Sometimes you just need to stop thinking, to stop waiting and watching and doing nothing. Because if you sit and think for long enough, you'll get so discouraged you'll never get up the nerve to go and do what you need to do. Doing nothing is the same as giving up.
Which is why sometimes, you just need to do something.
I stood up suddenly, ignoring Meg's expression. Saying anything would break the spell. I walked calmly around the perimeter of the room. People screamed and flailed all around me, but they passed by in a whirl of color and wide, scared eyes. People are fickle. Without a direction to follow, with only hopelessness in the future and no one to tell them otherwise, they panicked and broke apart, like lost sheep without a shepherd.
They needed a shepherd.
They needed a leader.
I walked slowly, the chaos spinning around me, plates flying and fists smashing and shaking bodies cowering- but somehow it all passed around me, never even brushing my shoulder.
I waited for some one to step up and take the call as I walked forward toward the podium. Dad, maybe? The Doc? But the both of them just stood back in the shadows, watching gravely as people lost their minds. Because inside they felt the same way. As if it couldn't actually be happening, something so terrible, something so impossible... something from a nightmare. They were scared too.
And no one was brave enough to stand up and spit in the face of death when it was staring us down directly. No one had the courage to speak of the hope that didn't exist.
They had given up.
Funny, really. The only person who hadn't given up was the one with most reason to.
I stepped onto the small wooden podium, and suddenly the church seemed to grow a hundred times longer, lengthening into a never ending abyss. The lights were centered around the podium, but I lowered my eyelids to keep out most of the glare, and tried to ignore the burning pain through my paper bag mask.
Fight back, I told myself. If I couldn't overcome this, who would?
The screaming became a constant roar in my ears, as steady and throbbing as the waves of an ocean beating against an impenetrable wall. I suddenly felt very, very visible. Could they see my hair through the bag, or maybe someone would see my wrists with my hands jammed into my pockets, or maybe someone would throw a plate and it would smash into my head and then-
"SHUT UP!" I roared. It took me a second to realize it was my voice. It came out deeper than I seemed to remember my voice as being, cold and biting as ice, so sharp it sent shivers running down my spine to hear it. It was cold and fierce, predatory and hungry.
Inhuman.
The room fell into immediate silence, as people, shocked into silence, searched around the room for the source of the command. And, slowly, every pair of eyes landed on me.
"Um, hi." I said lamely. Then I mentally slapped myself. Great job, hero. "I mean, uh, thank you."
Silence.
"I, uh, I'm, um, I-" I stammered, beginning to sweat, either because of the heat from the lights... or because I was freaked.
I stood up there in the bright lights, on an elevated platform, in front of over five hundred people, all of them watching me like, "Sigh. Why does this loser want to waste my time? I could be busy screaming and throwing things right now!"
I wanted so badly to get down. Just tell them to get on with their panicking. Get away from the light, the people staring at me, and the light. And mostly the light. I needed to get away, find somewhere quiet and dark and silent, I thought, as the grumbling picked up again, steadily growing louder and louder, people complaining about me. People started to shriek again about the oncoming second apocalypse.
They were hopeless. I wanted to escape to a dark, solitary room, where I could lurk in the cool, soothing darkness, naught but a shadow to the human eye, and wait for prey to wander a little too far from home-
"NO!" I shouted suddenly, my voice coming out sharp and anguished. Again, the room fell silent, and every eye was trained on me. Liam the celebrity.
Me. I was still here.
Me.
Liam.
And suddenly something came back to me, something from my earliest childhood memories, sitting in a small, cramped bunker with fifty other people, listening to the sounds of the ravaging zombies aboveground. Something my mother leaned over and whispered in my ear.
"The days are cold," I began, my voice cracking in the beginning. Then my voice became strong and cold again, and I found the tune, and began to sing. "The sea is gray. And by the day... the sun is burn-ing."
I began to sing in earnest then. I won't lie. It's not much to boast about, for a guy my age anyways, but I actually wasn't a bad singer. I could carry a tune, and my voice made the song hard and fierce, and I saw every single eye captivated with the eery, marching melody.
"The fields are aflame, the horses flee. Our houses crumble... But do we?" And then every voice in the church picked up the tune, the one that had been sung every sunday in mass or by the lonely soldier, waiting, along, between his city and the mass of heaving creatures.
"Our walls are strong, our swords are sharp. Our hearts will last, until we drop!" Raised voices grew stronger, remembering and growing more sure of themselves as they rose, and then every voice fell together, and rose as one.
"For they cannot break us! We will fight till last blood is shed, we will not surrender... Until the enemy is dead."
The last sinister note echoed through the wall, reverberating through the stone. The song seemed to reel with human essence, that stubborn, mule-like quality of never backing out even when defeat is inevitable. A quality which had recently been forgotten.
Now silence filled the hall. I was about to step down, not quite sure what to do, when a voice rang out.
"Who are you?"
I blinked behind my mask. And then I realized- I was invisible under normal conditions.... Now, with the mask over my face, I was anonymous. Only my family and Meg knew who it really was with a paper bag over his head, and none of them bothered to speak out.
And suddenly I wasn't so afraid to speak up.
"I... I'm the, uh..." I frantically searched the room. What was I? Who was Liam Trackerson, really? "I'm the Man Behind the Mask."
"Duh," Somebody else said, standing up. "But who, exactly?"
"I am...." I began, "I am the Lost Soldier," I said randomly, making it up as I went along. Sounded cool, anyway. I suppose I was a lost soldier, in a sort, as in I would soon be fighting for the other side.
"Okay, then, Lost Soldier," Somebody sneered. Quick and unexpected as lightning, I leapt off the podium, flying at least twenty feet through the air, and landed on the table in front of the speaker, who gulped and looked up at me through wide eyes, fear alighting in their depths.
"Yeah, that's what I thought." I said coldly, my own voice terrifying me again. I sprung up and over the man's head, landing lightly on the floor. It was only then when I realized my family would think I was on serious steroids after all this.
"Aren't you going to say something?" Somebody called out from one corner of the room. I didn't have to look to know it was Meg, who had caught on quick.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah..." I tried to remember what I was thinking. My train of thought had veered off somewhere into the hunger region. Steak.... "Um, second apocalypse, yeah, that's... That's some pretty deep chiss right there... Uh..."
"What should we do?" Meg called out again. Thank you, I tried to tell her telepathically, which, big surprise, didn't work out.
"Don't give up." I said automatically. This received more than a few 'is this guy for real?' stares, so I picked up. "When the first apocalypse happened, we were caught by surprise. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that nobody had time to prepare... and over half the world fell to the infection..." It was kinda hard to talk about that subject, when even as I spoke I could feel the poison creeping through my veins. But I had to stay strong, for my family, for... the humans.
"But this time we know what's coming. So instead of freaking and wasting the time that we have to prepare by mourning the loss of the world, why don't we actually do something?"
"What would you say we do?" Somebody jeered, and my head snapped around in their direction.
"Uh... Build a..." I thought about it. Our little rebel reserve sprawled all through the downtown area, spotted with quarantined areas and streets, because we were all to stubborn and self-righteous to live sensibly. "We need to make a freaking fort."
People stared at me like I was crazy. Which was completely debatable.
"I mean, think about it," I reasoned, walking back down the row between tables and up to the podium. "Which is easier to defend? Our houses are everywhere. It's not like we can build a wall all around us, and half the infested streets are in the downtown in the first place! It's like..."
I searched for a figurative term that wouldn't confuse the heck out of them. "It's like... jelly, spread too thin. We're everywhere, but too few and far between. What we need to do is band together- only temporarily," I added at the apprehensive looks on people's faces. "just until..." I faltered. Until what?
Once the zombies completely adapted to the daylight, there would be no going back, no end... Not until the enemy was dead.
"We can defend ourselves more easily in a confined area," I changed tactics. "We find a building big enough to hold five hundred people... Or maybe two buildings." I added at doubtful glances. The only buildings big enough to hold everyone were the skyscrapers, and half of those were fallen down, and none of them were safed out. "In the few days we have, we can stock up, building walls, plant stakes and bombs, bring in the choppers...."
"Where do we find one- or even two!- buildings big enough to hold all of us!?" Somebody asked doubtfully.
"Look around you." I replied evenly, not missing a beat. I blinked, surprised my brain had been keeping up. But then I had to agree with myself, looking around the massive stone church, where, even if it was a little crammed, the entire population of the city fit easily.
"Maybe enough room for more than half of us, once we get more situated!" Someone retorted. "But we need our privacy! Where will the other half go?"
"Fine," I said. "Three buildings. That's it. Any more, and we'll be practically back where we started."
"Okay, but the other two?"
"Uh..." I thought hard. "Well, for one, that old apartment building... Those of you that live there, stay there, and fill any empty rooms."
"You still need one more!"
I frowned beneath my mask. Most of the downtown buildings were small, sturdy cement blocks and wooden houses... Besides the church and the apartments, where were we going to find another structure big enough to support a little less than two hundred people?
"The mansion..." I saw Clark mouth in horror to himself as he realized where I was going. Dad hadn't caught on yet, but I knew he wouldn't be happy when he figured it out. Clark shook his head, almost imperceptibly, trying to meet my eyes. But I took a deep breath and looked straight forward at the doorway at the other end of the hall. My family might hate me after this... but in the long term, what was more important? My family was being just as selfish and stubborn as everyone else.... The lives of two hundred people were certainly worth more than our privacy.
"My h- Trackerson mansion, I mean." I barely remembered to preserve my anonymity. "With the consent of Mr. Trackerson, of course."
Dad's jaw dropped. He blinked at me, stunned beyond words, gulping for air like a fish out of water.
"I'll take that as a yes," I said lightly. I saw Dad's face growing redder, the vein in his neck beginning to bulge as he clenched and unclenched his jaw, and I hurried to finish my speech.
"Right. Now we'll need to divide up into the three buildings, which I'll leave to the good Doc over here," I swept my arm towards the stunned doctor. "And, uh... He'll need you all to be ready to move into your new, uh, temporary homes by... um..." My eyes swept the room, so many hopeful faces, dangling on my every word... Actually, most of them looked like they wanted to kick... How long would we have? "Tomorrow." There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the room, and murmurs of indignation. "Yes, by noon tomorrow, everyone will have to have everything they'll need for the next few..." Next few what? Days? Weeks? I didn't even want to think of years of living with a hundred strangers in my house.
"You know." I substituted weakly, watching as my father's face slowly turned purple as his rage boiled over. "That way we can stock up and build our defenses before... they come..." I gulped at that thought, knowing very well that I would be long gone by the time that happened. This would be the fourth night since the poison had first entered my body.... Even if I could fight against it, how long could I last?
"We need... We need to fight back," I said slowly, my eyes flashing to Meg, who gave a barely perceptible nod. "We can't give up... Never... If we give up, there's no chance. We're humanity's last hope. We are the last of a dying race... And if we don't fight back, there will be nothing to fight for.
Silence.
I cleared my throat awkwardly, unsure whether I should carry on. It seemed unprofessional to end on that rather ominous note.
"We will not surrender, until the enemy is dead," I muttered. "And we WILL NOT surrender! We WILL NOT back down! And WE WILL FIGHT! WE, THE LAST HUMANS OF THE WORLD! WE ARE THE STRONGEST AND THE FIERCEST! WE ARE FEARLESS!" I roared suddenly, my voice becoming ragged and cold again, striking the heart where no human voice could. "And THEY will be the ones who RUN HOME! THEY WILL BE THE ONES WITH FEAR IN THEIR EYES WHEN THEY SEE US ON THE DAY OF BATTLE!"
The crowd erupted into a screaming frenzy. But now the screams were not of fear, of terror and hopelessness... Now, they were battle cries, five hundred human voices raised together, in defiance, in glory... In bravery.
"We will survive, as always! THEY WILL TASTE THE STEEL OF OUR BULLETS, AND THEY WILL SEE US TRIUMPHANT AND FULL OF VALOR! FOR WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN, NEVER!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice cutting through the cheering like a knife, loud and clear. "WE WILL LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY!" I shouted, "FOR OUR FAMILIES, FOR OUR OUR FALLEN WARRIORS, FOR THE HUMAN RACE-" My voice cracked, and the cheering died out, so my last words rang out with indescribable clarity, as if the moment you heard them, something clicked. "For America."
Silence.
Then together, in one collective roar, the crowd rose as one, their voices raised louder than ever, a cry of battle, and even more... a cry of victory.
Half the battle was in their minds.
Their clapping thundered through the stone room, their cheering deafening, every eye glued to the masked man on the podium- they were watching the Lost Soldier.
I leapt lightly off the podium, and awkwardly tried to sidle through crowd. Which was hard, since they seemed to be doing everything in their power to to stop me from slipping away.
People, all around me, clotting out the lights and the air, the heat from a hundred bodies pressing in, threatening to smother me. People, their hands clapping me on the back and punching my shoulder and yelling and clapping and touching.
I ducked a hundred handshakes, dodged a hundred hugs, trying to escape back to my dark corner with Meg, or better yet, out the door and to my room. But there were too many, and it's kind of impossible to disappear when everyone is trying to hug you.
I passed through a whirl of people, of arms and faces and hands and coats and scarves and clothing, the human smells of skin and shampoo and soap and deodorant and perfume clotting the air.
A hand brushed against the bag over my head, fingers grasping even as their owner was dragged away by the crowd, and fear shot through me. So many hands, too many groping fingers, all of them wanted to see the Man Behind the Mask, seeking the true identity of the Lost Soldier.
I broke out into a cold sweat, the heat too much, the scent of skin and, under that, the intimate aura of blood floating out, threatening to overpower me, so many fingers and arms and faces crowding over and around me, and I saw the light disappear as I tumbled down the dark funnel-
"PEOPLE!" I heard the voice, sharp and biting, over the murmur of the crowd, and everybody froze. "Jeez! Are you freaking trying to kill him?!"
The crowd parted, looking confused, and I realized I was on the floor, shielding my face as the light streamed in and stung my eyes.
A delicate hand enter my vision, and I took it as Meg pulled me back to my feet. "He's got a long day ahead of him, people! Let the man get some sleep!"
Murmuring awkwardly, people began to back away, glancing back at me over their shoulders as I massaged my shoulder where someone had kicked me and glared daggers at Clark, who had done it.
"Thanks." I snarled without thinking at Meg, the scent of blood and flesh and the constant heat still lingering. It came out vicious and animal. She slapped me.
I barely winced at the cold slap of her hand on my face, but it jerked me out of something like cold water over your head. I blinked, rubbing my face, and suddenly all the scents I shouldn't have been able to smell went away like they had never been there, and the light and heat didn't burn so much.
"Oh... Thanks again." I muttered, trying to bring feeling back into my cheek.
"No problem. Let's get you out of here before you attack someone."
YOU ARE READING
They Call Me Daring
Teen FictionLet's get one thing straight here, I'm not a hero (I totally am, but I hear that these days being modest is in fashion or something, so I don't know man). I never planned on being a hero. It kind of just happened. Clark's the bigshot. The fame, the...
