Chapter Eleven
1277 Words
George sat happily atop Max's shoulders as the group trundled back towards the main gates to exit the school, leaving the entire maddening affair behind them.
"Right, I say we head down the High Street and find the first secure place to hole up for a while. Give us a chance to see what kind of supplies we have now, and plan some kind of a route towards the pit," Dawson instructed naturally.
"The pit? Is that still where we're heading?" JJ asked.
"Why wouldn't it be?" queried Dawson.
A subtle nod in the direction of Max's new companion was the only answer needed.
"Oh s**t, I didn't even think..." Dawson cursed.
"We can still go!" Rodney blurted in excitement.
All heads turned slowly and suspiciously towards the usually cautious, bordering cowardly, man.
"Did I just hear that right?" Karl gasped.
"Rodney, and danger, together?" JJ chimed in.
"What's the catch?" Dawson sighed, knowing it was too good to be true.
"Well, someone has to stay back with the child while everyone else checks the place out," Rodney explained suggestively, to a chorus of four groans.
"And I suppose that person would be you Rodders?" JJ quipped.
"Well, now that you mention it, I have always been rather good with children," Rodney beamed as he reached up to ruffle George's hair. "Hey there, little fella!"
George screwed up his face and reset his hair to its previous position.
"He's a kid, not a dog, Rodney," Max chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief at the man's unsubtle attempt to manoeuvre himself into a safe position. "That could work though, Rodney stays back with George, the rest of us sneak inside?"
"Spose so," Dawson replied, not impressed by Rodney's antics. "Either way, we shouldn't stay on these streets for t-"
"Guys?" Karl said, alerting the rest of the group with an elongated call.
"What?" snapped Dawson.
"We didn't close the front doors, did we?" he whimpered.
"Well no, how would we have made a quick getaway if we'd clo-"
Suddenly she realised what he was getting at, gradually turning on her heels to face the source of Karl's fear.
"They're making a quick getaway," he explained simply.
The masses of child clickers they had been holding off in the school hallways not so long ago were now swarming out the front doors like hornets. Each individual clicker was determined to be the first to make it to the group, driven by their selfish, animalistic desire to devour their sweet flesh.
"Time to go," Max yelled, taking a tight hold of George's ankles as he ran. The young child linked his hand round Max's neck as he broke into a jog.
The school sat at the very end of the High Street, with shops on either side of the road. The road itself was littered with abandoned cars, obstacles blocking their way to safety.
"s**t!" Dawson yelled in frustration. "Stay close! We're going to have to out run them!"
She leapt over the bonnets of two cars in front of her, their battered metal shells crushed into each other head on. Rodney clambered across shortly after, before the boys threw themselves over the wreckage.
Max hoisted George down from his perch and carried him in his arms instead as he carefully made his way over the cars to his friends, who were already weaving between the vehicular maze stood before them.
He was doing his best to keep up, but with every twist and turn Max was falling behind. Maintaining Dawson's pace while carrying a young child was proving impossible, and the ever-increasing volume of clicking stalking behind unnerved him.
The clickers had reached the first two cars, opting for a more direct approach of crossing the barrier than Max and co. The first child-like body slammed into the carcass of a Vauxhall Corsa, with a metallic thud rebounding down the street after its prey.
The second undead wasn't far behind, crashing into its fellow clicker with a sickening c***k, like the purest and hardest of rugby tackles. It clawed and dragged itself over the one in front, using metal, hair and even an eye socket to haul its decaying body over the cars.
The rest of the horde following suit, in a mess of flailing limbs, stampeding over whatever was in their way, the clickers poured over the top of the Corsa, slamming into the tarmac on the other side.
They had created some kind of corpse ramp, up and over their obstacle, not particularly by design, but more a by-product of their unrelenting hunt to tame their hunger.
"Jesus Christ, they're closing in f*****g fast!" Max screamed to his companions who were leaving him for dust.
"Nearly there! There's a street coming up on our right, we can try and lose them!" Dawson yelled back.
"It's not going to work! They're too close! They can already see us!"
"And smell us!" JJ shouted between heavy breaths.
Max dared a quick glance over his shoulder, immediately regretting it, he'd never seen anything like this. The clickers were moving like a surging water down a river, rebounding off any objects and splashing over any obstacles. It was the most terrifying and horrific thing he had ever seen.
They were clearly becoming more organised and instinctive predators, but as soon as they had the scent of fresh flesh floating through their nostrils, all method went out the window. It became a complete free-for-all hunt; the first to take down the target got to devour the meal.
Max couldn't see a way out. They could flee down the street on their right, and take every turn possible in the optimistic hope of losing them, but that seemed futile. They could retreat into a nearby house and attempt to keep the clickers at bay, but this seemed equally hopeless. They would eventually break in, or at least hold the building to such a siege that leaving again would become near impossible.
Max couldn't believe he was doing this again, and on this scale, but it was the only way.
"Dawson!" Max roared. "Take the kid!"
"What do you mean take the kid? Max you can't-"
"There's no time to argue, just take him and get him the hell out of here!" Max ordered as he caught up with the now halted and wheezing group.
Dawson cursed every word under the sun before snatching the trembling George from Max's arms. Karl took the child from his leader, holding him up with one arm, and pulling him close with the other for support.
"Boss, time to move!" he urged.
Dawson couldn't manage anything more than a nod towards Max, but it was brimming with the upmost respect she could possibly ever bestow upon someone.
Max replied with a half-smile, knowing that deep down this could be the end.
Max turned to face the oncoming tidal wave of rotten flesh, waiting for his moment to move, as the footsteps of his fleeing friends bounded away from him.
Apart from one.
"What the f**k are you doing, kid?" Max growled as JJ pulled alongside him.
"No time to argue. Do this alone and you're as good as dead, at least with two we might stand a chance."
"Or just both die equally painful deaths," Max suggested coldly.
"Yeah...or that."
"JJ!" Karl called out from far down the other street.
"I'll catch up!" he yelled back to his brother.
Were they really going to be his last words to his own twin? What else was there to say in that split second though?
"Ready kid?" Max sighed, as the rippling whirlpool or undead rolled around the final car.
"Why not," JJ said, taking one last deep breath.
Max waited until the last possible second, making sure that all undead eyes were on him and JJ, rather than the fleeing pack down the street to their left.
"Now!" Max bellowed.
They ran. Leading a river of death away from their friends, a river in which they themselves would likely drown.
- Writer
