They Call Me Daring

Chapter 26

"Oh, wonderful samples!" Doc exclaimed, snatching the plastic bag from my hands and holding it up to his nose. "Still fresh!"
"That's a debatable definition of fresh." I grunted, trying to avoid looking at the contents of the bag and the vial on the desk.
"You must have had to invade a hive to get these!" He exclaimed, shaking the bag like it was jello.
"Don't shake it!" I groaned, closing my eyes. Then his words sank in.
"Oh, and, um, yeah, about that..." I began, watching him as he emptied the bag's bloody, gooey contents on a desk and prodded it with a pencil, watching it jiggle.
"Yes?" He brought out a microscope and began stabbing the jiggly zombie flesh with a knife.
"Uh..." I stared as I ripped the sample apart, rotten blood splattering everywhere. "Uh..."
"Speak up!" He shouted, and yanked out a chainsaw.
"NO!" I shouted. "No, I can't concentrate with you standing in front of me ripping... that apart. Okay?"
Looking disappointed, the Doc sighed, and tucked the weapon away. "Fine. But be quick, before this goes bad."
I blinked. Whatever it was had gone bad a long time ago.
"Um, yeah, well, I didn't actually go in a hive..." I bit my lip. Why was I always the one with the bad news. "Yeah... Dude, I found that thing out in the street. Actually, it found me." I corrected myself. The Doc's eyes widened.
"So it's really begun. I thought we might have more time..." He shook his head, and looked down absently at the sample, poking at it. "Thank you, Liam. Hopefully I can analyze this soon enough... before things can get out of hand. Thank you, and good afternoon."
I knew I was being dismissed, so I left. I sprinted home. It was only just after noon. I still had plenty of time to enjoy myself. Of course, I wouldn't be doing that, because now the creatures really were evolving, and that meant that all our lives were in danger.
More than they already were.
I decided to take the day and fortify my home. It was the most protected, with the fence and all. But I doubted that would hold long enough.
"Liam!" Clark greeted me at the gate. I stopped, and raised an eyebrow at the gun in his hands.
"Just security." He shrugged.
"As in...?"
"We had a runner earlier this morning." He explained. "Somebody-no one close- tried to get out and get to their home. So now I'm guarding."
"But it's their choice!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, but they're all going to kill themselves!" Clark grabbed his hair in desperation. He wasn't sure what to do, I saw at that moment. And I didn't know either. Why couldn't somebody else just come up with ideas for a while, huh?
"Can you see in the dark?" Clark asked suddenly, startling me with abrupt change of subject.
"Um, yeah?" I asked suspiciously.
"Cool!"
"Um, yeah, well, I'm kind of fighting for my life, so it's not really that cool actually. Listen," I interrupted his awed expression, "we need to protect the mansion. It's happening, today I saw a..." I gritted my teeth, but forced out the word. "a zombie. In the street. In the light. They're changing, Clark. I am.
"The mansion is priority. Get Jess, get Dad- protect them, wherever they are. Keep them safe." I said forcibly. I would never forgive my father. How could I? He had surrendered me, given up on me, when I needed him most. I wouldn't- couldn't- forgive him.
But that didn't mean I had to forsake him. Because that would make me no better than him, and I was determined to be a better man. After all, I thought, this was, ironically, the year I became a man.
"Liam?" Clark grabbed my shoulder, and I jumped.
"What?"
"Did you hear me? Dad is already over at the apartments. He's picking up the digging where you left off with them."
"What?"
"Man, maybe your vision got better, but I think you're going deaf." Clark snorted. I blinked, still trying to process that. Dad was hiding, holed up in the mansion. He was already out there, taking command.
"Jess?" I asked.
"He's right here." Clark said immediately.
"Where, exactly, do you mean by here?"
"I mean he's... he was right there." Clark pointed numbly to a little puddle in the pathway, a grey line between the two halves of yellowed lawn.
"When did you last see him there?" I said cautiously, waiting for the little devil to creep up behind me and stab me in the back.
"Literally right before you walked up!" Clark grabbed his head in his hands, looking around anxiously. "How could he have just vanished! There's nowhere he could have gone!"
"Um..." I thought hard, looking all around, trying to think like a demonic seven year old would. Think, Liam, think. I closed my eyes and let the scents and smells of the world drift to me. First came the obvious things. Dying grass and smoggy air. Broken septic systems from the block over. The smell of too many dirty people crammed together in too tight a space.
Then the sub-scents. Those little, faint things that you wouldn't normally pay any attention to. Which were what I was focusing on. The chipping, sun-dried paint on the mansion, the parched baking of the earth beneath me. The tang of metal in the air from the gate, that musty, stone smell from the wall. The subtle scent of rotting flesh floating in on the breeze from the outlying city. And then, beneath it all, soft human flesh and blood, dirty fingers and a sticky face.
"He went this way." I pointed wordlessly out the gate, still not opening my eyes.
"How do you know that?"
"I can smell him."
"You can what?"
"Just follow me."