Chapter Twenty-Four
1281 Words
"You okay there, Rodders?" JJ asked.
"Yeah," Rodney wheezed. "I'm fine..just a little, you know...oh Jesus."
Rodney glanced back at the fallen beast of a clicker and retched profusely, his palms clutching the ground desperately as vomit poured from his mouth.
"EWW! That's disgusting!" George cried with morbid joy.
"Okay this makes more sense now, way to style it out big guy," Karl quipped, patting Rodney on the back as he hurled up the last of his food.
"He was so close," JJ added, planting his comforting hand on the opposite shoulder.
George was still giggling with pure boundless delight as Dawson bent down to Rodney's helpless level.
"Thank you, you... you saved my life Rodney. Don't listen to these clowns."
Rodney spat the taste of sick from his mouth before looking back up at her, "We'll call it 17-1."
"Deal," Dawson chuckled, helping him back to his feet.
Rodney wiped his hands on his trousers, threatening to smush them in George's face if he didn't stop laughing. Max smiled, the two of them had formed this strong but unlikely bond. It was tiny miracles like this that shone bright in the darkness of the current world.
"We got down here as soon as we saw you two arrive," Rodney explained to Max and JJ. "What the hell happened to you guys?"
Max sighed, but proceeded to fill Rodney in on his and JJ's near escape. Little George listened with amazement, eyes wide with adulation at the heroic story, ducking behind Rodney's leg at the really scary parts. Max was just nearing the end of the tale as a curse from Dawson silenced the group.
"s**t!" she snapped from behind the gate. No one had even noticed her skulk out.
"Max leapt over the bloody corpse next to his feet and ducked through the gap between the two gates, slowing his pace once he knew his comrade wasn't in immediate danger. "What's up?"
"The tracks," Dawson pointed out with a frustrated flick of the wrist.
"What about them?" Max asked, ignorantly observing the continued scrapes and footsteps etched into the dirt.
"Keep looking."
Max followed the trail until it reached the smooth tarmac of the road where the footsteps were replaced with thick, black skid marks.
"s**t!" he exclaimed.
"There's no way I can track them on that, I'm sorry. All we know is that they left in a hurry in that direction, but beyond that, who knows."
"s**t, s**t s**t, s**t!" Max cursed, kicking and stamping at the marks beneath his feet.
"I'm sorry mate, I just don't think we'll be able to find him again," Dawson admitted sheepishly. She knew how badly Max wanted this, even needed this.
"What about the prisoners?" JJ queried.
Max glared at his young friend, "They're all long gone kid," he snapped.
"Clearly. But like Dawson said, I doubt they would have been allowed to leave through the front door."
"So, what are you saying?" Max asked.
"That the ones who did make a run for it either ended up on that pile in the cell, or..." JJ explained.
"Or what?"
"Or they escaped some other way, you dumbarse. Which means more tracks."
"Kids got a point," Dawson acknowledged.
Max marched back through the gate with a new lease of life, patting JJ on the shoulder and thanking him as he went. If what he said was true, and there was another way out, there was still a slim chance that he could track Joey down.
"Okay, if you were a prisoner, just bursting out of the cell for the first time, where do you run to?" Max asked.
"Well, it looks as if the guards' dorms were back near the entrance from what we saw, so you'd assume that way would be cut off," Dawson theorised.
"Yep, that makes sense. So, you'd run in the exact opposite direction."
"That's my guess," she agreed.
The two of them jogged past the cell, holding their breath to shield themselves from the rotten stench hanging in the murky air. JJ held back George and Rodney, not wanting the young child to be exposed to the horrific atrocities lurking behind those bars.
"Okay, so you sprint up this way, desperately scanning for a way out. What are your options?" Max questioned.
"The nice house?" Karl suggested.
Max pondered for a second before he dismissed this, "I doubt it, seems unlikely that you'd run back inside just after escaping."
"Round to the left there then?" Karl tried again.
Max peered around the corner, yet again shelving this particular theory. "That just leads to the pit, that'd be the last place I can see them running to be honest."
"Then where? There's nowhere else for them to bloody go," Karl grumbled.
"Straight ahead," Dawson chipped in, pointing directly in front of them to the towering corrugated fence.
Karl scoffed, "What? Over that thing? No way, it's too tall to climb."
"Not with someone pushing you up and over it isn't," Dawson argued. "Think about it, you've just been locked up in a cell for god knows how long, you're going to look for the very nearest way out of this hell hole."
"She's right," Max chimed.
"Oh God, look at this," Dawson sighed, pointing gingerly at a large blood splatter painting the fence. "I think someone stayed behind."
"What do you mean?" Karl asked.
"Someone sacrificed themselves to help everyone else over, then..." she glanced towards the cell behind them.
"s**t," Karl whispered.
"Look at the top," Max pointed out. "It's all scratched and bent out of shape, someone definitely made it over, who knows how many."
"Let's find out," Dawson stated with defiant determination, stooping to provide a leg-up for Karl.
***
The group had been tracking the escapees for what seemed like hours, zig-zagging through the trees as Dawson studied each crushed leaf and each broken twig with care.
"Max, can I talk to you?" Rodney whispered, casually pushing George on to walk ahead with the twins.
"Sure, what's up?"
"Back there, with the clicker, I...I've never done that before."
"You mean, killed one?" Max enquired.
"Exactly."
"Don't feel guilty man, you had no choice, it was him or Dawson, what else were you gonna do? You know what, we can't even say 'him'. It wasn't a him, it was an it, and already dead it."
"I know, I know, it's not that. Don't get me wrong, feeling the knife go through a human skull made me sick, it made me wish I was the one bleeding out on the ground, but that isn't what I wanted to talk about."
"Spit it out, Rodney," Max instructed.
"I...I want you to train me," Rodney blurted, averting his gaze to avoid embarrassment.
"Train you?" Max asked with confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I've seen you fight those things. You have no mercy or remorse, you just...get it done."
"Alright, steady on, you're making me sound like a bit of a monster," Max chuckled.
"No, I don't mean it like that, I just mean you're an incredible fighter, and I think I need to be too," Rodney explained.
Max looked at little George, playing tag with JJ and Karl ahead, his innocent cries of laughter echoing through the trees.
"This is about the kid, isn't it?" Max pried.
Rodney smiled, then nodded, "It's not just about me anymore. I know that now."
Max wrapped his arm around Rodney's back and pulled him into a half embrace, "Of course I'll help you."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
"Guys! Get up here!" Dawson cried from the front of the group.
Max and Rodney shared a brief, worried glance, then weaved through a few trees to meet the rest of their friends.
"I think we've finally found someone," she announced.
"The survivors?" Max asked with unbridled excitement.
"No way of knowing, but it could be-"
"Put your hands in the air my friends!" a voice cried out from directly behind them, as Max felt the end of a rifle press hard against the small of his back.
He raised his hands, before slowly turning to face his attacker, dropping his arms again almost immediately.
"PAULO!"
- Writer
