“No,” Al said as he pointed his thick index finger at Daniel. “Even if that is the case, it’s not what I should have done. Nothing excuses what I did. I made a promise; we all did. If anyone turned, we’d put them out of their misery. But I couldn’t do it.”
All Daniel could do was remain silent and let Al speak—it was the best way with him.
Al rubbed his eyes. “It’s funny, but it’s taken Christmas to remind me I have nothing worth living for.”
The words stung, but what did Daniel expect? That their occasional chats would replace a dead family? That listening to a teenager complain about his dad would give the man a reason to keep going?
“I hope you never have to experience this, Daniel.” Al shook his head again. “Christmas is a strange time of year. Even now, when we don’t have all the commercial bullshit that comes with it, its personality has endured. It’s the time of year where our emotions are put beneath a magnifying glass. It turns joy into ecstasy…” His voice broke again as he said, “It turns cracks into crevices. Do me a favour, Daniel?”
“Anything.”
Al looked through the window again. “Lock the door behind me.”
The world in front of Daniel blurred as he stared at his friend. The sting of tears burned his eyes. “But what about me?” Wow, how selfish did that sound? Daniel’s conscience screamed.
“I’m sorry, son, but you have a dad who loves you dearly and I’m getting in the way of that. Running Eden’s a big responsibility and it takes its toll on him. Not all relationships are easy, but a lot of them are worth fighting for. Family is important, especially at Christmas.”
When Al patted Daniel’s arm, it rocked him on his feet. Without another word, he turned and opened the bolts on the doors.
Shunk!
There was no point in Daniel trying to talk him out of it.
Shunk!
Al was a fully grown man, why would he listen to a kid?
Shunk!
Daniel was going to miss him.
The hinges on the door creaked and the cold wind from outside rushed into the hallway, wrapping Daniel in a frigid grip. He cried freely as he hugged himself for warmth and watched Al step outside.
The opening of the door had set off the silent alarm in the building and all of the lights were blinking on and off in response. It would take a password to shut them down and Daniel didn’t know what it was.
After Daniel closed the door, he watched Al through the window. As he stepped away, Daniel re-secured the bolts, grief turning his limbs weak.
Shunk!
Shunk!
Shunk!
The lone figure of Al walked into the long grass; his thick shoulders rounded as he trudged slowly.
Suddenly, Al was rugby tackled by a zombie at full speed from out of nowhere. It was like watching a rag doll as Al buckled and was knocked to the ground. In a flash, the zombie was on top of him; its jaw flung wide as it dove down and bit Al’s face.
When a large arm wrapped around Daniel, he jumped and looked up to see his dad. For once, the old man didn’t say anything. For once, he hugged his boy like he meant it. For once, he left his massive ego behind.
When Daniel turned back to the window, Al was lying limp and the zombie was going in for a second bite of his face.
“Al was a good man,” Daniel’s dad said. “He did a lot for you.”
His dad knew they’d talked to one another and he let it happen without ever saying anything? More tears ran down Daniel’s cheeks as he continued looking outside.
After squeezing him tightly, his dad said, “If you need me, mate, I’m here for you, okay? You’re not alone.”
Al was right; he should put more effort into the relationship. Daniel then pulled the stupid paper hat from his head, scrunched it up, and dropped it on the floor. The celebrations seemed so empty now.
At least Al had left him with a plan. The first step was to turn the crevices back into cracks.
“God be with you, Al,” Daniel said as he leaned into his dad’s hug.
“God be with you and your family.”
Ends.
In the Name of Science: Genesis
Alice pressed her fork down on her steak. The soft meat leaked a pool of blood that spread over her white plate, soaking into the potatoes and broccoli. A slow heave lifted in her throat, and she gulped several times to combat the excess saliva gushing through her mouth. She could almost taste the metallic tang of blood. “How was the–” another heave rose up, and she cleared it with a cough that echoed through the sparse room. “How was the lab today, John?”
A thick frown furrowed John’s brow. This was his usual response to most questions. Everything was an irritation. Such banal conversations were light years behind his vast intellect. He ejected the word as if even the thought of speaking was below him. “Stressful.”
The rejection sent a sharp stab through Alice’s stomach. Despite receiving a similar response from John countless times, she never got used to it. Constant rebuffing from someone she looked up to was never easy to take. With no idea what to say next, she sat with her face on fire and chewed her lip.
John flashed a grin of wonky teeth that threw shadows across his angular face. It took all of Alice’s strength not to flinch at the ghastly sight. “I must say though, it’s been made a little easier by Wilfred having to make me this meal.”
A deep breath filled Alice’s sinuses with the smell of disinfectant, the smell she associated with John. Having spent decades studying bacteria and disease, his cleanliness now bordered on obsessive-compulsive. A frown darkened her view. “What did you say the bet was?”
“I didn’t.”
Looking into his sharp blue eyes, Alice waited for him to say more.
He didn’t.
Looking first at the man, dressed in his white lab coat, she then looked around at his white, minimalist penthouse apartment. Everything had a place, and everything was necessary. There were no ornaments, unless you counted the beakers and test tubes that were a permanent feature on the work surfaces. Photographs wouldn’t even make it through the front door here. This was no place for sentimentality.
Alice squirmed in her seat as the silence gathered. John was the only person that could make her writhe in her own skin. It happened every time they were together. Before the atmosphere overwhelmed her, she spoke, her voice coming out as a weak croak. “So, what was the bet about?”
“An experiment. I predicted the correct result.”
It was like talking to a machine. Try as she might, Alice couldn’t fight the frown that dipped over her eyes.
“Oh, do pull yourself together, woman,” John scolded. “You’ve got to learn to stop being so sensitive.”
The resentment had been backing up for months. Every time he’d humiliated her during a lecture, every time he’d not let her finish her point, every time he’d selected her to clean the lab at the end of the day. A deep breath wasn’t going to hold her retort back, and she regretted her words before they’d even passed her lips.
“How about you learn to stop being so insensitive?”
Flicking a bony hand in her direction, he said, “It’s these emotional fluctuations that take away your ability to be objective. That’s why men make better scientists.”
“And terrible companions.”
Peering over his glasses, John continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “They can leave their baggage at the door.”
For the second time her face smouldered. “You left your baggage in the delivery ward, John. Maybe your sociopathic detachment serves you well in the world of science, but it doesn’t equip you to deal with the real world. Without science, you’d be stranded.” Her vision blurred. Why did she have to cry every time she got angry?
John sighed and shook his head.
Looking down at her dinner, Alice prodded the soft steak. Maybe a scalpel would be more appropriate than the wooden-handled steak knife in her hand. Feeling John’s beady scrutiny boring
into the top of her drooped head, she cut into the steak.
The sheer amount of blood turned the meat slick. It sat like jelly on her tongue. Unable to chew it, she took a deep gulp, but the piece of steak was too large. It stuck in her throat like it was barbed. Her heart rate exploded as metallic juices slithered down her oesophagus.
John watched on, his expression unchanged.
With her pulse sounding in her skull, she held her neck and wheezed, “Help me.”
It took several heavy pulls to swallow the meat. Once it was down, Alice leant on the table and gasped. Adrenaline gripped her body. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Dabbing her eyes with the back of her hand to stop her mascara from running, she looked up to see John watching her with his usual blank expression. Why didn’t he help her?
Alice flinched every time her cutlery hit the porcelain plate and the sharp chink bounced around the quiet room. After she’d cut everything up, she stared at her food. Her throat was still tight from choking; the sweet red wine helped only a little.
She gasped when she looked up and met the sharp blue eyes of her host. Had he been watching her the entire time? Glaring at her like he had when she was choking? Asking him why he hadn’t come to her rescue was pointless; she already knew the answer. He wasn’t the type to pander to weakness. Crying, choking, illness… as far as he was concerned it was all in the mind.
Trying to move on, she cleared her throat and said, “So, when will you tell me about your work, John?”
His dinner remained untouched, his scrawny frame and pallid skin were a reflection of his permanent lack of appetite. At sixty-three, he was thirty years her senior, but he looked fifty years older. After consulting his wristwatch as if their meal had a deadline, he sighed, “I can’t. You know that.”
Without looking at her food, she speared some potato and put it in her mouth. Panic spiked in her chest when the big lump hit the back of her tongue and continued down.
After three dry swallows and another sip of wine, the fluffy vegetable disintegrated and finally slid down her throat. All that was left behind was the burn of a few dry scratches. Eating under John’s cold scrutiny made the choking much worse. He was right; it was all in the mind.
Avoiding eye contact this time, she ate some purple sprouting broccoli. The bland vegetable was flavoured with the rich tang of blood.
After focusing hard on mastication, she made sure to swallow all of the food. The strip lighting sent electric shocks through her eyeballs when she lifted her head. Squinting hard, she said, “Have the lights got brighter?”
John didn’t respond.
“The lights,” she repeated as she viewed the room through slits. “Have they been turned up?” Her world started to blur, and the beginnings of a migraine stretched its roots through her brain.
Returning to their conversation, she said, “I know you can’t tell me about your work, John. It’s just, as my professor, I long to understand more. You’re here to teach me after all.” Another sharp pain jabbed into her eyes, and she drew a short breath that echoed in the bare room. Pinching her forehead with her right hand, she shielded her brow and stared down at the white table.
“Are you okay?” There was little concern in his tone. If anything, he seemed to be awaiting her response as if it was feedback for an experiment. She expected to look up and see him taking notes. There was no downtime as far as John was concerned. The world was there to be viewed as an objective observer.
Nodding, she remained silent. What was the point of telling him something was wrong? One time, he’d even gone as far as to say the dyslexia that she’d struggled with since childhood was “a fabrication. A way for stupid people to get extra time in exams.”
Since then, she’d stopped asking for extra time on written exams. The humiliation was too much to bear.
Two hollow knocks sounded out when John dropped his pointy elbows on the table. Alice looked up to see his long and bony fingers entwine. His deep and languid voice rumbled, “Eat more. It will make you feel better. As for my work, you’ll have to keep wondering I’m afraid. Since the Second Cold War started with China, everything has been on a need-to-know basis.”
“The Second Cold War? That’s always your excuse, John. Since the terrorist attacks in 2023–”
“And the second wave a year later.” He spoke to her as if she didn’t know her history.
Taking a breath allowed her to withhold her snappy retort. In a battle of egos, there was only ever one winner. “The point I was trying to make,” she said, “is that nothing’s happened for the last fifteen years. We’ve had the silent threat of war hanging over us like a thick fog. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s just a way for the government to take our civil liberties. I wouldn’t be surprised if they put a Doomsday Clock in every city just to remind us how much protection we need. Just so we obey their every wish.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alice. You sound like one of those new-age paranoid types.”
“As opposed to the old-age paranoid types? At least my beliefs don’t result in us stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.” Fire spread across her face and her core started to tremble.
His long face twisted against itself, but he remained silent.
“Besides, when you’re connected to those in power, I’m sure it does seem preposterous. You’ll be okay, John, you have a space in their fallout shelters when you want it. Ironic really.”
“What is?”
A gasp left her lungs as her stomach lurched. Coughing several times, she said, “The fact that the wealthy and privileged will survive if it all goes to hell, left to remake the world in their own greedy image. I mean,” she forced a laugh that fell dead in the sparse room, “that’s what got us in this state in the first place. It would seem that humanity is destined to repeat itself if they’re the people that will crawl out of the ground after this planet has been ravaged by a nuclear war.” She then took a huge gulp of wine, slammed the glass back down on the table and pushed her fringe from her eyes. The light in the room forced her to cover them again.
A gentle slur dampened her words, and the warm liquid that she’d tried to drink dribbled down her chin. “Anyway, maybe we’ll work together when I graduate.”
When she looked back up, she saw regret in his cold eyes. The flicker of emotion sat awkwardly on his stony face. “Maybe,” he allowed. “How’s your food? Wilfred is quite the chef, don’t you think?”
If Wilfred never cooked again, it would be too soon. Wriggling on the hard plastic chair, sweat cascading down her back, she paused before saying, “Yes, he is. However, the steak is a little rare for my liking.” Slapping her hands to her face and pushing against her eyeballs did nothing to stop the hard throb surging through them.
When she pulled her hands away, she saw John check his watch again. He then lifted a small black box and pressed a button on it. “I agree,” he stated. “Wilfred likes his meat bloody.” He said the word like a vampire with a thirst. “This is well done by his standards.”
A gentle whir was accompanied by darkness closing in from either side. It accentuated Alice’s tunnel vision. When she twisted her head, she saw heavy metal shutters closing over the windows. “When were they fitted?” she asked, her own words echoing through her mind.
A half smile twisted John’s face. It was supposed to be reassuring, but he missed the mark by a mile. He then said, “Earlier today.”
Every beat of her pulse crushed her brain. Her stomach tensed. She stammered, “W… why are you… um, why are you locking us in?”
His laugh echoed through her skull and her world spun. “I’m not locking us in, dear. I’m locking them out. We’ve had information that suggests the Cold War may heat up tonight. We believe that China and Korea have mastered biological warfare. This apartment is already well fortified; I’ve just added the shutters to prevent gaseous objects from entering.” As an afterthought, he added, “I’m sure that nothing will happen, but it’s better to be safe.”
F
ire barrelled through her guts. Sweat gushed from her brow, and the thick black bars of tunnel vision swelled. Everything fell into soft focus. The words that came from her mouth didn’t feel like her own. “Oh, so we have to stay here?” Several blinks did nothing to clear her vision.
Dipping a sombre nod, John said, “Yes. We have plenty of rations though.”
Where? The apartment was empty. Or was it? She couldn’t see to the edges of the room anymore. Maybe there were supplies that she’d missed.
Another rush of heat forced sweat from every pore. John vanished from her view, the white coat blending into the surroundings.
Fighting her heavy breaths, Alice wheezed, “Is that why you’re checking your watch? You know when it’s supposed to happen?” Everything then went dark. She fell sideways. Sharp pain exploded across her cheek as it hit the table. The smell of bleach slithered up her nostrils.
“It won’t be long now, dear.”
She heard his chair scrape across the floor.
“Would you excuse me while I go and use the bathroom? I want to make the most of that luxury because we’ll need to stay in this room from here on out. It’ll be a bucket in the corner after thissssssssss…”
His words faded.
Although he was dressed in the same sterile uniform as his colleague–a full-length lab coat, white trousers and black shoes–Wilfred liked to think that was where the similarities ended. He was nothing like John. Just looking at the long man curdled his guts.
After running his hand through his hair, he asked, “Is she okay?”
A leer cracked John’s angular face as he stared through the window. “No, I don’t think she is.” Looking at his colleague, his piercing blue eyes shining bright in his craggy face, he added, “But that’s the point, isn’t it?”
A cold chill ran the length of Wilfred’s body, and he couldn’t suppress a shiver. His hands balled into fists as he looked at the wrinkly man. How many times would he have to smash his face into the door to make him feel compassion? Would he still speak with his cold detachment if his nose was spread across his face? After clearing his throat, Wilfred spoke, the wobble he’d tried to ignore sending a quiver through his words, “How was the meal?”
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 150
