“Clary, can we get them squared away please? This was a short flight but a long time getting there. Maybe we can go over this in the morning? One more day isn’t going to hurt anything.”
“A lot can happen in a day, Shaun. Let’s get the kids set up and we can talk to who we need to about this and then they can get some rest. There’s no reason to waste the day,” Clary said.
Shaun motioned for everyone from the plane to come over. Joey said, “Hey Shaun, when did you become a ninja? You looked like Jet Li or Bruce Lee. You cut those things into shish ka zombies,” Joey gave it a three count before he started laughing hysterically.
Shaun smiled and everyone headed to the confines of the base. Shaun pointed to Scott and yelled, “Lock the plane door back up. We don’t want any surprises when we go to get back in it.”
Clary said, “I’m confused. I thought you said that you guys were coming to stay, that you had something big.”
Mark started to laugh, which Clary didn’t understand and didn’t take well immediately. When Mark saw the look on Clary’s face, and the fact that even from a few feet away the man still looked ginormous, immediately coughed on his laugh thinking that he could easily bend him like a pretzel. He pulled out a vial from his pocket. He tossed it over to Clary, who tried to catch it, but with the loss of most of the vision in his eye, it was not simple. It hit his chest and he was able to put a boot beneath it. Clary bent down to get it and delivered a stern eye fucking to Mark. Clary was a pretty good judge of character and thought that if someone was going to get eaten, he’d be okay with it being the new guy. Clary held it up, shaking it back and forth, not a clue what it was. He wasn’t stupid when it came to things like this. If you didn’t know what it was, you didn’t take the vial cap off for anything...anything at all. He looked up to Shaun and could see a small smile on the boy’s face starting to break out and Shaun said, “That’s the cure in that bottle.”
Clary said, “Bullshit, we’ve seen one of these things opened up. There is no cure for not having a fucking heart. You should see these things heal almost overnight. How much experience do you have with these?”
Mark shrugged, “Not very much at all, really. I started on the day of the outbreak stuck in a building at the CDC. I didn’t leave until we went to fetch Joe and Earl, which is when we acquired the teenagers here and then Mr. Li and the boy. But in that time, I spent almost every waking hour trying to figure out what you are holding in your hand.”
“Look, I’m not really big about beating around the bush. What is it? How does it cure them?”
Mark was going to give an answer when Scott cut in because he could tell by the look on Clary’s face that he did not appreciate how the delivery of this information was going. He said, “Look, Mr. Clary is it?”
“Just Clary is fine.”
“Fine, Clary, my name is Scott. Mark and myself work at or worked at The Center for Disease Control. We typically do try to solve issues with outbreaks, it is really all we focus on besides support for those infected to try and keep them out of pain while they wait for their end to come. He stays in the lab; I go in the field. Everyone has a purpose.”
“Yet you still aren’t answering anything.”
“To the point, right. Okay, we take this vial and when they take in the chemical it kills them, again. Not sure if they are dead already or not but it takes them out, they don’t get back up. The cure isn’t really a cure. It kills them and cures us from having to worry about them,” Scott explained.
Clary went from disrespectfully playing with the vial to treating it as precious as the cure for cancer, which coincidentally was what started all of this hell unleashed on Earth in the first place. He could honestly say that he never truly thought he’d find a way that wasn’t fueled by gunpowder to deal with these mutated freaks. He knew there was no way to handle them as of now that didn’t mean putting their own lives in danger to kill them.
“You’ve tested this?”
Earl walked up, pulling his jeans up by his belt buckle. Clary was sure that if he strutted any harder that he might turn into a rooster. Earl said, “Did I test this? Did I test this? Does a duck walk on water?”
“I’m not quite sure how to answer that question,” Clary replied, confused on how to take Earl at the moment and wondering if there was going to be anyone out of this group that he didn’t want to impale with a large, wide pipe.
“Look, I don’t like to flaunt my pewter laced tongue amongst the simple people. I got a gun that we use, it is made to do just one thing. Now, do you know what that is?”
“To shoot shit?” Greg intervened.
Earl opened his mouth to stay something, almost looking offended that someone, anyone, could predict accurately what it was that he was going to say. “Does this kid got the espn? How the hell did this lil’ pecker know that?”
Shaun said,
