Chapter 58 - Roadblock
The voice that came through the radio was so loud with rage it almost distorted.
"All Moser Gang members, listen up. All Moser Gang members, stand by."
The transmission shook with barely controlled fury, every word bitten off hard.
"Two outsiders. One tall, mixed blood. One short with a big beard. They killed our people, took our supplies, and made us look like fools."
"Find them. Kill them. I want their heads on a stake at the town entrance."
"They've got people with them somewhere. Search the river. Search the roads. Dig them out."
"Three days of rations for anyone who gives us information. A woman and ammunition for whoever puts them down."
The broadcast cut out. The words hung in the air over the campfire.
Everyone turned to look at Hanks and Kenny.
The question didn't need to be said out loud.
Hanks looked at the faces around him, at the very justified suspicion in their eyes, and let out a short breath.
"If I told you this happened because we tried to do the right thing, would you believe me?"
A beat of silence. Then everyone nodded, completely sincerely.
"Yeah," Hanks said. "That's what I figured."
The moment of dark humor lasted about two seconds. Then his expression settled back into something flat and businesslike.
"Pack up." His voice dropped, carrying a weight that left no room for discussion. "Right now. We move."
He pulled the map from the ground and shoved it into his pack as he talked.
"US-80, we take it now. Kenny, you're in the RV. Lee, the pickup. Katjaa, Carley, get the kids in the vehicle and keep them quiet."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The broadcast had done that work for him.
People moved. The easy mood of the meal was gone as though it had never existed. The fire got stamped out with dirt. Gear got thrown into the vehicles in no particular order. Clementine and Duck were half-carried into the back of the RV by Carley and Katjaa. Lee swung into the pickup cab and the engine turned over with a growl. Kenny cursed steadily under his breath wrestling with the RV ignition until it caught.
They hadn't wanted to stop. They hadn't had a choice. And now the next stretch of road was going to be whatever it was going to be.
Both vehicles pulled out and found the dirt track that led back toward pavement, tires throwing gravel down toward the water.
Less than fifteen minutes later, they hit US-80.
Ten kilometers of open road. Then it ended.
The highway was gone, replaced by a wall of steel that stretched as far as the tree line in either direction. Vehicles of every size packed together bumper to bumper across every lane, some tilted, some burned out, some with doors still hanging open. Dozens of walkers shuffled through the gaps between the wrecks, and the sound of the approaching engines brought their heads up all at once.
Kenny's fist hit the steering wheel hard.
Hanks's voice came through the radio before anyone else could speak.
"Back up. We go to SR-57. Find the turnoff."
No argument. Lee worked the pickup through a three-point turn, clipping close to a jackknifed cargo truck on the reverse. The RV took longer, its bulk making every maneuver a slow, grinding ordeal. Kenny's jaw was tight the whole time, wheels kissing the ditch edge twice, the chassis groaning in protest.
They got clear and found the secondary road.
SR-57 was exactly what Hanks had predicted. The asphalt had fractured into a patchwork of cracks and frost heaves, weeds growing up thick through every gap. The ride turned brutal. Everything in the RV rattled and shifted. Every hard impact sent a sharp sound up through the frame that made Kenny picture the undercarriage in detail and not like what he was imagining.
He drove with both hands locked on the wheel and his stomach somewhere in his throat.
They'd been on the road for a while when a river appeared across their path, wide and slow, with an old bridge spanning it. The bridge was narrow. Two vehicles could fit, but only barely.
"Once we're across it gets better," Kenny called out, mostly to himself.
The pickup rolled onto the bridge first. Hanks scanned both railings, both banks. Still water. Quiet treeline. Nothing.
The pickup was almost off the far end. The RV was fully on the bridge.
Hanks's hand found his holster.
The trees on both sides of the bridge exit erupted. Three battered cars lurched out and slammed sideways across the road, sealing the exit completely. Fourteen or fifteen men came up from behind the vehicles with rifles, shotguns, and pistols leveled.
A man in a filthy denim jacket and a baseball cap stepped forward and tapped the pickup's hood with the barrels of his double-barreled shotgun. He showed a wide grin of yellowed teeth. A radio hung at his chest.
"Welcome to the country roads." He looked pleased with himself. "Saye Gang territory. You want through, you pay. Food, ammunition, medicine. Something. Doesn't matter what."
Hanks looked at the positions. Counted the guns. Thought about angles.
His draw and the American Quick-Draw passive could take out three or four men on one side before anyone reacted. Then the other side would cut him in half. The math wasn't there for a straight fight.
But these men weren't here to die. They were here to collect. That meant there was still room to talk.
And the Moser Gang was still somewhere behind them.
He pushed the door open and stepped out with both hands raised, moving slowly, nothing threatening in the posture.
"Hey. Relax." He kept his voice even, police-authority steady, the kind of calm that didn't invite shouting back. "We're passing through. Nobody wants trouble here. I've got a pack full of canned goods. What do you say we call it friendly?"
Behind his back, two fingers pointed down, then shaped a gun.
Lee's hand found the loaded pistol under the dash. Kenny's did the same. In the back of the RV, Carley and Katjaa pulled the children down below the window line without a word.
The man in the baseball cap looked Hanks over. Looked at the two vehicles behind him. The grin stayed, but the calculation behind it was obvious.
"Smart man." He tilted the shotgun barrels. "But one pack isn't going to do it. Pull over to the side. Everything comes out of both vehicles."
Hanks walked straight up to him.
The man barely had time to register what was happening. The people behind him raised their weapons and started shouting, but Hanks was already there, left hand shooting out and clamping around the shotgun barrel, wrenching it up and sideways in one sharp motion.
The man's fingers never reached the trigger. The shotgun left his hands before he understood it was gone.
Hanks's left leg came around in the same movement and drove into the man's midsection.
The impact folded him and sent him stumbling back into the men behind him, scattering them, weapons swinging wide as they grabbed for him.
In the same instant, Hanks's right hand swept across the holster.
The click of the draw. The shot.