[ TT ] Your toilet is clogged , you need to go to the hardware store , and there is a zombie apocalypse outside .

`` Lucy, here- hold the bullets.'' 
 
 Her little fingers were not strong enough to get the last rounds into the magazine. I pressed them in and traded her back the mag for the handful of ACP rounds. 
 
 `` Alright, pop it in the gun. Smack the end of it, make sure it's seated.'' 
 
 Her legs swung back and forth, dangling from the rusted work table at the end of the alley. The zombie shambled towards us, skin bright blue. Almost cartoonish blue. 
 
 The magazine was seated and I pointed at the slide release, about to tell her what to do, but she remembered. The slide slammed home, the round chambered, and the gun nearly snapped out of her tiny hands. 
 
 `` OK, honey...'' I pointed down the alley and the approaching loner. She raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The brass bounced against the brick wall. She looked up and smiled at me. 
 
 She had hardly flinched, though the gun had kicked up high and nearly rocked her over the back of the table. 
 
 The zombie on the other hand... It was a square hit, blowing the skull open. Yellow innards sprayed outward, but nearly instantly froze in place on contact with the air, like thick hairs or many tentacles. Over time it would turn blue like the rest of its skin. The zombie stumbled backward, but after regaining balance, continued its slow, persistent shamble, its new tentacles waving vaguely. 
 
 `` DAD!'' 
 
 I gently took the 1911 from Lucy and pulled my hearing protection down around my neck. Looking up at the window above us, I saw my older daughter, Jess, leaning out. 
 
 `` The toilet's clogged again!'' 
 
 I sighed. `` Where the plunger?'' 
 
 `` We used it. In the last attack. Remember?'' 
 
 Yep, that's right. Pumpkin Jack, the zombie with the orange sport coat, stumbled off with it shoved through his kidney. Who even makes orange sport coats? Seems like guaranteed going-out-of-business-sale fodder. 
 
 `` Alright. OK. We're coming up.'' 
 
 I boosted Lucy up onto the fire escape ladder. 
 
 `` Daaaad...'' prompted Jess, with a flick of her eyes down the alley. Oh yeah, zombie. I put a round through its shoulder, spinning it towards the wall. It leaned there for the moment, reconstituting. 
 After I climbed through the window, Jess nocked an arrow and let loose. My shadow appeared sharp on the opposite wall as the phosphorous ignited down in the alley. 
 
 -- - 
 
 I was always a city boy at heart. Loved being able to walk where-ever I needed to. Find cool new restaurants. Watch all the people. Joke's on me now. The first meteors fell two years ago. Like some cosmic shotgun blast of viral nano muck, it turned people blue. The people-watching became pretty strange and a little hazardous then. Now the streets were deserted. 
 
 I was standing on Broad, waiting on Lucy. She was prying lead weights from tires of abandoned cars, for casting into bullets later. Using the little tool I made her from a piece of rebar, and wearing latex gloves to protect her from lead poisoning, just like I taught her. She was a sharp kid and I just watched for a minute with fatherly pride. 
 
 She came trotting back with a bagful of lead. 
 
 `` Look, dad!'' she giggled, lifting it high. I took her hand, looked again back the way we'd come, and resumed our walk to the abandoned hardware store. 
 
 It was late Autumn, my favorite season. The leaves had been brilliant this year, sunbeam yellows, flaming orange, and rich reds. Now they had all mellowed to burnt and rust colors and rattled down the gutters in ever cooler gusts. All the trick-or-treaters this year had been zombies. Haha. They all got tricks. 
 
 We were walking past the Indian place where Lucy had first tried Pappadam and then refused to go anywhere else for two weeks. The owner's wife would always come out to see her. 
 
 The hardware store was two more doors down. Another quick look around. They were few and far between during the day, and usually made some noise, but got ta stay alert. We ducked inside. 
 
 `` Ralph!'' Ralph was my normal human neighbor. Looked like he was going through lightbulbs. 
 
 `` Hey, Ted, what's cooking?'' 
 
 `` Not much, toilet's clogged, came by to get a new plunger.'' 
 
 `` Ha! Was that your plunger, stuck in Pumpkin Jack?'' 
 
 `` Yeah,'' I laughed, and Lucy laughed with us. `` We stuck it in him last week when they were trying to come up the front stairs!'' 
 
 `` Not too much trouble were they? You know you just have to give a yell and I'd come a-runnin'!'' 
 
 `` Oh no, it was just three or four of them. We'd definitely call you if it was a problem. Jess just happened to use the nearest thing at hand. We got'em turned around OK. But you guys need to come by sometime and have dinner with us! We have n't seen June in forever! She doing alright?'' 
 
 `` Oh yeah, you know, we just get all caught up in fortifying the entryway, dehydrating food and storing it... you know. She'd love to come by and see the girls, though.'' 
 
 I laughed and looked down. Lucy was not standing there anymore. Ralph mirrored the sudden alarm that must have appeared on my face and then from outside we heard the unmistakable BOOM of the 1911. And then again. And as I turned to run to the front of the store, as time seemed to slow down right when I needed to move fastest, a third BOOM. 
 
 What they say about your life flashing before your eyes is kind of true. All the red flags came to me as my sprinting legs seemed to move in slow motion. How Lucy would never just casually fire without her eye and ear protection on. How I should never have taken my eyes off her. How three shots was more than any single zombie would need. And BOOM, a fourth shot rang just as I saw Lucy through the door, the fourth shell still spinning in the air, and a blue arm collapsing to the sidewalk in front of her. RIGHT THE HELL in front of her. 
 
 I skidded to a stop beside her, Ralph right beside me and looked down the street. There was only the upper half of a zombie in front of me. The lower half was a couple meters further, and one arm was at least ten yards away. She was an amazing shot- a little pride cut through my panicked heart, as I looked down at her. 
 
 Her face was stark fear. She just had two words for me. `` Fast zombie!'' 

