They Call Me Daring

Chapter 1

    Surprise birthday parties aren't much fun when they mean almost certain death. It's actually not much of a surprise at all, in fact. Being driven against your will into a zombie hive and, wait for it, expected to somehow live- Let me just say, these people have high standards. Either that, or they have no standards.
    Which would explain why my brother was somehow a celebrity. When I met people, they didn't say "Hey, nice to meet you Liam!" It went more like "Oh my God, you're Clark Trackerson's brother, can you introduce him to me! Eeek!"
    Besides looking like an angel, and being like a war hero or something, I couldn't see what made him so... desirable. Pretty boy just sat there all day with his machine gun, shooting down poor helpless (Well, maybe not that helpless) zombies while girls swooned in his presence. Yeah, a lot of substance right there.
    "Happy birthday, Liam!" He grinned evilly at me while we celebrated my fourteenth year of pain in the basement our safe house. He knew my birthday wasn't happy. Not for me, I mean; he was enjoying tremendously the prospect I was going to be eaten alive by a horde of the living dead shortly. Seriously, it was like freaking christmas for him.
    "Yeah, congrats on living this long!" One of my father's friends clapped me on the back, and that should show you about how much we value in our society.
    "Thanks..." I said with forced enthusiasm. I eyed the clock, and wondered if I took the batteries out whether anyone would notice. Alright, even they couldn't be that stupid. Although....
    Our safe house was an old mansion, actually, on the corner of a city block. The reason it survived the zombie outbreaks could possibly be contributed to the ten foot brick wall which encircled the perimeter... Either that, or the zombies just thought Clark smelled really bad. Maybe both.
    "Liam!" I looked down at my adorable, angelic little brother, Jess. His blond hair was greased back, and he looked like a mini mobster.
    "Sup."
    "I have a bir-day pwesent for you." He said innocently, his eyes huge and blue and honest. Should I run now?
    "What?" I frowned. What could he wan-
    "You stupid!" Then he kicked me in the shin and scurried away, to go massacre an entire civilization or demolish a city, or whatever kids are doing these days. I swear to God that he's possessed by the devil.
    "Liam!" Cony, a guy a few years my elder, came over and punched me in the shoulder while I was still massaging my shin. At this rate, I was going to be a mass of bruises by the end of the day. "Hey, good luck at the... you know, tonight!"
    "Thanks." I said sarcastically. Yup, we're an intelligent bunch, us survivors. Don't even know what to call our own rite of passage.
    "Yeah, you know, I hope you live," He said this with all the honesty in the world, which made me feel a little better. "But if you don't, I mean, if you die, can I have your hat?"
    And the good feeling was gone.
    "Sure." I said blandly.
    "Jee, thanks!" He grinned and walked away.
    So now if I become one of the undead, I won't even have a hat. Just gets better and better, right?
    I was sick of all the compliments which weren't really compliments at all, so I sidled over to the stone wall of the basement, watching people eat my cake, which said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAM!" The sad thing was, my own father made it.
    He meant well, I knew he did. I watched passively while he held toasts with his good friends, toasting to the foundation for a new world, which wasn't off to a good start.
    He cared about me, was probably one of the only people that did, but he just had a little problem with showing it.
    "Hey, Liam!" He called from across the room. "If you get bitten, the Doc here says he wants to experiment on you! Is that okay with you?"
    "Fantastic." I called unenthusiastically back. Like I said, he cared. Probably.
    Honestly, I would rather be killed and eaten than bitten. That would be the worst possible fate, for anyone, even maybe somebody like Clark. Maybe.
    Once the zombies' venom entered your bloodstream, it was over. There was no antidote, no cure, no alternative. You got to kiss your human life goodbye, while you slowly transformed into a creature of the darkness, and then turned on your own kind.
    You became an outcast when you were bitten. Not that I wasn't already, but at least it was more of an ignorant shunning, like people didn't know they were ignoring me. No, when you were bitten, it was more like quarantine- As in, you were thrown onto the zombie ridden streets and left to fend for yourself while you completed the painful transformation.
    Fun.
    "Hey, Liam," The Doc (Yes, the one who wanted to experiment on me if things went badly) Geoffrey came over and stood beside me to watch the people eat gross food that hadn't gone bad after a decade of being stored in this giant Hannaford we had on the next block over.
    He was a very tall man, with a head topped by a mass of insane white hair.... Think Einstein. "New results came in from the lab today, thought you might find them interesting."
    I shrugged, and the Doc pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, on which was scribbled a couple columns of random numbers and symbols.
    "Connect the dots?" I analyzed, and, thankfully, he shook his head.
    "No, a connection though. You know how when people escape with just a bite, they change?" I nodded, amazed that this was what I was just thinking about. When people were bitten, it could be a few days before the final change came over them, when their mind turned against their human nature, and they scampered off to join the zombies. For a couple days, even after their eyes turned red and their skin and hair white, they retained human thoughts.
    "Well, this report shows- And it's not complete, mind you- But we're poking with the idea that the amount of time it takes for the transformation to complete, for the venom to reach the brain, depends on the person."
    I frowned, squinting at the paper and trying to make sense of the apparently random scribbles.
    "See, here," The Doc's finger, a hole in the end of his glove, hovered above one column of numbers. "The stronger a person's heart, the longer," His finger now pointed to a corresponding column of numbers, "The longer they stay human!"
    He looked at me like he had just given me great news.
    "Cool?" I said uncertainly, not quite sure how this related to me.
    "You," His finger jabbed my chest, "Your files say that as of a month ago you had a heart rate of 40. In other words, you have a strong heart!"
    My brain made the connection. He was saying that I would retain human thought for a long time if I was bitten. What a vote of confidence.
    "How long would I have? If I got bitten, I mean." I clarified that I hadn't quite given up hope on myself. Not yet.
    "I can't be certain," The Doc looked down at his paper, a frown creasing his brow. He sat like that for quite a while, until I considered walking away, when he finally looked up and shook his head. "Don't know, but you'll be fine!"
    And he meandered off to join the others at the cheap lawn table piled high with Twinkies and other crap I try not to eat. Thanks for that advice.
    I wasn't quite sure if that little bit of information should've made me happy, or depressed. Maybe I would be lucky and they would pick a hive with only one or two zombies living in it...
    "Hey, Liam!" Tray, one of Clark's friends, hollered over from a group of guys. When I walked over, he held out his phone, and the screen showed a picture of a rundown corner store. "Guess what hive they picked for you? Yeah, that old convenience store, Randall's! It's crammed with zombies in there!"
    My luck is worth crap.
    "That's great!" I smiled convincingly while they went back to placing bets, and then I turned and ran up the stairs, away from... everyone.
    Upstairs, it was blissfully silent. My footsteps resounded on the sleek marble tiles of the floor, my reflection showing clearly on the glimmering surface. I brushed a hand through my brown hair, my eyes fixated on the picture of my mother on the wall.
    It was a large, proud picture, the gold frame nearly three feet tall. I was the only one of the three of us that somewhat resembled her, with dark brown hair and green eyes, when both Clark and Jess had inherited my dad's blond hair and blue eyes.
    The picture of her had been taken the same year the virus had broken out. She was smiling, in the photo, sitting in a field with grass greener than I had ever seen, and behind her, the sky bluer than should have been possible. She was beautiful in the picture.
    I remembered her, but the memories became more faint with each passing year. She died giving birth to Jess, seven years ago, when the virus was still hitting the world hard, and we couldn't get to a hospital. I was seven.
    What I do remember most is her compassion, her empathy for others. She would never abandon an infected person, friend or no friend, until the very end, and even then she couldn't bring herself to ever kill them. She couldn't watch when Dad and the rest of the survivors went out and gunned down as many as they could, freeing several houses up for grabs. She had always reminded me that the zombies had once been people, and maybe those people were still in there somewhere.
    "Yo, Liam, maaaaaaaannnnnn!" Some guy staggered up from the stairs, giggling quietly, drunk on Mountain Dew. "It's sssss-" He suddenly careened off to the side for no reason and hit the wall with a SMACK. I tried to help him up, but he dragged himself across the floor back to the basement instead, calling behind him while I watched in exasperation. "Duuuudde, it's, like, seven o'clock! You know what that means! Hahahah! You're gonna die!" And with that he flopped back down the staircase, which left me wondering if I should go down and take away the soda before someone could hurt themselves.
    I checked my watch, just a simple black digital one, and then remembered it was broken. I just couldn't bring myself to throw it away, though- Clark had passed it down to me from my dad. It was forever stuck at 1:37 p.m.
    I turned and looked up at the flat-screen hanging high on the white, gold-lined walls. Half the screen showed a 24/7 live stream for the back door, the other half the front door. A couple of people must have taken the other door from the cellar, and were now slowly streaming through the back door, veering off to the left or right as they went, idiotic smiles plastered to their faces. Party must've been dying down.
    I whirled and watched a group of people stagger up the staircase and hurl themselves out the front door. Sophisticated bunch, aren't they.
    I backed away and flattened myself to the opposite wall, hoping not to be seen. It was just easier that way, than taking the brunt of the derogatory comments and all that.
    I was dressed in jeans, black sneakers and a dark red sweatshirt that used to be Clark's (like most of my clothes), so I wasn't exactly camouflaged against the pure white wall, but blending in and disappearing is one of my many talents. Well, it's actually, like, the only one.
    I used to hang around Clark's and my father's friends, trying to be like them when I was little, then, when I realized most of them were complete idiots and, more important, they didn't like me, I got used to being ignored.
    I'd put up with it for so long, being that person who people forget has feelings, having one of those faces that makes people mistake you for everybody. Half the time, when it wasn't my birthday and I wasn't the main source of entertainment for the day, people didn't even see me. They could bowl me right over in the street and not blink an eye.
    After dealing for a couple of years with Clark and his gang, I had trained myself to disappear. If I was in a crowd, I slipped away and blended in, I copied the body language of those around me so I didn't stick out and, bingo, Find the Liam has begun. I could walk silently, another gift, because I wasn't three hundred pounds, nor flat-footed, and nor did I have the ego of a large walrus. After all those years of trying and epically failing to live up to Clark's shadow, I'd learned to hide in that shadow, to sneak away and just avoid all the disappointment.
    So I crossed my arms over my chest and sat, quite obviously, watching the half-conscious party-goers troop out through the front door. None of them even glanced in my direction, because like I said, I wasn't there.
    There were more of them than I remembered being downstairs, but at last the line dwindled, then broke, and Clark, Dad, and Jess brought up the rear, shutting the door behind them.
    "Well, that's a mess." Dad summed up the party, and then looked down at Jess.
    "Go find Liam, we need to get going before they fully awaken." He ordered, and Jess skulked off, probably already planning my demise.
    "I-" I began, but then Dad turned to Clark, and lowered his voice, so I stopped and instead padded across the floor to stand directly behind my father to hear better. If they're whispering, you know it's got to be something good.
    "-All I can hope for. With his luck, he'll be bitten before we even reach the hive!" Dad dropped his hands helplessly. "Look, maybe you can go in there and, you know, be with him, I mean-"
    "Protect him... Yeah, no." Clark said flatly.
    "You'll regret that when you see him chained to a wall up in the lab." Dad warned.
    "It's the rules though, Dad. You go alone." Clark shook his head like the matter was out of his hands, however much he regretted it.
    "But-"
    "I went alone, and I made it out fine-"
    "But Liam's not you!!!" Dad shouted desperately, and for the first time I saw fear flicker in Clark's eyes, as my father stood at his full, impressive height, towering above him, fists clenched, eyes blazing.
    Then Dad turned on his heel and walked right into me.
    In his fury, he didn't see me till after he knocked me over, and even then he only muttered a quick sorry.
    He was about to go up the big spiral staircase, when he finally realized who he had knocked over.
    "Liam!" He tried to sound pleased, but it came out a little disappointed. "Didn't see you there! How long, er, how long've you... been, uh, standing there?"
    "Considering I'm not standing anymore," I grunted, rolling onto my stomach and crawling back to my feet. "I suppose not very long at all." There. Not a lie, but not the truth, just to save Dad's sanity. What's left of it, at least.
    Dad looked relieved, Clark was eyeing me, and Jess finally came sliding around the corner.
    "I can't find Liam anywhere! I-" He stopped dead when he saw me, then he barreled head-first into me, and I almost fell down for the second time that day.
    "You stupid." He screamed while he pummeled me with fists the size of small radishes. "You stupid!"
    "No, I'm awesome." I corrected him sardonically, backing out of his reach while Clark almost collapsed laughing. Beaten up by a seven year old. It's a hard life.
    "Yeah, Mr. Awesome, it's time to go." Dad said without cracking even a smile.
    "Right. Let me get a gun or something-"
    "I already got you a gun." Then Clark did something that greatly surprised me- He handed me a gun. Not just any gun, his very own prized semi-automatic. I stared down at the weapon in my hands in awe.
    "Thanks..." I said admiringly, turning it over and examining the flawless surface, the trigger taut and aching to be pulled. "Wow, thanks..."
    "No prob." Clark shrugged like it was nothing.
    "No really-"
    "Moment's over. Don't make me change my mind." He glared at me like I was used to, and there was the Clark we all know and rarely love.
    "A-All set?" Dad choked up a little bit, and dabbed at his eyes, as he gazed admiringly at Clark, the eighteen year old god. He cleared his throat. "Right, then. All set and ready to go? Good."
    Dad and Clark both brought along rifles, just in case the zombies happened to be out on the streets this early, which was unlikely, or in the case of a rescue mission, which was less unlikely. We all wore headlamps, which I felt made us look like idiots that zombies would target, but they obviously felt differently. Jess had to stay home alone for the half and hour or so we would be gone, and I could only pray that if I survived the night, the house would still be in one piece when we returned.
    We barricaded the house doors with several heavy metal bars, a couple dozen padlocks, and a piece of ply-wood before we left. All the windows were already boarded and sealed with thick metal sheets.
    I felt slightly adventurous as we started down the street in a close-knit pack, guns cocked and at the ready. I had never ventured to the outer streets before- It was rare I left the downtown area. Our little surviving society was trapped in the center of the city, flanked on all sides by a massive, creeping crawling swarm, that every night pushed against our boundaries, thirsting for fresh blood.
    All lights from the downtown were soon blotted out by the shattered, hulking shapes of the dark buildings at the edge of inner city limits. They loomed up out of the night, tall, I thought, beyond reason. What good were those huge buildings, which seem to boast of their own strength and hugeness, when the zombie apocalypse broke out? Here they are, from vast skyscrapers right down to small, corner-side convenience stores, and every single one of them filled with bones and zombies. Shame.
    We were all on the edges of our nerves. Darkness had fallen completely, and it happened to be a new moon that night. The only light came from our three headlamps, three narrow beams that exposed whatever could be lurking in the shadows. We resolved to walk with Dad facing forward because he knew the way, and Clark and me back to back behind him, so that nothing could sneak up on us from behind or on our flanks. We moved much slower after that, and every once and a while I would trip into Clark, and he'd fall into Dad, and everyone would freak until they realized it was just me. Then they would glare at me and mutter about hurrying up.
    "I haven't heard them yet." I said uncertainly after what felt like a lifetime of shuffling through the dark streets. I didn't have to clarify 'Them'.
    "They're still waking up." Dad said.
    "How long will that take?"
    "Eh," Clark looked down at his watch, unconcerned, a fancy golden Rolex very unsuitable for zombie hunting. "About fifteen or twenty minutes, more or less."
    We all jumped suddenly, forgetting our formation and facing the nearby storefront, listening to a low sickly moaning coming from within. We froze for almost a minute, while it carried on and on and on, then, finally, it died down and somebody went back to sleep.
    "Okay, less." Clark grinned, and we fell back into a rough pinwheel formation and continued doing... whatever you can call that.
    The streets began to stink as we travelled deeper into the wreckage of the city. Windows were shattered and shelves containing broken, dusty televisions and computers, posters and pictures of people I'd never seen, their eyes seemed to watch us as we padded by. Our headlamps caught the shattered glass in the streets which glinted like a million malevolent eyes.
    Talk became rare, then vanished completely, because we all had a lot more to worry about than the latest baseball stats... which everyone had memorized because they were about ten years old... Our breathing seemed too loud in the deathly silence, like it could give us away any second. While zombie hunting was a good laugh back in the downtown, out here in the dark, deserted streets, it was pretty easy to forget all that.
    It was very, very real.
    The stench of rotting flesh grew stronger and fouler as we drew away from the inner city, until we were far, far away from the lights and noise and the laughter of our home.
    Zombies are alive. All those things about the living dead- Lies. Zombies are very, very alive and conscious. They're not slow, shambling creatures either- They move through the darkness on silent feet, can jump walls and buildings, climb vertically and leap onto you from above- Call it an unfair advantage.
    I had to cover my nose the smell was so bad. Like I said, zombies are alive. To some extent, at least. What we know is their hearts are beating, and when you shoot them they bleed and die. But they will never die of old age.
    They rot on their feet, literally. It's as if their body won't maintain itself- Fresh ones can go for months as complete, totally alive beings, with white hair thick as a human's, skin solid white but sturdy, bones thick and strong. But after a while, they begin to decompose. It's never pleasant when they bring in an older sample to the lab downtown. Their skin becomes tough and dry, then dissolves. The teeth become brown and brittle, the hair thin and stringy, the skull seems to shrink and the eyes bulge. The longer they've been infected, the less human they look.
    Red eyes blinked drearily at us from pitch black doorways and from cracks in boarded up windows. I found this unnerving, just so slightly. I glared back at them, though, probably not to the same affect. I used to wonder if the zombies would react to us the same way we reacted to them, like 'Oh my god, it's a dude! Kill it! Ahh!' But after a while, I had decided their thought process didn't exactly work like that- It was more like the instinct of a predatory animal when it sees it's prey- Sort of like 'Yum....'
    "Ah, here we are!" Dad said gladly when we finally reached the target hive. "Finally... I'll give the boys a call to get a chopper ready to fly us home."
    "What?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Why the heck did we just walk all the way over here then, if we could have taken a chopper-?"
    "We needed to come quietly so they would still be drowsy when you go do your thing." Clark said, as he took in the small store, which held heavy signs of it's zombie-inhabitants.
    "And this is quiet?" I held up Clark's gun, on which he had scribbled in permanent ink "Bad Boy"
    "Until it's fired." Dad said cheerfully, then he pulled his camera out of his back pocket and started recording, the lens trained on me. Home videos, right? " All ready? Headlamp?"
    "Check."
    "Gun?"
    I unclipped the safety. "Check."
    "Shoes?"
    I frowned, but answered. "Um, check?"
    "Pants?"
    My eyebrows went up. "I hope so."
    "Boxers?"
    "This is going too far." I put my hand over the lens, and he stopped the camera. Clark was still staring, bewildered, at our father.
    "How do pants kill zom-" He began, then stopped and shook his head. "You know what? I just don't want to know."
    "Okay then, kiddo. Get in there!" My Dad said energetically, and the camera was rolling again. Most families will look back on home movies of a visit to the beach, or the first time little Jimmy rode his bicycle- No, we film our family members taking out hives of zombies. Hardcore.
    He pushed me in the back, and I stumbled forward unwillingly. I looked up at the sign, which read "RANDALL'S" and was half hanging off the wall. I took in the small door, which hung off its hinges, creaking slightly when a breeze blew, the shattered store front and the pitch black inside. Then I took one long good look back at my family, at Dad, waving me on eagerly with the camera in hand, and Clark giving me the thumbs up beside him.
    Then I turned and walked through the doorway.