Growing up, I remember thinking the worst thing in the world would be to be alone.  To have no human contact.  Now it seems that the only way I can survive is by cutting out all the human weaknesses I once feared; pain, sadness, fear, and love.

Apocalypse Z is what they called it, before they got the plugs pulled.  They: the government, the media, the people deemed “intelligent” enough to inform the rest of the population about what the hell was actually going on. But once the panic really hit, the first thing to go was the media. So the media died, and people freaked out.  The fact that I’m still alive today has less to do with my hunting skills than it does with my location.  Normally a downtown urban area would be a feeding ground for the Zs, but the only access to the apartment is through a gated elevator with a heavy locking fence.  I keep it shut and locked at all times. When we bought this place we were gonna live like real artists.  A loft, no walls, no blinds, no rules.  Let the world around us be our muse.  Us: Max and me.

He was a sculptor and I was a writer. One semester in college, we ended up in the same class: “Marketing and selling your Work.”  For some reason he sat next to me, and he felt compelled to speak.

“I’ve been trying to get into this class for three semesters! Hi, I’m Max.”  His hand was strong and it fit really well in mine.  I could have sworn I felt an electric shock, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m… very shy.” I was appalled at the words coming out of my mouth.  I was almost positive at that point that I had been misdiagnosed as a healthy kid, and I really was autistic.  But he just smiled. “I mean to say that…I don’t talk much.”

“Right, ‘cause you’re shy.  No worries.  I got it.”  I laughed a little and looked over into his big brown eyes.  I’m an eyes kind of girl. I knew the moment I looked into that dark brown pool that I would never find anyone else more perfect for me.

From that day on, Max and I spent every second together.  He used to make me stutter because I would get so nervous around him; it was weeks before we were able to have complete conversations.  The first time he kissed me we were walking from class, talking about nothing in particular. He kissed me, and I was his forever.

We refused to believe every artistic relationship was doomed to fail, what with our flighty nature and less-than sanitary living habits.  We said, “Screw it” and got married by a judge in his office on a Thursday afternoon.  I don’t remember how long, but we really only dated about four months.  There didn’t seem to be any point in waiting.  Next, we did what any young artistic newlywed couple would do: we leased a huge loft that we couldn’t afford, bought a big bed and stocked the cupboards with junk food.  One word: heaven. We were so in love, so happy.  I guess, looking back, that much happiness couldn’t last for long.

About a year after we got married, the rumors started about something scary happening.  We didn’t own a TV, but Max was an avid listener of NPR during his morning routine. The panic was almost instantaneous.  A human body, a 23-year-old Norwegian male, struck dead by a flu virus only to come back to life after 48 hours.  He was in the morgue when it happened.  The media was in a frenzy, no one could find the reason for the reanimation. Max and I stayed relatively relaxed; we figured it was a Norwegian disease that couldn’t possibly get into our country.  After the first few cases were reported, we began to get phone calls from concerned family members.  They asked us to come home, live with them, get out of the city.  Neither of us was prepared for any sort of apocalypse to say the least. But it didn’t matter.  We would not leave our home, end of the world or not.

Our apartment, located on the eighth floor of a ten-story building; was usually surrounded by happy neighbors, but by the end of that first summer the entire building was practically empty.  Most people followed the governments’ suggestion of getting out into the less-populated rural areas, stay away from cities and hospitals.  Max scoffed.

“If everyone is moving out there, how exactly is it less populated?”  So we stayed put and watched the chaos from above.  We went about our daily routine as normally as we could.  He sculpted, I wrote, but my heart wasn’t there.

Soon, it seemed every news story featured a case of these reanimated corpses.  Some vulgar people called them zombies, but the P.C. term was just Z. The scariest part about the Zs at first was that they were reanimated, but then the news released information about how they eat human flesh.  Real life, well, as real life as once dead humans could be, cannibals. The terror that had been suppressed exploded at this realization. This enemy had only one goal: to feed.  And we humans were the filet mignon of their diet.

Once the panic really hit it was impossible for us to maintain our strict vegan diet.  The grocery store owner stopped coming to his shop, and whatever was left we had to grab and take before someone else did.  I was disgusted with the idea of eating meat; I had been a vegan for almost fifteen years, so I simply refused to eat. I went four days with nothing and finally broke down and ate the whole bowl of chicken flavored ramen Max made for me.  I cried after I finished.  It wasn’t just the chicken broth; it was everything, the whole ordeal.  I was totally worn down.  Everything I believed to be true was now false and I couldn’t handle it.

My junior year of college, I picketed a NRA seminar.  I threw a balloon filled with red paint on Charlton Heston’s godson or something; now my husband’s clean shotgun leaned against the kitchen table.  So Max held me, and I cried. But when I was done, Max made me look at him, and made me promise to survive, no matter what.

“I need you to live.”  I didn’t realize at the time what that would mean, so I promised.  I said I would live to see the other side of this war.

Even though we were in the midst of “the panic,” Max and I had yet to see a Z.  The guns and preparation were really to protect us from the looters running rampant all over the city.  They came out at night, in astounding numbers.  From the balcony of our apartment, I would watch looters, run around to all the different stores and restaurants in our beautiful neighborhood and tear them apart.  Humans went around killing other humans; they forgot what it was to be civilized.

One particularly gruesome night a young couple, not unlike Max and I, were driving but they must have gotten lost.  I looked down from the balcony as they stepped out of the car to stretch and read their map closely.  Before the man could do anything, a human-monster came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with the butt of his gun.  He fell immediately and a pool of blood flowed from his wound.  Three more men came from the shadows as soon as he hit the ground.  The woman screamed for help.  Max grabbed his shotgun leaned over the balcony and told them to back off. They refused.  They laughed at Max and dared him to shoot.  He couldn’t.  They took the girl and the car and left.  As soon as they were out of sight, Max broke down into convulsing sobs.  I comforted him as best as I could, but it was a traumatizing experience for both of us. When I saw my first real Z, I had forgotten that they were the enemy.

It was a group of five of them.  They were circling a dog, someone’s leftover designer pet. The dog was tiny, but they managed to shred the pieces between five Zs.  As I watched, I came to a sick conclusion.

“They can’t help it.” Max looked up at me from the spot he was staring at on the floor.

“What?

“They can’t help it.  They’re no better than animals themselves.  They know only that they need to feed.”  I started to cry.

“Why are you crying?”

“The Z’s!  They can’t help being monsters!  But the others, the murderers and the rapists, they’re just humans, regular humans.”  We both cried then. Max had always believed that people were ultimately good and society is what makes them evil. This war was changing his beliefs and we both hated it.

Max worked hard to procure enough provisions for us.  The stores were practically empty after the first month or so.  There were lots of left over brown vegetables and rotten fruit, but the cans and the dry food were all but gone.  He would walk for miles and miles to the grocers around the area, but the looters had taken anything worth having.  He got into the habit of breaking and entering old apartments.  He started with our building, and then moved on to neighboring ones.

“What makes me any different than the other looters?”

“You are just doing whatever you can to make sure we survive.  It’s not your fault we are forced to act like this.”

“I just wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

Sometimes I would go with him, to look for food, or help carry an extra gun. The looters were less active in the day.  We would walk all day long; our feet and our backs stabbed at us, but complaining wasn’t an option.  There were some days when it felt like old times.  We would walk and hold hands.  He would tell me about a sculpture he wanted to start and I would hum the theme song to “I Dream of Jeannie.”  But again, how long can something good last, especially in the middle of a Z-pocalypse?

About a year after the epidemic started, I wasn’t feeling well, so Max went alone to hunt for food and water.  A huge fence door and a system of chains and locks protected our personal elevator.  I hated locking Max out after he left, but he insisted it was for my safety, so I followed the rules.

“I promise to be home soon, but if I’m late don’t panic.  I will always come back to you.”  Max said this every time he left.  It was never easy letting him leave.

“I love you Maximilian, don’t ever forget.”  I kissed him.

After six hours and my first prayer ever, I heard the elevator coming up.  He didn’t have his duffle bag or his shotgun and he was weakly leaning up against the back of the elevator. I ran for him but the safety of the gate seemed like a fortress between Max and myself.  My hands were shaking and he just watched me as I fumbled around like an idiot.  When I finally opened the gate, I didn’t know what to touch or not touch.  There was so much blood, I couldn’t see anything.  “Whose blood is this?  How did it get everywhere?” He lifted his arm an inch, and showed me.  He was shot.  Below his rib cage.  I led him to the bed but I was so lost, I didn’t know what to do, so I just took off his shoes, like any other day.  He didn’t say anything. I had several well-stocked first aid kits, but that didn’t mean that I knew anything about dressing a gaping wound.  I tried to read the first aid booklet, but I was shaking, I was crying, I was useless.  I cleaned what I could, and I wrapped his whole stomach in an ace bandage, because I was clueless.  I was prattling on about stupid thing, to keep him conscious, to keep him with me.

“Remember how mean that Professor was?  And you talked back to her because she kept mixing up French Classicism with French Neoclassicism.  That was so funny.  Remember when I first told you I loved you?  We were at that Chinese restaurant, and you had gotten a double order of wontons and you were so hungry you ate them all in two minutes?  You were so funny and so cute, how could I not love you?”  I talked and talked, and he slept and sometimes squeezed my hand.  I could just barely feel his breath on my face when I leaned over to whisper how much he meant to me in his ear.

“Don’t give up on me Maximilian, I love you, I need you to get through this.  Please… just don’t give up.”

The days stretched on, I fed and nursed Max as well as I could.  It was about a week before he spoke.  It hurt him so badly, but he knew that I needed it.  “Hey beautiful.”  I had turned away for a second to grab him some of our dwindling supply of water.  I jumped when I heard him.

“Max?  Yes, I’m here!”  He smiled at me.  It pained him, but he smiled and touched my hand with his.

“Remember the first time I kissed you?” I nodded; I couldn’t help but let the tears finally fall.  “I was so nervous I was shaking.  As soon as my lips touched yours though, I knew I loved you.  And I knew that I wanted to marry you and be with you forever.

“It was the same way with me!” I squeezed his fingers.  He didn’t squeeze back.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t last that long.  Will you forgive me?”  I knew this was coming, I knew from when he walked in with blood covering his body that I wouldn’t get to keep him.  I just didn’t want to let it happen.

“Of course I forgive you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

#

I cried at first, he was my husband after all.  He was the reason why I kept living day after day.  So yes, in the middle of my apartment I dropped to my knees and cried.  I tore at my hair and my clothes.  All I could do was scream.  But after that day, I stopped.  The pain that lived inside of me was hollow and I ignored any feeling that would make me weak.  I was not physically strong; I was skinny and had no muscle to speak of. So I had to be emotionally strong.  I had to pretend to be strong every second where I was scared.  Eventually I just had to start believing myself.

Night after night I could hear the screams and the rampage of the real monsters roaming the streets looking for fresh victims to kill.  The zombies were easy, one shot to the head, and they’re down.  The humans were the scary ones.  I could hear bangs on the door downstairs, I ignored them.  I could hear screams for help two or three blocks over, and I ignored them.  I ignored them all. Deep in the pit of my stomach it hurt knowing that I myself was one of the humans, and I only wish I could have proven Max right about humans being good.  But the murders and rapes continued, and I just listened.