Chapter 47 — Dawn is Coming
From the forest along the left side of the highway,
a wave of walkers suddenly burst out.
And not shambling — sprinting.
They lunged straight toward the driver-side window of the pickup.
Hank turned the shotgun, but even his reflexes were a half-second too slow—
At that critical moment—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Gun barrels poked out from the RV's windows —
Carley and Katjaa opened fire without hesitation.
Their aim wasn't perfect, but the burst was enough to drop the first two sprinting walkers.
Hank seized the opening —
BOOM!!!
His shotgun shredded the rest of the pack into ragged chunks.
The two vehicles covered each other, carving forward inch by inch along a highway paved with flesh.
The blood-red moon loomed high.
The death charge felt like it had no end.
Every time they forced their way out of one swarm, another rose ahead.
Hank's ammo was evaporating.
The shotgun bandolier was down to the last handful of shells.
His arms were numb, wrists throbbing, tiger's mouth torn from recoil.
His ears rang as if someone stuffed firecrackers into his skull.
He could not stop.
Stopping meant dying.
"Front! Hank!" Lee shouted from the cab. "The right road — fewer walkers!"
Hank lifted his eyes —
A fork ahead.
The right turn led down a narrower rural road.
Thinner walker density.
"Kenny! Follow us! Right turn!"
He emptied the last round in the tube, sending three walkers tumbling, and Lee wrenched the wheel, the pickup skidding onto the smaller road.
The RV thundered after them, tires scraping the shoulder and kicking up clouds of dust.
They had broken away from the heaviest cluster —
but the danger was far from gone.
Sporadic howls still echoed from the fields and the sparse woods.
The blood moon above still burned with a devilish red.
Hank collapsed backward into the truck bed, chest heaving.
Hot ejected casings brushed against his cheek, burning faint marks.
"Lee — keep moving. Slow, but not too slow. Don't let walkers climb the truck."
"We stay on this road… until sunrise."
Lee didn't know why, but something in Hank's tone made refusal impossible.
He eased the pickup's speed.
The engine quieted.
The two vehicles crawled over the moonlit road, suspension rattling.
The blood-red moonlight filtered through the trees, painting jagged shadows on the asphalt.
From the fields came distant wails — but nothing like the tidal wave from before.
The pressure dropped sharply.
Hank forced his exhausted body upright, checked ammo with mechanical precision.
The merged bandolier now held less than a dozen shells.
The spare belt was over half empty.
The P226 — one spare magazine left.
Counting the chamber, 41 rounds total.
Far less than he wanted.
Far less than they needed.
He dumped loose 9mm rounds into an empty magazine by hand.
The truck bed filled with the faint metallic clicks of rounds being seated — and the rumble of tires on cracked pavement.
Up front, Lee gripped the wheel so tightly the knuckles whitened, eyes darting across side mirrors and the road.
Behind them, the RV stayed tight to the bumper.
Kenny never loosened his guard — Katjaa and Carley kept their weapons pointed outward.
Clementine and Duck crouched on the floor, silent and trembling, eyes swollen from fatigue and fear.
Ten minutes passed like hours.
Then —
Lee stomped the brakes.
"Shit!" he cursed under his breath.
The RV slammed to a halt behind them.
Hank immediately rose and looked ahead.
The road was blocked.
A school bus lay sideways, sealing most of the road —
only a narrow, debris-choked gap remained.
Wrecked sedans and a delivery truck were strewn around, forming a tangled roadblock.
And worse —
something moved in that pile.
Not one.
Several.
The blood moon glinted off twitching silhouettes.
"Damn it…" Lee muttered. "We can't go around. The farmland's too low — the RV will sink."
Hank's eyes swept the wreckage —
and froze on the overturned school bus.
Something was wrong.
"Lee — stay in the driver's seat. Don't kill the engine. Be ready to ram or pick us up."
He slung the M590 across his back
and drew the P226 in his right hand, combat knife in his left.
"Kenny — watch our six and both flanks. If anything comes close, drop it."
Kenny nodded, sweeping his shotgun toward the fields and forest.
Hank slid off the truck bed.
His boots hit the ground without a sound.
Every instinct — every passive skill — screamed at him.
Danger wasn't only in front —
it was inside the school bus.
He crept forward, ten meters from the wreckage, and then —
CLANG! KRASH!!!
A shattered bus window exploded outward!
And then—
Not one walker.
Not two.
A flood of them.
A swarm of small figures in shredded school uniforms
poured out of the bus like startled insects.
Their movements weren't clumsy —
they were unnaturally fast for their size —
red moon eyes brimming with feral madness.
Zombie children.
Dozens.
Hank's pupils contracted —
but he didn't freeze.
He did the unthinkable —
he charged forward, deliberately closing distance.
Backing up meant being run down and surrounded.
Close range meant he could turn the terrain and knife work into his advantage.
BANG! BANG!
The P226 fired first —
two clean headshots.
The leading pair of miniature walkers crumpled instantly.
But the third was already at Hank's leg — mouth wide open, teeth gnashing for flesh.
Hank didn't hesitate.
His left hand snapped upward —
steel flashed.
SHNK!
The combat knife drove up through the lower jaw,
piercing straight into the brain cavity.
The creature collapsed before its body even realized it was dead.
He didn't stop —
BANG!
A precise point-blank shot — the fourth walker dropped.
With a fluid pivot, he pulled the knife free and slid sideways to avoid another bite.
His arm swept out in a cutting arc —
the blade kissed the throat.
A wet, arterial spray exploded across the dust.
BANG! BANG!
The P226 roared again, cutting down two more closing in from mid-range.
Hank moved like a storm of steel and thunder —
right hand gun, left hand blade — a perfectly synchronized dance of death.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
No pause between trigger squeeze and knife strike.
BANG — SHNK — BANG — SHNK — BANG — SHNK
Gunfire and the muted thud of sharpened metal breaking cartilage overlapped into a brutal rhythm.
He kept advancing and pivoting, never allowing the swarm to surround him.
Spent casings clattered to the asphalt, blood and grime flecked across his vest and face.
Twenty seconds.
That was all it took.
Every walker that had poured from the overturned school bus
was now nothing more than a pile of twitching remains at his feet.
---
"Huuuh—"
Hank stood in the middle of the carnage, chest heaving,
P226's barrel still smoking, viscous filth dripping from the knife's point.
Blood-shot eyes swept the interior of the school bus —
confirming the last threat had been neutralized.
No pause. No victory breath.
He spun toward the vehicles and signaled with sharp, urgent gestures:
"Lee! Punch through! Jam the truck through that gap!
Anything in the way — hit it!"
Then he shouted toward the RV:
"Kenny! Stay on him — don't fall behind!"
Lee gritted his teeth and floored the gas.
The pickup roared forward and slammed into the rubble choking the gap —
shoving aside crushed sedans and debris, scraping through the narrow opening beside the overturned school bus.
Sparks and tearing metal shrieked against the frame.
The RV thundered after, its weight and torque bulldozing a brutal corridor through what was left of the blockage.
As soon as the RV cleared—
Hank sprinted, jumped, caught the rear ladder with one hand mid-stride,
and climbed fluidly onto the roof as the vehicle lurched forward.
He rose to his full height on the swaying rooftop.
Cold red light washed over his blood-streaked armor.
Hank looked up.
The blood-moon sky had begun to pale,
the red slowly dissolving into shades of gray and silver.
Dawn was breaking.
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