.
There was no way to tell exactly how many zombies were in the building, but judging by the pounding on the door and the sound of heavy footfalls above, each floor was soon covered in the diseased corpses. I could only imagine them knocking down the doors to each suite, even getting into mine after I locked it, and rummaging through my stuff for something to eat.
My computer. My journal.
As I send you this transmission, i don’t know if I’m going back. I hope my previous entries are still intact on my harddrive. If not, I guess I can lift them off the blog itself, if needs be. Regardless, I wasn’t ready to leave home.
It was in that dark laundry room with the sounds of the dead echoing throughout it that selena began to shake. At first I thought it was merely a shiver, but when she started coughing and fell into a seizure, all I could do was lay here down, hold her head and let her body work it out.

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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.
31: Delusions of Selena

Have you ever looked at a dead person?
Death . . . it’s one of those things our brains aren’t built for. We see the person in front of us yet know there’s no one there at the same time. It’s the same brainfreeze I get when I see the undead walking—ghosts, physical forms with no substance.
It was like that with Selena.
I let her into my apartment, not knowing if it was a ghost coming to haunt me or if, somehow, she was healed and back from the dead. Even stranger: back from the dead in a good way.
She didn’t shamble. Didn’t have gray skin. No bruises or cuts or gashes. Just my girl. And she was beautiful even in the filthy garbage bag she wore.
Just like . . . before.
When I opened the door, she ran in, shoved it close behind herself, then threw her arms around me and held me so tight I couldn’t breathe.
“You’re alive,” she said.
I couldn’t find the right words to respond. The best I could come up with was a gentle, “So are you.”
I didn’t know if I was holding a ghost right then or someone with special healing abilities . . . and I didn’t care. Not when it came to her. When you lose something, you’d give anything to get it back, risk it all and just be happy you got a second chance no matter how it came.
“You’re shaking,” she said as she pulled away. “Did they get you? You know, those people outside?”
I simply shook my head.
“Good. There was no one else to turn to and I knew . . . I knew you’d help me if you were still . . .” She didn’t finish, but I knew what she meant.
Then I processed what she said. “Wait. You knew I’d help you if . . . um, if what?”
“If you were still alive.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean? Still alive. Breathing. Living. Not one of those creatures.”
I furrowed my brow. Was she okay? Didn’t she know? “Selena, the undead have been around for a while. Don’t you know that?”
She appeared as if to say something, then held back. Her eyes searched the air, as if seeing something I couldn’t. “I came here. I saw those things.”
“Where were you? How did you–?”
“I was home.”
Déjà vu hit me like a punch to the face. We had a conversation like this before. She had on the garbage bag, but this time she wasn’t hurt.
“Selena, we’ve already crossed this road. Don’t you remember? This isn’t normal. We were just together. We were . . . and then . . .” Why couldn’t I tell her what happened? It was those eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes. The way she held my gaze told me everything: she didn’t remember. She looked at me with nothing but question marks for irises, her brow slightly furrowed as if I was the one with the screwed up memory. And to be honest, that very well could be.
The blessed relief at her resurrection fled and I wondered if I was truly talking to someone or, in reality, was merely talking to myself. This shouldn’t be so hard.
Are you supposed to entertain imaginary friends? Or do you give in to the delusion because if you don’t your brain—that created the delusion in the first place—needs to take part in the fantasy or it’ll fry itself from within.
All I could say was, “Are you real?”
Her gaze softened and she smiled just a little, in that way where you knew she was happy and thought you were cute. “I’m real, Marty.”
I took her in my arms again. She didn’t embrace me back right away, but after a moment, she held me tight.
Ghost or not, we were together.
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Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
30: Broken

Things are getting worse, and this might be my last entry. I . . . it’s like someone took my brain and threw it in a pot, only to boil it a thousand times over then stick it back in my head.
I’m losing it.
This city . . . the undead . . . it’s finally taken me down.
You look in a mirror and see yourself staring back. You might like what you see, you might not. But it doesn’t matter how you feel about yourself because at the end of it all, it’s still you looking at you. You know you’re real, you know your thoughts, your feelings, even the taste in your mouth. You know it’s you looking at yourself.
I don’t know me anymore. My head is so full and all I get are static images of soggy cardboard instead of my brain. All I get is a honeycomb with a thousand entry points, each hole leaking out what’s left of my sanity.
You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?
Just need to tell you how I feel, what’s going through my head.
I was just at my door.
I checked the peephole.
I saw Selena.
Even now, as I’m typing this, she’s banging on the door, screaming for me to let her in.
Inside myself, all I hear is me screaming that she’s dead, that there’s no way that’s her outside. Intellectually, I know better. I know that it’s either a ghost beyond my door out to slit my throat for letting the real Selena die the way she did, or I’ve completely lost it.
This is where obsession with a girl leads to the slippery slope of a psychotic break. This is the part where I become the monster and she is forever cemented as the victim.
This is the part where I become worse than the walking dead outside because I know better than to allow my fixation on a relationship gone wrong become some sort of imaginary reality, whereas the dead outside act the way they do because they function on pure instinct.
Selena . . . banging on my door.
If I answer—if I let her in—what does that say about me?
If I could step outside myself and watch me open that door and somehow see what’s really going on, would I only see myself opening a door to nothing at all, react to nothing at all, even talk to nothing at all?
My apartment door is more than just a door right now. It’s a portal into a state of mind that could end up killing me in the end.
Selena, the zombies, the isolation, the heartbreak—it’s finally ripped me apart . . . silently, but eventually.
In one way or another, the next few moments will decide my fate.
If I open that door, I will no longer be the man typing this.
I will have become something else.
But—there’s always a “but”—if that is indeed Selena out there, if somehow she’s alive and her body has been put back together, then I can’t just leave her there banging on my door. If she needs help and has come to me like she did before . . .
That banging.
My girl.
I have to let her in.

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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.
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.
23: Wrong Way

The dead were everywhere. An entire street just loaded with the suckers. The sidewalks, the roads, even some in the building windows.
I’ve seen zombies before, so their presence wasn’t what caught me off guard.
It was their silence.
I hadn’t heard them when Selena and I were coming up that alley. I hadn’t even heard them when I was at the alley’s edge.
Something was wrong.
“Marty . . . ?” Selena started.
My heart raced. She gripped my arm, head against my shoulder, trembling.
“We have no choice but to go back the way we came,” I said.
“But they’re back there, too,” she said.
“I know, but there’s too many here. There’s no way we can–” I cut myself off the moment one of them began to move. Then, like a line of dominoes, they all began to move, heading right for us.
Selena and I tore off back down the alley.
“Hope you have a plan,” she said.
Not really. “Just keep running. It’s call we can do.”
When we got back to the street we just came from, I brought my bat up, ready to swing it into any undead skull I saw.
A gray-skinned businessman came up on my right. I took the bat across his head, the blades dragging across his skin, digging deep into the flesh beneath, ripping it from the bone. I pulled the bat back and let him have it again, this time its end cracking the guy’s skull and sending him to the ground.
Selena already had her cleaver wedged into an undead teen girl’s face. She had to pull it out by putting a palm to the girl’s cheek while tugging back on the cleaver.
“Move it!” I said, and headed away from the Chinese restaurant and down the street.
“Coming!” she said.
I heard her footfalls behind me.
A old man zombie reached for me. I knocked his arms away with the bat. Selena’s footfalls stopped so I looked over my shoulder. She was leaning over an undead kid on the ground, chopping the cleaver into it like a slab of raw steak. Blood and meat sprayed up after each blow.
“That’s enough,” I said. The old man moved beside him. I laid into him and broke his head open.
She let the kid have it one more time then ran up to me. “Got carried away.”
Her hand holding the giant knife shook and her lips trembled. We had to find some place safe and take a break.
I took her by the other hand and we ran a little further down the street, dodging the undead, then rounded into an alley on our right. There was only one zombie in it, which I quickly dispatched with my bat.
“I don’t want to stay out here anymore,” she said.
“We’ll be okay,” I said. “Just stick together, work together. That’s what we were good at, remember?”
She glanced up with me with hopeful eyes, her gaze conveying that, yes, she did remember how much of a good team we really were back in our day.
“You were always there for me,” she said.
“I always will be.” The words were out before I had time to think about them. In my heart of hearts, yes, I would always be there for Selena. She was my girl, my angel. Ever since I met her, my life in some way was always about her.
Zombies rounded the corner into the alley after us. Selena and I made a break for it and headed toward its opposite end. When we emerged on the street beyond, I checked things out. Over here, the dead’s number was thinner. There was still a lot of them–at least ten or so–but they were scattered far enough apart that we wouldn’t get cornered.
Fallen zipcars dotted the street, a few in heaps from the day they came crashing down from the sky. Building windows were smashed. Patches of blood stained the concrete.
Some twenty meters to our left was an staircase leading to the old subway system. At the time of the zombie uprising, Comtropolis was in the middle of switching its public transportation to the skytrain, which didn’t require underground tunnels and tracks, but instead hovered some fifty meters above street level, weaving its way in between buildings, folks able to get off the skytrain at stops built into the building’s themselves.
“I have an idea,” I said, and took her by the hand toward the subway entrance.
We ran toward it, weaving around the zipcars. I caught Selena looking in a car’s window at the headless corpse of its passenger.
“No time,” I said.
She shook her head. “So sad.”
“Selena!”
She ran up to me, and we headed toward the subway entrance. We managed to avoid the undead shambling toward us, and went down the stairs leading to the subway entrance as fast as we could.
“Keep an eye out,” I told her.
She got behind me, cleaver ready. “Maybe they’ll just fall down the stairs and make it easier for us.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Man, did I love this girl. “One can only hope.”
The subway entrance was a big metal door, locked. One either side of it were glass panes, both miraculously intact.
In my genius I thought I could whack out the bottom of one of the panes, you know, just have the bottom part break, the rest of it either remaining perfect or just simply spider-webbing but still in place. No go. The entire glass pane shattered when I hit the lower part of it with the bat.
“You realize they’ll follow us in,” Selena said.
“No choice. They’re not here yet, anyway. Maybe we’ll be okay. You never know.”
She simply rolled her eyes and went in through the glass pane.
Undead moans sounded above.
I followed her.

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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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