Death After Death (#2)

Chapter Fifty-Two

Max scrambled backwards away from the torrential rainfall of flailing clicker limbs, the palms of his hands scraping against the rough pavement. The roof of the van continued to warp as the bodies collided like falling bombs, crashing in time with Max's ever-increasing heartbeat. The sound of bone cracking upon impact stood out against the swarm of teeth snapping against teeth, as the clickers dragged their bodies along, driven by pure animalistic hunger. Blood, pus, rotten flesh, those red, red eyes, it all blurred into one nightmarish oil painting as Max's back crashed against the wall of the shop behind him.   

"Max!" a voice screamed in his left ear. "Max, get up!"

Lizzie tugged at his underarms with all her strength, urging him to move as the herd closed in.

"Max, we need to go, now!"

He scrambled to his feet, heaving himself up via a mixture of Lizzie's help and the broken shop window frame. He desperately scanned through the tidal wave of bodies, dying to see if his friends had managed to escape out the other side, or even if they could still be saved, but it was to no avail. He could not see a thing. He doubted he would even be able to hear them scream.

"Max! Now!" Lizzie screeched frantically, as the first of the clickers reached their feet.

"But...the others..." Max cried, eyes wide with fear, not for his own safety, and is this moment, not even for Lizzie's. He was scared about leaving someone behind, he couldn't go through that again, not after Joey, not after what it had done to him.

"There's nothing we can do for them now! We need to survive first, then we can come back for them! Okay?"

Max nodded, shaking off the doubt in an instant, as if he just needed Lizzie to verbalise it to be sure that it was the right thing to do.

He leapt through the open shop window, lifting Lizzie through behind him. The first few clickers from the herds approaching from either end of the road had just come into vision, trampling over their crawling comrades in an attempt to secure the first juicy bite.

Max sprinted across the shop floor, vaulting the counter, eyes just as hungry for a way out as the clickers' were for his flesh.

The shop opened up into a larger kitchen in the rear, with a clearly marked fire exit shining like a halo above the backdoor. Max bound over towards it, reaching the door just as he heard the clickers crash through the front entrance, forcing their way through like a surge of destruction.

Max ensured that Lizzie was safely out of the shop before he plucked up a large plastic drum by the side of the fire exit. He quickly unscrewed the slimy lid, before sloshing the entire contents over the kitchen floor; yellow, gloopy oil cascaded across the black and white tiles, soon covering every inch of the cheap, plastic surface.

Max tossed the drum aside as the first clicker rounded the corner into the kitchen, like a blood hound with the prey in sight. The moment its shoe hit the tiles, it flew off into an uncontrollable spin, slamming into the metal counters with a crash and a squelch. More undead followed, one after another, like a steady stream sliding across the floor into a heap of blood and bones, unable to grasp any purchase to continue their chase.

However, it was only a matter of time before they either found their way out, or were forced out the backdoor by the sheer volume of bodies, as Max slammed the fire door shut and ran after Lizzie.

They clambered up onto an industrial sized bin, before leaping over the chain linked fence separately them from the next street. As soon as Max's feet hit the alleyway ground, they were already driving him after Lizzie, back towards one of the crossroads.