Chapter 45 — The Drowning Motel
"Get the RV started!"
Hank's roar cut through the chaos. He'd already prepared for the worst.
"Lee! Use the pickup's headlights! Light up the gate — we need visibility!"
The raiders had stolen the motel's power and vanished into the dark.
Now their only source of sight was the blood-red moon.
"On it!" they answered.
Kenny sprinted low toward the RV's driver seat.
Lee dove into the pickup, twisted the key—
VRRRRM!
The engine roared to life. Two blazing beams of light carved through the darkness and landed on the twisting, battered gate.
Light returned — and with it, hope.
Hank planted himself at the edge of the light, a human battlement, raised his P226 and barked:
"Now! Suppression fire!"
Suppressive Burst! Draw-and-fire! American Fast Draw!
Every ounce of his police combat training blended into a single lethal rhythm.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The pistol thundered with impossible speed — a rapid-fire cascade that shouldn't be possible from a semi-auto.
Every muzzle flash meant a kill.
No misses.
No wasted rounds.
Every 9mm round drilled a running zombie through the eye, the temple, the brow.
One corpse reached the gate — its head snapped back and dropped.
Another climbed over bodies — its skull split open mid-climb.
A third shrieked, jaws wide — a bullet punched clean through its throat and exited out the neck.
Time slowed for him.
The world narrowed to targets, sights, trigger.
Twenty rounds — six seconds.
CLACK!
The slide locked back — empty.
But by the time the sound reached anyone's ears, Hank already had a fresh magazine in hand.
Thumb hit the mag release — the empty dropped.
New mag slammed home.
Left palm swept upward — slide snapped forward.
One seamless motion — less than a second.
Then the storm resumed.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The bodies stacked at the gate like sandbags.
"Come on, come on, come on—!"
Kenny threw himself into the RV and jammed the key into the ignition.
The engine groaned — weak, coughing — dashboard lights flickering.
"Don't do this to me now, old girl — MOVE!"
He tried again.
Click… click… click…
Nothing.
Lee saw it from the pickup and shouted over the gunfire,
"Hank! The RV won't start! I'm going to him!"
"GO!" Hank didn't even look back. Another magazine emptied in his hands, another reload snapped in place. He alone held the front, stopping the tide — if he fell, everyone died.
Lee dove from the truck and sprinted toward the RV under the wails closing in.
From the second floor, Lilly screamed over a shotgun blast:
"Left side! They're climbing the fence!"
And from inside the RV, Carley shouted with panic in her voice:
"They're crawling up from the backyard! There's too many—!"
Duck and Clementine were crying.
The dead came from every direction.
They slammed into the walls.
They tore at boarded windows.
They scaled fences by climbing over each other — a living ramp of bodies.
The motel wasn't just under attack.
It was being flooded.
A walker smashed through the kitchen window — glass shattering — and dragged its twisted body inside with a guttural snarl.
Another forced half its torso through the tiny bathroom vent, shoulders crunching against the metal frame as it wriggled in with an inhuman groan.
From the backyard came a rapid succession of thuds — violent, desperate — the wooden fence whining under the assault.
The pressure at the front didn't ease at all.
If anything, it became worse.
The mound of corpses outside the gate had become a ladder; the latecomers climbed the dead — clawing upward with frenzied strength.
Hank didn't stop.
Magazines emptied.
New ones slammed home.
The cycle repeated — efficiency bordering on the mechanical.
But his heart was sinking.
The floodlights gave them vision —
but it also turned them into glowing targets in the middle of darkness.
Ammo was bleeding away fast.
Handgun rounds were manageable — but 12-gauge shells were disappearing frighteningly fast.
And the undead? Endless.
Under the blood moon, this defense had been doomed from the start.
They needed to move.
They needed to escape this island that was about to disappear in a sea of bodies.
Hank emptied another magazine and bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"KENNY! GET THAT ENGINE RUNNING!"
"I'M TRYING!" Kenny roared back, panic thick in his voice.
Lee slid over the hood and yanked the RV door open.
"Kenny! What's wrong?!"
"Battery's low — or the starter's shot — I don't know!" Kenny wiped sweat with a trembling hand and kept cranking.
"Wait!"
Lee froze — then remembered.
The portable jump starter they had scavenged from the police garage — thrown into the passenger seat.
He dove inside, fumbling in the dark until his hand hit the cold weight of the metal case.
"CATCH!"
He shoved it toward Kenny and ran back to the pickup to lay down suppressive fire.
Kenny clung to the device like a lifeline.
He popped the hood, snapped on the clamps with frantic precision, and dove back into the driver's seat.
"Please — please — PLEASE—"
He twisted the key hard.
click… click…
VRRRRRRRM— THUNDERING ROAR
The RV's massive engine finally exploded to life — a thick plume of smoke blasting from the exhaust.
"HA—! YES! GOT IT!"
Kenny slammed the high-beams to full.
FWOOM!
The world transformed.
The light bar on the RV wasn't headlights —
it was a miniature sun.
The entire courtyard — especially the gate — blazed bright as noon.
Even the shooters had to squint away.
"You beautiful bastard!" Hank roared, firing with renewed precision.
Then—
"BACKSIDE! THEY'RE COMING IN FROM THE BACKSIDE!"
Carley's terrified scream cut through the gunfire.
Kenny, Carley, and Katjaa leaned from the RV windows, pistols and shotguns blazing in every direction.
The RV had become a porcupine made of guns — spitting fire everywhere.
Inside, Clementine and Duck weren't screaming this time —
Hank had trained them for combat support.
Clem jammed 9mm rounds into empty magazines with trembling hands.
Duck fed Kenny shells and slammed drawers open for more ammunition.
Inside the motel, several walkers crashed through a broken rear window and dragged themselves in —
scrambling for the staircase and the RV.
On the side, the wooden fence shuddered — then splintered.
The motel was about to be completely overrun.
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