by Jenkins, Seb
“Everything was fine until you two turned up! We were surviving! Then you’re here for a week and it all goes to shit! You’re the reason they’re all dead!” he kept screaming.
The clicker was now directly behind Henry. Max got ready to move. The undead’s teeth clamped down on Henry’s neck and his arms shot up in the air, allowing Lizzie to wriggle free. In one fluid motion, Max grabbed Lizzie, throwing her behind him, before thrusting his arm and the machete forward with all the remaining energy he could muster.
The razor sharp point sliced through Henry’s stomach; blood spurting in all directions; as Max kept pushing the sword, tearing its way out of Henry’s back and then impaling the clicker too. They both fell down in one heap and Max withdrew his sword, one boot pressed against Henry’s chest as he wrenched it out. The clicker continued to feast on the flesh of Henry Jennings, who could only scream, blood gushing from both his neck and belly. Max moved in to finish them both off, but held himself back.
“Rot in hell you son of a bitch,” He said, staring deep into those eyes of Henry, no longer warm and kind but filled with pain.
Max wiped the machete clean on his shirt, before pulling Lizzie close and leading her out of the door, leaving the graveyard of a house behind them.
Chapter Twenty-One
Max had taken one of the vehicles parked outside the Jennings’ home; it felt heartless, but it wasn’t as if they would need it anymore. Whilst he was seething with anger at how Henry had treated Lizzie, Max was still mourning the death of the young children.
He couldn’t help but think that he could have done so much more to save them. He still thought that way about John and Joey too. He guessed that survivor’s guilt feeling would haunt him until his turn eventually came. In this world, everyone dies, and a lot sooner than they used to.
Lizzie sat motionless in the passenger seat, her body rigid and eyes fixed on the road ahead, not even taking a break to blink. She was traumatised. Max had always understood that it was hard for her to open up and trust people; after all she had lost every single person close to her, starting with her dad before any of this shit even went down. She was just starting to find a home there, and was allowing herself to rely on new people; that is, until one of them held a knife to her throat.
This world was terrifying for Max to accept, but for Lizzie, it will be the only world she will ever really know. She was too young to experience much of a normal life, and there was so much she will now never get the chance to experience. Her first job, getting married, having kids; who knew if any of this was possible now.
“You know you can’t blame yourself for any of that right? It wasn’t your fault,” Max assured, breaking the silence.
“I now it wasn’t my fault. It was that bag of shit Henry,” she snapped back at him.
Max sighed, that wall, that defence mechanism, was back up.
“What exactly happened after I left the kitchen?” Max asked her.
“What do you mean?” Lizzie mumbled back.
“Well one minute I left you all in there to go find the kids, the next I come back to a dead body and Henry has completely lost it,” Max said, needing an explanation.
“Well, Jenny was bitten. She was talking for a while, telling Henry how much she loved him and to look after the children, then the next minute she was silent…still. She must have been lying there like that for a few minutes, Henry sobbing into her body, then her eyes flicked open. I think Henry thought she was still alive, but then he saw that look in her eyes; she had changed. She looked so wild and angry, clicking her teeth together. He prayed quietly to himself and then slit her throat with that kitchen knife. Then I don’t really know…he just kind of lost it,” Lizzie explained.
“She turned that quickly?” Max questioned.
Lizzie nodded.
“There’s still so much we don’t know about this…disease,” Max shuddered.
After all, the mystery surrounding it was the scariest thing.
The outbreak of the disease wasn’t really something the pair had ever discussed. The loss to Lizzie’s family was still so raw, Max was always careful when bringing up the past; but it suddenly occurred to him that he had never tested his and Joey’s blood group theory.
“Did you ever get a vaccination? You now, when this all started?” Max asked as casually as possible.
“Yeah, every kid I know got one. Children were the first ones they issued them to, they obviously knew that they couldn’t produce enough for everyone. Then when people found out, it just descended into chaos. The things people did to make sure their darling families got the precious orange cure. Fuck load of good it did,” Lizzie explained, mumbling the last few words.
“Did the cure work on anybody?” Max asked, not really expecting her to know, but more just thinking out loud.
“Who can say man? I know people who took it and still turned, I know people who didn’t take it and seemed fine; I heard about loads of cases where the drug actually accelerated the disease. Luck of the draw I guess,” Lizzie continued.
“Do you know what blood type you are?” Max said, angling the conversation towards his theory.
“Pfft, fucked if I know Max. How come?” she replied so casually.
“Just an idea an old friend and I had. Seems both of us took the vaccination and neither experienced any effects, and both of us were AB negative. That can’t be a coincidence; for some reason my blood type is immune. It has to be.” Max pondered, more confident in his idea the more he thought about it.
Lizzie sat in silence, clearly mulling over this new information.
“You could be onto something there. I mean on the news, they said it was spreading through contact with blood, mosquitos, cuts, that kind of thing; so it kind of fits. But if one of those things out there starts clawing away at you face and chowing down on your insides, I doubt your little AB negative blood is gunna do you much good,” Lizzie chuckled.
“You’ve got a point there kid. We’ll just have to make sure we keep killing them before they kill us then,” he smirked back.
The pair were both grinning, but there was the undeniable reality looming over them, that they were sitting in a car, both covered in other people’s blood, and driving towards nothing in particular.
“Where are we going Max?” Lizzie asked poignantly, hoping that he had some kind of plan.
“Hell, probably kid,” he laughed.
“Until then, I have no idea,” he added.
Lizzie opened her mouth to speak a few times, evidently plucking up the courage to say something to her travelling companion.
“I…I thought…well I was wondering if…” she murmured and stuttered.
“Spit it out you little gobshite,” Max chuckled.
“I was wondering if I could visit my mum’s grave one last time. You know, just to say goodbye. I don’t think I’ll really get the chance again,” Lizzie explained, turning her head to look out the window as to hide to tears welling up in her eyes.
“You know what, that sounds like a good plan kid,” Max replied warmly.
Lizzie turned back towards him, wiping her eyes, replacing the tears with a sweet smile that said thank you without the need for words.
Lizzie opened up the glove compartment, rifling through the items within. Clearly not finding what she was looking for, she fumbled through the compartment in the passenger door, before clambering in the back and checking the seat pockets. She withdrew a road map from the pocket behind Max’s seat, and snatched up a pen from a tray in the front before scanning the map in silence.
After a few minutes passed, she jumped back into the front seat and thrust the map towards Max. She had clearly circled a small village, even marking out the quickest route.
“I guess we have our destination,” Max laughed.
“But before we set off, I have one last stop…” he said ominously, pulling into the car park of a large mall.
“I think it’s time we got some clothes that smell slight
ly less of the dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The pair parked up and brushed themselves off before heading towards the front doors of the shopping centre. The blood and guts had now dried, moulding itself onto their clothes. Their hands and faces were dyed a dark, deep red, and thick, dry blood was trapped behind their fingernails. They were in desperate need of a wash and a change of clothing. The electric door wasn’t in operation as they stood helplessly in front of it.
Max jammed the sharp end of his machete between the metal plates and wrenched it open a crack, before clawing his fingers in between and pulling it open the rest of the way. Lizzie scampered through, with Max bounding in behind her as the doors slid shut once more. Lizzie’s eyes lit up, taking in what lay before her: clothes shops, cafes, ice cream booths and vending machines. This return to normality seemed to flick a switch in her brain, sending her back to a time before all this mayhem.
She sprinted over to the ice cream booth without saying a word, leaping over the counter in one jump and disappearing the other side.
“You okay kid?” Max called out after she didn’t reappear.
As he called out the last word, her little head popped up from behind the booth, holding two cones with more ice cream stacked on top than Max had ever seen. She carefully climbed back over the counter and handed one to Max.
“Never turn down free ice cream Max,” she grinned, walking into the nearest shop as she did so.
The two looked around the shops for a while, browsing for something that took their fancy. It was a strange habit, checking the labels and price tags, choosing wisely. In reality they could take whatever they wanted, and as much of it as they wanted. After using the toilets of one shop to wash the worst of the blood from their skin, they filtered through the racks of clothes.
Lizzie picked out some slim fitting, dark blue denim jeans, a small black leather jacket with silver metal studded buttons, and a bright yellow t-shirt with a cartoon bee plastered across the front.
Max strained to read it, “buzz off…really?” he questioned whilst cringing.
“Hey! It’s cute!” Lizzie defended, snatching the top from his gaze.
Her attention turned to the garments in his hands, as she sifted through them, clearly ready to offer opinion and critique. She held up a pair of light blue denim jeans, slightly torn at the knees and with a thick brown leather belt.
“About 20 years too young for you, but nice,” Lizzie said nonchalantly before tossing them back at Max’s feet.
Next a plain white, long sleeve t-shirt, with a slight V-neck dropping down from the top. Lizzie looked up at him and faked a yawn before throwing it down on the pile. Finally she held up a blue denim jacket, with gold buttons all the way up to an open collar.
“Okay, I’m not fucking walking around with you if you’re wearing double denim,” she shot at him judgingly.
Lizzie walked out the shop and threw the jacket over the railing, falling to the floor below them. Max merely sighed and laughed as she then skipped off to find him something she deemed more appropriate. She returned minutes later holding a new jacket.
It was thick brown leather, made to look old fashioned and scuffed; a dark brown zip running up the front with a black material collar at the top. He took it from her and tried it on, seething with annoyance at the fact that it was actually really nice. He liked it.
“You’re welcome,” Lizzie said with a chipper tone and a cocky grin before heading off towards the changing rooms.
Max picked up a pair of brown lace up boots before following her.
The two got changed into their clean new clothes, and resurfaced from behind the changing room curtains. Both wore their jackets open at the front, with Lizzie’s cartoon bee on show for all to see.
“Looking good old man,” Lizzie chuckled, checking out her own outfit in the mirrors too.
“Right, let’s pick up a few supplies and hit the road kid,” Max replied, wary of sticking around in one place for too long.
You never knew when the clickers could attack.
On the way out of the store, Max snatched up a pair of kid’s wellies; bright pink with pictures of ponies covering them completely.
“Hey kid, are you sure you don’t want these to go with your shirt?” he laughed, thrusting them forwards into her face.
She threw him a stern look back, before grabbing them from him and tossing them over the railings after the jacket.
The two glared at each other before breaking down into laughter as the shoes smacked the ground a floor below them.
“Hey! Who threw those?” a voice shouted angrily from downstairs.
“Otto we have ourselves some intruders!” the voice cried out again, louder still.
“Shit,” Max mumbled under his breath; these guys didn’t sound like the types to make friends.
“Kid! Stay close!” he whispered harshly and urgently, pointing to his left before running as fast as he could whilst keeping low.
Lizzie stuck to his tail the entire way, as they both scrambled past shop after shop, desperately trying to find another exit. Max spotted a signpost for the carpark, taking a sharp right hand turn as fast as he could.
“Over there!” Lizzie called out from behind, pointing out a fire exit door a little way in front of them.
Max didn’t break stride, determined to get out of here before it turned nasty. Max flicked his head backwards to ensure that Lizzie was still close behind, but when he turned back two men had appeared from the top of a broken escalator, blocking their path to the exit.
“They’re over here boss!” one of them screamed back down the motionless stairs.
Max immediately stopped, his feet screeching on the floor as he desperately tried to change direction. He turned round full circle, grabbing Lizzie as he did so and ushering her back the way they came. He took the next right before slamming through a set of double doors in front of him, which were thankfully unlocked. Lizzie followed suit and the doors slowly creaked shut behind them.
“It’s okay Otto!” one of their chasers called out.
“They’ve run into the infected zone.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Max didn’t stop to check if the two men had followed them through the doors; instead, he grabbed tightly onto Lizzie’s sleeve and kept her close as he sprinted further into the shopping centre. He had no idea how to get out of this place, and further still, how they would find the car again.
He knew that they had to get out of the open and find somewhere to hide until he could think of a plan. He clocked a small shoe shop on their left hand side and ducked towards it, pushing hard against the door. It was locked and all the windows were blacked out. Slightly further down the shop, a grey, metal shutter had been pulled down. He bent over and tore it up towards the ceiling as quickly as he could, bundling Lizzie through the open doorway before bringing it back down, slowly and quietly this time.
He didn’t want to draw any attention to where they were hiding, but it felt like his heart beat was echoing around the entire building. Max turned his head slowly to Lizzie, whilst keeping one hand firmly on the bottom of the shutter in case their pursuers attempted to pull it open. He put one finger gently against his own lips, eyes wide and serious to ensure that Lizzie got the message. She shot a look back at him as if to say ‘yeah, no shit!’
Max strained his ear towards the shutters, he could definitely hear mumbling in the distance. It looked as if the men had followed after all. Why were they even chasing them? What had they done? Max knew it was a crazy fucked up world now, but it had only just occurred to him that the undead were not the only ones they had to keep an eye out for. In this new way of life, there were no rules.
The mumbling was growing louder, Max could hear the slow shuffling of feet. The noises were coming from all over; it sounded as if this gang was a lot bigger than he had thought. Clearly too many to fight on his own. There were footsteps approaching. Max was thrown into a state of panic as a cr
ash swirled around his eardrums as a rack of shoes clattered to the ground behind him.
It was almost too dark to see, but he could just about make out two approaching figures; and then, the unmistakable sound of teeth clicking together.
He and Lizzie both immediately jumped to their feet and fumbled in dazed panic to find their weapons. Lizzie drew a small but sharp knife, as Max unsheathed his machete from his belt. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lizzie adopting an attacking stance, but he quickly threw an arm in front of her, pushing her backwards.
“Lift up the shutters a bit to give me some light and just keep watch. I’ve got this, kid,” he ordered abruptly.
Lizzie opened her mouth to argue, but the look on Max’s face made it clear that it was not open to debate. She nodded and did as she was told, ducking down to wrench open the shutters just enough to let some natural daylight into the old fashioned shoe store.
Max recoiled instantly as the light shone across the store. The shop wasn’t quite as small as it looked from the outside, stretching back far beyond Max could see. What struck an intense fear through to his very core was the twenty-strong horde of clickers, all snapping their necks towards the two new walking meals who had just entered their store.
They all began to shuffle towards Max and Lizzie, with more emerging from the darkness towards the back of the store. They were stuck between the living chasing them outside, and the dead chasing them from within. Max pounced into action, plunging his blade through the gut of the first clicker, pulling the undead body down to the ground before finishing it off with one clean stomp to the head.
Before he could catch his breath, a second was upon him, clawing at his face and clicking its teeth just inches from him. He thrust out his hands to hold it back, using up all his strength to keep the strong, hungry body at bay. His arms felt like they were about to give way; and just as Max thought he was going to fall to the ground, the clicker’s body fell weightlessly towards the floor.