I had a lot of thoughts about the zombies always leaking a low level of gas and people nearby falling asleep, not sure that is going to hold up.
What I think Ink might have been doing is purifying gas out of the dead ones. Oxygen is a gas, it is in the air. Blood our blood cells absorb it and carry it through the body to the cells. If I take a pint of blood, I could purify the oxygen out of it and use it for something else. I wouldn't because I can get it out of the air more easily. Maybe Ink is doing something like that.
A closer example might be cyanide. Say some Jim jones style cult commits suicide with cyanide. It would be gross to liquefy the flesh and purify the cyanide to use it to make some new suicide capsules.
I think the little ones scratch themselves. Tanya describes what appears to be self inflicted wounds. Maybe they have only a little bit in their saliva, but a lot more in th blood. Scratch themselves to draw blood and deliver blood to the blood, instead of saliva to blood. If there is more gas in the blood, the scratched victim might get a higher dose of gas in this blood to blood contact.
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