Chapter Twenty Six

I hit the button to call and put the phone to my ear. It rang. I let it ring until it went to voicemail, then hung up and tried again. This time, it picked up on the very first ring.

"Danny," my dad gasped in a trembling voice. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, dad," I said calmly. Being called by my given name threw me for a moment since I'd only been called by my surname for so long. "It's me."

"Oh, thank God," he replied with a sob. "I was so scared you—"

"I got bitten." Maybe it was cruel of me to throw it out there like that, but I wanted to get it out of the way.

My dad was silent for a second, then asked, "What?"

"I got bitten by a zombie a few days ago. I fell into a coma and woke up a half zombie. They're calling us lich."

"I don't—"

"I'm infected, dad. I just got your messages. I know you want me to come home, but I can't anymore. My blood would put you and everyone else in danger. It's okay, though. I'm with this other guy who was also bitten, but he's immune. We got picked up by this military Unit who knows about people like us and we've decided to enlist with them. Because we're infected, we're invisible to zombies now. That means we can go places regular people can't and—"

"Stop," he gasped out. I closed my mouth and gave him a moment to process. When he spoke again, he mumbled out, "My God."

I remained silent for another minute until he said, "This is my fault."

"It's not," I said firmly. "Yeah, maybe you sent me to that hellhole, but you didn't bring the zombie apocalypse down on my head. If you did, then I'm going to want some answers."

"I didn't," he exclaimed, his voice strangled. "Danny, I—What happened? How did—"

"I don't want to talk about it. You don't need to know the details, either. I just wanted you to know I'm still alive, mostly, and you shouldn't try to look for me. I'm not in Arkansas anymore and I don't know where the Unit is going next. I'm safe, though, and I'm as comfortable as anyone can be right now. The Unit has a lot of firepower and they're already teaching me how to use some of it. In case you missed it earlier, I'm invisible to zombies now, so there's that. I don't have to worry about being attacked ever again."

The line filled with silence when I stopped talking and it took my dad a while to respond. When he did, it wasn't with words. I could hear him crying and gasping out jagged breaths.

"Come on, dad," I muttered. "You're making me feel bad. I survived, even if I look freaky now. Talk to me. Tell me how things are going at home. How's the wife?"

That only made him cry harder. I sighed and spent five minutes listening to him as he tried to apologize again. I figured I might as well forgive him, for his sake more than mine. He seemed to need it.

"I get it," I finally snapped. "You're feeling guilty and you're sorry. You also love me and wish you could go back and make a different choice. That's great, dad, but it doesn't change anything. If you want to change something, then change the direction of this conversation because I don't want these to be the last things we say to each other."

Thankfully, my words brought him back to his senses and he asked what I meant. I explained how cell service could go down at any minute and we needed to make the best of the time we had.

"Tell me what I need to say so you won't worry about me," I said. "And give me something to hold onto while I'm learning how to be a soldier."

He'd calmed down enough to actually hear me this time when I mentioned I'd enlisted. He was full of questions and I was happy to tell him what I could. It was better than listening to my old man cry like a baby.

"Switch to video call," he said at one point. "I need to see you."

"I'd rather not," I replied. "Some of the lich side effects are disturbing."

He sent a request anyway and I had to reject it three times before the stupid phone misread my finger-press and connected it anyway.

I sighed as I stared at my dad's face. He stared at mine for ten seconds, then broke out in tears again.

"Thanks, dad. Way to make me feel good about the way I look."

Thankfully, switching to video call also put me on speaker phone. I heard my Uncle's voice say, "Is that Danny? Where is he? Is he okay?"

The phone's camera went wild as my Uncle wrenched it from my dad's hand. I glimpsed my Uncle's smiling face—he was happy to know I was alive—then his smile disappeared when the camera settled and he saw me. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked.

I sighed and went over the basics again. He took it a lot more calmly than my dad had, giving me an understanding nod when I explained how I couldn't go home.

"You're safe, though?" he asked. I nodded and tilted the camera so he could see the massive black trailer I was leaning against.

"The Unit has thirteen of these set up as part of a mobile camp. This one is medical. They have one set up as a food truck, another as a hoverbike garage, and a complete mobile armory. I'm sharing a bunk in one of the trailers they call a billet bus. There's not a lot of room inside, but all of them are fully secure. Dead-heads can't get inside when the doors are locked and they're too big to roll over."

I went on to tell him a little about our activities of the day and the sortie they'd let me join. He was very interested to learn the military was still actively searching for survivors, although I was careful not to tell him which city we were searching.

I managed to turn the conversation around on him and find out more about the situation at home. By then, my dad had calmed down again and they'd set the phone up on a table so I could talk to both of them at once.

My cousins came through at several points, but only my cousin Mika stuck around. It seems he was the only one in the family who'd caught the news about the lich and he was full of questions, starting with, "What's it like?"

I decided to be honest with him so he didn't get the bright idea to purposely let himself be infected on the off-chance he could become like me. "It hurts a lot. It felt like I'd broken every bone in my body when I first woke up. Even now, if I stop moving for too long, my blood flow gets screwed up and my limbs start to tingle like they're going numb. It's not the cute kind of tingling you get when you fall asleep on your arm. It can get painful the longer I let it go on without moving. I also don't feel a lot of things I should like hunger. I have to watch a friend of mine to know when I should use the bathroom, because my body doesn't tell me anymore."

"That's whack. What about your eyes? Why are they all shiny?"

"They're not sure what causes it, but they said I have perfect vision now."

"Can you see in the dark?" he asked excitedly.

"Being a lich didn't give me superpowers," I replied without answering his question. "Other than being invisible to zombies because they think I'm one of them, there's nothing good about what I am. I'm half dead and I can't even shake people's hands because I might infect them. I know it probably sounds cool, but being a lich means I might never get the chance to live around normal people again."

That set my dad off again and he left the frame so I wouldn't have to see him weeping. My cousin stared after him with wide eyes, seeing first-hand that the life of a lich wasn't all fun and games, and I decided to change the subject.

I talked with my family for hours. I got a chance to talk with my other Uncle and I noticed my step-mom and step-sisters never appeared. I asked my dad about it and he told me they'd managed to get on one of the early ships heading for Alaska. He'd stayed behind out of hope I'd eventually make it home—a decision life-changing enough to make her say they were over and she wasn't going to wait on him.

My dad claimed it was for the best. I couldn't help but wish she would have taken off sooner, before she convinced my dad I was too much to handle and would be better off at military school where I could learn discipline.

When I checked the time on my phone, it said it was past midnight and I could see my family's energy was flagging. I wished mine would—needing sleep would have made a good excuse to cut the call short. Maybe then, I wouldn't have scared the shit out of them when I saw a zombie shuffling toward me through the woods.

I dropped the phone and jumped to my feet, pulling my sidearm from my belt. It didn't have a safety, so I just had to point, aim, and squeeze the trigger. The report echoed loudly in the quiet night and I heard my family screaming for me through my phone. I ignored them, firing again since the headshot didn't down the shuffler—it must have already been tagged there. I re-aimed, firing again to take out its knees, then I took a few steps closer to plug its chest with a few rounds.

I noticed a second zombie walking about twenty yards behind the first and another behind that one—the first members of the horde that must have been coming our way. Both of them went down as soldiers from the camp responded to my gunfire and ran to help. In less than a minute, I had Grady, Carver, and White at my side, their own weapons drawn while they scanned the woods for more targets.