After (#3)

Chapter Fourteen

Karl and JJ raced towards the cinema fire exit door, with the chasing pack scratching and scrambling behind them, growing closer by the second.

He knew it was only a thin layer of cotton but removing his t-shirt had felt like removing a plate of steel armour to JJ. There was something about having a fully exposed upper body that made his wildest nightmares run free. He couldn't help but picture how easily their teeth and nails would tear his flesh apart, like tender chicken meat falling away from the bone.

"We need to slow them down!" Karl screamed as he looked over his shoulder at the accelerating horde of undead.

He was right, what if the door was locked or jammed? What if they needed an extra few seconds? If the fire exit did anything but open perfectly on its first push, they were dead.

"Hold this," Karl yelled, throwing his spear to his brother before darting off to the side.

A huge stand full of sweets, popcorn and fizzy drinks stood to the side of the hallway, perfectly positioned between the entrance and the screens beyond, a money-making machine preying on the tempted tummies of hundreds of movie goers. Only now it was perfectly positioned for a different purpose.

Karl curled his fingertips around the back of the stand, edging it away from the wall bit by bit, until enough of a gap appeared for him to wedge his entire arm behind it. After a few more seconds, the entire stand had toppled across the hallway, forming a barricade around two feet in height.

It wasn't exactly the great wall of China, a hurdle more than a blockade, but it would do.

By the time Karl was back up to speed, JJ had reached the door, throwing his weight against the wooden frame.

***

Day Zero

'If you truly are my brother, get the fuck out of here!'

'Please, go.'

'Don't let this all be for nothing.'

Karl's words played in JJ's head on a loop. He wasn't sure if they were driving him forward like a mantra of survival or cursing his very existence with gut-wrenching pain. In reality, both were true.

The streets ahead were so blurred that JJ had lost all sense of direction. Through a mixture of unrelenting tears and shock-induced dizziness, he no longer knew whether he was running deeper into the city, or back towards the outskirts. He had heard Max and Lizzie's cries as he'd scaled the metal fence, but he knew no way back to them.

Left. Right. Straight ahead. Back where he came from. Every route looked like the same indistinct mess of grey and blue. If anything, he was judging his escape on sound alone, doing everything in his power to scamper away from the echoing clicks behind.

JJ ran and ran and ran, taking every clear turn possible in an attempt to throw any chasing clickers off his scent, but eventually his legs fell away from beneath him, crumpled under the immense stress of both physical and emotional exhaustion. It could have been hours, it may have only been minutes. As JJ's knees scraped along the rough pavement, and his face slammed into the ground, he could only just about muster up the energy to crawl through the nearest doorway.

***

Day 3

JJ's throat felt like sandpaper every time he swallowed, the rough edges grating against each other in sharp bursts of pain. It had been two days since he'd had anything to eat or drink, and each and every breath came with it a feeling of agony within.