The horror inside the shop was just a prelude. The scene outside was far more terrifying than anything Max could have ever imagined.
The sky had changed. From bright and clear clouds moments ago to an eerie gray that rolled like smoke, blocking out the sun.
And the street… was a disaster. People ran in all directions, screaming, tripping over abandoned bags and dead bodies. And the things chasing them weren't just zombies, they were creatures risen straight from hell.
Some were lean and fast, some were massive and crawled on all fours. One lunged at a businessman, teeth sinking deep into his throat with a spray of blood that painted the bumper of a taxi.
Further down the street, something massive moved… a gray-skinned, hulking creature wielding a gigantic hammer. It swung at an incoming car, sending it flying across the street.
There was blood and fire everywhere. It was a scene ripped straight from the grimmest, most visceral zombie movie.
Max's eyes widened, his breath snatched from his lungs. Maxine let out a choked gasp, her eyes tearing up.
"Max…" her voice was shaky, terrified. "…What's happening?"
Max inhaled sharply. He didn't answer. He couldn't. Instead, he snapped out of his stunned paralysis, the instincts of survival overriding his shock.
He quickly pulled Maxine towards their waiting limousine. The driver, John, was terrified, clearly shaken by the scenes unfolding around them.
"Drive, John! Drive!" Max yelled, shoving Maxine into the back seat. He quickly followed, slamming the door shut.
John nodded and stomped on the accelerator. But before the vehicle could even move forward, a grotesque, bloodied hand, burst through the driver's side window.
The glass exploded inwards, and a man with his face half gone seized John's by the neck and bit down on his throat with a crunching sound. Blood sprayed the dashboard in a brutal arc.
Maxine screamed, a raw, piercing sound that tore through the limo. Max's eyes widened in abject horror, fixed on the gruesome scene. John, their driver since they were five, was gone.
Without wasting another second, Max yanked open his car door. "Come on, Maxine! We have to get out!" He scrambled from the vehicle, pulling her with him.
Once out, he scanning the street. But it was even worse now; people were being ripped apart by others that had already turned. And among them, massive gray humanoids with axes, were chopping and butchering anyone in sight.
There were also massive, beast-like animals, their forms twisted and monstrous, their roars shaking the very pavement as they tore through fleeing crowds.
This wasn't a bad apocalypse movie; it was a front-row seat to the end of the world.
Max gaze darted around, searching for any semblance of a safe path. Then his eyes landed on a narrow gap between two office buildings, a dark alley that seemed free.
Meanwhile, Maxine was trembling, still scarred by what happened in the limo. "John, he's… he's dead." she murmured, her voice cracking.
Max turned to her. "Maxine?" he called, pulling at her arm. She was rooted to the spot, her eyes staring blankly at the swirling maelstrom of destruction, shock having seized her completely.
"Maxine! We have to move! We have to get somewhere safe!" Max shook her, trying to break through her paralysis. "Our houses… they're not far from here anymore. We can make it there! We just have to try!"
Maxine looked at him, her eyes finally focusing, but a vacant horror still clung unto her. She could only manage a slow, shaky nod.
Max didn't wait. He grabbed her hand, his fingers intertwining with hers. "Come on!" he urged, and with a surge of adrenaline, they began to run.
As they began their deadly dash, Max yanked Maxine right, past a flickering neon sign, and into the shadowed trench between the two office buildings. The city's main avenue was a warzone now, its shrieks and pulpy wet crunches muffled only slightly by layers of concrete. The alley smelled like rotting cabbage, old pee, and a new topnote of arterial blood.
Behind them, something screamed… not a human scream, this was too guttural, like the sound of a screeching animal. Max risked a look back and saw a clutch of creatures tearing out onto the side street. Two were gray-furred with elbows like knife handles and toothy jaws that split their face like a cartoon clown. They saw Max and Maxine immediately, and bounded after them with an almost joyful disregard for physics.
"Go, go, go!" Max hissed, pushing Maxine ahead.
Maxine just ran. Her perfect hair now a static-charged rat's nest, her shoes leaving bloody prints on the trash-strewn walk. She tripped over a loose concrete slab, cratering to her knees. Max yanked her up quickly, no time for tenderness.
They reached the end of the alley, chest-heaving and slicked with sweat. Ahead, the city's skyline was different. Roiling smoke, a spiderweb of car accidents, distant sirens, and moving shapes slithering over taxis, vaulting across street lamps, and lunging at the helpless humans that tried to flee.
"Go left!" Max spat, and they zigged past a rusted dumpster just as a clawed hand swiped at Maxine's ponytail, catching her hair.
"Ahh… get off me!" Maxine screamed and elbowed backward on instinct… a good shot, causing the monster to howl and drop back… but another sprang up to block the alley.
They backed up, Max's brain running equations. "We can't outrun them on open ground," he said, scanning the area. "We need to move discreetly."Then he spotted a side door, bent open on bent hinges, a wrack of broken emergency exit glass.
Max didn't waste any time. He thrust Maxine through first, then himself, slamming the door shut. He piled a chair under the knob, then looked around.
Inside was a drycleaning business, abandoned in a rush. The smell was formaldehyde and staleness. Garment bags drooped like messages from the gallows.
Maxine huddled by the counter, arms hugging herself. "Max, this is really bad," she sobbed, voice barely above a whisper. "And I don't even know if my mom's okay, she—"
"She's fine," Max cut in, eyes scanning for threats. "And we're going to get you to her. Okay?"
Maxine nodded, wiping the tears that had formed in her eyes. She was still shaking despite Max's efforts to keep her calm.
After a while, Max let out an exhale. "Alright, we have to keep moving." He grabbed a mop from the ground and broke it in half, handing Maxine the jagged stick. "If anything grabs you, jab it in the face. Hard."
Maxine took the stick and nodded, this time with a flash of the old Maxine, the one who'd once kneed a kid in the balls for flirting with her at the wrong time. "Let's go," she said, gritted.
Max took her by the wrist and led her through the store, toward a rear loading bay.
As the walked, a shadow suddenly moved past the frosted window. Max didn't even wait to see if it was a monster or a person… he pulled Maxine closer and bolted. They slid through a supply closet, past a spill of hangers, then into the open lot behind. There, a flatbed truck was on fire, burning with greasy black smoke.
"What now?" Maxine breathed, her voice fissured with panic.
The parking lot was wide-open, a gauntlet. Max knew if they lingered, they'd get swarmed.
"We go up," he said, pointing to the fire escape three stories up, zig-zagging the side of the next building.
They ran for the fire escape, feet hammering asphalt.
But then, a monster cleared the corner behind them… it was gray and skinny-limbed, shrieking as it closed the distance. Maxine, fueled by rage and frustration turned and jabbed it right through the eye socket with her mop stick. The monster spasmed and fell facefirst.
Max leapt for the ladder, pulled it down, and Maxine was halfway up before he'd even steadied it. More undead creatures poured around the corner, converging in a stampede of gnashing teeth and claws. But Max and Maxine were already at the top before the monsters could sight them.
When they reached the roof, Max wheeled Maxine behind a vent. He did a quick 360; and rooftops dotted with air conditioning units, satellite dishes, and… more of the undead creatures were in sight, some just wandering, some actively hunting.
Max let himself breathe for a second, wiping sweat from his eyes. "We're almost home. We just have to cut across the old shopping plaza, then we're in estate territory. Not as many people, not as many—" he gestured at the human hamburger factory below.
Maxine didn't respond right away. She was staring south, toward the cluster of mega-mansions on the city's edge, their terrifyingly perfect lawns and private guards. Her home. "Do you think my mom—"
"She's a survivor, Maxine," Max put a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. "I'm sure she's fine, same as my parents."
Maxine nodded, willing herself to believe that.
Max chose the scariest rooftop path, further from the street and its feeding frenzies, but closer to the alleys where weird stuff moved in the shadows, hunting quieter.
They spent the next hour traversing rooftops: climbing, dropping, sometimes free-falling onto piles of cardboard or old mattresses. Twice, Max had to stop to wedge a door shut or pull Maxine out of a skylight when she got stuck. But she never gave up, not once.
Below, the streets churned with chaos: the lumbering grey behemoths Max had glimpsed earlier swung massive, crude weapons, pulverizing cars and anyone too slow; twisted, multi-limbed beasts scaled walls with terrifying speed; and the shambling dead flowed like a relentless, groaning tide.
Max focused solely on the path ahead, hauling Maxine over parapets, guiding her across precarious gaps between buildings where a single misstep meant oblivion.
They just kept going, keeping low and moving with a speed that felt not just desperate, but necessary… a fight against time as well as fate.
And eventually, they made it.
The city ended in a topiary-walled buffer, leading into the border of dense urban areas and sprawling, green belt of exclusive estates. This was their abode.
The estate district was unnervingly silent, a bubble of pristine, deadly calm. They ran past palatial, fortress-like homes, the silence amplifying their ragged breathing and the pounding of their hearts.
Finally, the road ended in a sweep of interlocking stone. Two mansions stood side-by-side, dominating the landscape… the buildings were so magnificent that they were less like houses and more like fortified castles of wealth. These were Max and Maxine's homes.
Max skidded to a stop between the buildings. "Maxine," he panted, pointing first to her house, which was an estate guarded by a magnificent golden gate, shining darkly even in the gloom. While the mansion beside it, his house, was protected by a sober, silver gate.
"Go," he urged, pushing her gently toward the Gold Gate. "Check on your mum. Lock down everything. I have to make sure my parents are safe. I will come for you the second I secure the house."
But Maxine's grip on his hand only tightened. She didn't want to let go… he could see it in her eyes. But eventually, she did. "Promise?" she murmured.
"Promise," Max said.
Maxine finally let go of his hand and took off toward the golden gate. Max watched her until she disappeared inside the estate, then turned to face his own house, the wrought iron shining in the weird gray light.
He keyed in the code and slipped into the yard, feeling every hair on his body rise at the unnatural silence. The house was huge, glass and marble, all lit from within. But every curtain was drawn.
He climbed the main steps, shivering in his sweat-soaked shirt, and pressed his thumb to the sensor. It bleeped and the door swung open.
Max slowly stepped into the foyer, it was bathed in the sickly grey light of the dying day. The air inside didn't smell like home. It smelled of lemon polish, expensive wood, and a sharp, underlying scent that made the hair on Max's neck stand up: it was the coppery, unmistakable tang of fresh blood.
He steeled himself, and called out first, "Mom? Dad?"
But he got no response. His voice was a hollow echo in the vast, silent house.
He moved toward the back of the manor, his footsteps heavy on the marble. He stopped at the entrance to his father's study. The door was ajar, and from within, he heard it… a terrifying sound that he'd only ever heard in an horror movie:
Tear! Snap! Crunch!
Max felt his heart racing as he carefully pushed the door open wider. But as he stepped into the study, he froze.
The scene inside the study was one of grotesque horror, a sight that would scar Max for the rest of his life; His father, Liam Caldwell, stood hunched over the mahogany desk, but the man Max knew was gone. His suit was shredded, skin stretched tight over bone. His body was grey and cracked like an ancient parchment, and his mouth was pulled into a permanent, lipless snarl revealing rows of jagged, bloodstained fangs.
His milky, sightless eyes stared blankly ahead as he tore into the limp body of Mrs. Henderson, the head housekeeper. And a low, wet growl rumbled from his… no, its chest as it fed on the dead woman.
"Dad?" Max choked out, the word a strangled whisper, disbelief warring with the horrific evidence before him.
Crack!
The creature's head snapped up with unnatural speed, its gaze fixing instantly on Max. It emitted a guttural, ear-splitting snarl, a sound devoid of any humanity, only raw, predatory hunger.
Max felt a hitch in his breath. This wasn't his father anymore; this was a monster, just like the ones now roaming the city.
But just as Max started to comprehend the situation, the wight—his father—lunged at him. With unnatural speed, it crossed the study, grasped Max's throat in a crushing grip, and slammed him against the doorframe.
Stars exploded behind Max's eyes as the air was crushed from his lungs. The creature's foul breath, like open graves and decay, washed over him as its jagged teeth snapped inches from his face.
Max stared into the vacant, milky eyes of the creature was once his father. He couldn't fight. He couldn't breathe. He could only let out choked, desperate gasps as he watched the wight lift its claws and aim for his head. He closed his eyes, bracing for the tearing pain.
But the impact never came.
Instead, a rush of displaced air whipped past Max's ear and slammed into the wight, sending it hurtling backward through a bookshelf in a shower of splinters and paper.
Max slumped to the floor, coughing and gasping for air. And standing protectively in front of him, where the wight had been an instant before, was a feminine figure radiating an unnatural chill. Snow-white hair cascaded down her back, and her posture was impossibly calm.
Max stared at the figure's back in awe and confusion. Then, she turned, and Max's breath caught, suspended in disbelief.
It was his mother.
But she was completely transformed. Her skin was unnaturally pale, like polished alabaster under the grey light. Her eyes, once warm hazel, were now a piercing, glacial blue that seemed to glow faintly from within. Her lips were a pale, bloodless line, revealing a set of thin fangs.
She looked at Max, offering a warm, genuine smile only a worried mother could give. "Maxwell?" she rasped, her voice filled with concern. "Are you hurt, baby?"
Max didn't even respond. And he didn't care about the unnatural pallor or strange changes in his mother. He only saw the woman who had nurtured him, the essence of comfort and affection.
"Mom!" he choked out, surging forward and throwing himself into her arms. "I'm so glad you're okay."
She held him, the hug firm and cold, yet radiating an undeniable maternal warmth. She stroked his hair, her touch impossibly gentle.
"Oh Max. My sweet boy," she murmured, her voice unchanged, the melody crystalline and sharp. "I never thought I'd see you again."