30 Days of Undead Summer

#FridayFreeForAll

The teddy bear had been created in a factory in a distant country, shipped to America, and promptly bought by a woman with a bulging stomach.

The baby growing in the bulging stomach would one day be born as her father clutched the bear in the other room, pacing the floor as he listened to his wife's labor-induced cries of pain.

The parents loved the baby so much that it almost hurt to watch, and gave her the bear as soon as she was clean, warm, and dry (although she was still tiny and wrinkly). From that moment on, the bear was the girl's, and the girl was the bear's.

For years, the bear watched the baby learn to walk, learn to talk, learn to run, learn to jump. For years, she and the bear were the best of friends. They did everything together - went on adventures into space from their backyard, hid under their bed to avoid baths, visited the supermarket to buy ice cream with their mother, swallowed their tears when they got shots.

Then one day, the girl stopped going to school. The teddy bear had absolutely no problem with this - after all, it meant that he and the girl could play together more.

Then the girl stopped going outside. The bear didn't like this as much. After all, it wasn't as if they could fly to the moon from inside their house! But they worked around this new obstacle. The girl invented new games. She never stopped smiling.

Then the girl's mother stopped going outside. And the girl's father nailed boards over the windows and all of the doors leading outside except for the garage door, which the family kept locked. The father had a special knock, and if he didn't use it, the mother said, they wouldn't let him in.

This confused the bear. Why was everything changing? It had liked its life before. Now, a thick layer of worry hung over everything. It was difficult to play when adults were scared. It made everything feel darker.

The little girl's father started coming home with his arms bulging under the weight of packs of water and food. The kitchen became an obstacle course that the girl used for their games. The teddy bear never left her side anymore, something for which it was grateful.

One day, a rapping came at one of the boarded-up windows. The mother grabbed the little girl and fled to the basement. The little girl hated the dark, as did the teddy, but their mother refused to turn on the light. They sat in the darkness, the little girl crying until her mother clapped a hand over her mouth. She continued to cry after that, but silently.

They stayed in the basement, silent and unmoving until they heard their father's special knock at the garage door.

Neither the bear nor the little girl knew what was happening. They continued to play their games as haggard news anchors talked about "zombies" on the TV. They got more and more comfortable with the basement as their mother dragged them down there over and over. They appreciated getting to spend more time with their parents as their father stopped leaving as well. They watched with wide eyes as he stripped down a gleaming gun on the dining room table and showed them how to use it.

Maybe they couldn't go outside. Maybe the house was dark most of the time. Maybe their mother cried too often and dragged them into the basement at the slightest of noises.

But the teddy bear and its girl were making it work. They were continuing their games.

They were continuing to live.