They Call Me Daring

Chapter 29

Dinner was public event in the mansion. Maggie, Meg's mother, cooked nonstop for a good solid hour to feed the hundred fifty or so people in the mansion.
I didn't eat. I hated to admit it, but, having almost drunk Clark's blood earlier that day, I had kinda lost my appetite.
I stood in a dark corner of the kitchen with my arms crossed over my chest, grimly watching the battered people circulate the kitchen, grabbing food and fleeing, as if they were afraid it was going to be taken away from them.
I watched in grim fascination. It was darkly amazing how quickly people could change. I thought back to a few days ago in the church banquet. The loud, cockily raised voices, every man assured that he was the best in the room, and ready to prove it at a moment's notice. And now...
I sighed deeply, watching people shuffle in, holding tight to their families. Their hair was unwashed, their faces dirty from days of hard work, their postures slumped and suspicious, anxious to eat and escape from the crowds. They hadn't seemed like that during the day, but now, back in the shame of our refugee center, they looked like they were trying to disappear... and failing miserably.
Big egos don't hide very easily.
I slunk back through the crowd with barely a glance thrown my way, stepping between boxes of possessions and unrolled sleeping bags, and disappeared up the stairs.
I took watch up in the lonely shack on the roof. It was fair, I admitted. What I did to deserve it was lost on me, but at the same time, I would never get tired. Not physically, at least. The other men needed their rest. I needed to think.
I pulled up a folding lawn chair from the attic, and sprawled in it next to the window, a sniper rifle resting across my lap. And I thought.
I thought about the end of the world, and all it's consequences. I wondered if the Doc had found anything useful yet, holed up in his lab. I vowed never to become a scientist.
I thought about myself, of course. About the bite. I glanced at my arm fleetingly to confirm the infection- then did a double-take, looking closer. My heart skipped a beat. I frowned at the two pale scars on my wrist, at the absence of the redness, of the infection.
I sat back, thinking hard, though I knew I would never find the answers. Not for a while yet, anyways. My eyes were green. The sun no longer hurt. The blood poisoning had spontaneously vanished.
What was happening to me?
It must have been something scientific. While strong thinking might vanquish the mental qualities of the disease, something chemical needed to be injected into my blood to stop the physical transformation. I thought about this forever, running through every possibility in every circumstance, but going around in circles, always ending up back where I started.
Was I truly human?
I moved on, thought about other things. I thought about my family, about how me and Clark were growing closer, a brotherhood we'd never had before. I thought about Jess, and wondered why he was so messed up.
I thought about Dad. How could I forgive him, abandoning me in my moment of need? How could I not forgive him; he was my father!
I wondered if I should apologize. But that would never make it better. Something had been torn between us, a rift that one person couldn't repair. He didn't want me to be his son anymore, so how could he be my father?
I thought about all the interesting people I'd met. Ted, Gabe, Cony. All of them seemed like minor side characters in the epic drama that was my life; and yet they all had their own lives, which they were living parallel with me. They all had their own problems and fears, and yet they were fighting back along with me.
I thought about the house. I wondered if Dad would be mad I cut a hole in the roof. Then I compared it to the time Clark tried to incorporate a fire pole into his room so he could get to breakfast first, and decided it was no big deal. Especially when all our lives depended on simple things like that.
I thought about the city, wondered if we could ever repair it, and restore it to it's former glory. I thought about us, the humans- how many centuries would it take for us to repopulate and rebuild our world, after coming so close to extinction? I thought about the disease itself- how had it started in the first place? A lab experiment gone wrong? Or was it really God's way of telling us our time was over. But if He, the almighty, had truly decided to kill us out... why were we still alive?
That's when I decided we really did have a chance. Maybe that was the whole point of the apocalypse. Humanity had taken it one step too far, destroying the world with global warming and tearing it apart in vanity. Perhaps God- and I'm not even religious, but I don't know what to believe anymore- perhaps The Lord above had put us on trial, to see if we humans were really worth the trouble. If we last few survivors could hang on even when our time was ending, and refuse to let go, and prove, rightfully earn our place on this earth.
If that were true, that meant us, as the last of humankind- we were the reckoning, the scapegoats of all scapegoats. We were, figuratively, God's punching bag.
I looked up at the greying, smoke filled sky and shook my head. Maybe the pollution was finally getting to me... If God were real, if someone was really up there looking out for us, then why was this happening? How could He let something this terrible take place? No, I was thinking foolishly.
The diseased, grasping thoughts of a man without hope.
"I know that look." I jumped at the voice behind me, but didn't turn.
"What look? I'm not even facing you." I said to Meg, still staring out the window.
"I'm pretty good at reading postures." She came up the ladder, and leaned against the wall next to me.
"Hit me."
"You're shoulders are slumped, your head is bowed, your spine is popping in the back of your neck because you're tense." She said in one breath.
"Okay, that's pretty good." I admitted. "But how does that tell you what I'm thinking?"
She shrugged. "You're feeling hopeless. You've been driven to the breaking point, and you're thinking you should stop where you are. You're wondering if there's any point to all of this."
"You got that all from my posture?" I asked incredulously, and she shook her head.
"No."
"How, then?"
"I've been thinking the same thing." She sighed, sliding down the wall to sit.
I ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah, well, you nailed it. It's just..." I breathed through my teeth, unable to find words. "You know... Everything we do... we're working so hard, trying to keep hope up, to live another day..."
"But there's always something else." She finished for me. "I know what you mean."
"I just-" I clenched my fists in frustration. "I know I need to stay positive, or something, but I don't think I can. No matter how hard I try, it just keeps getting worse...."
She raised an eyebrow in question, and I shrugged, looking at my feet. "I almost bit Clark today. I actually grabbed him, and I went nuts, and..." I shivered. "I don't even want to think about it."
"You almost bit me." She added defensively.
"Yeah," I remembered. "Sorry about that, I guess."
"It's not you that should be apologizing."
"Yeah, well, I don't think whoever that was is going to, so I might as well." I sighed, looking back to the window at the growing darkness.
"Where you scared?" I asked at last, not just to break the silence, but because I really wanted to know. Was Meg scared of me, like everyone else?
She thought for a long time. Finally, she answered. "Not of you. I was scared of the boy with red eyes."
"Then why didn't you run?" I asked relentlessly, unable to look at her.
"Because I knew that somewhere in there, you were fighting. And I was confident I could bring you back out again." She smiled weakly in the corner of my eye. "It was horrible."
"Thank you for crushing my self-esteem." I muttered. First girl I'd ever kissed, and the only reason it had happened was because I was possessed by an evil demon.
"Well, you were trying to bite my neck for the first five seconds, you know. " She added in defense.
I shrugged. "Made it more memorable."
"I wouldn't call kissing a demon a fond memory." She retorted.
"We could make it a fond memory."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
"We could try it again." I said quickly, glancing at her, and she raised an eyebrow at me, unimpressed.
"Nice try, hotshot." She laughed, and I sighed, looking back out the window.
"I thought it was." I murmured.
"Watch out." She warned as she turned to climb back down. "If you keep talking like that, you'll turn into your brother."
I snorted. "You mean now I'm going to turn into a blond idiot? Why not, my eyes turn red then green again, my hair is white-"
"You're sure about that?" She called up from below. "Might want to check a mirror."