Why didn’t you tell me you were in a horror movie?

My dad was in the movie. Thirty years younger and dressed in old-time detective garb, he was one of the FBI agents speaking urgently about the alien threat.

FILMS ABOUT GHOSTS BY SAM WATERMEIER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 57

Skin flakes fell. Blood baked on the hot asphalt. The salty, metallic stench of sweat wafted in the summer air as the zombie shambled, chasing the frazzled sheriff down the street jammed with abandoned cars. Another episode of The Walking Dead, standard viewing for me and my dad on Sunday nights.

We indulged in the morbid series religiously, as if we needed another reminder of mortality. In front of the TV, medical monitor cords spread across the carpet like vines on a forest floor. The monitor’s beeping punctuated the zombie action.

Dad watched giddily as the sheriff fled into the forest away from the zombie. He bounced with delight on the squeaky bed when the end credits rolled.

I reached for the remote resting next to the pill bottles on Dad’s TV tray. He was sitting on the edge of his home hospital bed in this sick bay that had been our living room before he was diagnosed with cancer.

“Man, that was a good one. Cathartic,” he said.

“How so?”

“It’s nice to see someone get away in a bad situation. That doesn’t happen very often in horror,” Dad said. A sly grin lifted the bags under his eyes.

I reveled for a moment in the warmth and relief of his smile. It was always soothing to see him without pain.

Now felt like as good a time as any to invite Dad to the fall horror convention I was eagerly awaiting—Days of the Dead in nearby Noblesville, Indiana. It’s the kind of unassuming little place with a quiet town square that a horror director would love to flood with zombies.

“I was actually reading about that in the paper,” Dad said. “There’s a film showing there that I want you to see.”

“Cool, what movie?”

“You’ll see,” he said. Another mischievous smile made my 58-year-old father seem like a little boy.