They Call Me Daring

Chapter 30

"Whoa, Liam!" The Doc's eyes expanded behind thick glasses when I skidded into the room at full speed, actually leaving skid marks on the carpet and blackening the treads of my shoes.
"Look at my hair!" I practically shouted, leaping over desks to get to where the Doc was standing, looking flustered, holding a pen loosely in one hand. I flew to a halt, sliding a few feet on scattered papers in my eagerness, and bowed my head to him. I ran my hands through my hair, spreading the thick strands apart to show, amidst the white, the tiny, almost invisible, but veru existent brown just poking out at the roots.
The Doc squinted down, then his face lit up when he saw it. Unlike the zombie transformation, where all the color in my body was deleted from my genes and washed away completely, it would take time to grow out and turn completely brown again- but that was normal.
"I know! It's growing out and turning brown again!" I shouted in joy, simply ecstatic. First my eyes aren't red, then my hair is growing back to brown; the wound on my arm fades away, and Meg kisses me- maybe my life was finally, finally getting better after fourteen years of torture.
"Liam-that's-fantastic!" The Doc cried, his eyebrows disappearing up into his hair. "And tell me; are the attacks growing less?"
I thought for a moment. "I can't say, but I know they only happen when I get an adrenaline rush- when I do things that make my heart rate speed up, things that make me hyper-active, that's when I start to lose control. I did twice today." I admitted. "But people... they stopped me before I could hurt anyone."
"And how did they do this?" The Doc asked immediately. "Chain you up till you calmed down?"
"No... no, they..." I said slowly. "They called my name... and- other things..."
"What other things?"
"Nothing, never mind." I said quickly. "Just said my name. That was all." I probably spoke too quickly, because the Doc raised an eyebrow at me, but shrugged.
"This is amazing, Liam. Truly remarkable." He bent and rummaged in a drawer, bringing out a needle and playing around with it like most people would a pencil. "You seem to be healing yourself. Of course, I'm sure there's a scientific reason for it all... so I'm sure you won't mind if I take a blood sample."
"Uh... sure?" Suddenly I felt queasy. I hadn't felt that way about needles since... had it really only been a week? Seemed like years. Figures, my irrational fear of needles returns just when I don't need it to.
"Great!" Without warning he bent and jabbed it into my forearm. I grunted in surprise and closed my eyes, trying to avoid thinking of the blood being sucked from my body... did I need that blood? How much was he taking?
"Liam." He spoke after what seemed like forever. "Liam? You alright?"
"Just get it over with." I murmured, with my eyes clenched shut.
"Liam... It's done." He said unsurely, and I opened my eyes. I looked down at my arm, with the tiny little dot of blood beaded on my forearm, and felt faint. I tried to stand and fell back into the chair. "Maybe you should sit awhile..."
"No, no, I'm fine." I protested, trying to stand up again. The Doc gently pressed a hand into my shoulder, forcing me back down into the chair.
"I think you should-"
"I'm fine!" I snarled, shaking off his hand and leaping to my feet, shouldering him out of the way like a rag doll.
"Liam..." He said warily, placing a hand on my shoulder in what I'm sure was meant to be a comforting way.
"Stop." I said sharply. My voice had suddenly dropped down to an icy, menacing growl. "Just... just give me a second..." I closed my eyes hard, as my head pulsed and I felt my heart fighting to speed up. I took deep breaths, pressing my fingers into my temples. Told myself to hold on.
The world pressed in on me in random flashes of light and sound, vivid then dull, red and blue. I panted, felt my chest rising and falling. The scent of old blood in the air, on the Doc's lab tables, on his hands. The reek of fresh blood on my own arm...
Something was telling me to devour the nearest living creature... Something alien, I realized with a jolt. Something inside me. Something trying to take over my body, and failing... Because Liam Trackerson's will to live was stronger than the other guy's.
"I'm good." I said slowly, as the pounding and adrenaline faded away and, slowly, I returned to normal. "I'm good now."
The Doc nodded slowly, and I averted my gaze as he put a vial full of thick red ooze in a plastic bag on his desk.
"I'll have results for you by noon tomorrow." He said shakily. I nodded, and turned away.
I was running down the street then. Darkness, the moon rising up above the fallen city and illuminating everything in ghostly light, casting supernatural, stark shadows. The city was dead. And so was pretty much everyone in it.
I decided the creatures weren't human. They had given up, and allowed their minds to be invaded. They had accepted what everyone told them, and therefore accepted the death of everyone they had ever been and would be. I steeled my heart against the killing of the creatures. I no longer felt any remorse for the ones I had killed before... The people they'd once been had died long ago, and been twisted, mutilated into some vicious kind of animal.
They were all dead, and now whatever they had become was trying to kill us.
But we were still alive, and that was all that mattered.
We were still alive.
And we were still fighting.