Janet chased up the stairs after Daniel as fast as she could, but his legs were much longer, and he was taking two steps at a time. He ran into their bedroom and slammed the door before she'd even reached the top.
"Daniel?" she called once she got to the door. She opened it slowly and stepped inside. "Daniel?"
Dr. Mackenzie came up behind her, and the two of them cautiously entered the room. Daniel was nowhere to be seen.
Janet craned her neck to see over the bed, but he wasn't hiding on the other side of it. The closet door was open, and he obviously wasn't in there, either. That left the bathroom.
"Daniel?" she said as she poked her head around the bathroom door. The room was dark and looked empty, but she could hear Daniel's ragged breathing. "Are you okay?" she asked, approaching the bathtub slowly so as not to startle him.
He didn't respond.
She moved the shower curtain aside and saw that Daniel was sitting in the tub with his knees tucked close to his chest and his hands over his ears. She glanced over her shoulder at Mackenzie, unsure of what to do for him.
Mackenzie nodded and motioned for her to talk to Daniel. It couldn't really hurt at this point.
Janet sat down on the edge of the bathtub and touched the top of Daniel's head. "Daniel?" she said. "What's wrong?"
"I can't," he groaned. "Can't talk. Can't."
Janet looked up at Mackenzie for an explanation. "What happened?" she asked.
"He was telling me about the day he was taken," Mackenzie said quietly. "He'd just reached the part where he was transported to a ship, when..."
"Stop!" Daniel cried. He'd brought his hands down from his ears, and was glaring up at them in anger.
Janet laid a soothing hand on his forehead. "Stop what, Daniel?"
"Stop talking," he said. "I... I need... I need to... think."
"Okay."
The look of confusion and fear on Daniel's face made her anxious enough to comply with his wishes. She and Dr. Mackenzie fell completely silent for the next minute or two while Daniel intermittently rocked back and forth, pulled on his hair, rubbed his face, and held his head in his hands. She was just about to speak again when Daniel leaned back to rest his head against the wall and sighed.
"I'm sorry," he said. He looked and sounded utterly spent.
"Don't be," Janet said, reaching down to take one of his hands in hers. "We know this is hard for you."
Daniel rolled his head from side to side. "I can't do this," he said. "I can't tell you about them. I can't even think about them. I just can't."
Mackenzie cleared his throat and said, "I hate to bring this up so soon, but... there are other ways of extracting this information from your mind without you having to consciously focus on your experiences. Hypnosis, for example."
Daniel glared at him, fear and rage burning in his eyes. "No," he said with finality. "You're not taking my mind away. They did that. The zombies. Not again. No."
"It's okay, Daniel," Janet reassured him. "No one's going to force you into anything." She turned to look at Mackenzie. "Right, Dr. Mackenzie?"
He held his hands up and shook his head. "No, of course not."
Daniel kept his eyes on Mackenzie for quite a bit longer than necessary. Janet could tell that he didn't trust him.
"How about you come on out of there now?" she asked. Her backside was getting sore, and Daniel didn't look all too comfortable, either.
Daniel shook his head and pulled his knees tighter against his chest. "Not yet."
"What exactly are you afraid of, Daniel?" Mackenzie asked as he perched himself on the lid of the toilet. "You know that you're safe here."
"I feel them."
Janet and Mackenzie exchanged wary glances. The way Daniel whispered those words made a chill go down Janet's spine. "Feel who?" she asked.
"Them," he said. "Zombies."
"Daniel..." Mackenzie said, quite obviously suppressing a sigh. "You do know they weren't really zombies, don't you?"
"Yes, they are," Daniel said, shrinking in on himself as though he were hoping to fade away to nothing. "Living dead." He shuddered. "When I talk about them, I feel them coming for me. Please don't make me talk about them." He leaned forward and wrapped his arm around Janet's middle, burying his face in her lap.
Janet stroked his hair and looked helplessly over at Mackenzie. "What should we do?" she mouthed.
Mackenzie shook his head. "Wait," he mouthed back.
Janet sighed. She hated waiting.
Cassie was quite proud of herself for arriving home on time for once. Twelve noon on the dot. Not that it had been her idea - Dominic's mother had insisted he go with his parents to some kind of family party at his grandparents' house that afternoon, so she'd had to leave earlier than she'd wanted to. That didn't mean she couldn't take the credit for being an obedient daughter, though.
Well, she would have taken the credit if it had been offered. As soon as she walked in the door and started taking off her coat, however, her mother rushed down the hall and grabbed her by the arm. "Shhh!" she commanded.
"What?" Cassie whispered indignantly. "I didn't do..."
"Don't wake Daniel."
Janet nodded her head in the direction of the living room, so Cassie peeked through the open doorway. Sure enough, there was Daniel, fast asleep on the couch.
Fast asleep inside a tight cocoon of blankets on the couch, to be exact. The only part of his body that she could actually see was his face, and it was soaking wet with sweat and possibly tears. She didn't have to be a psychologist to know that he'd been scared about something and had wrapped himself up like that to serve as some kind of protection from whatever it was.
"What happened?" she asked quietly. "He was okay when I left."
Janet pulled lightly on Cassie's sleeve and led her through to the kitchen. Once there, she said, "You know that Dr. Mackenzie was here today..."
Cassie nodded in understanding. "Ah." No more needed to be said. She'd had a few meetings with Dr. Mackenzie herself, and somehow talking to him about what had happened to her real mother and the people in her village had always managed to make her feel even worse. She'd cry for hours afterwards. She could only imagine what must be going through Daniel's mind right now. "Did he, like... remember stuff?" she asked.
Janet sighed. "I think he does remember what happened to him, he just doesn't want to remember," she said. "All he really says is that he was transported from the planet to a ship, and the people who took him were... zombies."
Cassie was sure she hadn't heard that right. "Zombies?"
Janet nodded and shrugged. "That's what he says. Whenever he talks about them or even thinks about them, he just can't handle it. Whatever they did to him..." She stopped herself before she said any more, as though she'd suddenly realized who she was talking to. "Anyway... I'll get you some lunch so you can get on with your studying."
Cassie folded her arms and tried not to scowl as her mom got to work at the stove. This was one of those times when she really hated being treated like a kid.
Seriously, why was everyone always trying to protect her from this stuff? She'd sat there watching everyone she knew and loved die horrible, painful deaths when she was only twelve years old. She was sixteen now. She could probably handle knowing about whatever had happened to Daniel without so much as a nightmare. Hell, she might even be able to help him somehow if she knew more about what he was going through. He'd been there for her when she'd first come to Earth, and she couldn't even put into words how much that had meant to her. She would be only too glad to return the favour.
Her heart sank when she realized that she'd never told Daniel how much his support had meant to her over the years. God, why did she always have to be so selfish and stupid?
She quickly ate the mac and cheese her mom threw together for her, and then following with the "obedient young lady" theme of the day, she headed to her room to study. She stopped at the foot of the stairs, though, when she heard a weird noise coming from the living room.
A quick glance down the hall showed her mother disappearing down the basement steps with a load of laundry, so Cassie took it upon herself to investigate. After the talk of zombies, she was a little hesitant to walk into a darkened room in search of the source of an eerie sound, but she shook off her paranoia and tiptoed into the room anyway.
She let out a deep breath when she realized the noise was coming from Daniel. It wasn't a breath of relief, though. Daniel really didn't sound so good. He was gasping in his sleep, like he was having a nightmare or something. From what she could tell, it was getting worse with every second, almost like his throat was closing up.
"Crap," she whispered, knocking her fists against her sides as she tried to figure out what to do. Should she wake him? Should she call her mom? Should she mind her own business and leave him alone?
One more loud gasp that sounded almost desperate, and Cassie had made up her mind. She bent down and lightly shook his shoulder. "Daniel?"
His left eye popped open and locked onto her like a laser beam.
"Whoa," Cassie muttered as she involuntarily took a step backward. He may only have been looking at her with one eye, but apparently looks that kill don't require two eyes to have their effect. "It's... it's Cassie. Are you okay?"
The one eye narrowed a little as he continued to glare at her through it. It was really starting to creep her out.
"D...Daniel?"
He blinked and finally moved the rest of his body as he drew in a deep breath and worked one arm free from the blanket to rub his face. "Cass?" he slurred. "Do you want something?"
"Cassie, what are you doing in here? Did you wake Daniel up?"
She groaned and turned to face her mother, who was standing in the living room doorway with her hands on her hips. "Mom, I was just..."
"It's okay, Janet," Daniel said. He grunted as he sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. "I need the bathroom anyway."
Janet's attentions were immediately on Daniel then, helping him get up and hobble through to the bathroom, so Cassie didn't get a chance to say any more. She wasn't altogether sure that she should. She remembered the awful nightmares she'd had when she'd first come to Earth, so it was understandable that Daniel would be having some doozies, too. That would explain why he woke up so weird, and probably also why he didn't want Janet to know why she'd had to wake him.
She made a mental note to talk to him later about all this stuff, and jogged up the stairs to hit the books.