3-Z, Page 2

with the weight of the proverbial ton of bricks. Welcome to my grief.

  I have a daughter. I’ve been repeat-dialing the number of her sitter, and there’s no answer. Silence can be fatal. I believe that. It’s killing me that I can’t get in touch with my child! Have I lost her? Social media is exploding with chaotic reports and reactions from a globe gone mad. I’m trying to save my battery, yet was glued to the screen for a while, staring at the jumbled confusion and fright communicated. The entire planet seems to be affected. There are no longer language barriers, borders, political disagreements. There is just one enormous world of woe.

  The current estimate is that fifty percent of the human population was immediately wiped out. And then came back. Survivors were ecstatic to see their loved ones revive, having watched them collapse and expire. They were gone. But not forgotten. And not forever. For approximately thirteen minutes.

  Mandy was so animated, prancing and chattering about the butterfly suit she would wear to Trick-Or-Treat. I hugged her, kissed her hair and inhaled the strawberry fragrance of shampoo. “Be good, Doodlebug!” She fluttered a hand, her last glimpse of Mommy a rotting cadaver. What if that’s how she remembers me? I couldn’t bear it.

  “Answer the phone!” I’m pleading with the thing. When did we become so hooked to these gizmos, as if our lives depend on them?

  This time I hear a squeal, a mechanical click. A timid voice asks, “Hullo?”

  “Mandy, is that you?” I’m thrilled. Words are inadequate to measure the joy in my tone.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes, it’s me, Sugarplum! Where are you? Is Edith there? Is she okay? Are you okay?” My fingers clench the phone, a lifeline, an invisible conduit extending between me and my baby as palpably as the umbilical cord that once joined us.

  A solemn response. “I’m by myself. I don’t know where Edith is.”

  My heart does a somersault. She’s safe for the moment, I console myself. “Listen, Mandy. I want you to find a place to hide. Will you do that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t let Edith know where you are.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise. Are you coming to find me?”

  I hesitate. I’ve never lied to her. “Yes.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay. Come quick, Mommy!”

  “I will, Sweetie Pie.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too!” My voice shatters. Tears have flooded my eyes as if I’m swimming in a lake. I’m a wreck, features crumpled, convinced I will break my word and never see her again.

  Commotion. The deadman is flailing and groping, swatting in my direction. He growls, attracted by rays of misery emanating from my aura. The sorrow is so thick it’s tangible, a wet and squishy wall that surrounds me. Just try and interrupt the weeping of a mother who feels helpless to protect her child!

  The zombie lurches closer. To my abysmal dismay, I glimpse that a leg has separated. He is now a few inches from contact, a single limb confined, frayed and splitting while he lunges at me.

  Like him, my mood alters. My temper re-ignites. I need rage. I am now fearless, refusing to embrace defeat. And my own leg hurts, oh boy, I’m feeling it. I shove against the vehicle with my opposite foot. It didn’t work before; why should it now? Maybe if I rotate, force myself over, over, over, until the limb snaps off. I’m that determined to look for my daughter. I want to live, but she is the motivation to surmount any obstacles . . . to exert past the peak of my limitations and ability. Her smile gives me the willpower to budge this obstruction. You’ve heard of adrenaline-fueled miracles. It’s time for one of those! I declare. I will not lie here and perish, leaving my baby alone!

  Taking a deep breath, I scream at the cosmos and heave the van slightly aloft. Realizing belatedly that my action would liberate the zombie to launch himself straight at me.

  My eyes shift during the process of lifting, amid the scraping wheeze of metal. He has ceased his campaign temporarily. I drag my injured leg from under the bulk, praying I can walk, then release the truck. It smashes down, splicing the zombie’s second limb rather than repinning it. Fortunately for me, I wouldn’t have to relinquish a pound of my flesh to survive.

  The phone on the street chimes. My daughter’s photo fills the screen, the one we took at a park. She’s beaming from a teeter-totter. My belly feels as if it’s on a seesaw too. “Mommy, I’m scared!” she wails. Static. I can faintly make out some of the words. “Edith . . . back . . . creepy . . .”

  “No!” I mourn. And regather my courage. “Stay where you are!” I caution. “Don’t cry. I’m on my way!” The phone’s battery is deader than a zombie. Did she hear me? “I’m on my way,” I vow.

  First I must fend off the carcass of my husband. He was on the Zombie Walk with me and turned from the red rain. We were holding hands when the van hit us, its driver veering from a sidestreet, running over bodies and tumbling. Flowers spilled from its rear, carpeting the road, scenting the atmosphere. I was reminded of our wedding day. Another disaster, everything that could go wrong happening.

  Out of self-preservation, I had to stop thinking of the man at my side as Andrew . . . This savage is no longer my partner, my spouse. The man I married, the father of my child, that person is gone. The rancid creature I must now contend with is a monster. He may resemble the guy whose make-up I administered, whose zombie costume is now enhanced by dangling patches of blackened or pasty tissue that has rapidly decomposed. But he is not the handsome sensitive guy I love, who sang to me and promised a future of bliss. Not Andy; merely a disgusting husk, a molted carapace with a very nasty disposition.

  “Sorry,” I apologize anyway. A twisted shard of steel dislodged from the truck as I hefted it upward. Luckily I didn’t have it sooner. My leg would be history. Brandishing the metal like a dagger, I ram it through the crown of his skull as Legless fumbles forth to munch me, discovering himself free.

  I’m glad the prophets got it right. The brain is the Achille’s Heel, so to speak. My nemesis plunks pavement facedown. Rising, I lumber briskly, suppressing an impulse to race, proceeding slow enough to blend in . . . and finish the Zombie Walk at my own pace.

  The babysitter’s house is silent. “Amanda?” My heart is in my throat. I’m strangling on it. “Mommy’s here. You can come out.” I select a butcher knife from a drawer in the vacant kitchen, wielding the implement like a sword. I’m edgy, roaming a hallway that bristles with suspense. Cue the high-pitched eerie music.

  “Sweetie, where are you?” My voice echoes, mocking me.

  A clamor erupts, detonations, percussive blows, along with muffled little-girl screeches. She’s alive! Abandoning discretion, I enter a bedroom — booting shafts of the demolished door — and confront Edith. She isn’t our neighbor anymore. The woman who claimed she didn’t care for zombies and horror when I dropped off my daughter in the morning is now a full-fledged zombie. If it were her, that is. It isn’t, I remind myself. And aim for one of the brute’s eyeballs. I plant the knife in the socket, piercing the frontal lobe. Zombie Etiquette: Never say you’re sorry. It’s not your fault.

  Mandy was in the closet. I tell her it’s safe. She springs out into my arms, vivid and exuberant. What was the worst day of my life is now the best, the happiest. Nothing is going to harm her. Nothing.

  **

  A Big Problem