Chapter 23 – The Car Chase
The pickup truck tore down the ruined street like a spooked stallion,
engine howling, tires screaming, every bounce slamming the packed passengers against the metal bed.
Each jolt drew muffled cries and stifled groans from the back—
fear, exhaustion, and the raw instinct to stay alive.
"Left side—watch it!" Hanks shouted.
Kenny jerked the steering wheel hard, and the truck skidded dangerously,
narrowly missing a wave of ten—no, fifteen—walkers stumbling out of a side alley.
The corpses screeched, clawing at the air as the pickup roared past,
rotting hands smearing the truck's flanks as they were left behind in a blur of motion and filth.
"Right side too! Oh, hell—there's more of them!" Lee yelled, his voice trembling.
From the passenger window, he could see dozens more emerging from storefronts,
their pale eyes reflecting the headlights as they swarmed toward the noise.
The road ahead was rapidly closing in.
The alarm still wailing from the pharmacy behind them had drawn what felt like half the damn county.
The dead were converging on the truck like an ocean swallowing a sinking ship.
"Don't stop! Run them over!" Hanks barked—
his voice sharp, steady, completely devoid of hesitation.
Kenny's knuckles turned white on the wheel. He gritted his teeth, slammed his foot down on the pedal,
and the pickup roared like a beast unleashed.
BANG—THUD—CRUNCH!
The front bumper hit a cluster of walkers head-on, bones snapping like dry twigs.
Black-red blood exploded across the windshield.
The wipers smeared it into grotesque streaks that refused to clear.
"Damn it, I can't see a thing!" Kenny shouted, flipping the wipers again. The glass only grew worse.
"Just keep driving straight!" Hanks barked over the roar of the engine.
"This won't hold!" Kenny shouted back. "The road's filling up fast!"
He slammed the gearshift down and floored the accelerator, forcing the truck through a narrow break in the horde.
The pickup jolted violently as bodies rolled under the tires—
each one a wet, sickening thump.
From the back, Glenn suddenly shouted, "Kenny! Next intersection—take a left!"
"What?!"
"There's a small parking lot past that turn! We can cut through and get to a service road—
it'll take us around the main street and the biggest part of the horde!"
For a moment, the truck was filled with frantic breathing and the rattling of loose tools.
Hanks turned his head sharply, his voice like a command post siren:
"Do it. Listen to him—left turn, now!"
Kenny didn't argue.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, exhaled through his teeth,
and waited for the opening that could mean the difference between life and death.
The next turn was coming fast—
and the dead were coming faster.
The pickup roared like a wounded beast as Kenny spun the wheel hard, tires screeching across cracked asphalt.
The truck burst through a rusted fence into an abandoned parking lot, smashing aside overturned carts and broken signs.
With one last violent jolt, it tore through a narrow exit and shot out onto a relatively open side road.
For a heartbeat—just one—the survivors exhaled.
They'd shaken the horde.
Then—
BANG! BANG!
Bullets slammed into the rear panel of the truck, throwing up sparks in the dark.
Metal clanged. Someone screamed.
"Goddammit!" Kenny barked, glancing in the rearview mirror. His face twisted.
"Them again! Those bastards won't quit!"
Behind them, headlights cut through the smoke and night haze.
Two vehicles—one a heavily modified pickup, the other a dented sedan—came hurtling after them like rabid dogs.
"They're the Macon County gang! I recognize that truck!" Glenn shouted over the noise, his voice cracking with panic.
Hanks braced himself against the bed wall, his eyes cold, his hands steady.
"Keep it straight!" he barked.
He raised his P226, sighted over the tailgate—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three sharp muzzle flashes lit the night.
The bullets punched into the pursuers' hood and windshield, forcing their driver to veer off.
Sparks flew. Tires screeched.
But there were more of them.
And they were better armed.
A shotgun muzzle jutted from the chasing pickup—
BOOM!
A storm of buckshot peppered the air.
Most missed, but several pellets ripped into the truck's rear quarter and side panels, the impact ringing like hammer blows.
"Ahhh!" Doug screamed.
A ricochet tore through the truck bed's thin metal and grazed his arm, sending blood spilling down his sleeve.
"Shit! Lee!" Hanks shouted.
"Got it!" Lee smashed open the cab window with his elbow, reached under the seat, and yanked out the Mossberg 590.
He passed it back through the shattered glass.
"Here!"
"Use this for the bleeding!" Katjaa tossed a roll of bandages toward the back as Hanks caught the shotgun.
The weight was perfect. Heavy. Reliable. Deadly.
Hanks pumped the foregrip once—ch-chk!—calculating distances and angles even as the truck bounced beneath him.
Shooting from a moving vehicle was almost pointless—unless you aimed to suppress, not kill.
And no weapon suppressed quite like a shotgun.
"Kenny—steady!" Hanks yelled.
"Doing my best!"
He leaned out, wind whipping through his hair, and fired.
BOOM!
The first shot was wild by design—
a cone of death tearing across the nearest sedan's front grill.
Metal shredded.
The hood burst into a storm of sparks and smoke.
The windshield fractured into a spider's web.
The driver panicked, stomping the brakes and jerking the wheel.
The car fishtailed into an S-curve, barely avoiding a spinout.
"Beautiful!" Kenny whooped, catching the sight in the rearview.
But the modified pickup behind it barely slowed, its reinforced bumper shrugging off the damage.
The gunner leaned out again, leveling another shot.
Hanks was faster.
He pumped once—click—and fired again.
BOOM!
Buckshot peppered the front tire and fender.
The pickup's left wheel dipped with a metallic crunch, the rubber deflating instantly.
The raider driver fought the wheel, cursing, the vehicle lurching sideways before he recovered control.
Their gunner nearly fell out, swearing as he ducked back into the cab.
The gap widened.
Hanks inhaled, calm amid the chaos, and checked his rounds—only a few shells left.
He shifted position, eyes narrowing on the second sedan still weaving toward them.
BOOM!
The third blast hit home—clean through the front-left tire.
The rubber exploded in a spray of debris.
The car veered hard left, the driver losing grip on the wheel.
CRASH!
It slammed into a wooden utility pole, metal folding like paper.
The impact was loud, final.
No one inside was getting up again.
"One down," Hanks muttered.
The last pursuer limped along, its front end sparking and sputtering, speed dropping fast.
No hesitation.
Hanks pumped the shotgun once more—
BOOM!
A spread of buckshot raked across the raiders' windshield, cracking the glass and punching holes in the hood.
BOOM!
He aimed low, blasting the asphalt beside the pickup. The burst of dust and shrapnel blinded the driver.
The raider behind the wheel cursed and jerked the wheel—just as Hanks chambered the last shell.
He waited—breath steady, eyes locked.
Then he saw it: a split-second opening as the driver's shoulder shifted into view.
BOOM!
The sixth shot screamed through the night.
Glass exploded.
Blood sprayed across the inside of the windshield.
The gunner beside him convulsed, torn apart by the scattershot.
The driver howled, clutching his side—then lost control entirely.
The truck veered right, smashed through a storefront window,
and wedged halfway into the building with a groan of bending metal.
Its engine sputtered, hissed—and died.
Silence fell.
Only the low growl of Kenny's engine and the distant chorus of the undead remained.
For several long seconds, no one spoke.
Everyone stared at Hanks—the steady rhythm of his breathing, the way smoke still drifted from the shotgun barrel.
It wasn't luck. It was precision. Cold, mechanical precision.
He lowered the smoking Mossberg, his shoulder throbbing from recoil, and slumped back against the bed wall.
Sweat beaded on his temple.
He wasn't exhausted—just burning with adrenaline.
"We… we lost them," Glenn said at last, his voice trembling between relief and disbelief.
But Hanks didn't relax. His eyes stayed fixed on the road behind them.
Only when he was certain no more headlights appeared did he finally turn back.
"Kenny—get off the main road," he said hoarsely.
"Find a detour. Glenn, guide him to the motel."
He checked on Doug, whose arm was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.
"Doug needs treatment. Larry needs his meds. And this truck's not surviving another chase."
Kenny gave a sharp nod.
"Copy that. We'll make it, boss."
Hanks said nothing—just racked the empty shotgun one more time, the sound echoing like punctuation at the end of a battle.
--