Max's head was still spinning when the first set of clicker fingernails scraped down the corrugated metal next to his head. Over all the screaming, crying, and gunfire, you wouldn't think a person would be able to hear such a sound, but it tore through his eardrums like an alarm clock on a Sunday morning.

It was time. No, in fact, time was up. The clickers had reached the wall. The Brotherhood had them pinned down. They couldn't raise their heads for a second for fear of receiving a bullet between the eyes. They couldn't push either back from down here. Their offensive plan was over, which left one option for Max and his Novus survivors. Defend for their lives.

"Shit!" He roared above the sounds of apocalyptic nature. He needed that. "Rodney! Get word up to the balcony, tell them to lay covering fire on my mark. Then get everyone back into the building and take whatever fuel and explosives we have left up to the roof. We need the height on these bastards! Have the snipers position up there too, and a couple in some of the top windows. Okay? Go!"

Rodney wasted no time, nodding assuredly towards Max before stooping and sprinting for the front door.

"Give him some cover fire!" Max screamed to the remaining fighters dotted around the bottom of the wall. "Don't show your heads!"

Lizzie and Max both aimed their rifles in the vague direction of where the Brotherhood had been posted, blindly firing a torrent of bullets over the top of the barricade to give Rodney enough time to make the dash.

Max's entire body seized when he heard a scream ring out behind him, and turned too Rodney sprawled across the shell-ridden ground, ten feet or so from the hospital entrance. The Brotherhood had a clear shot to the door, and their cover fire was doing little to deter them.

"The crazy bastards probably don't even care if they get shot," Max snarled, as the Brotherhood bullets pinged against the concrete surrounding Rodney's prone body.

Just as Max pushed off from the wall to make a dart to his friend, GiGi scooped Rodney off the ground and hauled him towards the safety of the doorway, only marginally avoiding a bullet of his own.

Max sighed, Rodney was safe, and his instructions were too. Anyway, a bullet to the leg would be the last of his friend's problems if they didn't find a way to hold back the dead... and the living.

The front gate was beginning to cave under the pressure of the mounting clicker army on the other side of the wall. They surely wouldn't have long before the horde found their way through, or over, as the undead bodies mindlessly flung themselves at the wood and metal without a care in the world. Even though Max couldn't see them, he could feel their energy and their hunger from every relentless and desperate crash.

His eyes darted around the remaining bodies in the courtyard. Rodney and GiGi were out of action. Many more lay dead at his feet. They didn't stand a chance out here.

"Grab whatever you can carry and get ready to move for the door on my mark!" Max screamed. "Guns, ammunition, fuel, anything you can see, stuff your pockets, fill your hands and get ready to shift your fucking arses!"

The stragglers were already on their knees collecting everything they could carry before Max had finished his sentence. It took a brave soul to still be out in the thick of this, and they showed no hesitation in remaining loyal to his command. In the midst of the melee to retreat with as many supplies as possible, Max spotted T positioning himself next to the main gate, axe in hand, knees bent, ready.

Max pulled a pistol from his waistband and his machete from a strap over his shoulder, before turning to Lizzie. "I need you to get these people inside safely," he urged, not getting any further than those few words.

"Don't you fucking dare," Lizzie half-warned half-begged, eyes wide with judgement.

"Liz-"

"Don't you fucking dare!" she cried. "Why does it always have to be you?!"

"Because, who else? It has to be me. Please, just get everyone inside. I'll meet you in there, I promise."

"You know," Lizzie sighed. "You have a family too, Dad."

That word gripped Max's heart like a fist and twisted until he could hardly breathe, but before he could reply, she was gone.

"Okay, everyone on me, now!" Lizzie called out. "Keep low and out of sight of the North-East corner building unless you want more holes in you than a cheese grater. Ready..? On, Max's mark..."

Max stared at his daughter with a mixture of fear and admiration. Every inch of what she criticised in him she possessed in buckets herself, he only prayed that she wouldn't be so foolhardy. He understood what she felt by watching him stay behind though, dread, anger, love. He felt it all too.

He raised his fist to the air, hoping that his message had reached the balcony shooters by now. He opened his fist and counted down from five, both aloud and on his fingers, before bringing his arm crashing down on zero. A chorus of cover fire erupted from the balcony above, peppering the Brotherhood building with a hailstorm of lead.

"Go! Go! GO!" Lizzie cried, ushering the survivors one by one.

Max leapt up onto the walkway and fired his own burst towards the open windows, feeling the wall swaying precariously under the pressure of hundreds of clickers.

Making the mistake of looking down at their starving red eyes and chattering teeth before clambering back to the ground was a mistake. He felt like prisoner ready to face the noose, looking out at thousands of hatred-filled faces who had turned up to watch him slowly breathe his last breath.

The first of the remaining fighters had reached the safety of the door by now, with Lizzie brining up the rear, walking slowly backwards whilst firing a torrent of bullets and abuse back at her old captors.

Within twenty seconds, even Lizzie was safely behind the doors, and, with the gate holding for now, it was the turn of Max and T.

"Ready?" Max asked.

T pointed at Max, then held up one finger.

'You first.'

Max nodded, turning to make a break for the door just as the main gate finally came crashing open. The metal tore apart from the centre, warping in on itself and providing a sizeable opening for the clickers to clamber through. Such was the force of the horde behind them, the undead bodies at the front of the queue squeezed through the gap like water through a colander. The sharp edges of the broken metal tore into their skin, shedding it from their bodies as they tumbled through into the courtyard. Rotten flesh hung loose from their limbs and some even began to crawl towards T without the use of their severed legs.

The giant of a man swung his axe and sliced cleanly through the midriffs of the first few clickers with minimal effort.

"T, get yourself out of there!" Max ordered, his head pulling him towards the door of the hospital, and his heart wrenching him back over to T.

The gap in the gate widened by the second, as more and more bodies clawed their way the front and hurled themselves through. As if the line of vision into Novus had given them extra enticement, undead hands now began appearing at the very top of the wall too, with some attempting to clamber their way over into the sanctuary.

T flashed Max a look that urged him to leave, as the gate finally gave way completely, swinging open on its hinges. T took a few steps backwards and waited for the clickers to approach in their droves, gripping his mighty axe with two hands and carving through them like a sickle through wheat.

"T!" Max thundered, but he refused to listen. "What the fuck are you doing?"

T's eyes darted to Max once again, but the aggression had vanished. He was now pleading with Max to leave, begging for him to get inside. He clearly had no intention of following. That had never been his plan.

A straggler or two closed the gap on Max, as he dropped the first with a simple pop of the pistol, and drove his machete through the forehead of the second. He backed away slowly from the carnage, willing T to follow, unable to accept his friend's selfless decision. The giant was still untouched by clicker hands as he swung his axe through neck after neck, but his mind was made up.

As the clickers began to swarm him more and more, T dropped one hand to his pocket, wildly slashing the axe with his spare arm. After a second or two, the hand emerged once more with a grenade, and his fingers danced along the top of the pin, waiting for the moment.

Another ten seconds passed, and T was nowhere to be seen, engulfed in a mushroom cloud of close to a hundred rotten bodies, all clamoring for the chance to sink their teeth deep into his flesh. However, many were never given the chance.

Boom!

The grenade detonated with a soft thud, before yet another explosion bellowed through the night split-seconds after. T had obviously lined himself with more explosives, determined to take down as many clickers as possible in order to give the rest of the Novus survivors a better chance.

Max backed up towards the door, tears in his eyes, angrily chomping away at any clicker who dared approach him.

Just as he turned his body to dart through the front doors, people screaming at him to get inside, he stopped. Frozen in place. Questioning his own sanity, his own eyes. Seriously questioning his judgement.

"Max!" he heard Lizzie scream, clearly being held back by those who had already made it to safety.

Strangely, that only drove him on. He turned back to face the main gate, and stepped purposefully forwards, sending bullets careering through the skulls of any nearby clicker. They continued to pour through the gate, and Max continued to put them down, waiting, wanting.

Then, he stopped. Not because he was out of ammo, and not because he had given up. Quite the opposite. He stopped because he believed.

He slammed his fingers around the neck of the next clicker, squeezing as tight as he dared before ramming the end of his gun into its temple. Keeping the teeth at bay, he dragged it back towards the hospital doors, firing off shots from his pistol until the chamber finally clicked empty.

At that point, Max threw the gun to the ground and wrapped his freed hand under the armpit of his captive clicker, heaving it through the doors before throwing it to the floor on the other side.

"Shut the doors! Get them barricaded with everything we have!" Max yelled, sensing hesitation. "Just do it!"

Max had thrown himself on top of the writhing clicker, using his body weight to keep it from escaping, thumping the handle of his machete into its temple once more to render it unconscious.

"Max, what the hell are you doing?" Lizzie cried; tears drenched down her face.

Her question was answered as she joined Max on the floor and laid eyes on the clicker's face for the first time.

Dawson.