My Baby Daddy Is The Zombie Emperor

"Hold the line!" Scarlett screamed, her voice tearing through the deafening crack of rifle fire as another wave of decaying monsters threw themselves against the rusted iron gates. "Keep the monsters out!"

She slammed her shoulder back against it to hold them off, pulling the trigger again and again until her arms burned like fire, watching the bodies collapse face-first into the bloody mud outside. 

The world had gone to absolute hell over the past year, honestly. It had turned into nothing but crushed concrete, shattered glass, and endless dead bodies of zombies, leaving survivors to crawl through the ruins with zero hope of ever seeing a bright tomorrow.

Because why this all happened, no one even knew. Woke up one-day and the zombies were everywhere. 

But as the last zombie fell limp in the dirt and the heavy quiet of the wasteland settled over the camp, Scarlett leaned against the metal barricade and let out a shuddering breath, her chest heaving as a soft, helpless smile touched her lips.

Sure, her entire body ached from giving birth just three weeks ago, every muscle screaming at her that she should be resting inside instead of fighting on the front lines, but she forced herself to stand tall because the only two reasons keeping her alive were waiting behind those concrete walls, her parents, and her sweet baby boy, Ryan. 

Ryan was the one miraculous light in this dark world, born from a chaotic one-night stand with a total stranger at her father's corporate building a year ago whose face or name she could not even remember, but none of that mattered because holding that tiny, warm bundle in her arms made every single horror outside completely worth surviving.

She wiped the sweat and grime from her forehead, her heart fluttering with eager warmth as she hurried into the dim, cold shelter, passing the fellow survivors leaning along the floor and heading straight toward the back corner where her parents sat. They were leaning against the wall, taking slow gulps from a dented metal flask filled definitely with alcohol and staring blankly at the floor.

"Hey Mom, hey Dad," Scarlett greeted softly, setting her heavy rifle down against the wall while catching her breath. "The gates are clear for now, we managed to push them all back."

Her father did not even look up, just taking another long drink before muttering, "Okay. Good."

Scarlett felt a small knot form in her stomach, but she quickly brushed it away, telling herself for the hundredth time that they were just exhausted and numb from the stress of the apocalypse, because even though they had always treated her with a cold distance growing up, they were still her family. She looked around the tight space, her eyes scanning the blankets on the floor before her brows pulled together in confusion. 

"Um... where is Ryan? Is he sleeping in the back room?"

Her mother took the flask from her husband, her voice flat and unbothered as she stared ahead. "He is not here."

"Um, obviously.." Scarlett tried to chuckle, "But where is he though?"

"Not here." Her mother repeated. 

Scarlett paused, her hands freezing mid-air as she wiped her dirty palms against her pants. "What do you mean he is not here? Where did you put him? Is someone else watching him?"

Her father let out a heavy, irritated sigh, rubbing his temples as if she were bothering him with something trivial. "Look, Scarlett, you have to understand how things work now, times are hard and we have to survive, we cannot keep putting ourselves in danger over every little thing."

A cold spike of anxiety pierced through Scarlett's chest, her breathing hitching as she stepped closer to them, her eyes darting between their blank faces. "I don’t know why you're telling me all this right now, Dad, just tell me where my baby is, please, where is Ryan?"

Her mother finally turned her head, looking at Scarlett with eyes so empty it made her stomach turn. "He was crying, Scarlett. He would not stop crying, and we knew the noise was going to draw the horde right to our door, so we had to toss him outside."

Scarlett stood completely still, the air rushing out of her lungs as if she had just been punched in the gut. A strange, hollow silence filled her ears, and then, slowly, a breathless chuckle bubbled up from her throat, her head shaking back and forth as a hysterical laugh escaped her lips.

 "Okay... okay, that is really not funny, Mom. That is a really messed up joke to make after I just spent two hours fighting off zombies at the gate to protect you all. Seriously, where is he? Did you give him to one of the nurses?"

Neither of her parents spoke, their eyes resting on her with a heavy, unblinking stillness that made the blood in Scarlett's veins turn to ice.

"Stop looking at me like that!" Scarlett suddenly yelled, her voice cracking as a desperate panic clawed at her throat, her hands flying up to clutch at her hair. "It is a joke, right? You are joking! Tell me you are joking! He is a baby, he is three weeks old, nobody does that, you would not do that to your own grandson! Where is my baby?!"

"Shut your mouth!" her father snapped, leaping up from the floor and swinging his heavy hand across her face, the loud crack echoing off the walls as the impact snapped Scarlett's head to the side, sending her stumbling over a wooden crate. "Keep screaming like a lunatic and you will be the next one we throw out there to draw them away, you stupid girl!"

The stinging pain on her cheek did not even register as Scarlett scrambled back onto her feet, her vision blurring with hot, frantic tears as she turned and bolted out the door. 

She sprinted past the staring survivors, shoving her weight against the iron gates and throwing herself out into the cold, muddy yard, her knees scraping against the rough ground as she fell, crawling frantically through the blood and dirt while screaming her son's name over and over again until her voice was raw.

 She dug her fingers into the mud, pulling aside dead bodies and broken debris, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, begging whatever God was listening to let her hear a tiny cry.

Then her eyes caught a small patch of soft fabric peeking out from beneath a pile of shattered bricks.

"Ryan!" she sobbed, throwing herself forward and grabbing the light blue blanket, pulling it into her lap with trembling arms, but as the fabric unrolled, all that spilled into her hands was thick, dark blood soaking through the tiny cloth.

There was no baby. Just the blood-soaked shawl.

A shattered, animalistic scream tore from Scarlett's throat as she dropped to her knees, pulling the bloody cloth against her chest and rocking back and forth in the mud as her entire world collapsed into absolute darkness. 

"Noooo! No! God, no .. please…no!"

The grief tore through her soul so violently that she could barely catch a breath, the cold reality settling deep into her bones that the people who raised her had casually thrown her innocent, helpless newborn to be devoured alive just to save their own skin.

Slowly, the frantic crying stopped, replaced by a hollow, terrifying quiet as the warmth drained completely from her body, leaving behind a bitter, freezing rage.

She stood up out of the mud, her legs numb and heavy, and walked back through the gates like a ghost, her muddy, blood-stained boots leaving dark tracks along the concrete floor as she pushed open the back room door and stared at the two people sitting there.

"Why?" Scarlett asked, her voice dangerously quiet, lacking any trace of the daughter who had spent her whole life trying to please them. "Why would you do that to him?"

Her mother scoffed, casually reaching for her flask again. "We already told you, we are trying to survive, and an infant is nothing but dead weight."

Scarlett took a slow, deliberate step forward, her knuckles turning white as she clenched her hands into tight fists. "If you do not give me a real answer right now, I swear to God I will kill you both."

"You can't speak to us like that–"

In a sudden blur of motion, Scarlett lunged forward, her hands slamming into her father's collar as she yanked him off the ground, shaking him violently as a wild, broken cry escaped her throat, but before she could do anything else, her mother shoved her hard from the side, sending Scarlett crashing onto her side against the hard floor.

Scarlett grunted, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees to go after them again, when a deafening gunshot shattered the air inside the small room.

A sickening, heavy impact punched straight through her chest, knocking the air right out of her lungs as a blinding heat spread through her torso. Scarlett froze, her hands slowly moving down to touch her shirt, watching in numb shock as bright red blood gushed rapidly through the torn fabric, pooling onto the floor beneath her.

She choked on a breath, her throat filling with the metallic taste of copper, and forced her head up to see who had shot her.

Standing by the doorway holding a sleek, strange-looking rifle was a young woman in clean clothes, her eyes cold as she looked down at Scarlett with a mocking, condescending smile. Scarlett blinked through her failing vision, her mind spinning in total confusion as she recognized the girl,it was the quiet intern who used to work at her father's corporate office before the apocalypse took full effect. The girl Scarlett had always tried to be kind to whenever she passed her desk.

"Oh, that is just so sad," the girl purred softly, walking right past Scarlett's bleeding body to stand beside the older couple. "But I really could not sit back and let you put your dirty hands on my parents."

Scarlett fell flat onto her side, her body shivering violently as the floor soaked up her blood, her brain trying desperately to make sense of the girl's words. "Your... parents...?"

Her father let out a dry, relieved laugh, not bothering to offer Scarlett a single glance as he wrapped an arm around the young woman's shoulders.

"Oh Chloe, I was wondering where you were."

Oh right, Chloe that was her name. Scarlett watched them exchange smiles. 

"You were never our biological daughter, Scarlett." He said, "We swapped you at birth so our real daughter could grow up in comfort while we used you as a useful .. placeholder, but now that she is back with us, you are completely useless."