My Alpha Zombie Husband

I stared dead at the lead zombie. My brain glitched. Hold up. Since when did the golden boy join the undead?

He shot me a glare. "Never seen a zombie before?" "…Never seen one with a jawline like that." Chapter 1 Declan made one mistake on his supply run.

Just one slipup, and a biter got him. But he still dragged his ass home, hauling a pickup truck packed with enough groceries to keep Finn and me alive.

Then, he locked himself in the basement. He bolted the door from the inside, his eyes red and glassy. I threw three deadbolts on the outside, tears burning my vision.

Finn wailed through the tiny grated window, his little face splotchy. "Mommy, don't lock Daddy in the dark room! I used your towel to wipe my feet, not Daddy!" My jaw clicked.

Great. Now you finally stop throwing him under the bus.

Vindicated at the worst possible time, Declan’s voice cracked. "You really are my sweet, idiot son, Finn…" The heavy metallic thud of the final padlock echoed in the tight hallway.

Guilt gnawed at my chest. "So… I totally thought it was you.

And I might have scrubbed the toilet bowl with your toothbrush." The grief vanished from Declan’s eyes, instantly replaced by pure murder.

The deadbolts rattled furiously from his side. "Unlock this door, Fallon. We need to have a little chat." I shoved the keys deep into my jeans pocket. "Don't act high and mighty!

I know about your secret stash. You’ve been buying him M&Ms!" I pried Finn’s little mouth open, pointing at his gummy smile. "Look at these teeth! He couldn't chew through pudding.

If he turns into a zombie, he’ll literally starve to death!" Declan’s righteous fury deflated like a popped balloon.

He pressed his forehead against the cold iron door. "You still shouldn't have used my toothbrush on the toilet… I brushed my teeth and kissed you with that mouth." A physical jolt rocked my skull.

Between his insane work hours and the endless overtime, I was usually dead asleep with Finn by the time he crept into bed.

But every single night, without fail, he’d wash up and press a soft kiss to both our foreheads before passing out.

And sometimes, when Finn was out cold, those kisses got a little… messy. A little deep. My stomach flipped. I grabbed a hysterically sobbing Finn by the hand. "Come on, kiddo.

We need to go brush our teeth. Right now." When I checked on him the next morning, his skin had turned a sickening, ashen gray. Starvation was setting in.

I hovered near the grated window, balancing a steaming bowl of ramen. "What’s the verdict? Are you craving brains, or noodles?" He lunged at the iron bars.

His eyes practically glowed with feral hunger, making me jerk back. Hot broth sloshed over my knuckles.

He shoved a frantic arm through the tiny opening, snatching the bowl right out of my grip. He shoveled a massive bite onto the chopsticks, raising it to his mouth—then froze.

His gaze snapped to mine. "Did you eat?" I nodded. "Just polished off a bowl myself." His knuckles turned white around the chopsticks. "And Finn?" "He had a bowl, plus a fried egg." Declan dug the single fried egg out of his broth and held it up to the grate. "Come here, Fallon.

Open up." I shook my head, stepping back. "Eat it.

I'm not letting you turn on an empty stomach." He didn't budge, the egg still extended toward the bars. "Our stockpile won't last forever. If you starve, nobody looks after the kid.

And we both know he can't chew through pudding." He had a point. I leaned in and bit the egg right off his chopsticks. I’d never cared much for eggs before.

Now, I closed my eyes, savoring the salty grease. "Damn. That beats the crap out of the old campus dining hall." A weak scoff escaped him.

He finally started slurping down his noodles, dragging up ancient history between bites. "Yeah, because they always skimped on the portions.

You used to down two bowls a night." "And you were too embarrassed to order it yourself. You always made me go up to the counter.

Then, after you shoved it all in your face, you’d point at the empty bowl and yell, Jesus, Declan, how can you eat that much?" Heat flared in my cheeks. "Hey!

I always gave you a bite of the egg, didn't I?" He swallowed hard, refusing to let it go. "Be so for real right now, Fallon.

You stole my entire egg, and then gave me exactly one—" Chapter 2 He suddenly froze. He stared down at the bottom of the bowl.

A hidden fried egg sat perfectly submerged in the hot broth. A family of three. Three eggs. This time, I didn't just share a bite. I gave him the whole damn thing.

When Declan finally looked up, the edges of his eyes were rimmed with a raw, angry red. "Fallon," he choked out, the syllables scraping heavily against his throat. "If I don't make it… promise me you'll find a guy who actually has his shit together.

Not some loser like me who steps outside and gets chewed up like cheap jerky by a biter." The CDC had already broadcasted the official infection timeline.

Week one: severe vertigo and a ravenous, hollow hunger.

Weeks two through four: a total, agonizing erosion of consciousness, memory, and speech, entirely replaced by feral aggression. Four weeks.

That was exactly how long it took to go from a breathing human to a mindless monster. I weighed our options. For now, hiding Declan was the only play.

At Declan’s insistence, I started rationing our stockpile. Meanwhile, Finn had developed a serious obsession with playing peekaboo with his dad.

He’d press his face against the iron grate and win eight hundred times a day. He was a brutal, merciless winner. Tired of losing, Declan decided to play dirty.

He demanded my toolbox and managed to weld a janky sliding metal panel over his side of the window. If Finn wanted to play, he had to knock and deliver a password.

Yesterday’s passcode was 1+1=2. My sweet, painfully naive sixyearold fell right into the trap. Today’s passcode? The entire Gettysburg Address.

Finn had been slumped against the basement door for four hours, mumbling to himself, his tiny face looking more hollowedout and dead than the actual infected.

Declan was an absolute menace to society for pulling this on a kindergartener.

I was out in the garage tearing through our supply pile—a mountain of bulk pasta, canned beans, and flour—when my fingers brushed against a velvet box. I popped the lid.

Inside sat a cluster of shriveled, driedout rose petals and a heavy cardstock note. Happy Birthday, gorgeous. —Yours always. My lungs seized.

The oxygen physically vanished from the room. The day Declan left on that supply run… it was my birthday. A sharp, stinging ache clawed its way up the back of my throat.

My vision fractured, the concrete walls of the garage tilting violently around me. My hands shook so hard the velvet box rattled against my palms. Stop. I slammed the box shut.

I shoved it deep under the bags of flour and marched back inside to help Finn cheat at his password.

I definitely didn't have the damn speech memorized either, but I knew exactly how to cheat.

I pulled up the audio on my phone, popped in a single Bluetooth AirPod, and parroted it back, line by agonizing line. Whatever.

Declan’s brain was turning to mush anyway; he wouldn't notice. I finished the last sentence and rapped my knuckles against the metal panel. Nothing. I knocked again.

The metal plate suddenly scraped open. A rogue AirPod flew out of the dark, hitting the floor with a plastic clatter, and the panel slammed shut.

Finn snatched it off the floor with lethal speed and jammed it into his own ear.

Heat exploded across my cheeks. "Finn, buddy, let Mommy explain." His little face flushed red with anger. "When you secretly bought that designer purse, you swore I was your favorite baby in the whole world!

And you didn't even let me in on the cheating!" I slapped a hand over his mouth. Too late. The metal panel scraped open again.

Declan’s face was a picture of sheer judgment. "When you raided Finn's piggy bank for your spa day, you swore I was your favorite big baby in this house!" "Traitor!" Finn yelled. "Traitor!" Declan echoed from the dark.

I stood there, fully exposed as the biggest player in my own home. "Okay, look. One favorite little baby, one favorite big baby.

Where's the lie?" Chapter 3 Finn only held out until dinner. Faced with the woman putting food on his plate, the little man had to swallow his pride.

I went back to tackling the garage. It was an absolute disaster zone of the supplies Declan had risked his life hauling back.

Meanwhile, Finn slumped outside the basement door, his eyes completely glazed over as he relentlessly recited the Gettysburg Address to the metal grate.

I sorted everything into neat zones. The remaining space in the twocar garage was packed from floor to ceiling. It felt like a fortress.

We had enough to comfortably survive a solid six months without stepping foot outside. The dashcam sitting on the workbench blinked red. Probably a glitch.

On a whim, I popped out the SD card. It held the footage from the day Declan made his run. My thumb hovered over the screen. I swallowed hard, then hit play.

The grainy video showed Declan making trip after frantic trip to the truck bed. His wirerimmed glasses slid down the bridge of his sweaty nose.

His thinning hair plastered to his forehead, making him look a hell of a lot balder than usual. Those were the first fortyeight hours of the outbreak. Total mass hysteria.

The whole city panicbuying. My idiot husband drove a beatup pickup straight into the madness.

He kept pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his jeans—the grocery list I’d written for him—checking it obsessively.

On his final trip out of the store, he wasn't holding groceries. He clutched a small, velvet box. A birthday present. Something definitively not on the list.

Just as his hand hit the truck's door handle, a figure lunged from the blind spot, staggering at a dead sprint right for him. Declan shrieked a string of unfiltered Fbombs.

The truck rocked violently on the screen. A heavy, metallic slam echoed through the audio, followed instantly by Declan’s harsh, ragged gasps.

The biter slammed its bloody fists against the glass, letting out a guttural, wet snarl. Declan screamed, threw the truck into drive, and peeled out of the parking lot.

The streets were pure carnage. Infected swarmed the intersections.

Declan kept his foot pinned to the floor, smashing through the bumpers of abandoned sedans just to break free of the gridlock.

He finally hit the sprawling suburban roads near our house. The chaos thinned out. He slammed the brakes, pulling hard onto the shoulder. He punched the steering wheel.

A blaring, deafening honk pierced the audio. Beneath the sharp blare of the horn, I heard it. A small, ragged gasp. My lungs locked up.

The heavy, suffocating weight dropped straight onto my chest, pinning me in the chair. On the screen, his quiet gasps morphed into fullbody, ugly sobs.

We’d been together for years. Through every eviction notice, every drained bank account, he remained this infuriatingly optimistic golden retriever.

I had never heard him make a sound like that. But maybe he had just always hidden it in the dark. He shoved the truck back into gear.

His voice ripped through the speakers, raw and shredded. "Finn is only six! Fallon, what the hell are you going to do! Fallon, what do I do! I got bit!

He took a huge chunk out of me! The flesh is just gone! Ah! I didn't even see him! He just charged! That motherfucker didn't even play fair!

It hurts so damn bad, Fallon!" "I wanna turn this truck around and run his ass over again! Ah! Fucking rotter! I'm dying!

No, I'm turning into one of them, Fallon, but I love you so much! Fuck it, I should just drive back to the store! I'm already bitten anyway! I'm not scared of them anymore!

I'm not fucking scared!" A sharp burn shot up the back of my nose. I slapped a hand over my mouth, choking on a sob that tangled violently with a wet, hysterical laugh.

By the time I hollered for Finn to come into the garage, my face was wiped completely clean. Chapter 4 I shoved a box of M&Ms into his hands.

His eyes went wide with hunger, but he took a slow, guarded step back. "The last time you handed me candy out of nowhere, I learned what the word entrapment means." I affectionately ruffled his hair. "Relax, buddy.

You're overthinking it.

Take these down to Daddy." He squinted at me. "Why are your eyes red?" "Because I can't memorize the damn Gettysburg Address, and it's pissing me off." Finn instantly relaxed.

He deeply felt that pain.

He started down the stairs, but paused, the hustle never dying. "Can I keep half as a delivery fee?" I shook my head. "Please keep the word entrapment at the front of your mind." Two minutes later, Finn sprinted back up the stairs, sobbing hysterically. "Daddy—Daddy said I'm not his kid!" My stomach dropped.

I sprinted down the stairs. Declan was throwing his entire body weight against the iron door. He glared at me, his face twisted in feral panic. "Who the hell are you!

Why am I locked in here? This is kidnapping! You know this is illegal, right?!" Week one of the infection. Memory erosion. Declan had completely forgotten me and Finn.

Fuck this virus. I pressed our wedding album against the glass.

He stared at it, utterly horrified. "Is this some kind of highbudget scam?" I swapped it for a framed photo from Finn’s first birthday. The three of us, smiling.

Declan instantly shut up. Genetics didn't lie. One look at Finn’s face, and no one could deny he was Declan’s carbon copy.

He reluctantly accepted the amnesia angle, but he still demanded I unlock the door. I grabbed a hand mirror and held it up to the grate. His skin was horribly dehydrated.

His sclera had turned a sickly, cloudy white. His already receding hairline was practically wiped out. He instinctively reached up to fix his hair.

Two brittle strands immediately snapped off onto his fingers. He stared at me, looking like he was about to cry but couldn't.

I shoved the M&Ms through the bars. "Eat some chocolate. It helps." Finn bounced excitedly next to me. "Daddy, your new look is so sick!

We are totally winning the kindergarten Halloween parade next year!" Declan chewed an M&M with an incredibly complex expression, clearly still struggling with the reality of having a sixyearold son.

I dragged the projector down to the basement hallway. I pulled Finn onto my lap, and we sat right outside the iron door, projecting our wedding video onto the concrete wall.

Separated by solid steel, Declan sat on the floor, leaning backtoback with us. He watched the footage intensely. His face was a hard, unreadable mask.

Finn passed out against my chest within ten minutes. I tilted my head toward the grate. "It's okay if you don't remember.

I'll just keep telling you until you do." On the screen, Declan stood at the altar. Flanked by his groomsmen, he looked like absolute perfection waiting for me.

He always used a deadpan stare to mask his anxiety, but when he slipped the ring onto my finger in the video, his hands shook violently.

I pointed at the projection and let out a soft laugh. "I was terrified.

You looked so pissed off, I honestly thought you were about to leave me at the altar." A pale hand slipped through the metal grate. Declan opened his palm right in front of my face.

A single M&M sat in the center. I picked it up, shooting him a questioning look.

Declan awkwardly broke eye contact, staring at the concrete floor. "I just… I thought you looked pretty cute when you were nervous." Every single day, I dragged Finn downstairs to reintroduce ourselves.

But Declan remained frustratingly lucid. His speech was perfect, his brain too sharp for his own good.

Just yesterday, he tried to bribe Finn with his hoarded M&Ms to steal the basement keys off my dresser.

If I didn't still hold absolute tyrannical authority over that kid, Declan would have successfully broken out. Seriously, what would this family do without me?

Chapter 5 The CDC dropped another bombshell report. To keep the host alive, the human immune system started cannibalizing its own functions to fight the virus.

Declan's immune system sacrificed his memory. To keep him from wandering out and getting a bullet in his brain, I installed two more heavy deadbolts.

As I slid the thick metal locks into place, he tracked me with dead, milkywhite eyes.

Finn remained blissfully, idiotically optimistic, mostly because his dad had completely forgotten about the Gettysburg Address. I handed Finn a bag of Doritos and sent him upstairs.

When it was just me and Declan, I pressed my hands against the cold iron door. "What am I supposed to do if you never remember us?" He slammed his fists against the grate, his tongue dragging across cracked lips. "Meat!

I want meat!" I swallowed the hard lump in my throat and shoved another bag of M&Ms through the bars. "I'm not giving up on you." Before heading upstairs, I dragged a heavy iron playpen across the hallway, creating a buffer zone over Declan's feral, guttural snarls.

Just in case my fearless sixyearold got too close and ended up as a midnight snack. The outbreak finally bled into the suburbs.

Swarms of the infected started staggering down our streets. I spent hours boarding up every firstfloor window and reinforcing the doors.

Twitter threads were buzzing with rumors of a cure, but the patients allegedly died from massive organ failure days later. The CDC had absolutely zero official treatments.

The waiting was eating me alive. I had permanently banned Finn from visiting the basement alone.

Of course, the kid was entirely convinced Declan and I were secretly hoarding his M&Ms. Downstairs, Declan’s violent outbursts had actually dialed back.

Maybe he was adapting to the dark. Or, knowing my husband, he was plotting some absolute unhinged chaos.

That night, while tucking Finn into bed, he peered up at me. "Will Daddy's sickness go away if he eats enough M&Ms?" I paused, sensing a prime parenting moment.

I opened my mouth, fully prepared to scare him into believing that eating too much junk food was exactly what made his dad look like a walking corpse. The words died in my throat.

A massive, splintering crash echoed from downstairs. It wasn't the basement door. It was the front door. Pure adrenaline spiked my blood.

I scooped Finn up, shoved him into the back of the walkin closet, and buried him under a pile of winter coats. "Do not make a sound