Science Fiction Smackdown II Entry (Zombie-Fun-Excitement-Spectacular!!!!)

Chapter 15: More Human than Human?

For a moment, nothing but chaos filled David's brain. Amy was screaming, Tim was cursing, and the mechanical voice on the radio repeated numbers with a cheeriness that verged on insanity. Tim spun the radio dials, and the voice stopped, and that alone was a blessing. Gradually, Amy's screams dissolved into hiccupping sobs, and David felt he could breathe again.

"You okay, kid?" Tim asked, looking over at Amy. Amy nodded, tears running down her face. David wished he could hug the girl, but he couldn't, not really. They were close, but not that close. Had he been Amy's cousin, or her older brother, he'd have done it, but as it was, David just let her cry.

David leaned over Tim's shoulders as the other man tried tuning the radio again.

"Look, I don't need you breathing down my neck like that," Tim sounded uncomfortable, "So why don't you go try to find your friends? The woman and the little boy,I mean. I am almost completely sure that the snow won't do you any harm. The girl will be fine here, now that she's left off screaming."

David looked over doubtfully at Amy. Her face was red, splotchy, and more than a little damp, but she nodded. Her voice thick, she said, "Somebody's got to find Jenna and Oliver."

David nodded, and, pushing the door open, stepped out into the oddly warm snow.

As a boy, David had read plenty of novels where a person had disappeared. Sometimes that person was kidnapped; other times, they had a committed a crime, and were on the run from the law. Either way, they disappeared into the wilderness, and the other characters in the story had to figure out where the missing person had gone. Always, one intrepid character turned out to be a brilliant tracker. The tracker would have no trouble finding the missing person. There would be scuff marks on a path, a broken twig in the woods, and little scraps of fabric caught on everything. David could find none of these. In fact, in the middle of a snow storm, he couldn't see so much as a single footprint to tell him where Oliver and Jenna might have gone.

Not that David was certain he could have found them even if there was evidence. He was starting to feel, well, rather odd. His head felt heavy with a muzziness he associated with extreme exhaustion, or a bout of the flu. Just a moment ago he had felt fine, but now he couldn't think straight. He knew he was looking for Jenna, and for Oliver, but he wasn't entirely sure why he was looking for them. His brain couldn't stay on topic quite long enough to knit together his ravelled thoughts, and link each idea to the next. He stumbled on through the snow.

~*~

Amy was done with crying, at least for now. She was a little embarrassed about the whole thing - after all, she wasn't a little kid any more. The one saving grace was that Tim, who was boring in the same way that most of Amy's teachers had been boring, didn't seem to care what Amy was doing, so long as she was quiet. Right now, Tim was having a conversation with someone from that other group of scientists he had mentioned.

"No, no, I completely understand, it's still experimental," Tim was saying.

Amy sniffled a little, rubbing the back of her hand against her nose. She rubbed her slimy hand on the back of her leg, and stood up. She was already bored. As Tim continued his conversation, Amy's eyes roamed over the various tables around the room. On the table furthest from where she was standing was a familiar-looking flattish plastic box. Amy's eyes lit up when she realised that the box was, in fact, a laptop computer.