under the moonlight by ChrisPyTops 18 Aug 2015
Paranormal (Tv Show)
E
M/M
Graphic Depictions of Violence, Chris Rochester/Trevor | Chris Rochester, Zombies, Getting Together, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Hurt/No Comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia, Chris Rochester (Paranormal), Trevor (Paranormal), Original Female Character(s)
Chris is finally going to put rumors about his and Trevor’s relationship to rest. It was only a matter of time, afterall. Canon compliant.
Fritz was stupid for not recognizing what was going on. She knew all about The Twilight Zone episode, okay? The one where the man just wants to be alone and read his damn book. His wife died, his coworkers died, all that remained was the rubble of the library. So, he picked up the first book off the steps, adjusted his glasses and…And….
It didn’t matter. Fritz knew the episode. She watched it plenty of times before nodding off to Rod Sterling’s voice. Her couch had a permanent dent where she used to nap after her shift. She wanted you to know this so you don’t ironically point to that parable when she tells you what happened. There are, no, there were hundreds of books, folktales, bedtime stories, movies, TV shows, and YouTube skits imaginable that described what she went through. She got it. Loud and clear. She’s a fucking moron. She shouldn’t have spent all that time scrolling on her phone. She should have just accepted that job offer after graduation and never thought about being happy ever again. She should have found friends offline, met a nice man on a dating app and have inane dinners for the rest of her stupid, stupid, stupid life.
Well, it’s too late to lecture Fritz now.
All of that stupid bullshit about working hard and paying off your loans doesn’t matter. The dumb lectures on goals, and mental health. The merits of removing yourself from social media, getting a flip phone to beat phone addiction, logging off. Nothing matters. Not the walking corpses which leave a trail of drying, rancid flesh, not the wasteland of her suburban town, not Fritz. The universe exploded and God rang the bells for judgment day. She will never know the ending of her favorite show. She will never know the writer’s intentions for the final season, or if they fixed the plothole she had been pointing out for literal years now. Fritz gave up a lot for that fucking show.
She didn’t care that it was all for nothing. In fact, after everything fell apart she was vindicated. At least she spent her wasted life doing something she enjoyed. People hated their jobs, their spouses, politics; Fritz loved TV shows.
7:31 AM 11/02/2015
The apocalypse started the way it was predicted. It was boring. That morning, with the tornado sirens blaring national news stations sending helicopters, Fritz woke up and went to work. She wore a red apron around her shirt and jeans, the bow in the back digging into her waist. She stood behind the cash register at the local chain grocery store. In the fluorescent lights, and the smell of old dusty water, Fritz bagged hundreds of paper towels and canned goods. The annoying, paranoid schizos were out to hoard tonight, just as they had been out for every weather event.
“What’s going on?” her coworker asked at the register station behind. “It’s like a zoo.”
Fritz shrugged. “Don’t know. We usually get crazy when a bad storm is predicted.”
Her coworker was a short, elderly woman with thinning grey hair. She joined about a month after Fritz was hired, claiming to have run out of her social security payments and needing extra cash to afford her crochet hobby. She talked too much and loved to comment on Fritz’s appearance. They ran out of ink for the label printer when she joined, so her name is penned in nearly expired sharpie on a nameplate.
Edda.
Fritz’s name label rubbed off in the wash. It was a blessing in disguise, especially today, as strangers couldn’t be assed to connect with her on a human level by reading her name.
“I can’t believe they’re making you work right now,”A customer said. A middle-aged woman in Edda’s row began the process of removing canned peaches and baked beans from her cart. Her sweater has a college logo on it, one Fritz didn’t recognize. “It’s so cruel.” The woman doesn’t stop putting things on the conveyer belt.
“Oh, I don’t mind working,” Edda said with a smile. She was not lying.
The customer frowned. “I mean with the alert. The one in the news.”
Edda didn’t hear her. “That will be sixteen dollars and fifty three cents.”
“Thank you.” She squinted her eyes to read the nameplate. Her voice was full of false sympathy. The type that made Fritz’s skin crawl. “Edda. Get home safe, okay?”
Fritz patted her left buttcheek, empty. She moved directly towards the pocket on the right and pulled her cellphone free. By her judgement, she could get away with looking at her phone for seventeen seconds before the next people in line would start to complain. Her phone opened; hundreds of social media notifications pop in one by one. She really should have turned off those settings, but the hit of attention reinvigorated her mind like a cup of coffee. Just a few more hours of mindless work then she can go home and reply. Her friends waited on Skype for her arrival. Fritz would survive the shift. She scanned the remaining notifications half-heartedly, then cleared them in one large swipe. There, on top of all the Twitter replies and the Tumblr reblogs, was a national emergency message. The bold letters wouldn’t leave the screen, no matter how many times Fritz clicked the small ‘x’ button on the bubble. She hadn’t seen that message before.
Seek Shelter Immediately
“Excuse me?” A man wearing a baseball cap tapped the top of the cashier computer. He held an infant on his hip. It babbled and drooled over its chunky round cheeks. “We’re all kinda in a rush here, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh,” Fritz leaned forward, examining the growing line coming from both her and Edda’s registers. She slid her phone back in her jeans. “Of course, sir. Cash or card?”
1:45 PM 11/02/2015
When Fritz finally got home after her shift, she flopped down on the couch and felt her body melt into the pillows. She readjusted the phone in her hand, moving the bottom speaker away from the dry callous beginning to form on her pinky. The national emergency message still overlooked the rest of her phone at the top.
She frowned.
Her thumb scrolled up on her activity feed. Nothing.
Did someone report her account? Back at the cashier station, she could have sworn she had hundreds of notifications to look through. No, she was certain she had plenty of replies to look through. Maybe they had all just piled up on her websites and her phone couldn’t handle all the load. That happened once, when Fritz posted a Paranormal gifset right as the episode was airing. Chris had told Trevor that he was the only one he could trust. They held eye contact for four whole seconds. Trevor’s wet, pathetic eyes scanned Chris’s face. Fritz felt her body tighten in anticipation. Trevor’s gaze landed on Chris’s lips. It was happening. It was finally, finally, fucking happening.
They didn’t kiss.
Fritz was the first one to post the interaction. Or, one of the first with a big enough following. It received five thousand reblogs within an hour. Two hundred retweets. Her phone got crazy hot from the constant notifications.
She opened her Tumblr app. The dashboard wouldn’t load. Not the biggest surprise. She clicked all the buttons on the bottom of the screen, cycling through to see if anything popped into existence. Usually something would load, even if it was just an Ad. She knew for a fact that she paid the internet bill. It took forty bucks from her account without her realizing and overdrafted. It was a whole ordeal.
Come on, Fritz hissed.
Her blog was the only thing to load, the only page that didn’t show the desert of annoyingly plain dark blue. Finally, she had something to look at.
The first post was her mutual’s fanart: Chris was leaning his whole body weight on Trevor while they were locked in a supply closet. Fritz took a moment to appreciate the art. She really enjoyed this person’s stuff. In the art, Chris was blushing, easy simple pink lines that notated his embarrassment with the situation. Fritz’s face gave way to a smile. She scrolled down, and saw the anon message she got yesterday asking about her thoughts on the new episode. It was far too wordy to be coherent, but it received fifty three likes anyways. Another scroll, the next post was a manifesto on Chris’s change of character this season. Fritz thought it was well-written, and concisely brought the issues with the writing to light. She looked down at the numbers on the post. She saw it was only reposted, not liked. The optics would be bad. She hit the heart button. She scrolled mindlessly for another minute. A screencap of an early season two episode of Paranormal. Another Chevor fanart. A link to her latest fic. A gif of Chris from season four. She stopped on a particularly hostile message she received about an offhanded comment she made about Trevor. It really didn’t deserve any feedback, or response. Still, Fritz felt compelled to say something to the, honestly, insane message. Re-reading her reply made her sigh.
If only more people could understand Chris and Trevor like Fritz. In fact, Paranormal would be a better show if everyone involved would just listen to her. It was more than a fling; a hot, steamy romance. Truthfully, whether the writers intended it or not, their relationship was an epic beyond what a cult-classic slash ship was supposed to be. They didn’t get it. Chris was not only Trevor’s best friend, not just a bromance, but a perfect romantic foil to the trauma of both of their lives. Chris’s burly masculinity hid his internalized homophobia and attraction to his friend. Trevor’s lithe, but surprisingly strong, frame fit under Chris’ perfectly. When Chris exploded in a fire of repressed anger and pain, Trevor was there to soothe the flames. Less than opposites, they were two sides of the same coin. As if they were puzzle pieces in the grand scheme of each other’s lives. Ugh, if only the showrunners would see it too. How could they accidentally create such a masterpiece without intending it? There was plenty of online discussion, discussion Fritz participated in, which analyzed what the writers room thought of the ship. The main consensus was that they were just getting money off of the gay people on Tumblr who shipped them. Queerbaiting, or whatever. Fritz didn’t care. Take her money! As long as she could see the two of them kiss on screen. Hell, even if they held hands. Hugged. Said three words to one another. Who cares if they were canonically gay, she would love them even if they weren’t. Six months ago, she wrote a quick little story about them as a straight couple for fun. Trevor was easy to transpose into womanhood. Fritz received a few weird anonymous messages, but they rolled off her back. She understood Chris and Trevor’s dynamic more than anyone else and, clearly, others believed the same. Her follower count rose significantly within the last few years. Newbies to the show would come to her for help. Her post titled “Getting Started with Chris/Trevor” had more than 56,000 notes. She was an original, a fandom mainstay. A staple of the community.
Fritz moved to her Twitter account. Her timeline wouldn’t refresh. The page was white, and semi-blinding. Not a single tweet appeared, but the forever spinning loading circle inched around. Her user icon refused to load, showing a creepy white silhouette of a person instead.
She swiped to her notifications tab.
It was usually bustling. With each refresh, no matter the time between, she would receive anywhere from one to fourteen new interactions. On average, she would get four public asks a day through Tumblr and one through her CuriousCat on Twitter. Right now, she was getting none. Zilch. Her hand was beginning to cramp.
She was certain she had notifications. It was impossible for her not to. All of her accounts were active. Her emails contained no alerts, no informative automated messages about a ban or a report. What the hell happened? Back at work, she very clearly saw the smattering of likes and reposts. She remembered doing the motion with her thumb to hide each and every one of them.
Fritz sat up straight. The peeling leather creaked with her weight. Precariously, her laptop sat under her dangling feet on the rug below. With her big toe and curled foot, she yoinked it from the ground and tossed it onto the couch cushion. The back screen of her laptop was nearly snapped off, but Fritz kept it steady with the claw of her hand. She waited for the screen to turn blue.
The notifications were missing on the desktop version as well. Even worse, the websites wouldn’t even load.
Had all the servers gone down?
She checked her phone once more, staring at the bold blocky national emergency alert. Maybe the storm was worse than she thought and the internet was shot. Maybe the whole town was affected. Her eyes darted to the small windows bringing in miniscule light into her apartment. The sky wasn’t green, or yellow, or even grey. Fritz heard no rain. She frowned.
Maybe everything would be fixed after a nap. There was no point in staying awake, especially now that the internet was completely fucked. Shit, she was really looking forward to spending the next few hours online too. She tossed the laptop back on the ground. Heaving an overly dramatic sigh, Fritz continued to cycle through different applications on her phone while she adjusted to lay down. She could still see some posts that had loaded before everything got fucked, at least. It was something.
Her recent PWP drabble received new comments. These were her absolute favorite emails to receive. She searched through her inbox. Emails sent over the last week… No new ones had come in since this morning at four. In fact, no new emails came in. Period. Not even junk. She scrolled up on her mail app, refreshing the inbox. Just like her blog and her Twitter account, nothing new appeared. With a huff of annoyance, she checked the unread emails. Thankfully, they had been sent to her phone the night before while she was sleeping. Three of them were nonsense keysmashes. Truthfully, the nonsense always felt better than proper feedback. Fritz felt warm pride at her little 30,000 word fic being well-received to the point of incomprehension. She had written it in an insomniac haze over the course of six hours. She became so focused on writing, that she called out of work the next morning to edit. Within hours of posting, people online were shouting it out, commenting on different lines, and drawing fanart of the more romantic scenes. Fritz didn’t like every post that mentioned her, or her work, but would often search her own username to see what people were saying. Call her vain, but it was all part of the experience of being a Paranormal fan. Occasionally, a trusted mutual blogger would send her a link to a particularly beautiful piece of fanart of her fanfiction through Skype.
Have you seen this one?
Her fingers loosened around her worn phone case. Her arm began to droop. She stared emptily into the screen. The email dimmed. She was thinking of a new piece to write, one that would really get people talking. Many of her favorite online friends were trickling out of the fandom one at a time. Some of them were getting salary positions without much time for superfluous things. Her best friend, Quinn Trevortreats, hadn’t been online in three days. There was a moment in Fritz and Quinn’s lives where they would be chatting all day, every day. Last year, Quinn decided to go get her Masters. It’s been downhill since.
But, Chevor wasn’t something Fritz could easily shake from her soul. Her mind refocused on the potential writing ideas. She could change the dynamic? Genderbend the characters again? What about BDSM… Hmm…
Her phone tumbled down onto her chest. She paid it no mind, hardly even feeling the sensation of the chunk of technology hitting her sternum. Her mind was barely conscious; half-thinking of her next draft, and half-dreaming. Another few hours and her notifications would be back. Her eyelids drooped, and she fell asleep with quiet, quick resolution.
5:13 PM 11/02/2015
Fritz gasped awake, her hand gripping her hoodie; the lower part of her back slicked in sweat. She glanced at the time. She expected the storm to have started by now, but the evening was still. Her eyesight was blurry, and the dim string lights around the walls did little to illuminate the room. Fritz considered, briefly, the idea that she could let her nap turn into a full on sleep. Forget about the rest of the night, start again in the morning. She yawned obnoxiously.
BANG!
Her window vibrated with unseen force.
Fritz jumped, letting out a startled high-pitched screech. She scurried to the farthest edge of the sofa. She wasn’t easily spooked, but the combination of her nap hangover and abject darkness outside gave her pause. Where was her phone? Shit, where was her fucking phone? The remaining grogginess of her nap dispersed.
“That isn’t funny!” she screamed towards the offending window.
There was no response.
Swiping her hand left and right against the matted rug, she found her cellphone (nearly consumed by the underside of the couch). She unlocked it. Still no notifications. The stupid national alert floated in the middle of her screen.
Her heart beat wildly against her ribs. The scare was still settling in her body. Her pulse drummed in her ears, echoing into her skull. It washed out the radiator spitting and sputtering steam in the other room. With considerable effort, she took a deep inhale. Her pulse grew louder.
BANG!
“Fuck you, I’ll call the police!” She released her breath all in one phrase. Her chest burned.
Her eyes squeezed shut. There were plenty of other options to consider before “murderer” came to mind. The world was not out to get her.
Pest control? Kinda late for that.
The noise could be her neighbor upstairs forgetting his key again and asking for her to unlock the door. But, usually, he would knock (politely) and smile (apologetically) while belly down on the grass; his face peeking in from the tiny slits of glass. He was never loud, never abrasive, and certainly not aggressive. His wiry middle aged body was full of never-achieved goals and guilt from being a deadbeat. Harmless.
Where once the sun slipped through, the glass square was pitch black.
A salesman, perhaps. One of those Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Where was the baseball bat she kept? No, it wasn’t a baseball bat, it was a softball bat. She was third base for two years in high school. Come on, fourteen-year-old Fritz would be furious knowing that she forgot the difference. Have some pride. No, Fritz, focus. Who was banging on your fucking apartment? Annoying neighborhood kids, most likely, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
She slipped off of the couch like a slug. Crawling, Fritz walked on her hands and knees to the kitchen where the aforementioned metal softball bat was sandwiched in the gap by the pantry cabinet and fridge. Her limbs shuffled, uncoordinated.
She regretted not buying a cheap runner. Her knees were beginning to ache. But standing in the middle of the apartment was unwise, exposed. Fritz imagined that a red dot would appear in between her eyes if she rose from the floor.
She stopped at the foot of the cabinet/fridge gap. Her past self was so fucking idiotic. Why would she have put the bat in this impossible crevice? She reached into the dusty, greasy crack. Hot air from her fridge warmed her fingers and knuckles. Her palm pressed against the unfinished wood of the cabinet. Scratchy. The freezer made a whirring noise; the non-functional ice machine attempted to fulfill its purpose. Her pointer finger found purchase with the wide part of the bat. The hollow metal gently clanged against the fridge. Her arms weren’t long enough. Fritz jammed her shoulder further into the kitchen canyon.
“Shit!” Her hand slipped and landed on the mess of grime on the ground.
Fritz’s entire face scrunched up, her lips pursed and her eyes squinted shut. A crawling sensation inched up her spine from her fingers. She held back a gag. Her palm was caked in a mixture of refrigerator condensation, dust, and crusty food scraps. She peeled her palm from the floor, and wiped it on the side of her pajama pants. The apartment was softly glowing from the small lights, and no one had banged on her window for a third time. It was peaceful. Unnerving, but peaceful. She had plenty of time. Take a breath, Fritz. Take a breath.
Steeling herself, she shoved her arm fully in between the countertop and refrigerator towards the bat, wrapped her fingers around the grip, and tugged it free of its nearly forgotten location. Her back twinged with sudden pain. The sweat under her hoodie turned stark cold. Through gritted teeth, Fritz shook her shoulders and let the discomfort ease away. She had won her prize.
She stood up from behind the island counter with both hands tightly squeezing the leather wrapped handle of the bat. Her neck hung forward, still unsure if she should be hiding or not. Her eyes darted between the front door and the window. She ground her teeth together to stop her limbs from shivering. The involuntary convulsions reminded her of nicotine withdrawal. Even her fingers, wrapped around the bat, seemed to be begging for a smoke.
No, she wouldn’t hide. She had a weapon now. Inching towards the glass step by step, Fritz kept looking behind her. There was no way anyone could enter her apartment through the deadbolt. The door makes the worst ungodly creaking sound in the world. Besides, the noise happened in front of her. On the window.
The window.
She couldn’t help but feel watched. Observed.
Was Fritz doing the thing she was supposed to be doing? No one was throwing popcorn at her head on a screen and calling her a stupid bitch? This was how those dumb women died in true crime documentaries. But, those same documentaries warned about the danger of becoming unaware of your surroundings. Fritz was very aware of her square studio apartment and who exactly occupied the space. Currently, she was in full understanding of her situation.
She crept forward.
The window loomed above her head at the very top of the wall. Fritz was too short to peer outside, so she opted for gently knocking on the glass with the tip of the bat. Her arms stretched up. If anything, it would scare whoever had scared her. Her wrists seized while she balanced the end of the bat. Fritz was extra careful to ensure that the bat wouldn’t go through the window.
Clink…Clink…Clink.
She dropped her arms; her ass clenched.
No noise erupted in response.
She snuck closer to the wall. Fritz used the bat for support as she pressed an ear against the concrete wall. Her eyebrows met with concentration. Her heart was so goddamn loud. She couldn’t hear anything over the beating. She scanned her whole body, begging each organ and limb to cease making noise for a second. Just for a damn second.
An animal scratched between the drywall and concrete. Nails tearing into the stone without purchase. If she strained her ears enough, she could even hear its snuffling and grunting.
Fritz’s shoulders slumped down, a nervous breath releasing from her tightly wound, anxious body. A soft chuckle escaped her lungs. She took a step back and smiled to herself. How fucking ridiculous! Of course animals would be freaking out right now, an incoming natural disaster always created chaos to the local ecosystem and the raccoons and squirrels were no exception. One spring, a family of mourning doves nested in the bank of her window. She kept photos of the-creepy looking fledglings throughout the season. She still had the photos in her phone, deep into her camera roll.
BANG!
Fritz looked up, expecting to see the small tiny hands of the animal bracing against the window.
Her bat clattered to the ground.
A handprint pressed against the glass. A human hand. The palm was sliced open, oozing white bubbling pus and hot blood. It fogged up the window. The skin on the hand was sickly pale, with purple veins bulging out from the knuckles. In the stark darkness, it appeared as a peeled shallot.
Fritz stood straight, her breathing ragged. A bundle of cramping calf muscles jammed against one another, igniting nerves which sparked waves of pain up her spine. Her thigh tendons joined in one huge spasm. She wouldn’t move.
A second hand joined with a matching thunder. The tips of each thumb poked into one another. The added hand had smeared blood across the surface with hectic urgency, waving back and forth and spreading fluids all over the glass. Dirt caked under the fingernails. The palms were destroyed, patches of skin flaking off in peeling layers. Whoever was behind the hands groaned with pain. It sounded moist, like a gargle of salt water. He was dying. It was impossible to get a good look at the face.
“Do you need me to call someone?!” Fritz cupped her mouth and directed her voice towards the window.
The hands yanked away and disappeared into the night.
She peered closer, her toes curled around the edge of her phone which had fallen at some point. Fritz did not remember when.
She bent down.
Without breaking eyesight from the window, her fingers hovered over the emergency number pad. Calling 911 would take less than a second.
She could still hear the breathing; the huffing and wheezing of the person through the wall. Had he been mauled by a bear? Shot or stabbed? Her neighborhood wasn’t that bad. Only petty theft and break-ins. And they weren’t near any large forest preserves. Fuck, the guy was in a bad spot. Red splatters rained on the glass.
Another step forward.
Fritz lifted her bat in one hand, and phone in the other. She tried again. “Hey! Do you-”
BANG! A face slammed into the window.
His cheeks were pressed firmly into the small square, pushing harder and harder against the panel. The eyes were red, swollen, and glassy. This guy was sick, real fucking sick. The veins between his forehead and nose were a matching disgusting dark blue to the ones on his hand. Oh, Jesus Christ, what the hell was coming out of his wound near his shoulder blade? Thick mucus leaked out of his body with slow, steady pulses. Acid built up in the back of her throat. She pressed her hand against her mouth.
Fritz dialed. No more fucking around.
Nothing.
Not even the annoying beeps indicating no signal crackled through her speaker. No fuzzy noise. No clicking. No ringing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
She tried again. And again.
No emergency lines, no internet… At least the power in the apartment was still working. Her old college posters and unframed art prints were taped to the white brick. A dim shadow blocked the top of the sick man’s collarbones. His shirt had been ripped open, only scraps of grey cotton remained; and did little to cover his skinny, hairy chest.
Fritz’s head was swimming. She slapped her hands against the sides of her face. Blood rushed into her cheeks. She honed in on the stinging sensation. The buzzing of her hands and face created hot friction. Her sight became less chaotic, more focused. Come on now, Fritz. You’re great under pressure. Fucking fantastic. Act like it. She felt tears blur her vision, but she tightened her face up in a grimace, and looked up at the ceiling. They didn’t fall. How many episodes of Paranormal have you seen that started this same way? No way are you dying. You are too fucking ugly to be the girl that dies in the beginning of the episode.
Churning, her stomach flipped each time she stole a glance towards the face trying to break free. It was pulsating, the vessels beneath the skin moving around in unnatural undulations. The glass creaked with the pressure. Blood-filled saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth, his tongue licked up the spit from the glass. Gooey trails of red slime oozed down the height of the window. When he opened his mouth his chipped teeth raked against the barrier.
Rabies? This had to be rabies. Fritz had never seen rabies before, but there was no other thing it could possibly be.
She dialed her most recent caller. Pick up. Pick up, damn it. Her mom was mad about the collection letter, but it was an emergency. Her mom would always pick up when she was in some deep shit. Please, let Fritz’s phone erupt in a glorious, irritating, ring. A voice message tone. Anything that told Fritz she wasn’t completely shit out of luck.
The man groaned.
“I’m trying,” she pushed her bangs back out of her face. “The phone isn’t working, hold on let me come out and try to h-”
A quick stumbling of movement forcefully interrupted their one sided conversation. Another body joined at the glass, viciously barrelling down on the rabid man. One blink, and suddenly there were two of them. Fritz could only see a blurred and foggy mess of limbs and hands. They trembled the glass pane. The new body was more violent than the first one, digging into flesh and drawing fresh blood. Half of its fingernails were missing, or down to a nauseating nub. The first man was human, Fritz was certain of it. The second wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. The new creep scrambled for purchase on the other body. The fingertips were rubbed raw, pink and sickening. Fritz could hear the gnashing of their teeth. Together, both men made a symphony of hard body sounds. With one final horrific movement, the first man reared his head all the way back and exposed part of his bony thoracic spine. The spinal column protruded and pierced through his lower trachea. His head swung low in the wrong direction, decapitated. Still, his mouth opened like a guppy. One strong snap forward, and the man bared his teeth like a dog and rammed them into the other body’s neck. They made contact instantly. The other man mewled and screeched; he attempted to pull the man’s face away from his neck, but it was latched on too tight. Chewing on the neck tendons, ripping through the flesh without hesitation.
Fritz was going to throw up. She was going to blow chunks. She tried to pull her eyes away from the scene, but what the hell else was there to look at?
Their elbows kept banging against the window. Jesus Christ, would it hold?
Fritz was not a very good person: she hadn’t been to church in twenty years, ignored her parents’ text messages, hardly paid anything on time, and the one thing she loved most of all was being on the computer and reading about boys fucking each another. She’ll repent, oh my God, she will repent and never post again if this window would just fucking hold. Who cares about the last episode of Paranormal? Not Fritz! Not anymore!
Fritz lifted the bat high above her head. “Go away! I don’t know what fucking freak accident you got in, but leave me alone!” Someone snarled, a bone splintered and pieces splattered across the glass. “I can’t help you! Leave me alone!” Fritz waved the bat around and started to jump up and down. “Fuck off!”
11:03 AM 4/19/2016
Fritz moved her kitchen chair to lean against the wall. She stood on the wooden seat and pulled herself to the rectangular glass panel. The best window, the one easiest accessible, was covered in a layer of dried blood and mud. Even the months of snow and rain did nothing for the muck. After a few days, she made the mistake of investigating the two dead corpses; they were tangled together against the frame. Limbs pretzeled in and out of new orifices that were created by their teeth. She wouldn’t touch them, wouldn’t move them. God forbid, even small glances were too much for her stomach to handle.
So, a month into the apocalypse, she used the scraps of duct tape and her Paranormal Season Four poster to cover up the window entirely. Sure, the room was darker. Even more so now that the power had gone out and she no longer had her fairy lights. It was a small price to pay for the great joy of forgetting about the revolting, dead bodies. Instead, the sun passed through the thin poster paper and illuminated her favorite characters’ faces. If she could see the outline of a half eaten leg, or a nose…Well, that was none of her business.
Fritz looked through the farthest window to the outside world and waited. She checked the clock on the table, the one she stole from her neighbors bedroom last time she trekked out of her fortress to find food. She didn’t find her neighbor, but she found plenty of cans of chickpeas. The cans surrounded the clock.
The end of the world was treating Fritz just fine.
All things considered.
Avoiding the undead was surprisingly simple. They weren’t slow like most of the zombies you see on TV. They responded to sound and light. Shambling towards the tiniest sigh or the sheer gaps of sunlight. So, when Fritz needed to venture away from her apartment she waited until the brightest part of the day and tip-toed up the stairs. She hadn’t left her building since the outbreak. She was the last one in her apartment building, her neighbors fleeing or already dead. Poor Mr. Deadbeat was in the middle of heating up some soup when the calamity came. Fritz stumbled upon his consumed body during her first excursion. She raided pantries every few weeks. It was like going to the grocery store, but better, because Fritz didn’t have to pay a penny. Also better, because she hadn’t come across a single living survivor. No more small talk, or polite back and forth.
She wondered if Edda got home safe. It was possible. Maybe she also had an apartment that was tucked under and away from everyone else.
With the winter warming up, more and more zombies were appearing on the street. She had a notebook near the window where she marked each corpse that walked past. Last month Fritz marked 30 zombies, averaging one a day. The month before that had 23, and before that: 19.
The clock ticked. Fritz rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, which caused the kitchen chair to squeak. On the windowsill, she prepared a new page of her notebook and fingered the dwindling pen.
“Alright,” she narrowed her eyes and scanned. “Where are you?”
The ignorant would find her street unchanged from before the outbreak. Even in the late morning, it was an innocent mistake to believe the neighborhood was sleeping in late.
But the clues were there.
Splotches of dark liquid stained the concrete beside a mailbox, long dried over. The sidewalk was littered with dried bugs, small animals, and flesh sloughed off from no longer living tissue. Stiff fallen leaves from six months ago lay in sloppy soups among the melting snow. The grass was grossly overgrown. Fritz had never been a fan of freshly trimmed lawns, but the image of scraggly, untidy Kentucky dry grass spread an itch on her bare ankles. An itch she wanted to scratch raw.
She pushed down on the sill; lifting her body from the chair to look further down the left side of her street. Her bare shoulder pressed against the cold glass window while she shoved herself into a better watchpoint position.
Finally, the unmistakable silhouette of a man crept into the pavement. The shadow dragged as he approached. He walked with a limp, but seemed otherwise unharmed. His stature was tall and wide. Fritz gasped.
This particular guy was special.
Chris appeared at 11:07am this morning. She wrote in her notebook. Despite the obvious, he looks quite good. He is still fit, has all limbs, and his hair is lightly tousled by the wind. He seems to embrace his current lifestyle by becoming a lone wolf. Rarely do I see him with other crowds of the undead. Still, friendship is important. By my estimate, Trevor should appear within the next three minutes. This will be the sixth time the two will meet. Each meeting is longer than the last, and more substantial. Their connection is evolving into something bigger. More.
Fritz didn’t write about the open, exposed entrails which follow Chris around from his lower gut, the series of bite marks which decorate his shoulders, or the lack of spark in his facial features. His mouth, agape, and dripping with… something, moved only to make unharmonious grunts. He probably smelled. Though, of what she could not guess. She refused to leave the safe air around her and the old house transformed into apartment units.
It was better she did not speculate.
She watched Chris stumble over a pothole. He didn’t pull his arms out for balance, or catch himself. Instead, his leg bent the wrong way under his knee and the rest of his body adjusted accordingly. He was unphased.
While he was alive, he must have been handsome. Even in his afterlife, he had a certain beauty that defied expectations for a guy who was eaten to death. He wasn’t as dumb. At least, not as dumb as the two that had died outside her window on the first night. Those were wild animals acting on pure hunger. Chris’s instinctual actions were hesitant, patient. His eyes followed his feet. It was his overly cautious movements that gave the impression of his intelligence. He paused in front of a particularly unruly hole in the blacktop, looking up and turning his gaze side to side. Searching for something. Could he feel that she was watching him? Or…
“Oh my god,” Fritz squealed. The pen dug into the palm of her hand.
On the other end of the street, another zombie began to make his approach. Smaller in stature, Trevor scuttled towards his fellow undead. When Chris continued to search, unaware of the other, Trevor roared in a hoarse, dry growl. Chris snarled immediately to his companion’s call. They stopped in tandem a few feet away from the window. Fritz had the perfect view.
She began to write furiously.
4/29/2016 at 2:46 PM
Fritz watched her street. God, she wished her phone worked, or that she owned a pair of binoculars..
Trevor looks worse, Fritz wrote in her journal. She added a frowning face after her sentence. He was doing alright for the last week or so, but today he appears thinner, clumsier. I believe something attacked him within the last few days. A survivor? How far do they travel if they keep showing up in front of my window? Chris should be able to protect him. That’s the way it works, after all. Still, they keep their distance from one another. As much as they can. As if there is an invisible barrier which prevents them from huddling close. I hope Trevor is okay.
No matter.
Fritz watched Trevor and Chris bump into each other. Clumsy, almost slapstick. Chris’s broader shoulders shoved Trevor off balance. In his full strength, the zombie could have shaken it off and continued. But, it was clear something was wrong. If it was possible for a zombie to be ill, Trevor was the textbook example. He tumbled down onto the street. Unlike humans, who foolishly brace for impact even if it meant fracturing their wrists or elbows, the undead accept gravity’s fate without pretending grace. Trevor’s body flung about before landing on his back with a thud. A soft noise escaped the man’s throat. Chris did not appear guilty, nor remorseful. However, he was no longer following his usual trajectory.
Instead, he looked down at Trevor. His head cocked.
10:13 AM 5/02/2016
The lack of communication has been because of Chris’ internalized homophobia from when he was alive, and his struggles to act on his feelings in death. Fritz tapped the pen to her lip twice, reading over her fresh words. Despite purposefully choosing his daily path, he does not linger in Trevor’s presence longer than five minutes. Within those five minutes, they both acknowledge the other, exchange some sort of communication back and forth (grunts, moans, sighs), and part ways. They both find each other the next day in the same spot, at the same location. Right in front of my window. Sometimes, I suspect that Chris is asking for my help. That he wants me to help him take the next step. Maybe I’m crazy. But, if the undead can walk among us long after they die, what is to say that a part of themselves does not continue on as well? Chris and Trevor are unique from each other and distinguishable from other common zombies. They are different. Just as I am different from them.
5/09/2016 at 7:13 PM
When season seven of Paranormal aired, Fritz vowed to find her way into the writers room. It didn’t matter if it was by force, happenstance, an accident, or sheer willpower. She needed to get in that damn room. If she could get her hands on the scripts, tweak just a few things here and there, shake the lead writer by the shoulders and tell him he’s an idiot. Viewership would skyrocket under her tutelage. Emmy nominations, hall of fame interviews, acknowledgement for the gold standard of television.
But, no. Fritz never managed to meet with the writers, or the director. They never responded to her emails, letters, or DMs on Twitter.
And then, the Season Eight finale flopped.
Fritz understood that her intervention was needed. And this time she wouldn’t let anything stop her.
First, a plan:
Chris was going to be the hardest to wrangle. His stature was enormous compared to Fritz’s. His shambling had dignity, proper posture, height. If her hypothesis was correct, she could lure him into her apartment with something. Someone.
She could handle Trevor in a fight, seeing as he was missing a limb. Well, not originally, not while he was alive, but at some point between his death and undeath his right arm slipped out of the socket. Fritz didn’t like to look at the gaping hole where his upper bicep used to be. Trevor was physically weak. She could maneuver him with her softball bat, guiding him wherever she wished. To get to that point, Fritz needed to get his attention and well… That was the easiest part, wasn’t it? Fritz’s brains were juicy, practically begging to be consumed. She needed to wait for him to show up, and then, simply, continue existing.
Was that how they worked? The zombies. Only the initial two corpses seemed motivated by Fritz, and that was only after they had fallen onto the window. There was nothing to see but Fritz. Chris and Trevor never spotted her as she observed from her perch, nor did they seem driven to do much about her.
She would go outside. The real outside; not the dilapidated hallways or abandoned kitchens. She hadn’t left the apartment in months. Was that how the others were turned?Was it airborne?
No.
They’re zombies. Everyone had bite marks on some part of their body. It was through bites that they were transformed. It had to be. Even Mr. Deadbeat Neighbor was chewed apart. She saw a few episodes of The Walking Dead here and there, she knew some basics. Who was the sexy older guy that showed up on her dashboard from time to time? He was rugged, very alluring. Her mutual drew him with that cute Asian guy. She really should have looked up their tag on Tumblr. She would have really liked them, she thinks. No. Focus.
Fritz, focus.
2:10 PM 5/11/2016
Before leaving the final door to the outside air, Fritz took a big, unnecessary gulp at the top of the stairs and crossed the threshold. Her lungs stung with effort of holding in. The fresh breeze slashed across her face, forcing her breath to stumble out of her in an awkward yelp. Trevor, standing gormlessly in the middle of the street, was already staring directly at her. He had smelled her.
Trevor didn’t blink. His neck snapped, his ear slammed into his shoulder with grotesque force. Crunch.
Fritz gasped.
It smelled horrible. Rotting flesh, food gone bad, heady decay. There was no escape from it. It was everywhere. No matter where Fritz turned her nose, the smell lingered. The whole world smelled of an unplugged fridge. She should have wrapped a scarf around her face before leaving. Or put on a pair of pants. Fritz got used to the lack of others; figuring there was no need to dress for the occasion. Her panties were not protective.
Trevor shuffled closer.
“Hnnrg…” Trevor growled.
“Yeah,” Fritz sighed. She lifted up the softball bat. “Come and eat me.”
2:24 PM 5/11/2016
According to the most common Omegaverse rules: Alphas are the dominant one in the relationship. They are the ones on top. If an Alpha bottoms, it’s not a true Omegaverse story. Meanwhile, Omegas are submissive, following whatever the Alpha chooses for them. It’s all due to biology; hormones that tell the Omega who is in charge. They are the ones who bottom, they are the one who receives the knot. They are at the mercy of the Alpha’s scent.
Right now, Fritz felt like an Alpha. She must smell so alive.
Trevor limped along while she waved the softball bat back and forth. His saliva wept onto his chin in red-tinted globs. His eyes never wavered from her forehead. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes. Not that she tried to make him, but his gaze was intently between her brows. With his one arm outstretched, Trevor swiped at Fritz’s nose, barely missing the tip by a few millimeters. She tucked her chin.
“Hey now,” Fritz squinted against the sun, now penetrating the shared front entryway with annoyingly bright rays that spiked into her vision. “None of that. Do what you’re told.”
Trevor’s mouth jostled with noise. His jaw was crooked, fitting poorly into the nest of facial bones. “Gra…gh. Mmpf.”
“Don’t talk back to me.”
Fritz wished her mind would shut down now. At least then she wouldn’t have to deal with the assault on her five senses. Trevor was so full of death that she could taste his wrinkled, leathery flesh on her tongue without opening her mouth. He was ugly as sin; filled with puckered wounds and infected sores. His hair was falling out in clumps, leaving bald spots around his head like a crown. A line of spit threatened to dribble onto her. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she let it touch her bare wrist.
Her heel wobbled in partial freefall when it met the first step of her staircase leading down into her apartment. She made it this far. Fritz was not going fall down the fucking stairs. She adjusted her bat. One hand wrapped around the scratchy, wooden banister with a white knuckle grip; she took another careful step backwards, marking her step before leaning her full weight.
Trevor wouldn’t back off, his hands were inches away from her chest.
“Back off,” she pushed the tip of the softball bat into his stomach.
The distance between them increased.
She didn’t like the new imbalance. He loomed a few steps above her as they descended. It wasn’t right. Fritz was the one leading him, Trevor was following her. Fritz needed total control of the situation for this to work. She needed to get down these steps and fast.
Her foot reached a step. Another.
Another.
Trevor followed. Never wavering from his meal, hand-delivered, on a silver platter: her delicious, living insides. Cooking, sizzling inside of her body on low. Her mother used to prepare dinner in the morning, leaving bits, chunks of potatoes and meat in the crockpot before dropping Fritz off at school. After classes let out, Fritz would use her latchkey kid superpowers and open the front door to a wave of mouthwatering smells.
That must be what Trevor was chasing now. What he saw in Fritz as she led the two of them into her apartment. What he smelled. I’m a roasted beef and potato stew.
“Almost there,” she jabbed the bat towards the zombie.
She remembered to leave the apartment open, thank fucking God. In a quick side lunge, she guided Trevor and herself through the front right where the open, emptied coat closet laid ready to receive him. Trevor crossed into the room with no doubts.
5:53 PM 5/11/2016
Trevor banged against the door for around thirty minutes before he gave up. Or slept. Or…Whatever zombies do when they aren’t walking around like they simultaneously shit themselves and puked up their lunch. The apartment was silent other than the sound of her short inhales.
Unfortunately, the consequence of having the first part of her plan complete was that her home, which was blissfully free of any apocalyptic signs, now stunk like the end of the world.
Fritz pressed her face against the cool window pane. With her nose squished against the glass, she could mask the smell of death. She wondered if it was possible to spray her bathroom air freshener across the room. No, she couldn’t leave her perch. Fritz was on high alert; searching up and down her street to find Chris, who was absolutely going to show up tonight if she had anything to say about it.
In Fritz’s most popular fanfiction titled (all lowercase, no punctuation, rated explicit), “under the moonlight”: Chris realized that he was in love with Trevor after being trapped on the side of the road with a broken down car, five dollars to his name, and a shitty winter jacket. They were on their way to a job in Kansas, some podunk town Fritz googled haphazardly and chose on a whim. That wasn’t the part that mattered. Trevor was calm. Kind despite the circumstances. All the while Chris was seconds away from kicking the car engine or lighting the steering wheel on fire. He was amped up, and on the brink of a mild tantrum. Trevor was his rock; his ice cold rock which smothered his flames from hurting anyone. It stopped Chris from hurting himself, most of all. Their dynamic gave way to delectable erotic tension. Chris could scream into Trevor’s stoic, graceful face and realize the anger was for nothing. Trevor could reach Chris’s more emotional side in this manner, prying open his feelings and make him talk about something other than the job. Chris knew his narrative plot, knew that Trevor treasured these moments where he threw tantrums, but accepted it. Soaked it up, in fact. It was a blind spot in his tightly wound, repressed existence.
Chris needed a unique, total, universal force to bind him and Trevor together. A situation that would act as an amplification of their relationship to make him see, to make him understand. A first kiss would never happen if the circumstances were different. If they broke down near a motel, or if the car didn’t break down at all. Even if the nearest gas station was a fifteen minute walk away.
It had to happen this way.
Chris would never come out. He refused to see what the world would be like if he was true to himself. It was easier that way. Ignorance and avoidance became necessity when the truth was so painfully different from reality. So, the only way to make Chris see how stifled and trapped he already felt was to add one more body in the room. To make Chris suffocatingly claustrophobic. Once that crowded room became too much- Chris had no other choice than to remove the self-inflicted constraints.
He had to kiss Trevor while broken down on the side of the road. There could not be another way. All that pent up energy had to go somewhere.
Fritz was the arbitrator of removing options, of creating a situation so bleak that there was only one way out.
6:03 PM 5/11/2016
In the gloom of early evening, Fritz smiled.
Chevor could not be separated for long, the dichotomy of their relationship would bleed and break. The character narratives would crumble. The show’s ratings would drop. The actors wouldn’t attend conventions. Maybe they’d even lose their jobs forever; only being known as ‘the guys who did that one show’. Her following count would dwindle, notifications fading into obscurity. No messages would come her way. Her work would become uncelebrated digital garbage. Her friends would delete their blogs and focus solely on their dumbass degrees. In every universe, and at the end of this one, Chris and Trevor would find each other.
Chris finally appeared at the very end of the block.
She hopped off the seat, kicking the chair towards the wall to give space. The wooden legs scratched the tiles with a deafening screech. An uncertain noise, muffled, came from the coat closet. She didn’t respond, but she inched closer, fascinated to see if the zombie would react.
Trevor repeated the sound.
Fritz hesitated just outside the closet, her curled fist hovering on the door. He wasn’t a wild animal. He wanted this. After all the months she’d spent tracking his movements, she knew, with scientific certainty, that there was something true behind all of their meetings. Trevor possessed a desperation, a necessity, to be with Chris.
She knocked, waited a moment, and when Trevor replied with another odd groan, opened the lock with the same combination she memorized when she was fourteen; getting dressed in the bathroom stall of the gymnasium. It took her less than seven seconds to pop the lock.
“Trevor,” she sang. It was light, feminine. Jesus Christ, she was so fucking happy. Her cheeks ached with how wide she grinned. “I know how much you love Chris.”
He moaned. Unabashed.
“Don’t feel shy! It’s not a secret,” she winked. “And trust me, I don’t think less of you. No need to feel self-conscious around me. In fact, I’m going to make this the best day of your life,” she frowned, contemplative. “Or your death, I suppose.”
She moved the open combination lock between the chains, cloth, and rope which trapped Trevor to the coatrack. It was a tangled mess, but it did the job. He didn’t fight the shackles. He was far more interested in Fritz than freedom. Or, perhaps he comprehended what Fritz was about to do. Fritz dodged his predictable attempts at sinking his teeth into her flesh. She slipped the metal u-shape in the rungs between the rope cord and the cheap stainless steel chain rings (half of which were from her jewelry box). The lock snapped shut.
Trevor clicked his jaw up and down, wiggling his body to move closer and test the newly tied homemade handcuffs. His breath was wet, fogging up Fritz’s small rectangular glasses. She chuckled to herself, and took a lunge back. She was teasing him. She couldn’t help it, it was fun.
“Okay, I’m going to open the doors now. If you make enough noise, I’m almost certain Chris will come running for you. You want that, right?”
The dead man looked at her with a blank expression.
“Of course you do.” Fritz plucked her glasses from her nose and wiped them with the bottom of her shirt. “Okay, okay!” The fingerprints and smog from Trevor’s breath cleared. She put her hands out and spread her fingers. “Okay, let’s do this.”
She opened her apartment door. She peeked back at Trevor, who still watched her with a hungry, mindless gape through the gap of the doorway.
Perfect.
Last October, two construction workers tossed orange cones around the curb and flipped Fritz off when she walked directly on the fresh paint. She didn’t see the black and white sign, or the giant, highway grade LED arrow. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, she got the fucking bird. All while her red work apron was bunched up under her arm.
Trevor and Chris crossed paths here. Where the yellow dotted lines of the road were fading; covered in dried slush and mud. Fritz could see the remnants of her mishap and the imprint of her boot under the melted winter gunk. Chris, making way down the street, was unfazed by her presence. He had so much more muscle and height compared to Trevor.
She tilted her head inside.
“Start making some noise!” she called down.
In response, Trevor made a weird, uncomfortable shriek. Almost as if he was mimicking the noise of her chair across the tile. Her hands cupped her ears to mute the sound. Still, it was good enough to get attention.
Chris stopped frozen half a dozen yards before the apartment building; his eyes wide and awake.
Finally, they landed on her.
“Chaaa…” He spat.
“Yes, Trevor needs help!” Fritz was smiling ear to ear. Yes! I’m not crazy! I’m not crazy!
Trevor made some more noises, staccato and brief. If she strained, she could hear the thumping of his bound wrist banging against the wall. She dropped her hands. It wouldn’t be much longer until he learned how to remove the makeshift restraints. Things had to move faster.
“Aren’t you hungry?!” She ran her hand through her greasy hair. Wet strands knotted around her knuckles. “You’re supposed to be ravenous!” Chris was being so frustrating: apathetic and cool. Fritz grabbed the bottom of her sweatshirt and pulled it out and away from her stomach, letting in the fresh air and releasing her unshowered scent. She was a bit onion-y. Not too far off from the roasted beef stew she was dreaming about eating.
Chris staggered. His step was jerky, lacking fluidity. Fritz held her breath.
Decisively, the standoff turned focused. Violent. There was no more hesitation from Chris. He bared his teeth.
Fritz dropped the sweatshirt hem from her hands and retreated back into the foyer, leaving breadcrumb trails of her tender proof of life for the other corpse to trace.
It was an ebb and flow.
She walked down the steps; waited at the halfway point. She heard clumsy following steps on the old wooden slats. When Chris’s presence grew, goosebumps covering her arms, she pussyfooted onwards into the decrepit maintenance hallway. The shuffle of his feet on the linoleum came next. Fritz started to giggle, uncontrollable fits of laughter which forced her stomach to clench and release. She wasn’t able to continue straight, brushing her shoulders against the wall for stability, and forcing her feet to cross over drunkenly. He wheezed. Rattling and whistling as he inched closer. He clunked his large feet down the steps. One. Two…
Chris was right there. Right behind her. She found the edge of the golden number her landlord glued beside her door. Her apartment with the door ajar. Chris’s nasty, dirty hands pushed the door wider just as Fritz slipped inside. The knob banged into the wall, vibrating. Fritz watched the entrance with beloved anticipation; she walked backward, unwilling to miss even a moment. The back of her knees knocked into the corner of her table, piles of empty cans clinked, her hand did a broad sweep.
She reached for –
Shit, her bat. Where was her bat? It tumbled from its hiding space and clattered to the ground. Her eyes fell from Chris’s undead face and sifted through the dark.
There.
She darted away to collect the rolling metal. Trevor growled, low and raspy while she rushed past. There was movement where he sat, but Fritz wasn’t standing around to find out why.
“He’s in there, Chris.” She picked up the bat and pointed it towards the closet door. She was breathless. “In here.”
“Gahhhh…” Chris replied softly.
She rounded him with a wide berth. Chris’s eyes following her movements.
“No,” She shook the bat. “No, in there! In! There!” She shoved the bat towards Trevor.
Chris slowly, so fucking slowly, turned his head and met Trevor’s face.
They were silent then. No wheezing, or animalistic noises. Just two of them acknowledging the other.
Fritz wanted to cry. The chapter that made her write the fic in the first place. The reason there were over three hundred bookmarks on her unfinished 150k word piece, the reason it was rated explicit; all of her sweat, her toil, the carpal tunnel had been for this. It was worth it, oh my God, it was worth it. She would do it all again, too.
She gently pressed the bat against Chris’s back, shepherding him closer into the small space. Just as she had done to Trevor earlier. It shouldn’t have been so easy for Chris, but Trevor’s presence intensified his motions. The corpse’s feet moved instinctively. His inane patience.
“Go help him,” Fritz hissed. “I’ve had enough waiting.”
Chris stood in the doorway.
Close enough.
She rushed around the closet and slammed it shut. She leaned her body weight into the door, yet it still wouldn’t close, it cracked with the pressure. Something was in the way.
Chris mewled in sudden pain, and gnashed his mouth. Fritz dug her heels into the ground and shoved into the door, using all of her strength to shut the two corpses inside. The plan was going so well. The door just needed to shut. Her intervention needed to work.
A sickening crunch echoed throughout the basement apartment. Chris yowled like a stray cat. The door closed with a solid slam, catching Fritz off balance while she slipped into a kneel. She huffed into the wood. Small shattered remnants littered the ground. Wooden shards and organic material she was too weak to linger on.
Nothing would ruin the moment now.
She could hear movement. She focused on nothing but the shuffling sounds, the rattling breath, the sound of cloth and body adjusting. Chris had to be blushing by now. And Trevor, well, Trevor was just happy to be with Chris. She packed her ear further into the door. The top of her helix bent into a cone. What were they doing now? She could hear something else. Something different. Wet? Oh my God. It was wet. She nearly went down on her hands to pray in rejoicing relief.
Instead, she laminated her body to the door. As if being physically closer to the couple could give her clairvoyance. If the undead were walking about, if the undead were currently making out in her closet, she should be able to see through the two inch wood for fuck’s sake. Her nose scrunched up in concentration.
A muffled keen escaped, whiny and delirious. A limb bumped against the doorframe, their positions shifting. Fritz was vibrant, her cheeks hot, her breath coming out in tiny sighs of desire. Could it be Trevor that initiated first? No. He wasn’t the top. It had to be Chris. Fritz’s ear, flat against the wood, pulsated with dull pain. She was pushing further into the door. Another noise, a low sustaining whine. That was Trevor. He couldn’t contain himself, couldn’t keep quiet, always broke first and early during sex. Chris had that effect on women throughout the show. Late at night, Trevor tucked himself in at seedy motels; imagining himself as one of the young ladies Chris picked up in middle-of-nowhere bars. He thought about Chris’s warm body. His hand down his pants.
Could it happen this fast? Maybe in the circumstances Fritz constructed, yes. She was the destroyer of choice after all, and she destroyed all other choices but this. Chris was kissing Trevor. He had to be.
She needed to trust in her intervention.
Fritz cupped her hands around her head in an attempt to amplify the sound.
Trevor was introduced in season four; positioned to be a one-off character. He was a nobody. A catalyst for the plot to show Chris that the end of the world was nigh. He appeared a few minutes in every episode to remind the main cast that, yes, the apocalypse was real. Exchanged a few cute double entendre quotes with Chris, then left for the credits to play out. Well, Chris and his brother prevented the end of the world in the finale. Trevor stayed. Despite his original purpose, shallow as it was, Fritz couldn’t help but think about how Trevor functioned like one of the four horsemen. His presence was a reminder that life was weak. The universe, as it was known, was not permanent. Chris was resilient, resourceful, masculine. Trevor was transient, codependent, fragile. They should be volatile together. In fact, on paper, Chevor shouldn’t work at all. Yet, Fritz believed in it. More than she believed in anything else.
Oh, fuck it.
Fritz went through all this work to get them together. She was going to reap the benefits.
She released her body from the door, and turned the knob in small increments. Just one peek, and then she would shut it, turn the lock, and keep the two of them in her closet for the rest of their lifespans. However long that was. But before that was even a possibility, she needed the assurance that her plan worked.
She pulled the knob back. Sparse light streamed into the closet through the crack. Her right eye darted in the shadows. The small space was already warm and sweaty. She bent further into the closet. A splotch of denim on the ground, where Trevor probably sat. Okay, not too bad…She looked up, trying to understand where Chris was positioned.
An arm thrusted into the thin, open space. Chris grabbed the top of Fritz’s head by the hair and slammed her head through the door. It wobbled open. Her vision erupted into a singular bright white starburst, blood dripping from the crown of her head onto her nose. Or was it all coming from her nose? The floor tilted, like a rug pulled from under her. Scrambling, she reached up for leverage, to find a piece of the doorway or the wall. There was a shelf in this closet she could grab onto. Maybe one of the men would feel chivalrous enough and give her a hand. Chris still had his sticky, fetid fingers twisted and braided within her hair. He pulled her up, watching the dripping blood from kissing distance. His tongue peeked out of his lips. She stretched her arms back, looking for the softball bat she left behind. Chris hummed, though it sounded more like a cat’s purr. She tried to shake her head, but the grip on her scalp steeled. Her resolve was thin, growing gaunt and malnourished. The smell.
“-go of me,” she whimpered.
Trevor’s single arm joined in; his fingernails gnawing upon Fritz’s upper arm flesh like fangs. Craters of nail-shaped pools of blood split open on her skin. Her eyelids fluttered, and she kept them shut.
They were both so desperate. Starving. Opening her eyes, the two men were a flurry. A college of images that didn’t make much sense. No longer was Chris tightly clawing at her hair, but keeping her still with his palm flat against her forehead. She tried to break free, barreling back, willing her limbs to move.
Trevor’s hand wrapped around her neck. She lifted her hand to the one around her throat, scratching and ripping at the skin to free herself. But the layer of skin had been dead for quite a while, and was falling off the bone. The flap of epidermis where the knuckle used to be slid onto her wrist. It felt like raw lunch meat.
Blood rushed to her head, swift and hot. No more air entered or left. Her windpipe was being crushed, the inhuman grip on her throat growing tighter. Her mouth went numb; her bottom lip swelled, forcing a deep pouting expression.
A warm, rancid breath danced across her skin.
Crusty lips met her own.
Then, a sharp, tack-like incisor pierced her lip and pulled downwards. Her face flayed open; peeled into the skin of a fruit which showed the juicy, sweet meat inside. Fritz screamed, though as she opened her mouth wider; a wide canyon-like tear split the corners of her lips.
No sound came out.
Trevor was vying for her brain, utilizing Chris’s steel clamp on her body to come into her head from the newly-improved front entrance of her mouth. Trevor’s jaw shattered her upper skull bones with pure blunt force.
Her legs twitched, knocking into legs. She noticed with obscene clarity that the first four toes on Chris’ left foot were obliterated. The top of his foot was red with blood and gore. The blood wasn’t flowing. It was congealed in a gross jello-like consistency; damming the holes where his toes used to be. Her vision faded out. Only the sensation of skin upon skin remained.
Fritz understood, far too late, that there were two mouths, two pairs of teeth. They both bit against her broken nasal cavity, up into her cranium, nipping at the soft, untouched tissue. Their front teeth met, clattering against one another, vibrating her skull from inside out; fighting for dominance.
E. K. Charny 