VIII: The Stalker

With any luck, by the time my story has come to a close - both here and otherwise - the zombie crisis will have, pardon the pun, died down; civilization starting to put itself back together again. If so, and civilization is still in the early stages of restructure, I offer this piece of advice: do not forget the sky.

Prior to the Day Everything Changed, society and civilization had been in full upswing. Technology was at the height of its time, and the only direction man could truly go was up. Unfortunately, man took the sky for granted and invaded its territory: buildings were erected to touch the clouds and breach them, machines of flight were created to traverse the infinite expanses, and lights were turned so bright it blinded the view of an otherwise clear night.

One thing that never seemed to be mentioned, at least in my experience with stories of zombie revolutions, was that despite the chaos and confusion on the literal ground level of things, the sky had been able to transform back to its original, peaceful state. Without man's interference, the sky reclaimed its identity and became wonderful again; its stars brightly visible, providing their own, oddly-tinted light that was enough and more for two men to travel by.

Especially on a clear night like this one.

I had been lost in my own thoughts, staring at the myriad of bright points above me when I heard the weird noise from behind. My train of thought broken, I turned quickly to find the source - and found nothing.

Turning back around, it looked as though I'd been the only one to have heard it: Singer, a couple steps ahead of me now, was peering into the window of a broken-down four-door sedan. There wasn't anybody inside, and there was no point in trying to use the vehicle for transportation - the entire city block was congested with abandoned vehicles both in front and behind the sedan. That didn't mean, however, that the previous owners hadn't left behind anything useful in their haste to get the hell out of dodge; again, excuse the vehicular pun.

He seemed enrapt in something in the backseat of the sedan, and set to working his way to get it. I didn't offer my assistance; at this point, if he'd needed it, he would have asked for it. As it was, he took it upon himself to grab his trusty crossbow from his back and proceed to pound on the window with the butt of the weapon. Somehow, he managed to make as little noise as possible, so as not to attract any unwanted, undead attention.

I kept a loose watch on the area as he broke into the car. My mind went back to the noise I'd heard, and what could have possibly made it. Not a zombie: a noise that prominent, I'd be shooting it down, so to speak, instead of simply standing there, ruminating.

And after Singer's story about his daughter's death, I had become slightly paranoid about being tailed by creatures much worse than zombies: blood-thirsty survivors. It wasn't enough to just survive; as dire as things had become, the living went for a more dog-eat-dog mentality in order to avoid the man-eat-man alternative. If we were being followed by such people, then-

"So, what's with the bracelet?" Singer's voice broke through the thin line of thoughts into which I'd ventured.

I blinked, turning toward him, and found him making his way in my direction, stuffing whatever he'd procured from the sedan into his tattered shoulder bag. Even though I didn't see what it was, he hastened his stuffing when he saw me looking directly at him. It was no concern of mine, truth be told, what it was he had picked up - at this point, he could have taken me out with a single, clean shot from his crossbow, if it had come down to it. Aside from that, anything else he was carrying was of little to no concern to me.

"Say again?" I said, once he had come close enough to safely hold a conversation without being too loud about it.

Singer lifted his chin to point in the direction of my hand. "Ever since we dispatched the good, decaying doctor, you've been... fiddling with that bracelet," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "And, if I can be blunt with you: it clashes with the rest of the image you seem to be going for."

He was right, of course; while what I was wearing was primarily black and uber-masculine in appearance, the pink and yellow charm bracelet on my left wrist seemed as if it had lost its way and just decided to simply stick around, regardless.

I lowered my right hand from the wrist and lifted it to uncomfortably scratch the back of my neck. "Ah," I muttered, clearing my throat a little before saying, "it's kind of a long, silly story.

"And," I continued as I looked at the dark, starlit sky, "this is hardly the time to really get into it, 'ya know?"

Even though he looked like he objected to my evasion, after a moment he nodded firmly and said, "Fair enough. Shall we, then?"

I nodded my thanks, and we continued to make our way down the block. No sooner had we done so than I heard the weird noise again; and, just as before, when I turned to find its source, I couldn't find anything in the dim light to solve this particular mystery.

"Did you hear that?" I asked while my back was still turned.

Had I waited a second before asking if he'd heard the weird noise, I would have heard the "oof!" he let out as he was being knocked out.

Had I turned around instead of asking if he'd heard the weird noise, I would have seen the man being knocked out.

Instead, I asked the question, and before turning back around I started moving toward Singer; at the time, I thought it was a smart idea - a chance to possibly find the source of the weird noise, and put the mystery to rest. So when my foot collided with the leg of an unconscious Singer, I finally turned around, and found myself falling and becoming intimate with the pavement. Landing on my stomach, the wind was knocked out of me. I closed my eyes, breathed slowly and waited for the pain to subside.

That's when I heard the growling next to my head.

My eyes shot open, and I looked up quickly - to find myself looking squarely down the sharpened blade of a large machete.

"Well," I croaked. "This is new."

VII: The Doctor

I know what you're thinking: Kid! You're going out, into the open, at night?! You'll get yourself killed!

Believe me when I tell you that regardless of the condition of the environment - day, night, sunny, rainy, you name it - there is only one surefire, ultimate condition you need to worry about: whether or not there are zombies in the area, and whether or not they are close enough to change your status of vitality.

Okay, fine... two surefire, ultimate conditions you need to worry about. Technicalities aside, it really doesn’t matter what the sky looks like or what the sky is doing, when there are much nastier things to worry about on the ground level.

So when Singer and I heard the tell-tale shuffle of a member of the undead, coming from somewhere in front of us, I was none too concerned about whether the sun was out or if it was raining.

“It came from over there!” Singer managed to shout without truly raising his voice. He pointed in front of us, where an ice cream truck had been pushed over onto its side.

The sound had indeed come from over there: a nasty, shuffling sound that seemed to precede the revealing of the thing which made the sound. And true to fashion, the creature came around the side of the ice cream truck; as the light of the moon, playing peek-a-boo with the post-stormy clouds, set onto the undead thing, we were able to make out some more distinguishing details.

“Oh,” I muttered, “you have got to be kidding me…”

From the zombie’s slow gait, it occurred to me that it was fresh off the line; the more experienced of the undead, like those who came about on the Day Everything Changed, had a little more speed and much more pressing determination to acquire their next meal. As it was, the zombie in front of us came at a speed of step-drag-moan, step-drag-moan. Upon making the initial observation, I said a silent prayer for the recently-turned and proceeded to take in a little more of the thing’s appearance, thus eliciting the response.

Shambling toward us used to be a man in what looked to be his mid-fifties. His brown hair had been cut short, in a professional style; I could imagine what the overall effect was supposed to be, if a comb had been run through it and if the large chunk that was missing had been covered over. A pair of glasses hung from a metal chain around his neck, one of the lenses shattered while the other seemed to have popped out altogether. And covering the otherwise businesslike attire of button-up shirt, tie, and dress slacks, was a nearly pristine white lab coat.

If the lab coat hadn’t been a dead giveaway as to the creature’s previous life, the stethoscope around its neck, as well as the name tag pinned to the coat’s pocket were the deciding factors.

Reaching into the person I was before the Day Everything Changed, I shouted, “It’s the doctor!”

Singer unknowingly took the silent cue. “Doctor?” he said. “Doctor Who?!”

I grinned as I could imagine the guys back at Ye Olde Commik Shoppe laughing their heads off at such a simple joke. But in times like these, one needs a sense of humor; and even if Singer didn’t get the joke, I was set for the next few hours.

“Hold up,” I said, as I positioned my backpack around so I could get into it. “I got this.”

This was the pack that had the list, assorted items I’ve been carrying since the Day Everything Changed, and my half of the items from Murray’s Mart. I had what was needed to take out this shuffling zombie physician, and after a few blind grabs, I was rewarded with something round. I grabbed it, pulled it out without looking at it, and threw it as hard as I could at the creature.

The object collided with the zombie’s head with a satisfyingly loud thud. It bounced off, in Singer’s direction, where it landed on the ground and rolled toward his foot.

Singer looked down at the object resting peacefully next to his foot, shook his head after a moment, then looked back up at me. I may have been mistaken, but there was a bit of incredulity attached to that expression.

“An apple?!” he said.

I shrugged, in a very nonchalant fashion. “Well,” I looked at him, “It was worth a shot. You know what they say…”

It took him a moment, one where he was looking at me as if I had lost my mind, but he finally managed to get the joke. He snorted, reached over his shoulder for his trusty crossbow; in a few fluid motions, he loaded the bow, aimed, and fired a direct hit through the zombie doc’s cranium.

The thing swayed for a moment before finally crumpling to the ground.

He looked at me, replacing the crossbow behind his back, and smirked.

“What?” I said, feigning offense. “I said it was worth a shot.”

Singer proceeded to collect the spent arrow, strutting toward the zombie and pulling out the arrow with all of the yummy gore that went with it. After cleaning the arrow, he marched back in my direction, sheathing the arrow as if it was by now an everyday habit.

Action hero, all the way.

“You know,” I said, getting the backpack situated, “you have to branch out more. We can’t keep using that crossbow as our effective go-to. At some point, it’s just going to get boring!”

We started walking again. Singer let out a light chuckle and said, “Until it loses its quality effectiveness, I’ll continue to use it. I prefer boring if it means I get to stay alive.”

I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “Fair enough.”

VI: The Weatherman

Singer and I had just finished scavenging the market and were starting to inventory our picks, when it started raining. Thanks to the amount of time it took us to go through the entire store, along with the limited light in the place already, it had grown much darker since the attack of the spaceman; a slight rainstorm didn't help the light, and we had to squint at our wares via candlelight.

Contrary to stories you may have heard or read, rain is not always a sign of bad things to come. It's definitely not a device used in my story, so let's get that out of the way. Rain is just a weather condition, and the reason why I bring it up is because that's what the weather was like on the night I met Singer. Bad things can happen in broad daylight, just as much as they can happen when it's "dark and stormy"; ask Singer: when he found Promise, he could distinctly hear birds chirping outside, and when he finally made his way out of that school, the sun was blindingly bright.

"It was like the day was laughing in my face," he had said while telling his story. “And it hurt.”

And now here we were, surrounded by lifeless corpses, some having stayed down the first time while the rest needed further convincing that they were down for the count. One would think the aroma in the market would have smelled putrid; however, thanks to the change in the weather and a few broken windows, a nice breeze had pushed through, clearing the area of the horrendous smell. It didn't necessarily get rid of it, but the smells became barely tolerable.

Which was good enough for us.

Singer, having set all the items from his collection into the center of our makeshift pile, tossed his bag to the side and sat down across from me. "So," he said, clapping his hands on his knees, "a bit anal, are we?"

I looked up from the list I had been making, of which he had been referring. When I looked at the expression on his face, it wasn’t one of mockery, at least not in a rude sense; no, what presided on his face at the moment was that of curiosity. And lots of it.

Clearing my throat, I said, “Not necessarily. Old habits are hard to kick, I guess.”

“Old habits, eh?” he said, leaning forward and getting into a comfortable position on the store’s tiled floor. “Were you a file clerk or something?”

I shook my head. “Not so prestigious, by the old society’s standards.”

From there, I told him about working at the comic book shop. About what it was like to work in a place where the patrons seemed to accept alternate worlds and how to live in them. About the irony of how such discussions turned to become incredibly fruitful when the real world became an alternate one. About viable strategies when dealing with opposition and survival, thanks to heroes in tights and body armor.

And about keeping all of that and more in order.

“Things were just simpler when things were in order,” I said as I looked back down at the list, writing down the last few items. I mentally noted that Singer’s Red Vines had not been added to the inventory; but I wasn’t going to cry foul on one package of red licorice.

Singer snorted. “That, my friend, sounds like the rally cry of an anal person, to me.”

I shook my head, grinning as I did, and put the final touches to the list. It wasn’t very long, but it was longer than what it had been at the beginning; Singer included. I put the list and the other utensils I had used for it back into my bag.

Once the bag was zipped up and placed back behind me, I looked out the front windows. The sky grew increasingly darker, the rain growing heavier by the minute. Its patter against the roof of the market was soothing to my ears, and I closed my eyes; I breathed in and my heart lightened slightly as the smell of fresh rain hit my senses.

It was a moment I needed, and before I opened my eyes to face what was in front of me and plan for the days ahead, I took one more moment. In that moment, I said a silent “thank you”. For moments like these, I feel, because they are so few and far between, you almost have to.

Letting out the breath, I opened my eyes and turned back toward Singer. He was no longer looking at me with curiosity; in fact, even though the expression changed immediately after I looked toward him, I could swear that what I saw on his face was envy. I wondered how many moments, like the one I’d just had, he had allowed himself after the death of his daughter. By the weary look in his eyes and the hunch in his shoulders, the answer was simple: not a lot, if any.

The look on Singer’s face now conveyed a kind of anticipation, which he partnered with saying, “So, what do you think we should do now?”

I caught it immediately. “We?”

“Sure,” he said, nodding toward the pile of goods on the floor between us. “We could either fight over who should get what, thereby making your list a bit moot. Or we could work together for a while, see if we can find others who might need our saving and our scavenging expertise.”

“I don’t know…”

Singer lifted his hands from his knees, holding them up in a conciliatory manner: hands up, palms facing toward me. “Okay, okay. I won’t push you,” he said, keeping his hands in the air in front of him. “But how about this? You think about it during the time it takes for the rain to stop, and if you decide you’d like to go it alone, I’ll let you have first pick of what you take with you.”

I watched as his left hand made a wide presentation of the pile on the floor; after the presentation, he lowered the hand and proceeded to offer me his right one. “Deal?”

Giving it a second’s worth of thought, I took the proffered hand, giving it a firm squeeze and a grand shake. “Deal.”

As it turned out, the rain lasted another half an hour before dissipating. Rain, though hard on the roof and at the windows at times, was all it ended up being; nothing flashed, nothing rumbled in the overhead distance. Had I known at the time, I would have said another silent “thank you” that it hadn’t been a full-on thunderstorm. Unfortunately, since I had yet to experience a full-on thunderstorm since the Day Everything Changed, the knowledge of what it would entail had not yet been made available to me.

Don’t worry: we’ll get to that later. For now, as Singer and I watched the last bits of precipitation die off, leaving a damp warmth in the area, I made my decision.

And so, with everything packed between us in our bags, Singer and I made our way out of Murray’s Mart, and into the wet night.

V: The Promise

While the spaceman was the only up-and-about corpse in Murray's Mart, he had not been the only corpse in the little grocery store. It appeared as if the thing had itself a miniature buffet, and each aisle catered to the different potentials to the dining experience.

Down aisle three were the bodies of rotund patrons, complete with colorful muumuu packaging; aisle seven carried the leaner folk, for the self-conscious zombie trying to maintain its girlish figure. For domestic flavors, there was the aisle that solely contained light meat. For a more ethnic meal, two aisles over were the darker varieties.

Singer and I tiptoed over, sidestepped around, and crawled under the bodies in order to access what food we could find. The only sensible food happened to be the canned goods; however, once the panic of the oncoming and already here storm of undead had begun, the shelves had been picked clean of anything remotely appetizing. And since several weeks had passed since then, even some of the lesser-appetizing choices had been picked clean, as well. Somehow, we ended up with several cans of beets.

"Well," Singer pronounced, holding several cans aloft as if in victory, "beets nothing!"

That was his thing, Singer: he'd see a random object and make an unusual joke about it. At first, it was a quirk about the man I found refreshing and something desperately needed during such a dangerous time; however, with each pun and throaty laugh to punctuate, the novelty started to wear off. Pretty soon, I found myself half-tempted to whistle out any straggling undead who may have wanted a piece of the funnyman.

A moment after turning down what was left of the store's candy aisle, Singer suddenly stopped. He knelt down to pick up something that was at his feet, and when he came back up, I saw that it was an unopened package of Red Vines.

He stared at the package of red licorice and took a breath. What he said next surprised me, as it wasn't a pun or anything remotely amusing; instead, in a quiet voice unlike the one that had been throwing out volley after volley of wordplay, he said, "These were her favorite..."

I have to be honest: I had started to prepare myself for calling out any zombie that might be in the area. My left hand floated in front of my mouth, ready to stick in the appropriate fingers that, provided the right application of breath, would emit a high-pitched whistle that could call out anything with the capacity to hear it.

Feeling my arm go numb with surprise, my hand fell away from my face, and I said, "They were whose favorite?"

Singer slowly turned to me, and I was taken aback when I saw that his eyes had filled with tears. Quickly sniffling whatever had collected in his nose those last few moments, he said, "My daughter..."

From there, he proceeded to tell me the story of his life before standing in this grocery store, talking to some random kid he had just met.

On the Day Everything Changed, Singer was a single father who was working hard, trying to provide for his six-year-old daughter. He told me her name was Promise,  and ever since the day she was born, Singer had devoted his life to being as good of a father as he could to that little girl. It was not without its challenges, though: shortly after Promise has turned three, Singer's wife ran out on the both of them, leaving Singer alone to raise the child.

Three years later, the infestation of the undead came, adding more challenges to the table.

For the first several weeks, Singer and Promise had fared pretty well against the zombies; they laid low and only changed locations when they ran out of food or when the safety zone had been compromised - not just because of zombies, but because of other survivors, as well. They kept mainly to themselves, Singer not trusting in others, knowing deep down that when push came to shove, the desperate would not think twice about using a six-year-old girl as leverage to get whatever they wanted.

As it happened, it had been a week prior when and several blocks from where we stood where Singer's life changed drastically.

They had made their way into the city and came across the local elementary school. Even after the first weeks of the zombie epidemic, the school looked to be in sound shape, and looked to be a stable place to hole up for the night. They situated themselves in one of the classrooms.

"First grade class, I would have to guess," Singer said, as a side note. He stared at the package of licorice as he continued his story. Promise had been the first one to fall asleep that night, and somehow, possibly because of the innocent feel of the classroom, he had fallen asleep shortly after.

The moment he woke up was the moment his horror began. After rubbing his eyes to wake himself a little more, he reached for Promise... and found his daughter was no longer sleeping by his side. He went from sleep to awake in almost a negative amount of time, and proceeded to look for her, calling her name and checking cabinets and under tables; his fear began to grow, he told me, as he received neither a response nor a visual confirmation of the little girl's presence.

When he noticed the open door leading to the darkened hallway, his gut started to sink. Like a crazed bullet, he shot out of the classroom and into the hallway, not stopping until the opposing wall ceased his forward momentum. He screamed Promise's name louder, and the echo of the empty hallway responded in return with a twisted kind of mockery.

He didn't know which way to go to start looking for her, but he went in a direction anyway. It was, he would find, both the right direction and the wrong one. Finding one of her shoes lying on its side next to one of the bathroom doors, he hastened his pace and slammed himself into the door itself. What the open door revealed crushed his world as he knew it: lying on the tiled floor, under one of the sinks, was Promise.

She was dead.

I'll save on the gorier of the details, but from the way Singer portrayed it, it was obvious that this had not been the work of any zombie; the blood on her legs and the bruises on her arms and neck left no doubt within him that a person of flesh and blood, of supposedly sound mind, had wreaked havoc on his one and only reason to live.

For a moment he merely stood at the bathroom door, his mind trying to convince him that this was not reality; that he was still in the first grade classroom, sleeping peacefully with his little girl snuggled up against him. Unfortunately, the shock dissipated and reality finally made its way to center stage: hello, this is real, this is really happening. Singer scrambled on the floor to his daughter, scooping up the small and lifeless body into his arms. He tried to scream, but it was silent as the noise would not come out.

After several minutes, as he slowly rocked the body in his arms and sobbed silently, he was finally able to scream; loud, primitive, and full of rage, hate, and sadness. He couldn't recall how long he had been screaming, but by the time the noise finally died out and he needed to take a breath, the room had grown darker and his throat felt raw. With nothing else to do, he buried his face into his dead Promise's hair.

That's when he heard the sound. It was soft and he couldn't tell if he had really heard it, but when it repeated, he knew it was real. As everything was, now.

It was the sound of a soft shuffle, accompanied with a groan. Growing louder, Singer knew that it was heading directly toward him. He knew what it was, and realized that his outburst of despair had called it forth; and, to his surprise, he found that he did not care.

So when the zombie appeared in the open door of the bathroom, Singer accepted his fate and allowed the visitor passage to do what it was going to do. His life no longer had meaning, the only thing in it worth fighting for having been ravaged by a monster much worse than the being shuffling slowly up to him. As the zombie moved closer, Singer lowered his head and waited for the moment the creature attacked.

As he waited, he made a decision. It was what saved his life, and his soul, if you believe in that kind of thing.

With the zombie several feet away and his dead daughter bundled in his arms, Singer decided to sing Promise a final lullaby. It had been a staple of their relationship: whenever Singer was happy and with Promise, he would sing to her. He realized that in the month following the Day Everything Changed, he no longer sang to his daughter; any opportunity to do so was used to help keep the two of them alive.

With his final few moments, he decided to amend the tuneless month, and sang to his daughter one last time. It was a lullaby he'd written, solely for Promise. It expressed the love and happiness he felt that she was in his life, and it was one of her favorite songs.

The song itself had been particularly slow and, therefore, somewhat long in duration; so when Singer found himself at the end, he was confused: he was still alive and singing. He was holding onto the last note, one he felt was going to be his last note ever, and looked up to see what had happened to the undead character who had shuffled into the room. To his surprise, the zombie was still there; only, it wasn't moving toward him. In fact, it wasn't moving at all.

In his confusion, Singer cut off the last note and stared at the zombie. A second after he had stopped singing, though, the zombie started making its way toward him once more - this time, with a new-found fervor and hunger; as if its appetite had been made stronger because of the waiting. It quickened its step and was less than a foot away from Singer when he had an idea: he started singing again.

Since it was a last-minute idea, it wasn't anything remotely close to the lullaby. In fact, it ended up being a jingle for a type of gum that had been advertised several times a day, back before the zombies showed up. Either way, Singer was amazed to find that, once he started singing, the zombie calmed down to something of a restive state. Using this to his advantage, Singer was able to stand, holding his daughter's body, and walk out of the bathroom without suffering any harassment from the zombie. For good measure, once he was outside of the bathroom, he closed the door and locked the zombie into the bathroom; it looked as though the zombie was starting to follow him as he sang.

After avoiding any other zombies that were in the area, dodging a couple more with song, he found a safe and secluded place to bury his daughter. He wouldn't tell me where, and I didn't pry. From there, he wandered the streets of the city, trying to figure out the reason to this ability of his, which led him to where we now stood.

"The way I see it," Singer said as he concluded his story, "I was meant to do something with this gift I've been given.

"Until I find out what that something is, though," he said, finally taking his eyes off of the candy and looking at me for the first time since he started his story, "I will continue to wander and help those who may need me. Like you."

I could only nod my thanks to him. A soft smile quirked at the corner of his mouth, and he looked back at his hand. "Oh!" he exclaimed, as if seeing the Red Vines for the first time. "Vine-ally! Something worth eating!"

He looked at me, gave me a quick grin, and winked. As he turned away to forage for more food, I noticed that he didn't open up the package and start eating; instead, he put the candy in his shirt pocket, right above his heart.

Before his back was completely turned to me, I saw him pat the pocket. Gently.

IV: The Archer

“Nasty little buggers, aren’t they?” said the man who had just saved my life.

Being careful to avoid getting the muck all over him, Singer gingerly wrapped the fingers of his free hand around the shaft of the arrow lodged in the zombie’s face. He tugged, using his foot against the thing for stability, while using the crossbow in his other hand for counterbalance. A couple of tugs, and the arrow came loose, but not without a very thick, meaty sound for punctuation.

In one smooth, fluid motion he flicked the arrow’s tip away from us. The brains and gore that had collected on it were removed with ease; it spattered against the wall, I noticed.

Singer set the crossbow down, leaning it against the fallen shopping cart, and dug into his back pocket for a moment. He pulled out a relatively clean rag and began to wipe off any residue of undead that may have stuck around.

While he cleaned, I admired his crossbow from where I stood. It was huge; a relic from the days of burly men with big beards, who wore helmets with horns on them, who drank heavily of mead, and who fancied themselves with a wench or two every now and then. These men would use weapons such as this crossbow, whether for sport or for protection. They would cheer when one of their fellows became a man, and would cause a mighty ruckus if one of their own said an unkind word toward one of their sisters.

By sheer physical appearance, Singer did not look like the kind of man who could pick up a crossbow as if picking up a watch to put on his wrist. However, once he was done cleaning the arrow and had picked up the weapon again, all doubt was removed that this was the proper accessory for the man; where by itself it seemed a large, hefty contraption, in Singer’s hand it seemed an extension of his very own arm.

And there I stood, machete in hand, looking as if I were compensating for something.

As he replaced the now recycled arrow into the quiver strapped to his back, he looked at me and said, “Geez, kid. Cat got your tongue?”

I shook my head fervently.

“Oh, good.” He stepped forward, offering his hand to shake, and introduced himself.

I remember grasping his hand weakly and returning the introduction. His handshake was strong, but not obnoxiously so, and to help cover the wince when he squeezed my hand, I nodded to the faceless spaceman.

“Thanks for that,” I said.

He released his grip after a moment and a final squeeze, and turned in the direction of the that in question. “Oh, him?” he said, stepping back to the spaceman and kneeling by the dead thing’s foot. “This was one of the runts of their kind.”

Before I could respond with anything vocal, he surprised me by grabbing the zombie’s motionless foot and giving it a quick wiggle. To top it off, he took on a goofy voice and said something to the extent of, “Isn’t that right? Who’s a little runt? Who is? That’s right! You! That’s who!”

I couldn’t move, the image in front of me – the archer almost tickling the spaceman’s foot – gave me such pause that it’s a wonder I ever got to moving again. What did get me going, though, was the quick snap sound that came from the area of the corpse’s ankle. Singer stood up quickly, and even though the weird angle between us concealed most of the view, I knew: in his pinched fingers was an amputated foot. From a dead-again spaceman.

He turned his head toward me, offered an innocent grin, and said, “Whoops.”

Tossing the dead foot into the same corner he had whipped the arrow earlier, he turned the rest of his body toward me and proceeded to wipe his hands on his jeans. “Now then,” he said, “where were we?”

I looked back at the dead thing wrapped in tin foil. “You were calling him a runt before you took off his foot.”

Singer snorted. “Too bad it wasn’t the thing’s hand.” He snorted again and shook his head.

I guess the look on my face helped convey the utter confusion going through my head, because he immediately amended by saying, “You know… so you could say, ‘You gotta hand it to those zombies…’ No?”

Answering in the most politic way I could imagine, I quickly shook my head.

The man in front of me took on a pensive look and brought his hand to his face, taking on a very thoughtful expression. “Hm, no…” he said after a moment. “I guess that really doesn’t work. I mean, they’re giving their hand to you, so…”

He fell silent, then immediately shrugged it off and looked at me as if he had forgotten I was in the room. “Ah well,” he said. “So, kid… what’s your story?”

I told him.

“Hm, good story,” he said as he nodded at the way I concluded it. “You should tell other people about that, sometime.”

I thanked him, telling him I’d think about it.

“So,” I said, changing subjects and working my way back to one in particular, “what did you mean when you called that one” – I nodded back at the motionless spaceman – “a runt?”

In case it needs to be spelled out, for continuity purposes, at that point Singer and I were sitting down. We were several feet away from the fallen zombie, and all we could see were its shiny shoes – well, one of them, anyway. The smell wasn’t as bad this far from it, so it seemed a good place to sit and swap back stories.

Without looking toward where I was nodding this time, he simply let out a breath and said, “Kid, the things I’ve seen these past few weeks… that little guy right there doesn’t even compare. Hey, that almost rhymed a bit, there.”

He mused a little about his inadvertent bit of poetry, and I finally had to ask: “Are they all dressed like spacemen?”

At odd periods during our sitting down and discussing things, he had taken to inspecting the crossbow and ensuring everything was in working order. He would nod and listen, very rarely looking up; it was even rarer for him to look me in the eye when he did.

This was such a rarity, when he looked up from his inspection and gave me a cool look, right in the eyes. “Seriously?”

Yeah, it did seem like a silly question. Think of the conspiracies that could revolve around this one dead-again zombie. It would give a new spin on what had changed things so drastically, spark more intriguing questions, and-

“Why was it dressed like a spaceman, then?”

Singer snorted, which I came to find he did a lot; get used to it, boys and girls. “Hell,” he said, “why are you dressed up like some kind of combat hero from an unpublished comic book?”

I had to give him the point. While I figured myself to be prepared for some of the moderately extreme circumstances that I might come across, I could see how, to the casual observer, I looked quite the character. Most of my outfit was made of leather, due to the tough quality of the material – hey, it helped when that spaceman tried to make a meal of my arm, back there. I also wore boots and leather gloves; I had a utility belt around my waist and a machete-carrying-thing strapped across my back. The night-vision goggles were perched on my forehead, since there was adequate lighting at the front of Murray’s Mart, but even so…

Encompass all of that in a nice matte black, and you can somewhat see where he was coming from.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “The outfit’s badass. Definitely dressed for the occasion, which was probably what Mr Space Invader there happened to be at the time.”

Time had taken on such a sporadic character as of late that I completely forgot that only a few weeks had passed since the Day Everything Changed. Here we were, toward the end of November; the day in question happened right around Halloween. Ironic, isn’t it? I would say more apropos. Either way, it was messed up, and now here we are…

“Well then,” Singer said, breaking a silence that had somehow crept up on us, “I’m hungry. You hungry?”

I didn’t know, to be quite honest, and if my stomach hadn’t growled in response, I would have probably sat there and starved to death.

The man across from me grinned at my stomach’s affirmation and proceeded to stand back up. Putting his hands together and rubbing them excitedly, he looked around with a smile and said, “Let’s rustle up some grub!”

III: The Spaceman

As I peered into the darkness down the access hatch, my nose caught a whiff of the most horrific odor I had ever encountered. It went far beyond the distinct smell of decomposing bodies; it was more of a combination of rotten food, mildew, and wet dog, topped off with the distinct smell of decomposing bodies.

Murray’s Mart had once catered to a generalized market. It carried produce, toiletries, and even a tiny pharmacy center; the basic needs of the surrounding area were met at Murray’s. Unfortunately, Murray didn’t see the influx of undead making residence in the neighborhood, and thus forgot to make that bulk order of brains and human flesh. As a matter of complaint for the poor customer service, the zombies took a bite out of management. Literally.

The access hatch was located at the back of Murray’s, meaning the only way of getting to the sales floor, where Singer possibly was, happened to be through the warehouse located exactly below where I stood. Truth be told, it was a great way to test one’s mettle: if you could make it through the warehouse, you were golden. A second whiff from the hatch gave me the opportunity to smell an additional scent to the mix: that of stale vomit.

Apparently the mettle of a few people had been tested – and had failed miserably.
I swallowed heavily as I prepared my stomach for the approaching odor onslaught. As I gauged the distance from the top of the access hatch to the floor of the warehouse, I dug thorugh my utility belt in search of my night-vision goggles.

Yes, I have night-vision goggles; and before you crack wise, allow me to inform you that they have come in handy, on several occasions. Plus, if you allowed for the utility belt without a titter, don’t start picking and choosing what to laugh at.

Once the goggles were securely fastened and in working order, I made my way down the hatch’s ladder. The green light provided by the goggles increased the eerie feel of the too-too quiet mini-mart. Pipes creaked, though they had not been in use for several weeks; and somewhere within the store itself, something groaned. I hoped it was just my imagination, but just in case…

Before the Day Everything Changed, I was what you would call passive-aggressive. Whenever conflicts were concerned, I avoided them at all costs. If someone did something to me, no matter what it was, I would normally walk away and leave the person to think upon what they had done; something really harsh, and I would write a scathing entry on my blog about them, with incriminating names and all. On the World Wide Web, I was a legend. Unfortunately, once all main resources of power were expended and cut off, I became a nobody once more.

As soon as things had changed and society took a dive, a more physical approach to conflict resolution seemed more of the way to go.

I had never wielded a blade or a firearm before the Day Everything Changed, but I took to it almost immediately. It basically came down to point-and-thrust or point-and-shoot. I found that my years of playing first-person shooters had helped hone my aim; in fact, aiming with the actual weapon was much easier than using joysticks to aim.

In my time of fighting for survival, I had picked up a large-bladed machete, and it became my number-one defense against the undead. It was quieter than a gun, it was incredibly effective in cleanly removing a head – undead or otherwise – from its original body, and, as they all say, it never needed reloading.

After hearing the groan, I paused on the ladder and unsheathed the machete. I had made a quick and convenient sling in order for me to carry it around and be able to take it out with ease. It held firmly against my back and never impeded any movement whenever the blade was in use. I loved my handmade machete sling… thing.

I checked the blade to make sure it was in tact, and once everything was in order, I continued to climb down the ladder.

To say it was an easy way down from that point would be a bold-faced lie. Not only did I now find my hands full with the bulky blade, thus making the handholds on the rungs difficult, but I also had to ensure that the blade itself didn’t clang against the rails too much. I didn’t want to cause too much noise and either spook Singer or, worse, call attention to myself if any undead patrons were still doing their evening shopping. Unfortunately there wasn’t a better way to hold the machete, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to put the thing in between my teeth, like they do in the movies. A cut-up mouth was the last thing I needed.

I needn’t have worried, however, because as soon as I made it to the bottom of the ladder, there was nothing there ready to greet me; that is, aside from the visual display that went along with the rotten food-decomposing bodies-stale vomit combination from before. Needless to say, the flies were a nice added touch.

Now, where was the source of the groan? As I started to wonder even further, my question was answered by a third groaning call. It had definitely come from the direction of the sales floor, so I slowly made my way forward. The green dim of the goggles helped me steer around the shelving units and disregarded pallets of merchandise; I couldn’t see the floor, but I prayed heavily that the circular object that burst under my foot was a rotten melon.

Another groan later, I found myself standing in front of a set of swinging doors. The sound had been much louder than before, so I knew I was heading in the right direction. I didn’t know if it was a zombie or possibly an injured Singer, but I needed to find out and find out quick.

If it was a zombie, it needed to be removed from the sales floor and properly disposed.

If it was an injured Singer, he would need immediate assistance.

If it was an injured Singer, about to turn into a zombie… well, see Option A.

Holding the machete straight out in front of me, I gently opened one of the swinging doors with it. Slowly, I walked out onto the sales floor, and immediately found myself wishing I had pushed open the other door when a pair of hands latched onto my arms. Tightly. I turned toward the arm just in time to see a snarling, undead face open wide and proceed to make a meal of my arm.

Thankfully, the several layers of leather I had on, along with the thick gloves I was wearing, protected my arm from any possibility of being wounded or infected. The zombie attempting to feast on my arm seemed to notice its utter failure and stared at my arm as if confused. This gave me plenty of time to get my bearings and land a solid kick to the undead thing’s chest.

It fell backward dramatically: arms waving, head bobbling, legs doing a drunken jig. As if that weren’t bad enough, for the zombie anyway, a shopping cart seemed to sneak up behind the thing and trip it over. Both zombie and shopping cart fell over.

I took a moment to regroup, as well as to observe my attacker. Yep, definitely one of Them. Poor social skills, none too chatty, and a voracious cannibalistic mindset: the basics, and this one fit them all.

Only the zombie’s attire gave me pause as I circled it.

Zombies, being reanimated versions of those they once were, tend to wear the clothes they were wearing when they died. Most of the undead walk around in the normal affair: t-shirts and jeans, sometimes business suits. Some wear hats. And, over the course of time, they might lose at least one shoe.

However, the zombie in front of me wore none of these things.

First off, he wore a solid suit. There weren’t any separating marks that would describe the line between shirt and pants; it was, for what it’s worth, a one-piece suit. It covered everything, aside from his head. It even covered his hands and his feet.

Secondly, the suit itself was shiny. As if made out of tin foil, it gleamed and glinted as it caught random glares of light. And, like tin foil, it crinkled as the zombie got its footing once more.

And thirdly, the best bit: the zombie had two antennae poking from his bald head. As the undead thing stood as straight as it could, it lifted its head quickly; the antennae whipped up and bobbled with the motion.

With all of that, plus the green glow I saw through the night-vision goggles, I was looking at – I kid you not – a genuine spaceman. The insignia on its chest promoted some kind of space administration, but I was unable to read it clearly as the zombie snarled and lunged itself at me.

I hefted the machete and prepared myself for the swing to end this bit of fun.

The zombie closed the distance between us, and I began to tense up to take the decapitating swing. A few feet more, and that’d be all she wrote, folks.

I never got the chance to swing, as right before the zombie reached that last foot between us, its face exploded in blood, gore, and general nastiness. The mess flew outward, but only went so far as to cover my boots in its muck.

After momentarily mourning the cleanliness of my boots, I looked up to see the zombie before it crumpled to the floor. In place of its facial features was a large, sharp barbed arrow. From behind the undead’s head, I could see the large feathers on its tail end; however, because of the goggles I still had on, I was unable to appreciate the plumage.

The zombie fell to the floor in a lazy heap and directly behind it stood the man I’d watched sing his way into the store without a care in the world. He held a large crossbow that, for a scary moment there, I thought he was going to use on me next. Instead, he lowered it, looked down at the heap at his feet, and gave it a gentle tap with his sneaker-clad foot. Then he looked up at me and gave me a smile that, if it could, would win awards.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the moment I met Singer.

II: The Geek

In the days before the Day Everything Changed, I used to work in a comic book shop. It wasn't a big deal: the corner shop in a mini-mart strip mall with the hand-crafted sign touting the quaint title - Ye Olde Commik Shoppe.

Fritz, the owner of the graphic novel emporium, had stuck with the name after a promise he'd made to his sick grandmother. The promise, as Fritz would tell me, was made after his sick grandmother, who had been a traveling gypsy in her younger years, swore to curse him and his success if he did not go with the name that she had personally chosen.

Not being one to tempt fate, no matter how senile or decrepit it may be, Fritz went with the name. Whether or not the success with the business was helped or hindered by the decision remained to be seen.

The shop itself carried all of the titles known, unknown, and specially-tailored to certain audiences; I would name a few, but that's not really where I'm going with this. People came from all over the city, as if flowing from the woodwork, to stand around in Ye Olde Commik Shoppe. Whether they were reading issues without paying for them, having intense discussions with fellow fans, or having heated arguments with fans of the opposing comic producers, these people spent most of their waking hours in Fritz's shop.

I was never big on the comic book scene... Don't look at me like that: just because I happened to be a gamer in my life before the Day Everything Changed, it doesn't mean that I had to be a comic book nerd on top of that. That's stereotyping, and I'd appreciate it if you looked beyond the assumption.

Now, I was never big on the comic book scene, but while working at Fritz's I happened to sneak glances at what the comic aficionados were purchasing and discussing with such vehemence. In that time, I read about heroes from other planets, from other realms, from mythology, and from basic science itself. Some could run fast, others had nifty gadgets, while the rest had tweaked-out genetics. There was a spectrum to the fantastical and the weird, and I had considered myself something of a learned expert on such things. So when the Day Everything Changed took place, I actually had an idea of what to do, what could work, and what was just dumb to even try. That's right: there was a comic series about it. Talk about wicked ominous foreshadowing.

And yet, none of my comic reading prepared me for the sight before me...

Singer strolled down the main thoroughfare of the main street, crooning a happy little tune while surrounded by his undead fanatics. The zombies lurched and shuffled, focused on the man at the center of their mass; and yet, they seemed to be focused on something else entirely. It's hard to explain, but trust me on this: it was absolutely insane.

Following the singing man's direction a ways, I managed to deduce his destination: the food market just a few doors down. A little mid-afternoon grocery shopping, I supposed. Hey, the weather was perfect for it; slightly overcast with a slight breeze, a heavy cloud of the undead slowly making its way from the east... Do you see why I was a comic shop clerk and not, oh, a TV weatherperson? Yeah, me neither.

A few minutes passed and I had started to let the idea of a singing man walking amongst a heavy crowd of zombies become a member to the club known as Reality. As he walked up to the front door of the mini-mart, the open area around him started to take on a weird pattern. Upon getting closer to the wall of the shop, his decomposing followers found themselves walking into the wall, continuing their shuffle as if unobstructed. They basically walked in place while, as the singing man came even closer to the wall, their fellow shufflers walked into them. All the while, the ten-foot distance being kept as the zombies dispersed in order to let Singer through.

An enormous crowd of zombies flowed along the walls of the shop as Singer, with ease and finesse, popped the chain holding the shop's doors together, then proceeded to open the doors and walk through them. Holding the door for a dramatic moment, I saw through the rifle's scope as I had watched this entire performance draw out, he closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide to provide the loudest, sweetest note to end his aria.

A moment later, his eyes shot open, his mouth snapped shut, a smirk appeared on his youthful face. He swiftly closed the door and used the chain to seal himself securely inside the store.

No sooner had the final note been dropped and the last echoes had dissipated, the zombies seemed to realize what they were doing. Their slow, serene shuffling mutated into cannibalistic madness. The ones who had been the first to be softly crushed against the shop's wall fought their way through the throngs of those pressing against them. Snarls issued challenges, and unintelligible noises shot back at the instigators. While some madly snapped and swatted at each other, the majority of the crowd went about their own business. They loped around, waiting patiently for the next meal to come waltzing down the street; one, however, that didn't come with its own musical theme.

A few had realized that their next meal was awaiting them on the other side of the doors that had just been closed. These were the ones who had been close enough for the spell of Singer's crooning to be easily cut off as the slam of the doors marked the end of the tune. They threw themselves lazily at the doors, which were, for some inexplicable reason, made of solid wood. Had they been made of glass, this story would have taken a much different turn; as it is, they weren't, so we're staying on track.

The insane singing man had been in the shop for quite a while; probably enjoying a nice meal of canned meat, crackers, with that cheese that never seems to go bad. Wash it all down with a nice bottle of water, and you have yourself a meal fit for a king.

Thinking about it made my stomach growl out its own opinion of food, and how it would like some, please. I peered at my watch, which hadn't worked since the third day after all of this went down, and figured it was good a time as any to try to rustle up some grub. The sun was going down, and there was a thing I had read and observed first-hand about how the undead acted when the darkness came out to play. Trust me, you don't want to be privy to that kind of experience.

Scanning the rooftops for and finding the best possible way to the grocery store - I have a terrible singing voice, so that was out of the question - I reached into my utility belt and pulled out my grappling hook. I loaded it, aimed it, and fired it. The hook sailed majestically through the air and landed on the rooftop directly opposite to where I was currently standing.

I won't bore you with the specifics on how I used the grappling hook's wire zip-line across to the opposing rooftop. Needless to say, I had done this a few times, and I had become particularly adept at using the grappling hook, the zip line, and the suction cups that were only a few of the items to be found in my trusty belt.

I will tell you, however, that I ended up having to use the grappling hook and zip-line seven times before I ended up, comfortably, on the roof that belonged to the mini-mart. There was an access hatch that led down into the depths of the store. After breaking the padlock with the mini-blowtorch I had acquired after one of my first adventures since the Day Everything Changed, I made sure everything was back in the utility belt before climbing down and eventually meeting the man I would come to know as Singer.

Once again, I was never big on the comic book scene... until the day my life became one.