Day 1099 - Nightfall

Thomas

A lurker jerked back as a thin, metal bolt found a way into its head. As it collapsed to the ground, two men darted past, the second in line pausing to wrench the bolt from its dome.

Thomas twisted on the spot and watched as his ally freed the arrow. "Anders!" he growled. "There's no time!" He slashed at another lurker to emphasise his point. They were nearing the back of the mall, hoping that they could make it inside before the bandits arrived. Thomas wasn't exactly sure why he was suddenly jumping to the community's rescue after such a long period of doubt, but the herd was driving him onward while depriving him of time to think.

The two men leaped over a small wall and worked their way into a parking lot. It seemed like the type of place where delivery trucks parked as opposed to customers, but there was no time to think about that now.

"There!" Anders pointed, distracting Thomas. "A door!"

Thomas slashed at another lurker, backing towards the potential way in. A sea of lurkers was spilling into the parking lot, moving more like a wave than a crowd as they stumbled over one another but moved as one. They were flanking the two men now, pushing them until their backs were against the red-grey bricks of the mall.

"Get the door." Thomas ordered, striding forwards and growling like an animal. As Anders darted towards the opening to make sure they could get inside, Thomas launched himself at the dead, yelling as he slashed and sliced at them.

Seeing red, he thrust his machete into the closest creature's head, sending a fine spray of brown, mucky blood into his face as the victim collapsed to the ground. Another lurker grabbed his free hand, pulling at him and threatening to bite until he shook his arm free and slashed at it.

He took out a third, and a fourth, kicking and stamping his way through, but every time he killed one another filled its place. It was an endless sea of death and he was staring it in the gaping pits it had for eyes, letting the 'waves' gather around his feet. One could never truly cut a liquid.

His train of thought was halted as a bolt slammed into the head of a walker behind him. Looking over his shoulder he saw Anders edging away from the door and attempting to reload his crossbow.

"Anders!" he yelled. "Open the door!"

Anders shook his head. "I can'd get it open!" he cried back.

Shaking his head, Thomas opened the gap between himself and the lurkers, running over to the door. "Take over." he ordered, pointing at the herd. Anders looked panicked as all hell – and he was right to be – but he took a few steps forward and defended Thomas from the herd as the man tried to fiddle with the door.

Growling, Thomas gripped the round handle and shoulder barged the wooden panel blocking his way inside. It slammed but did not open, causing Thomas to try again and again, but the noise that it responded with was always the same. Blunt, obstructive, and too deep for the presumed thickness of the door.

Something was behind it, blocking their way in.

"They've reinforced it." he called, running his hands through his hair until they found a resting place behind his head. "No way we're getting in there."

Anders looked over his shoulder as a lurker collapsed to the ground. "Whad do we do?" he screeched. "Whad the fuck do we do?"

Thomas scanned the horizon for any sign of an escape route, but the herd blocked his view. "I can't see anything," he breathed, then slashed at a member of the dead who came too close. He thought about the irony of being devoured by the dead after all the 'crimes' he'd committed. That would be the ultimate comeuppance; eating people for so long, then being eaten. To death.

"Dere has to be a way." Anders murmured, looking around as the herd raged on and closed them in tighter. They were mere metres away from each other now, pushed almost right against the door.

Thomas dispatched another lurker, then scanned the area once again. He couldn't see anything ahead of him, just the dead, but maybe there was something to his side...

"There!" he bellowed, pointing his machete at a window to the left of the door. Several bins, a skip and a stack of pallets almost formed a staircase leading up to it, though the gap between each 'step' was quite substantial.

Without word, he made a break for the potential way in, shoving lurkers aside and slicing at others who got in his way, not bothering to look back and check that Anders was following. He leaped up onto a plastic bin that was about chest-height and stormed forward across a dumpster. A lurker grabbed for his ankle and almost caught hold, but he backed towards the wall and avoided it before it could grip him and drag him down.

Something slammed against the bin with a loud crash, forcing Thomas's head to instinctively snap in that direction. He thought it was a walker for a moment until a hand grabbed hold of the bin and tried to pull its way up. Darting back over to the bin, Thomas grabbed Anders around the wrist and helped him climb his way up until he collapsed, splayed out on the metal.

The swede panted in panic and slowly got to his feet as Thomas rushed back over the dumpster. "Window's there." he noted. "Just gotta cross these pallets..."

"How do..." Anders huffed, hunching over as he dodged a lurker's grasp. "How do we get it open?"

Thomas pressed his foot onto the first pallet. It held up reasonably well and the stacks formed a bridge to the window, which was body height. "We don't know how far the drop is." he admitted. "Or whether the dead have got in yet."

"We can'd stay here." Anders groaned. "We haff to get in."

Thomas looked from the gurgling, moaning tide of dead to Anders, then to the window.

He took a deep breath.

"On three..." he announced, "run at the window."

"What?" Anders gasped, taking a step back.

Thomas wasn't in the mood for skepticism. "Just do it. Our body weight combined should be enough to break the window and it's not like we have many other options."

"That's..." Anders began. As he spoke, he looked down at the herd and shuffled back further. "Okay." he murmured. "You count."

The two men shifted into a position akin to that of two sprinters about to run a hundred metres. Thomas allowed his eyes to focus on the window, blocking out the sounds of the herd and the sight of Anders next to him.

"On three," he called, the anticipation becoming unbearable. "One... two... THREE!"

The two men stood up and sprinted across the stacks of pallets, which threatened to slide out from under them as they charged at the window. They screamed and bellowed until they were metres from their way in, then blocked their faces with their hands and jumped.


INTO THE FRAY: SEASON THREE, EPISODE SIX

"A LAST STAND."