They Call Me Daring

Chapter 3

    "Liam."
    I didn't open my eyes. I was having too much of an awesome dream. I was sort of ruling the world.
    "Liam."
    I frowned, and shrugged my shoulders slightly, trying to rid myself of the growing pain in my wrist. As I awakened, it spread, resonating in wave-like throbs up my arm and I could feel my heart shuddering under its impact.
    "Liam!"
    I didn't want to wake up. Why didn't they understand? Sleep drove the pain away.... Consciousness brought it back.
    "Why are you hugging your arm, Liam, you stupid..." I felt small, sticky fingers tugging my right arm away from my body, and I decided it was a good time to wake up.
    "BOO!" I jerked upright abruptly, scaring the crap out of Jess, who ran out of my room screaming. Yeah... my room?
    I blinked, as my vision tried to settle. Colors swirled away from the objects they belonged to, and blues and red much brighter than they should have been, and everything was lit with a bright, sunny light.
    I blinked rapidly, rubbed my eyes, and shook my head, and when I looked back up it was mostly better. I still felt like I'd been hit by a double-decker bus, though.
    My nose was itching, and my scruffy brown hair was piled up on top of my head. I sniffed, because something smelled bad. Then I realized it was me.... At least my Dad hadn't tried to bathe my unconscious body... that could have gotten weird.
    I got up from my bed, the mattress popping and creaking when I hopped up, and stretched. There was a crick in my neck from sleeping on it weird. I decided not to dress, because I was in need of a shower anyways, so I went straight to the bathroom, hoping to avoid people....
    I staggered down the hall, the wooden floors creaking under my feet, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I wondered how long I'd been out... Surely not more than a day.... Dang, I was tired...
    The bathroom doorknob was cold under my fingers. I turned it, and-
    "Yo, Liam!" Clark exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up into perfectly combed golden hair. He rinsed shaving cream off his face, then leaned in towards the mirror, running a hand along his jaw to make sure he hadn't missed a spot. What a girl. "Didn't know sleeping beauty was up yet."
    "Just woke up." I yawned, and I walked over to the shower, placing my hand on the nozzle. "How long've I been out?"
    "Eh, just last night." Clark put his razor behind the mirror and turned to face me. "Yeah, you'd better shower. You smell like-"
    "I know." I turned the nozzle and ran my hand under the cold water.
    "Yeah..." Clark was about to go, then he stopped and turned back to me, a frown on his face. "You- You seem pale... nah," He shook his head. "Nah, it's probably just the lighting in here or something... Anyways..." With that he slid through the door and shut it behind him.
    I turned to the mirror, and ran a hand through my hair, as was habit. Did I seem pale? My eyes glinted green and vivid in the mirror, my dark hair falling over one eye. That was annoying- I needed a haircut.... But I was normally pretty tan... Was it me, or did I seem a little paler today? No, no, surely it was the lighting, like Clark said.
    I stripped from my dirty clothes, the ones I had been wearing yesterday, and looked at my forearm, but it was so covered with dirt and grime and dust, I could barely see the skin, much less a wound of any sort.
    When I stepped into the shower, the icy water instantly woke me up. It ran in rivers down my back and legs and through my hair, and I felt a million pounds lighter as all the grime dripped off down the drain. I didn't spend long in the shower- No hot water.
    All our water came from the little old YMCA on the next block over- Every time it rained the giant funnels on the roof sent water down black pipes into the pool inside, basically our reservoir.
    That wasn't safe to drink, though- That's why we had an old Hannaford on my block, stocked to the roof with bottled water and food that would never go bad. The isles were sorted by the years the food would expire. I tried not to think about what would happen when we ran out- All I knew was that it would happen in my lifetime. Not exactly reassuring.
    I stepped out of the shower and immediately turned the water off, which was what was expected- The water in the pool would have to last for all five hundred survivors until the next rainstorm.
    Shivering slightly, I got out a slightly ragged towel and dried off- Then I forced myself to inspect my wrist, now clean.
    I knew what the pain was. I already knew. I'd pretended it wasn't there all morning, because it didn't have to be until I saw it. But, deep down, I already knew I was seriously screwed. There was no doubt about it. But I felt that until I saw proof, it wasn't real. It didn't have to be, until I looked.
    And I did.
    And I watched my entire life go down the drain.
    I couldn't move for minutes. It was surreal, dreamlike- I'd had nightmares more realistic than the two small holes on my wrist. I froze and could only stare in disbelief.
    Not me. No, I couldn't possibly be... be... bitten.... No, no, it just wasn't right.... Being infected- That was for the other people... Not me!
    I was a survivor. I couldn't be infected, after surviving for ten whole years of zombie outbreaks! All my dreams, everything I'd ever hoped for, vanished in an instant.
    It was like being condemned. I would have maybe a week to say my goodbyes, and then I would turn into a vicious undead creature and run off on all fours to go do... whatever zombies do with their free time. My life was forfeit.
    Maybe it would be best for me just to kill mysel-
    "Liam! Is that you in there! Hurry up!" My Dad's voice jerked me out of my one man pity party. "Jess needs the toilet!"
    "Be right out." I called, wrapping the towel more tightly around my waist, and putting my right hand behind my back, just in case. Not suspicious at all.
    I opened the door, and a smelly Jess raced past me and made a mad dash for the toilet.
    "Right...." I slipped away from my Dad before he could make some remark about me passing out, which I knew would be coming anyway.
    "Nice nap, Liam?" He called from behind me. Yep, knew it was coming.
    "Spectacular." I replied without emotion, and I sprinted down the hall and around the corner, where I promptly rammed my head into a large beam that I didn't expect to be there. "OOF."
    I fell backwards into the wall, blinking stars from my eyes. I felt my forehead. That was gonna leave a bruise.
    I blinked again, and as my head cleared, I began to see the large spider balancing on the beam. It turned to me and spoke. "Whoa, dude! You okay?"
    I shook my head, and when I looked back up, there was a girl lying on the beam, dusting the ceiling. She seemed strangely familiar....
    "Why... why are you dusting my ceiling?" Was all I could manage. I looked at her more closely, and suddenly the bell rang somewhere off in my cobwebbed brain. "You're Maggie's daughter! Where is she?"
    "Mom's sick today." The girl shrugged, then she rolled over on the beam and hung upside down to face me. "She told me to come in for her."
    "But why are you dusting the ceiling?" I said again. Maggie had been a good friend of my mother's. She came over every week and cleaned the house for us, vacuumed and dusted and did laundry... It was sad when she fell ill, and my Dad had to go down and stare at the washer like it was an alien robot, trying to analyze the dials and whatnot, this resulting in him throwing all the laundry in and pressing the biggest button he could find, before walking away, not having actually accomplished anything.
    "And I'm dusting your ceiling because it's gray." She said blandly. I looked up at it, and blinked at the white streaks through the dull gray paint.
    "I thought it was supposed to be that color...." I frowned.
    "Well, it's not, and I need to get back to work," She swung upward, red ponytail whipping through the air. "And you should go put on a shirt."
    "Wha-" I looked down at my towel, and my face probably became the color of her hair. "Oh, yeah... right..."
    "You look pale." She said thoughtfully, and my heart jumped.
    "It's the lighting," I muttered. "Um, bye."
    I vanished down the hall before I could say anything else stupid, and shut myself in the room. Dad really needs to tell me these things, as in, 'Liam, there's a giant beam in the middle of the hall and you could possibly whack your head on it. And there could also possibly be a member of the opposite gender posed on top of it, so you probably shouldn't run down the hall half-naked'.
    I pulled on jeans and a black Linkin Park T-shirt, and it was only when I twisted my wrist, and paralyzing pain shot through my bones, that I remembered the bite.
    I sat back on my bed and stared hopelessly out the window. What was the point of living now? It would just be doing everyone a favor at this point if I just killed myself... One less zombie to kill in the future, and it'd save my family a lot of pain. Well, maybe not, but at least they wouldn't have to watch the slow, painful transformation.
    I looked blankly down at my wrist, the two little red scars, where two fangs had sunken into my flesh, and where venom had entered my body.
     I glanced up into the mirror over my drawer. Was I pale? Was I already transforming already? How long did I have? Alarmed, I sat up and inspected my face closer.
    Was that a white hair in my brown mop? I opened my eyes as wide as they could go and looked at them closer. Was that a red streak in the vivid green? I opened my mouth, and felt my canines with my fingers. Were they already growing sharper...?
    "Liam," The door swung open and Clark walked in. He stared at me, still bent over the mirror, with my hands in my mouth and my teeth bared like some kind of animal. "Um, maybe it's not the best time..."
    "I'm fine." I pulled my fingers away from my teeth and faced my brother like he'd caught me doing something normal, like.... What do normal people do? "What is it?"
    "Um, I was wondering if you've seen my gun... You know, the one I lent you...."
    "Oh," My heart leapt. The gun, then gun... Where did I put the gun? I ran over the events of last night in my head. Everything was fuzzy, though, and I frowned, racking my brains. Maybe I set it down when I killed the last one? It hadn't even been a priority on my mind until now, but I had assumed someone had taken it when I had passed out. "Um, I- I really don't know. I think I was holding it when I- Lost consciousness-"
    Clark snickered. "You were moaning when we put you in the chopper."
    "Yeah," I pretended I didn't hear that last remark. "So maybe it fell out of my arms when you took me away."
    Clark swore. He was about to turn away, but then he frowned, and looked at me oddly.
    "Why are you holding your arm behind your back...?" He raised an eyebrow. My stomach jumped up to my throat.
    "Oh, um, nothing." I said, which I later realized was probably the worse possible thing I could have said.
    "Right..." He eyed me suspiciously. "Well, I need my gun, so if you see it, you'd better give it back... right..."
    Then he spun on his heel and swept out of the room. I waited a moment, then closed the door and sat back on my bed, holding my head in my hands.
    Great. Now, not only was I infected, I was also famous for passing out after my rite of passage, and now Clark thought I'd stolen his gun.
    I forced myself to look at the bright side... Then I realized I was looking down at the scars on my arm. At least nobody had found out yet. As long as everyone thought I was clean, I was good, safe. As long as I could keep a secret, I was still Liam Trackerson.
    I couldn't let anyone know, not even my family. The minute they found out, I became an outcast. No, I had to hide the bite for as long as possible... Right up until the very end.
    I switched Clark's old broken watch to my right wrist- Nobody would notice. Of course, so far, people seemed to be looking at me a lot more than usual, now that I would rather stay neglected and invisible... figures.
    I took a deep breath and looked back in the mirror to be sure something freaky hadn't happened when I wasn't looking. I could of sworn my eyes flashed red for maybe a fraction of a second- But then I blinked, and they were back to green.
    How long did I have? I would have to find the doctor... Which would be interesting, considering he would want to experiment on me. It would take some highly thought out lies... Naturally, I would wing it. Planning wasn't exactly my thing, given my unusual amount of bad luck.
    I needed to find out how long I had.