Daddy Dearest (and Undead)

The zombie outbreak hit hard. We were down to our last can of beans, and my five-year-old daughter, Lily, was chilling on the couch like it was no big deal.

"Guess I'm gonna be an early bloomer...gone too soon, ya know?" she said, all dramatic-like.

I knew I had to do something. I swallowed my pride and dialed her deadbeat dad.

He answered.

That night, a zombie pounded on our door. He was wearing a suit, for Pete's sake, all dapper, with gray skin, and these crazy, milky eyes.

He wasn't like the other zombies, all bloodied and ragged. This guy looked like he just stepped out of a GQ shoot, except, you know, dead.

Lily lost it. She shrieked, "Mom, did you call the freakin' Zombie King?!"

1.

The zombie virus, it hit everything like a ton of bricks. The whole world went nuts.

Zombies everywhere, bodies piled up, limbs all over the place.

Before things went south, there were these news stories about COVID relapses and school closures all over the country.

I had a hunch, so I stocked up on supplies. We hunkered down, only going out when we absolutely had to. We lucked out. We weren't in the first wave.

But we couldn't keep it up forever. My stockpile was getting low.

We'd been holding out for about six weeks now, and the cupboards were almost bare. Lily, who's only five, used to cry when she saw the freaked-out zombies. Now? She’d just stare at them, like she was watching some weird TV show. She'd even go peek at the door whenever there was a noise.

2.

Back in the day, the neighborhood message board was blowing up with people freaking out. Now, it was mostly quiet. Most of them either couldn't make it or chose to jump rather than be eaten by the walking dead.

Lily waddled over, her little legs going like crazy, and said in her sweet little voice, "Mom, I got good news and bad news. Which one you wanna hear first?"

Right then, I didn’t think there was any good news to hear. But I didn’t want to be a downer.

I put on a brave face. "Okay, bad news first, I guess."

Lily looked dead serious. "Bad news? We’re running out of food."

"And the good news?"

"Well, we’re not gonna be zombies, we’re gonna be dead from starvation."

Then, she says this all casual, "Don’t worry, Mom. If we don't get bit, it won’t hurt too bad. We were only a mother-daughter team for a few years this time, but next lifetime? We can do better.”

I just blinked at her, trying to process.

First thought? This kid was being ridiculous. She was always on the internet, copying memes and whatever the heck is trending. She even used it on me.

But hearing her say that… it hit me in the gut. She's only five. Why does she have to go through this?

3.

She was on the couch, with this weird calmness about her. "Guess I'm gonna be an early bloomer," she said with a sigh, "gone too soon.”

I pushed down the tightness in my chest and ruffled her hair. "Don't say that. You're not going anywhere, kiddo. Mommy's gonna protect you, someone will come rescue us.”

I believed it. I had...