Death After Death (Book #2)

Chapter Fifteen

JJ stirred from his deep slumber, groggily dragging his tender body into an upright position and rewarding himself with a much-needed stretch.  

The unrelenting thumping at the door was still ever-present, but wasn't loud enough to drown out the chirpy tweets or the birds outside.

"How long did I sleep?" half exclaimed, half yawned.

"A long-ass time," Max chuckled as he tucked into an old energy bar.

"Why didn't you wake me for my watch?"

"Meh, I couldn't sleep anyway with the cast of Stomp out there, plus, I think you needed the rest more than me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" JJ laughed, taking the remark as an insult.

"Let's just say youth isn't a guarantee of fitness," Max teased.

JJ scoffed, "And I suppose you're in peak condition?"

"I wasn't before all this," Max admitted, vaguely waving his hands around their surroundings. "Let's just say I've done a lot of running, and a lot of fighting since."

"Always so mysterious."

Max smiled and winked, he wasn't ready to share his entire backstory. Not yet anyway.

"Have you had any ideas about how to get the f**k out of here?" JJ asked, as he too gorged on some light breakfast from Max's backpack.

"Nothing good," Max admitted. "The way I see it, there's only three ways out."

"Do tell," JJ urged.

"You're not going to like them," Max grinned.

"Yeah, well, we have to get out of here somehow."

"True. Okay, route one is through that door," Max explained, shooting a thumb towards the wardrobe behind them. "That way has its obvious flaws."

"Yeah I think we'll move on to route two?"

"Route two is through that window. I had a quick look earlier, it's quite a drop, I'm not sure how able we'd be to run after the landing."

"We could tie some sheets together, clamber down them prison escape style?" JJ suggested.

"Yeah, I considered that, but take a gander out there," Max said, nodding towards the one large window, through which the morning sun was just about shining.

JJ stumbled towards the light, mouth full of stale, cardboard tasting energy bar. He pressed his forehead against the cool glass, and scanned his eyes across the garden below. A swarm of clickers had gathered, surrounding the house on every angle.

It wasn't just children anymore, obviously word had spread of the ready meal, sealed behind these four walls.

"All the noise and commotion seemed to attract a load more. They just kept arriving through the night," Max said, almost a little nonchalantly.

"Okay, I'm seeing a few cons with route two as well. What was route three?" JJ asked in an almost pleading manor.

"Route three is a little...unorthodox," Max clarified.

"Go on..." JJ said suspiciously.

"Well, we need to get out of this room, right? But we also need to avoid the clicker buffet down there. So, we need a distraction of some kind..."

"Just spit it out, Max."

"Open up the cabinet over there."

JJ did as he was told, flicking open a nearby liquor cabinet with one finger. It was fully stocked, rum, gin, wine, vodka, whisky, the lot.

He looked across at Max nervously, "Are you suggesting what I think you are?"

"Thank f**k for alcoholics right," Max beamed, albeit well aware that he once was one.

"Okay, walk me through the logistics of this...plan?" JJ said, his face scrunched up in confusion.

"In theory we br-"

Oh, 'in theory' is always a reassuring way to start off a master plan!"

"In theory, we break the latch on the window, so we can swing it open completely. Then we pour the liquor everywhere, dousing the door and wardrobe especially, making some homemade Molotov's with the remaining bottles-"

"Homemade Molotov's! You know how mental this is, right?" JJ gasped with a disbelieving shake of the head.

"We light the rags with some matches in my bag, chuck them down on the clickers queuing up for drive through down there, then climb up onto the roof."

"And suppose we can even climb up there, where the f**k do we go from there? I'm assuming that we'll have set the room on fire by this point?"

"Yes, with any luck there will be a decent blaze going by this point. We can climb up the drainpipe, just outside the window, the roof is only a foot or two above, it should be doable. Then we, ya know, run and jump across to the next roof..." Max explained, trailing off into a mumble at the end.

"Jump across to the next roof?" JJ cried in between fake laughter.

"Yeah, didn't think you'd be a fan of that bit," Max smiled innocently.

"You're f*****g crazy!" JJ creased.

"I think crazy is the only way out of this one, kid."

JJ pondered it over in his mind, craning his neck out the gap in the window to check out Max's route.

"It could work, I suppose."

"I can't think of another way, I'm all ears if you can?"

JJ let out a wide-eyed grin, flailing his arms out to the side, "f**k it! Let's do it."

Max jumped to his feet and opened the wardrobe he was just resting upon. The doors creaked as he delved in to the back, retrieving a bundle of cloth with both hands.

"What's that?" JJ asked confusedly.

"Bits of sheet, cut into small scraps to stick in the bottles, and a thick duvet cover for the first guy on the roof to tie round his waste and help heave up the second."

JJ shook his head and swore under his breath, eventually breaking out into a grin, "You already had this all planned out?"

"Had to do something all night while sleeping beauty snored in the corner," Max winked, tossing the duvet cover over to JJ. "Tie that round you, would ya?"

"Oh, I'm the first up there I suppose?"

"Well, it's either first up there, or staying down here to light the huge housefire?"

"Up I go," JJ beamed.

Max proceeded to slosh alcohol around every corner of the room, emptying three entire bottles onto the wardrobe itself. By the time he was done, each inch of the expensive wood was bleeding flammable liquor.

He snatched the remaining bottles off the shelves of the cabinet and threw them onto the bed, the glass clinking together as he did so.

In turn, he ripped the tops off, stuffed in one of the pre-cut rags and drenched it in alcohol by tipping the bottle up and down. He repeated this four more times with the rest of the bottles.

Max turned around just as JJ had finished smashing off the window latch with a nearby lamp. The duvet cover was tied tightly around his waist.

"Good to go?" Max asked.

"Yes, sir!"

"Get climbing then," Max urged, as he fished a half empty matchbox from the very bottom of his backpack.

"With f*****g pleasure," JJ mumbled, as he scampered out the window and carefully clambered up the adjacent drainpipe. Keeping a firm grip around the black plastic, he shimmied up a foot or so before placing one strong arm up onto the roof tiles.

He pushed down with all the strength in his right forearm, flinging his other arm over once he felt stable. He then heaved himself up, feeling the muscles in his chest tighten as he just about made it up onto the temporary safety of the roof.

The extent of their clicker problem became immediately apparent with his now elevated view. The swarm of undead corpses spread further than he previously thought, with ever side of the building covered, and more approaching from down the street.

It almost looked like a colony of ants, all collecting together to protect their queen.

JJ's attention snapped back to the task at hand as the first Molotov flew out the open window, cascading towards the unsuspecting clickers below.

The glass smashed on impact, a few feet from a trio of undead who were immediately splashed with the outpouring of alcohol and engulfed in a fierce gust of fire.

It was the first time JJ had seen any corpses visibly distressed by something. Usually any amount of stabbing and slicing failed to impede their desire for flesh, but the flames seemed to disorientate them completely.

The second bottle came crashing down straight onto an undead woman's head, the glass imbedded deeply into her rotten skull. Her entire body burst into flame, like a guy on bonfire night.

Two more bottles followed this, each succeeding in both distracting and injuring the clicker enemies. One final muffled smash came from below JJ's feet, as he assumed Max had lobbed it at the wardrobe to commence the escape plan.

The emergence of Max's head from the window below only confirmed this. JJ threw down the makeshift rope and planted his feet as securely as possible, leaning back to take Max's weight as best he could.

Max clambered up the drainpipe, and pulled himself up onto the roof with one hand on the tiles, and the other on JJ's duvet.

"See, it's all going swimmingly," Max grinned as he stood next to JJ atop the house.

JJ untied the duvet from his waste and discarded it to one side, "Yeah, funnily enough it was the leaping from roof to roof that got me slightly nervous."

Smoke had begun to pour out the window, and as Max bent down and placed a hand on the tiles below their soles, he could feel the heat beginning to come through.

The plan seemed to be working though, the surrounding clickers were completely put off by the burning fire, and those still stampeding into the house would surely perish in the blaze.

"Okay, time to go I think, kid!" Max yelled above the thumping of clickers and the crackling of flames.

He backed up a few feet, lining up his jump to the next roof. The gap was only six feet or so, but the house next door was considerably lower, ensuring that the impact would be hard.

Max took a few deep breaths, nodded to JJ and then sprinted towards the edge.