Flash Fiction: Zombies Don’t Eat Fuchsia Poodles

This week the Flash Fiction Challenge from our beloved Chuck Wendig is to write a story with a title including a color. I rolled a 6, so I get to play with “fuchsia.” Okay, I’ll admit, I hear the word all the time, but I have no clue what it looks like, so, “Hello, Google?”

So, you wonder how a story gets written out of thin air? If it’s a story like this, it helps to have a Robin Williams special going in the background. You sit and think and you’ve got nothing. Any genre? Not a glint. Any style? Not a glimmer. Any ideas? My skull is pulling a hard vacuum. “This one is pretty easy,” Chuck said. I might have a different opinion.

You’re looking for any kind of a hook, a starting point. Finally, the Muse takes mercy on you and says, “Robin thinks you should write something silly.” Great, now my muse is talking to Robin Williams, and Robin is stating the semi-obvious. Say hello for me!

Does Robin have any suggestions on how to write this thing? “Yes,” says the muse, “you should start by thinking up a bizarre, silly, stupid title and then figure out what the story has to be for it.”

Oh, you mean like this one?

Thanks, Robin. Again. For everything.

ZOMBIES DON’T EAT FUCHSIA POODLES

Our backs against the tree, trying to pant and wheeze as quietly as possible while being absolutely motionless, I tried to analyze where the experiment had gone wrong.

Since the ‘Lypse we had all been busy trying to either be fast, good, or lucky. We hadn’t had a lot of time to figure out what had happened, or why, or who was responsible. Research was the luxury of a populace which wasn’t constantly five minutes away from being ripped to shreds. No atheists in foxholes? Maybe, but definitely no paranormal epidemiologists had survived the ‘Lypse.

A few of us had tried to keep our eyes open as we ran for our lives. We would jot down some notes when we found shelter. It was up to us to remove ourselves from the endangered species list – no one was going to do it for us.

There had been a lot of changes real fast. The zombies were the most obvious, but there were massive, overnight, seemingly random mutations throughout the animal kingdom. Among us survivors there were tales of stinging insects the size of blue jays down south, and dolphins big enough and mean enough to sink aircraft carriers along the coast. We hadn’t seen any of those things here in Minnesota. On the other hand, I personally had seen a herd of miniature moose the size of rabbits taking down a bear.

The household pet population had seemed to get hit particularly hard. As a result, no matter where you were, you had been attacked by zombies, and you had seen bizarre cats, dogs, hamsters, birds, snakes, goldfish, and pot-bellied pigs. There were huge ones, tiny ones, weird colors, and psychedelic patterns. Scales where there should be fur or feathers and vice versa.

It was like God had dropped some bad acid and took reality along with him on the trip.

I was the one in our pack who first noticed the growing population of the fuchsia poodles.

While the mutant pets had gotten weird, they hadn’t gotten deadly. Kittens still wanted to play with string. Puppies still wanted their tummies rubbed. They were just as much prey as we were when the zombies came through and they were far less prepared to fight back. Their populations had dropped faster than ours had.

Occasionally we would see packs of feral dogs. More and more they were comprised of fuchsia poodles. Not blue, not green, not yellow. Not Dobermans, not German shepherds, not retrievers.

Fuchsia. Poodles.

We were desperate. We were losing the war. We were being eaten. We had to do something.

Helen was convinced it was the fuchsia color that was the key. She argued we only saw fuchsia poodles because only poodles had turned that color. She went out and found every piece of fuchsia clothing she could and dressed in it head to toe.

It was Helen’s belief that the zombies couldn’t see anything fuchsia colored, sort of like how the Predator couldn’t see Arnold when he was colored in mud. She believed it right up to the point where she stopped screaming after the zombies got her.

The packs of feral fuchsia poodles got larger. The packs of feral humans got smaller.

A week ago my pack ran into another group that was heading north from the Chicago area. We gave them a place to stay overnight. Over a cold dinner we swapped stories and information.

Their leader had also noticed the fuchsia poodle anomaly. Better yet, she had seen in person what was happening. They had been hiding up in a stand of trees, waiting for a zombie pack to shamble on by, when a pack of dogs had run through. The zombies had started to attack the pack, but a handful of fuchsia poodles had counter-attacked without being touched, driving off the undead.

Other breeds, other colored poodles, all turned into zombie chow, while the fuchsia poodles could as well have been invisible.

I was tired of running and sick of being prey. The best defense is a good offense. Insert your favorite platitude here. I finally had a plan.

We kept our eyes open and the next time we saw a pack of dogs, we didn’t ignore them or scare them off. We tempted them with food, got them to come near, and performed a quick re-domestication operation.

So it was that I found myself strolling across an open field with two dozen dogs, including five fuchsia poodles, just tempting the zombies to appear. Which, of course, they did.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I was hoping my new, magical, magenta canine friends would attack the zombies and protect me. I wanted to find the silver bullet that could even the playing field against this ravenous horror.

The dogs saw the zombies and took off running for safety. Some of the zombies broke away to chase them, but they were driven back by the fuchsia poodles, allowing the rest of the pack to escape.

The rest of the zombies kept coming straight for me. My friends in the trees yelled, “RUN!” I didn’t need to be told. The fuchsia poodles could not have cared less. I was not part of their pack.

So now we’re here, once again trying to catch our breath, once again trying not to give away our position. Failure is an option that equals a horrible, painful death.

The scientific method is apparently dead, along with ninety percent of the world’s population. So much for working hypotheses, testing of theories through experimentation, and revision of the theory based on new data.

We’ve been transported to a universe of chaos and insanity, but we probably won’t be here long.

The universe has gone mad. Rules? None. Logic? Dead.

“But that’s not the way it is,” you say, “it can’t be!”

Tell it to the zombies behind us and the herd of miniature piranha-like moose thundering toward us from the other direction.