AFTER (Book #3)

Chapter Four

They were close. He knew they were close. He could feel their teeth chattering all the way through his ear and deep into the centre of his brain. The snapping, the scratching, the clicking, it was like the soundtrack to his life.

They were going to get in today.

He had heard them finally break through the barricade on the floor below hours ago. That meant there were two doors between the clickers and them, either side of a narrow staircase. That wouldn't take them longer than sunset. This was his final day. This was Georgie's final day.

He had thought about smashing a window, and scaling down the building, but there was no material to use. He had tried to pull up the carpet, but it was no use. The cheap fibre came up in lumps rather than neat strips, and he had nothing to tie it with anyway.

He had even tried to call the lift in the centre of the room, hoping that it might both crush some of their hunters, while also offering them a path to freedom. No electricity.

They could try and make it to the roof, scale the couple of metres up to it from a broken window, but what was the point? They would likely fall to their deaths trying, and even once they were up there, starvation would be an inevitability.

They had been lucky that some employees had left behind snacks in their desks, otherwise they may not have even lasted this long.

Rodney had started to think more about the end. He had to. He had to choose their ending, he still had that power. The images in his head of George being torn apart by those monsters was too much to bear. He didn't think he would have the courage to stop it, but the pictures had played behind his closed eyes too much, he knew it had to be done.

But would he be able to turn the gun on himself afterwards? He truly didn't know if he would be brave enough to pull that trigger, to save himself. Maybe the first shot would make it easier.

"Where is Lizzie?" George kept asking. "And JJ, and Karl. Where are Max and Dawson?"

Rodney didn't know how to answer. "They're safe," he would always reply.

"Are we?"

"We will be, George."

They were in the stairwell now. Only one door between them and their meal. Rodney gripped his gun tighter than ever. There were too many to kill, that was for sure. He knew that he only had around ten bullets left, but ten would be plenty.

He could smell them now. That was new. Somehow that was comforting, something new. It meant that he was alive, for just a little bit longer.

Rodney craned his neck slightly, pointing his right ear towards the window behind him. Soft mumblings trickled through the humid mid-day air, that was new too.

It sounded like a voice, a distant voice, growing louder and louder, before it finally became distinguishable.

"Dawkins! We're looking for a Dawkins!"

"Give it here you i***t! Dawson, Dawson! Can you hear us? Rodney? Karl? Rodney? Karl?"

Rodney leapt to his feet, sending the half-asleep George sprawling to the floor. Rodney helped the young boy up, frantically peering out of the dusty glass towards the voices.

He hadn't been hearing voices up until now, but could this all be in his head?

"Dawsonnnnn! Rodneyyyyy! Karrrrrrl!"

No, this was real. The voices were real, and they were close now. Rodney pulled his sleeve tight over his hand and wiped furiously at the glass until the dust and dirt smeared into a somewhat transparent window.

"Hello!" he cried. "Hello, it's me! Rodney!"

"Dawson! Rodney! Karl!" continued to blare through some kind of speaker.

They couldn't hear him. The glass was too thick, and his voice was getting lost on the slight summer breeze.

Rodney sprinted across the room, planting his hands firmly on the armrests of a wheelie office chair.

"Georgie, I'm going to need you to move away from the window, okay?"

George nodded obediently, slightly afraid and confused with the latest developments.

Rodney took a deep breath before running at the window, as fast as he dared, rearing up a metre or so short before hurtling the chair into the window. The glass cracked slightly under the pressure, as the chair split into pieces, wheels and cogs flying off in all directions. Rodney plucked the main bulk of the chair up from the floor, swinging the backrest like a baseball bat at the fractured glass. The c***k grew with every swipe, like a ripple expanding through a pond. By the fifth or sixth hit, the glass finally gave way, shattering a sizeable hole in the centre of the window.

Rodney swept away the loose shards and remnants of glass with his makeshift axe, before tossing it to the side. A strong draft whistled past the opening, as Rodney dared a glance down to the ground, sending his head spinning slightly.

"Stay back there okay, George!" Rodney urged.

"Dawson! Rodney! Karl!" the voice continued to cry, far louder now with the glass removed.

"Here! Up here! We're here!" Rodney bellowed, his throat dry and sore. "Help! We're up here!"

There was a moment of silence, a minute almost, before three tiny figures emerged on a rooftop a few buildings away.

"Max! Lizzie!" Rodney wailed, waving his hands hysterically.

"Rodney!" Max cried through the megaphone. "f*****g hell it's Rodney!"

Lizzie snatched the loudspeaker from Max, unable to contain her urgent excitement, "Who's with you? Is Georgie okay? Is Dawson with you?"

Rodney slowly beckoned George to his side, keeping a firm grasp of the boy's shoulders as he neared the edge of the window.

"Lizzie!" George cried as his friend came into view.

Lizzie dropped to her knees, breaking down in tears of pure joy and relief. Max plucked the megaphone back out of her trembling hands, "Rodney, can you get down?"

Rodney shook his head in a deliberate, exaggerated fashion, "We can't! The place is full of them! They'll be here any second!" he yelled, unable to avoid the urge to glance at the barricaded door behind him.

Max dropped the speaker to his side and turned to a skinny man on his left, the two conversed for a minute before Max spoke again.

"Okay, wait there! We need five minutes or so, but we will be back for you, I promise!"

They didn't wait for a reply, instead forcing open the fire exit, they disappeared into the building below them.

The minutes ticked past like decades as Rodney peered desperately out the window, his eyes darting from the rooftop to the street and back again more times than he could count.

"Where are they?" George asked, concerned.

"I don't know, Georgie. I don't know."

Rodney's eyes snapped up towards the building directly opposite, just in time to see a desk fly out of a window, followed by a little man waving through the empty frame.

"Step back!" Max ordered. "And get ready to catch!"

"What do you mean catch?" Rodney cried, but Max had already stepped away from the window, replaced once again by the little man.

"Are you sure about this?" Max's voice mumbled, obviously unaware that the megaphone was still on.

The man shrugged, before aiming some kind of gun directly at Rodney and George.

"s**t," Rodney exclaimed, tugging George away from the window just as the weapon fired.

A second or two passed before a large black hook attached to a wire sailed through the open window and onto the floor a few metres from Rodney's feet.

"Hook it around something!" Max called, as Rodney plucked the heavy metal claw off the carpet.

He glanced around the room for something sturdy, finally settling on a thin, but strong metal beam next to the window. The claw hooked around the strut easily, and Rodney held it there while the others pulled the wire tort.

"Okay you can let go!"

Rodney released the grappling hook, relieved to see it holding firm, even after a few testing tugs from Max on the other end. The little man, seemingly happy with the rigidity of the wire, began to attach a clip to his end. He then looped a section of rope through the clip, before turning to speak to Max and Lizzie, who took a firm grip of the end of the wire, which had been wrapped tightly around part of the window frame.

The man then took a small run up, before throwing the rope under his armpits and launching himself out into the abyss between the two buildings. The clip whirred along the wire, carrying him gracefully from one to the other.

He stuck his legs out in front of him and braced himself for landing, as his feet smoothly touched down onto the carpet of the office block.

"Hello, lovely to meet you. My name is Giovanni, but my friends call me GiGi, which you may now do, my friends. I've heard that you have a little pest problem in here, so your stereotype feeding buddies over there elected to send the foreigner in to sort everything out."

Rodney's eyes were wide open, and his chin was almost on the floor, "What?" he exclaimed.

"You have a problem, my friend?" GiGi asked calmly, ignoring the thumping behind him as the clickers had now reached the final door.

"I have no idea who you are, and you just ziplined in here like some kind of superhero, now you're talking about national stereotypes!"

"Hey, if we don't talk about these problems, they never get solved," GiGi joked, already removing a second clip and rope from his bag.

"Who are you? How did you find us? Where are the others? Where are we going-"

"My friend," GiGi interrupted. "I think maybe there are better locations for this chit chat, ay?"

"Good point."

"Now listen, the wire is ever so slightly uphill from this side, which should be fine as long as you get a good run up, okay?" GiGi explained, holding the loop of rope steady.

"How big a run up?" Rodney asked nervously.

"As far as you can go, my friend."

Rodney hoisted George onto his back, keen to keep both his arms free to grip the rope as he jumped out of the window. He slowly paced towards the far end of the floor, delaying his leap of faith as long as possible. The thumping on the door was growing louder, and the wood around the hinges was beginning to splinter. After taking as many deep breaths as he dared, Rodney broke out into a slow jog, which quickly became a sprint. He extended his arms and wrapped his fingers tightly around the rope as he finally flew from the building. The wire drooped a touch under both his and George's weight, but Max and Lizzie were able to correct it by pulling it tight once more. The duo moved slowly by steadily through the air, just about making it to the other side without running out of steam.

Lizzie grabbed George off Rodney's back and lifted him up, pulling him tightly into her chest.

"I was so worried about you, little man!"

Rodney instinctively assumed her position, helping Max pull the wire as tort as possible for GiGi's return trip. Max took the time to look over his shoulder and smile at his friend, "Good to have you back buddy."

GiGi held the clip steady for a few moments to assure that it wouldn't slide too far from his grasp, before assuming the position at the far end of the room. Just as he readied himself to make the run and jump, the door finally burst from its hinges, sending three clickers tumbling into the room, with countless others pouring in behind.

GiGi cried out, doing his best to arch his run away from the outstretched limbs, but with this safety, he lost an element of speed. By the time he reached the rope, he was barely sprinting at all. His light frame glided through the air for a few metres, and for a second or two, it looked as though he could make it. However, as he passed the halfway point, the whirring of the clip began to cease, and his flight came to a standstill.

The slight slope of the wire quickly turned GiGi's brief pause into a complete reverse manoeuvre, as he began to zipline back into the waiting arms of dozens of clickers. He flapped and paddled helplessly, as if somehow he could stop his fatal descent, but he continued to slide back towards the office.

He was just a couple of metres away from the clickers' outstretch arms when one solitary gunshot echoed cut through the deathly silence, like a clock striking midnight.

A bullet tore through the wire just behind GiGi's head, and suddenly he was plummeting through the air. His stomach churned and tingled as he freefell towards the tarmacked streets below, before his body jerked and he finally began to swing towards the opposite building, like an unwilling Tarzan.

His little body slammed against the glass of a window towards the base of the building, as Max and Rodney gradually hoisted him up through the window frame.

Max glared across at Lizzie, who was still holding George tightly in her arms, with no gun in sight.

"You called," a voice cried out from the street below.

Max squinted past the glare of the sun, before recoiling in giddy surprise, "Dawson?"