Before Max could even begin to explain or apologise to Lizzie, she had already jumped over the edge of the elevator shaft. With a blood-soaked t-shirt from one of the fallen clickers in hand, she slid down the main wire with ease until she reached the base of the pit. With the number of dead bodies piled up at the bottom, at least a quarter of the opening was now blocked, meaning that Lizzie had to crouch to enter the lab.
JJ shrugged his shoulders at Max, acknowledging the fact that Lizzie would not come around easily, before following her over the edge. Once his companion was safely at the bottom, Max reached up to grab the top of the rope that had been used to lower Saunders down and hauled it back up. Doubting whether Herbert would have the strength in his arms to make the trip down solo, Max wanted to be safe. The last thing they wanted to do was lose Saunders' only chance of survival to a great fall.
Max retied the rope harness around Herbert's arms and legs before lowering him over the edge of the shaft. Slowly but surely, he allowed the rope to run through his blistered hands until the old man reached the soft landing of the bodies below. Once Herbert was clear, Max followed Lizzie's technique and slid down the wire with the aid of a slimy red-stained shirt. By the time he had ducked under the doorway into the lab, Herbert was already at work.
They had escorted Doctor Saunders into a separate smaller room at the end of the lab. Not only did it come with a lockable door, but it also contained all the necessary equipment that Herbert would need. With Saunders now safely on an operating table with a trained medical professional watching over him, Max's mind switched to damage control.
Confident that the elevator shaft was an unlikely route in for any hungry clickers, he immediately darted over to the main entrance to the lab. While it usually featured a keypad for entry, the system was long since broken and the glass door could now be slid open by force. Beyond that, a narrow hallway led to the main stairwell, only a few floors below where the clickers had first broken in. With the noise and smell of human flesh above, Max could only hope that the undead would continue to slowly climb the building. He had faith that Rodney and GiGi would be able to mastermind a defence for the time being. Even from the basement, Max could still hear the remnants of the onslaught against any clickers that had remained outside the front doors. Rodney had clearly used every piece of explosive at his disposal.
Confident that they were safe for now, Max retreated inside the lab, pulled the glass door shut and began to pile desks and equipment as a makeshift blockade. Once he was satisfied with the defences, he asked the one remaining guard to keep watch over the door while he checked on Herbert.
Max couldn't help but catch Lizzie's eye as he entered the room, although the teenager looked away with a sharpness that cut deep within him. He only hoped that one day she would understand his actions.
"How are we looking?" Max asked, placing a confident hand on Herbert's shoulder.
The old man wheezed and coughed into his shoulder, "Not great, but as good as we could have expected."
"What does that mean exactly?"
"It means," Herbert said with a heavy tone. "It means that I have managed to stop the bleeding, but he hasn't got a whole lot left."
Max glanced around the room towards the medical supply cupboards and refrigeration units, "Have we - "
"Already checked," Lizzie interrupted. "No blood on tap."
"So, he needs a blood transfusion?" Max asked, suddenly noticing the fact that JJ was already sat down next to Saunders with his sleeve rolled up to his shoulder.
"Way ahead of you, big man," JJ smiled, although there was fear and unease behind his grin.
"Get up," Max demanded.
"Max, I can - "
"Get up!"
Max walked around the operating table and hauled JJ out of his chair, taking his place and tearing off his own battered sleeve.
"I have to say, Max," Herbert interjected. "With the amount of blood we are talking about here, JJ certainly has a better chance of dealing with it. He is young, fit..."
"And just a kid," Max grunted. "This is how it is going to be, no discussions."
Lizzie rolled her eyes and whispered into JJ's ear as she exited the room, "Now you know what it feels like to be locked away from the action."
JJ looked at Max and shook his head out of frustration before following hot on Lizzie's heels. He knew better than to argue with Max when he was in this kind of mood, no matter how much he disagreed. Saunders needed care yesterday and further discussions would only cut into time that they simply did not have.
"All this shit has aged them," Max sighed as Herbert readied the equipment.
"How do you mean?"
Max scoffed, "Look at them. They're teenagers and they would put their lives on the line for everyone else without a moment's hesitation. It should be us looking after them, not the other way around. I never thought I'd say this, but I'd much rather see them running around town drinking, trying drugs, and doing all the dumb shit we all used to do as kids."
"There will be plenty of time for that?" Herbert promised, pressing a thin needle into Max's wrist.
"You think?"
"I hope," he admitted.
Max exhaled, "I just worry that even if we do beat whatever the hell this disease is, those guys will be the forgotten generation. Kids turned into adults far too quickly."
"Better to be alive and old than a young corpse in the ground," Herbert exclaimed, hooking a tube directly from Max to Saunders.
Shortly after the wise words left his mouth, blood began to pump naturally through the transparent plastic and into the pale, lifeless figure of Doctor Saunders.
"How long is this going to take?" Max asked.
"Before we see a noticeable response?" Herbert pondered. "Hopefully, a couple of hours."
***
"Bring me another box of grenades!" Rodney bellowed above the explosions. "And some more bodies!"
No matter how many explosions they sent the clickers way, the army of the undead continued to ravage the front doors of the hospital. Luckily, the more damage Rodney and his team caused, the more rubble and corpses lay in their way. It was a war of attrition and, while the living were certainly not winning, they were delaying with extreme efficiency.
With a limited number of grenades at their disposal, Rodney and the guards had quickly learned to adapt to the situation. For the first few throws, the metal canisters simply bounced harmlessly away after slamming into a jagged piece of concrete or the side of the hospital. While they longed for them to hit the centre of the clicker horde surrounding the front doors, the shot had proven difficult. That was until Rodney came up with an ingenious yet disgusting solution.
While they conducted an aerial assault from the rooftop, Rodney sent a team of five competent guards down to the stairwell in search of clickers. After reaching one of the barricades on the stairs, the guards had been able to kill the undead one by one before carrying them back to the summit of the hospital. Rodney would then pull the pin out of his grenade, stuff it into the clicker's mouth, and hurl the body over the side of the building. Not only did it drop with greater force, but it also removed the risk of the grenade bouncing away or missing the mark. As soon as the corpse slammed into the centre of the clicker pack, it exploded in a cascade of blood and guts like a nightmarish confetti cannon.
However, with only one box of grenades left to their name, there was only so much that Rodney and his team could do. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, the supply of clicker bodies in the stairwells seemed to be unlimited. It was time to change up the tactics a little.
"I want all guns taken down to the stairwells, we need to use every bit of firepower we have to keep them at bay," Rodney ordered. "Snipers, you stay up here to help with our friends down below. Anyone else, start collecting every last drop of fuel that we have up here!"
Rodney called GiGi over and thrust an assault rifle into his hands, "I need you to head up the team on the stairs. Keep fortifying the barricades and keep them down there for as long as you possibly can. Reserve ammo, use knives when you can."
For once, GiGi lacked a smart response, "Consider it done, my friend."
As Novus' army stormed down to make its last stand on the stairs, Rodney hauled a drum of petrol up to the edge of the rooftop and began to pour it out into the night sky. Sure enough, the liquid fell like a stalactite of death towards the clickers below, dousing them from head to toe. Just as he reached the last few dregs in the bottom of the drum, Rodney dropped a match into the opening and threw it off towards the horde. Within seconds, the hospital courtyard erupted into flames. As he turned around to collect the next drum, Rodney noticed GiGi sprinting through the doorway.
"I thought I told you to take charge down - "
"They're gone!" GiGi blurted between breaths.
"Gone, what do you mean gone?"
"The clickers... I think they're heading back down."