They Call Me Daring

Chapter 5

    "So... what'd you guys do today?" Dad's voice broken the awkward silence at the dinner table. He sat at the head, Clark at the other end, me and Jess across from each other in the middle. Well, seeing as it was a square table, we were really all sitting at the head; But nobody dared tell Dad that.
    "I drew a picture of Liam!" Jess volunteered. He proudly held up one of his crayon Picassos.
    "Why is he being eaten by a- Is that a unicorn?" Clark squinted at the crumpled paper. A few raisins were stuck to one corner, and I assumed that was supposed to be poop, because Jess loved poop.
    "High-five, man." Clark and Jess reached over the table, and I stared at the stick figure in a red hoody, who was being massacred by a pink unicorn. The colors clashed horribly.
    "Yes... so, Clark, what'd you do today? Did you ever find that gun of yours?"
    The mood darkened immediately, and it was like a shadow fell over the room.
    "No..." He growled, and I pressed my back against my chair. Clark glared at me like a tiger about to leap at its prey. "No, I didn't."
    "Okaaaay, then," Dad interrupted me and Clark's glaring contest. "So, Liam, what'd you do today?"
    "He wandered around being useless." Clark said promptly, and the spell was broken. He looked down at his pickles as if nothing had happened.
    "That's not nice Clark-" Dad began, but Jess stood up in a bout of sudden anger.
    "Your face isn't nice!" He screamed, then he hopped of his chair and darted out of the room. He was going through a phase, but he would grow out of it soon. Probably.
    I waited to make sure nobody else was going to come up with their own notions of what I did that day. When the silence stretched on, I finally spoke.
    "Eh, I visited the Doc in the lab, took a run around town, nothing much." I shrugged, keeping my eyes locked on my plastic spoon.
    "Since when have you and the Doc been besties?" Clark raised an eyebrow.
    "Since, eh, ever..." I said, sounding like I was asking a question. "He wanted to show me some new study, I don't know. I just humored him." I said dismissively.
    Forks and spoons clattered and clinked off the china. In the distance, a zombie howled (Yes, they howl, like wolves, except it's weirder and much less attractive). Why couldn't I have been bit by a werewolf? Chicks dig that supernatural stuff... but, no. Now I'm turning into a zombie. I think I was cursed a birth.
    "So, Dad, what did you do today?" I inquired after a while.
    "Hmm?" He looked up from his plate. "What do you mean?"
    "Why were you looking for Clark, at around two today?" I raised an eyebrow.
    "Oh, yes, well, yes, I-" He shook his head, licking his lips like they were suddenly dry. "We were just a little, ah, concerned. About you." He added hastily, like if he said it fast it would have a different effect.
    "About me?" I was immediately on guard. Had I failed to hide it? Had somebody ratted me out? "What for?"
    "Well, you see," Dad said slowly, eyeing Clark, as if trying to cue him. "I wanted Clark to, er, train you."
    "Train me?" I asked flatly. Train me for what?
    "You know, in zombie hunting and... and stuff." Dad gave Clark the thumbs up.
    "I'm not doing this." Clark declared, and, without further ado, got to his feet and left the room.
    "He'll warm up to the idea," Dad said enthusiastically as I too got up and sprinted up the stairs.
    I shut myself in my room and locked my door. I had no idea how long it would take for me to transform- but I didn't want to change into a killer in the middle of the night and murder my family in their sleep. Of course, a lock would never hold a zombie in the darkness....
    I quickly changed into pajama pants, and stood in front of the mirror, afraid to look away lest my eyes would suddenly turn red, or something else really freaky. My hair was still auburn and fluffy, my eyes were still green... I opened my mouth. Yep, teeth weren't abnormally pointy. Hopefully I could get by for a couple of days without undergoing any major physical changes.
    The clock on my nightstand hit 10:30, and I forced myself to crawl into bed. There was no way I was going to sleep, so I stared out of the window instead, my eyes scouring the dark sky.
    I heard another zombie howl from somewhere around Green Street. I shivered, and pulled the covers over my head- my nose was cold, and we had no oil for heating.
    I wondered if the infection was the reason I couldn't sleep- I mean, besides the mental stress and grief.
    After all, zombies are totally nocturnal. During the day, they moved like sloths; They could barely keep their yellow eyes open. But once the sun went down, well, that was an entirely different story. In the night, we'd heard them outside our house- they jumped the wall and banged their fists in vain against the strong walls and boarded windows. They ran ramped in the streets, tore apart buildings, broke into any safe houses which hadn't been properly sealed, and devoured their occupants.
    Thinking about this depressed me even further. I'd accepted the fact that I would transform- there was no way I could argue. There was no cure, no antidote- I could only stall the final effects. But that didn't mean I was happy about it.
    My entire life, down the drain. Everything I had ever hoped to aspire to, all of it, gone just like that. And now I had a few days to live out my entire life... before I would turn into an immortal, slowly decaying, predator and scamper off into the darkness.
    Slowly, my eyes began to droop, despite my mood, and I felt myself drifting, drifting away from reality, and the only thing that was real was the slow throbbing sensation in my wrist, which seemed to wind it's way up my arm and through my entire body... I imagined the poison slowly working it's way into my bloodstream, seeping into my heart and making it's way to my brain....