AFTER (Book #3)

Chapter Nine

Max paced furiously up and down the pristine white floors of the Novus laboratory, the soles of his shoes squeaking harshly with every turn. However, the noise was lost on Max. His ears whirring with a hurricane of his own internal mutterings.  

How could I let this happen? I should have saved her! I still could save her! Dawson, JJ, even Karl, I should have saved them all.

Max had been distant ever since Dawson's departure, and even though she had refused to admit it, it had felt like a final farewell in everything but words. She had every intention of roaming the streets until she found Karl or lost her mind trying.

He had wanted to go with her, begged Dawson to let him, but she had insisted that Max stay behind the Novus walls.

"You have a daughter to take care of now, and a little four-year-old...and a Rodney," she had told him.

He had laughed at that. At least his last memory of her would be a laugh.

It just felt as if he had been plunged back into the deep end of the world, constantly battling to keep his head above water, while dragging the bodies of those he loved up to the surface with him.

It was trying to keep a dozen plates spinning all at once, eventually once was bound to fall and smash. John, Joey, Mona, The Jennings, Paulo, Han, JJ, Karl, Dawson... Max had started to feel like he was the deadly gust of wind that kept the plates falling.

He looked to his left where Lizzie stood gazing through a tiny square window. On the other side of the glass, Rodney and George were locked in their cell, awaiting the results of their tests. They knew that they weren't infected, there was no risk of that, no nervous tension. The only uncertainty was whether little Georgie would be immune or not, but again, Max would have been surprised if the outcome wasn't positive.

What worried him was what came after. How was he going to keep them safe? Maybe being here would change things. Maybe finally being somewhere secure would shake the burden of protection that permanently weighed down heavy on his shoulders.

Max had come a long way from his dank, dusty flat, but he often cursed the fact that it had taken such misery to bring him to this point. He had dangled himself over the precipice and looked death in the whites of its eyes, but it wasn't his own fate that he feared for. Worry and self-blame were his new alcoholism. It was an addiction that he simply could not cure.

He knew that this world was ruined for him now. On the brink of forty, even if humanity did survive this extinction event, the world would never recover fully in his life time. Infrastructure, farming and economies would take time to nurture and grow once more. Lives would take years to rebuild. And it was Max's job to be that builder, and a soldier, to lay the foundations so that generations after his could live and love again.

This was about Lizzie, and her children, and their children after them. The world would either be theirs, or it would belong to the dead.

"You okay?" Lizzie asked, halting Max's squeaky frantic pacing.

"Huh?"

"I said are you okay?" she smiled, placing a gentle hand against his arm.

"I think so," he replied unconvincingly. "How are you holding up? Nervous about George?"

"No, no," Lizzie dismissed. "He'll be immune. He had to have been to survive all that s**t at the school. I just don't like him being locked up in that tiny room. He doesn't understand, bless him. He thinks that he's done something wrong."

Max pulled her into a soft hug, "It'll be alright, kid. He'll be out and running around in no time, the little terror."

Lizzie pulled her head away from Max's chest to look him in the eyes, "And what about you? Will you be okay?"

"What do you me-"

"You know what I mean," Lizzie insisted sternly.

Max sighed. It was a hard conversation to have internally with himself, and a near impossible one to verbalise out loud.

"I miss her."

"Me too."

"I'm scared about what we lose now that she's gone. I don't know if I can keep this group together on my own, I don't know if I can keep us safe," Max blurted.

Lizzie breathed and shook her head knowingly, "Look around, Max. You're not doing anything on your own."

"I know, I know. We're in a community now, we're safe behind the walls-"

"f**k the walls!" Lizzie scoffed. "Look around this room! You have us! You don't have to keep this group safe on your own. You have me, you have Rod-" she paused. "You have me."

Max chuckled, easing her back into the hug, a tighter embrace this time. "Thanks kid."

"I love you... d-"

"Okay! Looks like we have our results!" a voice boomed around the lab. One of the technicians had returned with a chart and was already in the process of unlocking the cell door. "Good news guys, you're all clear and ready to go! And the little one is in great health may I add."

"And...the immunity?" Rodney queried nervously.

"Both of you, yes, don't worry," the technician replied calmly. "I apologise, Val would have delivered the good news herself, but she has literally just been called into a council meeting I'm afraid."

Max screwed up his face slightly, "A meeting? She told me that they had to wait for the entire committee to be present. GiGi's still out there with Daws."

"He must be back already..." but Max was already half way across the room, striding purposefully towards the staircase.

Lizzie ran after him, following muttering trail of bullshits and bastards. After two more flights of stairs, she was right on his heels, but knew better than to try and stop him, or to even calm him down. Besides, she was just as peeved as he was, why would no one tell them that GiGi had returned? Where was Dawson? Was there any news on Karl?

Max's stomping boots were like the soundtrack of anger and frustration as they slammed their way up staircase after staircase until they finally reached the hospital summit with one last heavy thud.

He burst through into the corridor, stamping his way over to the first person he saw "Where the hell is Val?"

The young woman was flustered by Max's instant and unwarranted animosity towards her. Although she replied, "I'm afraid she is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed at the moment," the subtle panicked glance she had made upon the mentioning of Val's name betrayed her.

Max paced aggressively over towards an office door to his right and steamrolled through it with a bang. Nine sets of shoulders hopped into the air as the committee sat, shocked behind their large circular desk.

"Max! What is the meaning of this?" Val demanded, rising to her feet.

"The meaning of this is that one-minute GiGi here is out in the city with Dawson, looking for our missing friend, and the next he's back here in your cushty staff meeting without so much as an update on either of our friends!"

"I told you this would happen," GiGi sang towards Val.

"Yes, thank you, Giovanni," Val shot. "Indeed, this one did express a desire to talk to you beforehand, but I thought it best to attend to a more immediate issue," she explained formally, too formally for Max's liking.

"More f*****g immediate," Max laughed, doing everything he could to stop himself from flipping the entire table over. "More immediate than our friends' lives?"

"I can assure you, that is not what I meant," Val floundered. "What I am trying to explain is tha-"

"Why don't we do this later, my friends. With less of an audience, ay?" GiGi suggested, pushing his wheelie chair away from the table, and retrieving a scrap of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. "I think you should read this first," he urged Max and Lizzie, offering a calming hand on Max's shoulder as he placed the paper into his open palm.

After reading the first two words, Max exited the room without any further questions, comments, or disruptions.

"What is it?" Lizzie asked.

Dear Max,

I'm sorry that I couldn't return to Novus to say a proper goodbye, somehow that all just seems too difficult for me right now. What do you do when there's a ticking clock on your life, and you know an alarm is going to ring any minute now. The knowing is the worst part. I just can't come back there, I can't see all your faces again, I can't bring myself to part ways knowing that it will be the last time. It would feel like attending my own funeral.

My life has always been about helping others, and that's how I want to go down, helping and fighting. I don't know, maybe it's selfish really, maybe I'm out here to distract myself from the inevitable. All I know is that I'm going to do everything in my power to bring Karl home. Unfortunately, if I'm not successful soon, that may mean losing myself along the way. But that's okay, that's okay if it means something. Just please, don't forget me, don't any of you forget me, even if I forget myself.

Tell Rodney that I'm going to miss the hell out of him. Tell him how proud I am of him, of how far he has come. I don't know what I would have done without him all these months. Tell him that I love him and tell him to keep Georgie close. (Give the little guy one last hug from me.)

Tell Lizzie to keep going. She's so incredibly strong, and wise, and funny, and I don't think she even knows it. Tell her Max. Tell her that I am so glad that I finally got to meet her. She reminds me of myself as a kid, you know? So, you have that to look forward to. Tell her to keep the boys safe, god knows they can't do it on their own. Tell her how amazing she is.

Tell her to forgive you.

And forgive yourself Max. Let it go. Let everything go. I know that you'll be blaming yourself right now, carrying the weight of the world on your back as always, but none of this is your fault. I remember when we first caught you drinking in that pub, god that feels like years ago now. I remember how you downed that beer and ran off into the night to lure the clickers away from us. We were strangers. You did that for complete strangers. That's the kind of man you are, and that's the kind of man the world needs.

I love you all more than I could possibly fit onto this paper, and you will be with me until me final thought. I hope that I remain in yours.

Your friend, your family,

Dawson.

(P.S If Hildegarde is anywhere near my gravestone, I will come back for you fuckers!)

xx