Page 7 of Hollow Child

“Yeah, come in. Sorry. I didn’t mean to pass out.” I rubbed my eyes with the palm of my hand and sat on the edge of the bed.

“You were gone a long time, longer than normal, and the cat came back before you.” Boden knelt down in front of me to help me take off my shoes.

“Lazlo never arrived at the farmhouse. I stayed around a couple extra days.” I shook my head. “But he never showed up.”

“Damn. I’m sorry.” His hand was comforting on my leg, and he gave me a sympathetic frown. “Maybe he was just held up with something at his homestead.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I grimaced down at him. “Was that just a nightmare, or are Max and Stella really having a baby?”

“No, that unfortunately seems to be true,” he admitted grimly.

“Ah, hell. We really fucked up, didn’t we?”

“No, no. It’s notthatbad. We kept Max and Stella alive in a zombie apocalypse. That has to count for something.”

“Ugh.” I groaned. “What are we going to do? Pregnancy and labor are so difficult and dangerous in the best of situations, and this is definitely not that. How are we gonna keep a newborn baby alive?”

“We’ll take it one step at a time, day by day, and we’ll do what we can.” He gently massaged my calf with his hands. “Right now, Max, Stella, and Serg are downstairs reading everything they can find in the house that even mentions pregnancy.”

“Are there any home remedies that would cause an abortion?” I asked.

“Maybe, but I think they want to keep it. They were already talking about baby names,” Boden explained.

I slumped because that meant that I had to pretend to be excited about this absolutely terrifying thing.

“I know this is scary, but it might not be the worst thing that’s happened,” Boden said.

“How can you even say that?” I asked incredulously.

“Because having children is what civilizations do.”

“The six of us arenota civilization,” I corrected him.

“Maybe we’re at the very beginning of a civilization. This could be the early days of the world’s next great dynasty,” Boden said with a crooked smile.

“I suppose my last name is King. I should end up as a ruler eventually,” I muttered, and he laughed. “But really, what do we do now?”

“Help Stella avoid stress and get plenty to eat for the next four months,” he said.

“Fourmonths?” I shook my head. “No. Babiestake nine months to cook, maybe longer if they’re really big.”

“Stella kept track of her cycles in her journal, and based on the medical books, she thinks that she is about twenty weeks along.”

“Twentyweeks?” I ran my hand across my face and took a deep breath. “How are Max and Stella doing?”

“It’s hard. Everyone is in shock.”

That was certainly true. The kids had always been more resilient than me, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that they adapted to the news better than I had. By the next morning, Stella had already moved onto acceptance.

“The baby is the size of a small banana, according to the book I found about what to expect,” Stella explained over her breakfast of mushy oats and berries, and she frowned as she did. “But I can’t remember how big a banana is.”

“About the same size as a carrot,” Boden offered up.

Stella’s brow furrowed. “That can’t be right, because next week he is the size of a small carrot.”

Now Serg looked confused. “Bananas are definitely bigger than carrots, right?”

“Why are they comparing a baby to fruits and vegetables anyway? They come in such a variety of sizes,” Boden said.

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