by Jenkins, Seb
“Time to begin,” he winked.
Otto positioned the blade on the right side of Max’s tongue, easing pressure into the flesh. Just as he was about to make his slow and sadistic incision, footsteps echoed through the room and a man Max hadn’t seen before whispered urgently into Otto’s ear. Otto looked visibly annoyed, gutted even, his eyes glistened with a sense of temptation, but eventually his grip loosened and he eased himself off Max’s body.
“It seems it’s your lucky day,” he spat.
“Sounds like you two are wanted down in the pit…if you can call that lucky,” he smirked, before taking one hard vengeful kick to Max’s stomach.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Looks like it’s going to be chicken again tonight,” Otto grumbled to the rest of the Brotherhood.
Max was still clutching his stomach in pain; his whole body felt like it was on fire. His eyes were starting to swell shut and he could still feel where the cold metal of the knife had been pressed against his tongue.
“What the fuck is the pit?” Max demanded with blood and saliva flying from his mouth.
“Well that, my friend, is for you to see,” Otto sniggered back at him.
“Tie him back up with the girl, Otto wants them guarded all night. We’ll take them to the pit in the morning,” Otto announced to the crowd, who stood moaning and groaning at the loss of their feast.
“NOW!” Otto screeched at the top of his voice, scaring everyone into action.
Max’s legs were re-tied and he was bundled next to Lizzie at the fountain once more. Like Lizzie they stuffed a cloth in his mouth, tying it tightly behind his head to gag him. Max looked at Lizzie, doing his best to comfort her with his eyes alone, but they both knew that the situation was pretty dire. They had avoided immediate danger, but the glint in Otto’s eye when he mentioned the pit horrified Max.
He could only imagine that it would result in a slower and more painful end. He had to get them out of this, somehow. Lizzie was still kicking out, pulling at the ropes which bound her and cursing through her gag.
Max admired her spirit, but it would take smarter thinking and a lot of luck to get them out of this. For now he could feel his eyes drifting shut; he was exhausted, and soon enough he drifted into a deep sleep.
Max’s eyes flicked open, blinking himself awake as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He wasn’t in the shopping mall anymore; he didn’t know where he was, actually. It was pitch black, freezing cold, and even though he was blind, he somehow knew that he was alone in the room. He felt alone. His hands drifted around him, slapping the floor in an attempt to get a bearing of his surroundings.
The floor was rough, concrete he thought, ice cold to touch. He pushed himself off the floor, scrambling to his feet and stretching his arms out in search for a wall. After stumbling around for a minute of two, Max was thrown back onto the floor as a burning white light filled his eyes.
A door had been thrown open from somewhere across the other side of the room. Max blinked and rubbed his eyes until they were partially used to the light, but his retinas were still stained white. White was all he could see. Max slowly began to crawl towards the source, stopping in his tracks as a blurred black figure appeared at the door. One sole silhouette in a sea of white light. The mysterious figure walked towards Max, their footsteps echoing around the room, pounding his eardrums.
Their face was impossible to make out, but they felt somehow familiar. Max strained to make out any distinguishing features, but there was no need as the figure began to run. They sprinted at Max, only stopping until they were inches in front of him. Max threw himself backwards, crawling away in sickening fear as he looked upon a face from the past. It was one of the first faces he ever recalled seeing, but not how he remembered it.
“John?” Max whispered in disbelief.
“Hello Maxie,” John hissed back at him.
“Long time no see!”
It was undeniably John, but his face was pale, and his skin was flaking across his cheeks. It almost looked like a snake shedding its skin. His eyes were bloodshot and dark; so dark. The dark pools of red and black were the most frightening thing. There’s nothing more human than a person’s eyes, but Max could see no life or humanity in these. What was left of John’s teeth were yellowed and rotten.
“But…but you died,” Max sobbed, unable to think of anything else to say.
John threw his head back in a fit of giggles.
“I died?! I died?! I think you mean you left me to die brother!” he cried, thrusting his face up against Max’s.
“John I’m sor-” Max began to cry, tears running from his eyes and falling onto his brother’s face.
“He’s not the only one you’ve left for dead, is he Max?” a new voice boomed from behind John.
Max angled his head around his brother, staring at a new figure standing in the doorway. They carried on shouting as they walked calmly forward.
“Not the only one you’ve abandoned along the way,” the voice continued.
The man stood over Max, shoulder to shoulder with John.
“Joey? Is that you?” Max whimpered.
Max knew that there was nothing left of the men he knew and loved. They were different. They were dead. Joey looked the same as John; the same as the men and women from the Brotherhood. Both men he had viewed as brothers just stood in silence, staring down at him with those dead, red eyes. They turned Max’s blood to ice, as they began to click their teeth, perfectly synchronised with one another.
“Looks like everyone you get close to dies in the end ay Max?” said a whisper from the darkness.
“How long before you kill me too?”
Suddenly Lizzie’s face had joined the crowd, standing the other side of John.
“That’s just what you do; you let the ones you love die,” she murmured, her words choking Max.
Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they were all gone. Blackness and nothingness was restored. Max was alone.
“Lizzie?” he spoke to the darkness.
“Lizzie!” he yelled.
“LIZZIE!” Max screamed, jolting upright as his eyes flashed open.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and his was breathing heavy. He could feel his heart beating as if it was going to tear from his chest. He heard a slight mumble to his left, and turned to see Lizzie, still tied against the fountain. It had just been a dream, but it felt so real. All this guilt he had kept stored up since he had left John in his flat when this all began. After all, that’s what he had done; he left his brother to die alone. Then he left Joey to die alone. He couldn’t let the same happen to Lizzie. He wouldn’t.
The member of the Brotherhood guarding Max and Lizzie had skipped over from his post. He tore the gag from Max’s mouth, letting it hang loose around his neck.
“Aww, did somebody have a bad dream?” the man joked, grabbing a handful of Max’s cheek, as you would a baby.
“Please just leave our gags off at least, she’s just a kid man. She’s petrified for fuck’s sake!” Max pleaded.
The man thought for a second before pulling down Lizzie’s gag too.
“If you wake up the others, I’ll slit your throats long before they drag you down to the pit” he warned, with his wide eyes making it clear he wasn’t joking.
“Thank you” Max replied, slowly and carefully. He thought it best to tread lightly with these people.
“For the record, I’m not fucking scared; I’m just waiting for my chance to beat the shit out of every last one of you!” Lizzie said, clearly not on the same wavelength as Max.
The man locked eyes with her, then looked back at Max, then Lizzie again, before cracking a smile.
“I like her,” he chuckled.
“She has more balls than most men I’ve met.”
“Yeah, you can say that again,” Max agreed, shooting a cold stare Lizzie’s way.
Her mouth was too big for her own good sometimes, but Max had to admit; he admired her courage and she
was always entertaining.
“Shame. I’m sure she would have tasted good, too. Tender. Where to start though…breast, or leg?” the man giggled at his own joke, licking his lips as he did so.
“How about you start with my foot, up your fucking arse!” Lizzie spat back at him, kicking out with her feet.
The man moved back swiftly, avoiding the attack before slithering back over to his guarding perch, laughing all the way.
“She’ll do well in the pit, that one,” he called back over his shoulder as he walked away.
“What the fuck is this pit?” Lizzie whispered across at Max.
“I have no idea; but the way they all talk about it, I don’t think it ends well for us,” Max thought aloud.
“I’m guessing you’ve clocked the biting and lip licking too? What is this place, Max?” Lizzie asked, pleading for Max to have answers. She put up a good front, but she was scared. They both were.
“I have no idea kid. I think they’re infected somehow. They must be. The disease just hasn’t…taken hold yet? I’m not sure, but I don’t want to hang around waiting for them to get worse,” Max answered.
“Got a plan in mind?” Lizzie questioned hopefully.
“Not yet kid, not yet. We’ll have to wait it out for now; make a move when they escort us to this pit. I have the feeling if we haven’t escaped by then, we’re dead,” Max admitted, looking at Lizzie almost apologetically.
“This isn’t your fault Max; if it wasn’t for you I’d have been a walking human buffet long before now,” Lizzie replied with a wry smile.
“We’ll think of something,” she added.
“We’d better do it soon kid,” Max sighed.
Max began to scan the room once again, looking for anything he could use to fashion an escape. It all seemed pointless however; with his hands and feet tied, he could barely even move. If he could just find something sharp, maybe he could cut himself free.
As Max combed the room for such an object, a second member of the Brotherhood entered through a side door. She was a short, slight woman and although she too was dressed head to toe in camouflage, she was different from the others. She walked straight towards her fellow guard, in a straight line, and with purpose.
There were no spasms, no giggles, no licking of her lips. She was normal. Lizzie looked on from afar, with Max’s mind still heavily set on finding a way out. The new guard walked up to her fellow Brotherhood member; Lizzie assumed to relieve him of his guard. Approaching the man from behind, the new guard reached out to tap him on the shoulder, but instead grabbed a chunk of his hair and aggressively yanked his head back.
She moved swiftly and silently; like a shadow. It was over too soon for the man to even react. Her eyes turned as cold as steel as she pressed a serrated blade to his windpipe, slitting his throat without even a slight hesitation. The man grasped desperately for his throat, now sliced open, but all he could do was drown in his own blood.
The man, who was only taunting Lizzie minutes before, writhed on the floor, quietly dying.
“What the fuck?!” Lizzie exclaimed, desperately trying to kick Max to get his attention.
“Quiet kid, I’m trying to think,” Max replied, irritated by the distraction.
Max hadn’t noticed that they had a new friend in the room, whose attention had suddenly turned to himself and Lizzie.
“Wake up Max, that ninja bitch just took down the guard!” Lizzie spurted out.
Max followed Lizzie’s gaze towards the woman who was now walking towards the pair. Max look past the approaching figure, seeing the man who was once guarding them bleeding out on the floor.
“Hey! Hey, hang on! Leave the kid, if you’re going to eat anyone, take me!” Max urged desperately.
The woman didn’t even break her stride, marching right up to Lizzie and brandishing the knife, still dripping with its past victims blood. She pushed Lizzie forward and swiped down with the knife.
“NO!” Max roared.
The knife was guided perfectly threw the air, slicing through the ropes binding Lizzie’s hand in one simple swoop. The woman then knelt and freed Lizzie’s feet too.
“Keep the noise down you idiot, or you’ll wake the others!” the woman whispered urgently whilst moving on to Max’s ropes.
“We need to get you two out of here, pronto!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Who are you?” Max demanded, not trusting their apparent saviour.
“I’m Mona. Look, just ask me your questions as we move, it won’t be long before they come looking for me!” she urged.
Lizzie hightailed it over to where her and Max’s bags lay on the floor across the room. All their weapons were still stashed inside and she had a feeling they would be needing them.
Lizzie plucked up a few other items from the floor and stuffed them in her half full backpack. Some chocolate bars and a couple of spare bottles of water were within reach and were soon packed tightly in her bag as well. She jogged over to the dead body, lying in the ever growing pool of blood by his guard post.
She had noticed something sticking out from his pocket earlier, and carefully tiptoeing around the blood, she withdrew a slingshot and a bag of marbles from his trousers.
“Lizzie, what are you dicking about with? Hurry up!” Max breathed quietly but harshly.
Lizzie stuffed the marbles in her jeans and tucked the slingshot in her back pocket. Max peered behind her to see what she had picked up, flashing her a look that said ‘are you serious?’
“C’mon then, fucking Dennis the Menace,” Max mumbled, breaking into a jog behind Mona.
“This way should get you safely to the car park out front,” Mona murmured over her shoulder.
“Try to keep up!” she added, picking up the speed.
Max did as he was told, sprinting to get side by side with their new comrade.
“Why are you helping us?” Max asked, suspicious as ever.
“You have a kid man! I’ve seen what they do to people down in the pit; it’s no place for a young girl,” Mona answered with a disturbed look across her face.
“You’re not like the others,” Max stated.
“You seem like us…you seem normal,”
Mona scoffed, “You mean I’m not bat-shit crazy?”
Max nodded; he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. He wanted answers, and he wanted Lizzie safe; far from here.
“If you get bitten, or the vaccination accelerated the disease inside you, then sure, you turn into the undead quicker than you can say zombie. But there are other ways to get infected, my friend,” Mona explained between breaths as she led them through the shopping centre towards a way out.
“I’ve never seen anyone like those guys back there” Lizzie chimed in.
“It’s like their brains are changing, but their bodies still look half-human. What happened to them?” she asked.
“It’s just what happen. If you get a small trace of the disease in your body, maybe a tiny cut or a mosquito bite then your body kind of tries to fight it off for a while,” Mona clarified.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re still fucked if you come into contact with the disease; it just takes longer to manifest. It takes a while to…change you.”
“Why are you with those bastards if you’re not infected then?” Max demanded, full of accusation.
“Who said I’m not infected?” Mona snapped.
“None of us lot here took the vaccination, we’re all just waiting for the disease to slowly eat away at our brains until we become one of those…things.”
“How do you know you’re infected then? I’ve heard some people are immune?” Max asked half-heartedly, hoping for some proof to his theory.
Lizzie glanced across at him. She had clearly twigged that he was fishing for some kind of confirmation that he was safe from turning into a clicker.
“Immune? I don’t know about that. Sure as hell no immunes here. But yeah, I’m definitely infected, my friend. I might not twitch and bite eve
rything that moves like those lot, but I can feel the change. I hear the voices, I get the…hunger. It takes everything I have to suppress it, but it won’t be long before I’m one of them,” Mona admitted sombrely.
Max mulled this over in his head. Was he immune? Was Lizzie immune? Was anyone even immune? He needed answers, but first he needed to get far away from here.
“I’m so sorry,” Lizzie said softly, putting a hand on Mona’s shoulder as she ran.
Mona nodded at the young girl, wiping one solitary tear running down her face.
“One last act of humanity ay, let’s get you guys out of here,” she laughed.
Mona took a left, slowing down to an eventual halt in front of a fire exit door.
“Take this door, follow the building round to the left until you hit the car park, then get the fuck out of here,” she ordered to Max.
“Can’t you come with us?” Lizzie suggested warmly.
Max shot her a look; he still didn’t entirely trust anyone in this world, especially not a woman who was slowly turning into the enemy.
“Unless you want to wake up one morning to me chewing on your arm, no,” Mona chuckled.
“Just get out of here and don’t look back,” she said to Lizzie, pulling her into an embrace.
Max had already pushed open the fire door, waiting impatiently for Lizzie to follow him. After a few seconds, Lizzie pulled away from Mona, thanked her, hoicked up her backpack and walked through the door Max had held open.
“Thank you, really” Max said sincerely, there was nothing more to say really. She had saved their lives, and he meant it wholeheartedly.
“Don’t mention it; just keep that little lady alive,” Mona replied, nodding towards Lizzie.
Max nodded subtly, exiting through the door which slowly began to close behind him. Just as it was swinging to a close, Max threw his hand in the gap, pulling it back open.
“One last thing…what is the pit?” he asked.
Mona’s head dropped and she looked down at her feet.
“I pray you never find out,” she sighed, before turning on her heels and running off into the shadows.