Under normal circumstances a trip outside the LBJ would've been the high point of Maizie's month. A trip outside the LBJ to the Dog Park? Probably would've qualified as one of the most interesting things to happen to her during the whole zombie apocalypse. Hard to take any joy in the experience, however, when her thoughts kept circling Daddy's situation.
Until that day, as far as Maizie had known, Daddy had been badly injured but expected to recover, kept under the watchful eye of the Dog King and his men until he was healthy enough for travel. As frightening and frustrating as it was to know he was hurt somewhere and she couldn't help him, at least the prognosis had been hopeful. Now? Maizie didn't know the exact statistics for surviving a zombie bite, but they weren't good.
It sort of put a damper on the situation.
For someone who'd only found that morning that her Daddy might be dying, Maizie was holding it together fairly well. She wasn't weeping or wailing, just wearing that pale, shell-shocked look grieving people get sometimes. As she climbed out of the vehicle behind Aunt Day, her eyes swept the area around them, coming to rest on the blonde man that approached their group. The Dog King. The man who might well be Daddy's executioner in a few days' time.
Maizie pushed the thought away, dredging up a wan smile for Rodeo's bad joke. It didn't settle her stomach any to see him so at ease, but it didn't make her feel worse either.
"It's the pedestrians that are really murder," she replied, not sure how there could be room for any levity inside her right now. But there it was.