Maximus Collins's Story

As Haytham bum-rushed the door, with Max and what he could only hope were the others quick on his tail, there was a barely audible oof, as if someone had been punched in the stomach. Haytham, the first person out of the door, turned to see what looked like a menacingly well-toned yet affably upright zombie standing behind the door. Haytham slowed to a halt, glaring at the figure, his stare quizzical in nature. It took but a moment for his brain to catch up to his eyes.

That's not a zombie!

Max, the second person through the door behind Haytham, lay witness upon the same sight; however, where Haytham met the circumstance with caution and forethought, Max leapt immediately to action. Before Haytham could even begin to shout a warning, Max had brought his pistol to bear, aimed, and fired three shots in quick succession, straight into the man's chest—or at least he would have had Allison, the third person to emerge from the doorway, not tugged on his arm at the last second. The cacophonous reports rang out thrice into the air, safely aimed away at the sky.

Max shook off Allison's grip like the plague. "My ammo... What the hell was that for?!" He demanded, a venom in his voice, briefly taking his eyes off of his target to focus on Allison. It was for this reason that he was startled when his target spoke. "Easy, where's the fire, can't you at least stop to ask the guy you bashed with the fucking door?" Apparently, this brush with a bullet-riddled demise didn't even phase him in the slightest. Everyone just kind of stared awkwardly at everyone else until one of the others bringing up the rear of their group shouted what Haytham interpreted as "why the hell aren't we running?!"

"Oh right, yeah running from the dead...yeah forgot my bad; for a minute there thought the only thing I had to worry about was a nose bleed." Haytham couldn't tell if this guy was joking or serious. Why was he here, behind the door? What did he want? While his mind was spinning questions, he realized that his legs had begun moving again without his permission. He was about to start running, but to where he didn't know. Somewhere. Anywhere to get away from these things. Perhaps into some random yet well-lit building—

"Look, the stranger interrupted his train of thought and impending absconsion, I'm not a zombie, if i was i'd be rather pissed about the door; I saw you alerted quite a good amount of zeds, you've two choices, you can run like idiots and alert them more." Haytham gave him another quizzical look before taking a quick peek back through the door and into the police station. The zombies hadn't made it around the hall yet, but their time was running extremely thin. "Or you can follow me quietly, and I can lead us towards a safe place..."

Both Haytham and Max looked at each other, each youth recognizing the distress in the other's eyes, before glaring back at the stranger, almost as if synchronized. They didn't trust him. Why would they?

But if he was telling the truth, did they really have any better option? With panic setting in and time running out, Haytham looked toward Lauren. She was the "eldest" of the group in his eyes, and he trusted her more than any of the others—especially Briar. He gave her a questioning gaze: should we trust him for now?