Death After Death (#2)

Chapter Eleven

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 shit, 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.

"Shit!" 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.