Chapter 22 – No Children Invited
Hanks pushed open the back door of the derelict building without a sound.
The hinges creaked faintly—but his left hand immediately pressed the metal to still it.
He scanned both ends of the alley, eyes sharp, movements precise.
No walkers. No flashlights. No shouting.
He raised two fingers in a silent signal. Clear.
Glenn followed close behind, clutching the two fuel cans like they were his lifeline.
His wiry frame—built for pizza runs, not combat—was already trembling from exhaustion. The steady slosh of gasoline was the only sound between them.
The two slipped along the walls, moving fast but silent.
The pharmacy's back door was barely thirty meters ahead, but under that crushing silence, it felt like miles.
Hanks's P226 stayed raised, the hammer half-cocked. His eyes swept every shadow, every window crack, every piece of debris that could hide movement.
The scavengers' flashlights had drifted toward another street now, their coarse shouting fading into the distance.
But in the opposite direction, the walkers' guttural howls were growing louder—closing in.
Every second mattered.
Glenn could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, so loud he thought it might give them away.
Sweat ran down his palms, slicking the metal handles of the fuel cans.
Hanks, by contrast, moved like a machine tuned to perfection. Every nerve locked in quiet focus—his awareness sharpened to an edge so fine it could feel the air shift before danger struck.
Finally, the reinforced back door of the pharmacy came into view—the same one they had barricaded earlier with a crowbar wedged through the latch.
Hanks gave a soft, deliberate tap-tap-tap.
Immediately, the door cracked open a few inches—darkness, and the cold glint of a gun barrel staring back.
Then Lee's face appeared, tense but relieved. Kenny leaned in behind him, shotgun ready.
When they recognized the pair, both men exhaled sharply and stepped aside.
Hanks and Glenn slipped in. The door shut fast behind them, the crowbar back in place.
Inside, it was near pitch black. Only thin veins of moonlight leaked through the boarded windows, outlining ghostly silhouettes.
No one spoke. The air was thick with fear, fatigue, and the faint chemical sting of medicine and sweat.
"Got the fuel?" Kenny whispered, voice barely more than breath. His eyes locked on the two precious cans Glenn set down.
Glenn nodded hard, his arms trembling from the weight.
Lee reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. The metal jingled faintly in the silence.
"Officer," he murmured, holding them out.
Hanks took the keys without asking where they came from. His tone was low, clipped—command mode.
"Lee, Kenny—you refuel the pickup. Quietly."
"Carly, Katjaa—distribute food. We'll need strength to move fast."
"Glenn, you stay with Clementine and Duck."
"Doug—keep an eye on Larry."
"Lilly—you're with me. We're getting into that storeroom."
Orders given, everyone scattered into motion, quiet and efficient.
Lee and Kenny cracked the door again, just enough to slip through.
Once outside, they crouched low by the truck. The faint glug-glug-glug of fuel pouring into the tank was agonizingly loud in the still night.
Both men flinched with every sound.
Luckily, most of the walkers had been drawn away by earlier gunfire. For the moment, the street was eerily calm.
Inside, Carly and Katjaa unpacked the salvaged rations, moving like ghosts as they passed out food.
No one spoke. Only the quiet chew and swallow of desperate mouths filled the dark.
The calories and sugar brought a flicker of life back into pale faces, but the fear still lingered behind every glance.
Larry, naturally, was eating the loudest—grumbling between bites, but devouring his share with gusto.
No one had the energy to argue with him.
Glenn sat with Clementine and Duck near the back wall, whispering soft reassurances neither of them fully believed.
His back was to the cold brick, his breaths coming fast and shallow.
After the chase, the fight, and the sprint, his adrenaline was fading fast—leaving only the ache of exhaustion.
Across the room, Hanks and Lilly exchanged a silent look.
He gave her a small nod toward the pharmacy's deeper interior.
She hesitated—then followed, her steps quiet but hurried.
Doug started to say something—some warning or question—but Lilly just shook her head once before vanishing with Hanks into the dark corridor.
The old wood creaked under their weight.
The light from the boarded windows faded entirely as they descended into the back hall.
Beyond the next door lay the storage room.
And with it—the medicine that might save a life…
—or the noise that might doom them all.
The heavy steel door to the storeroom loomed before them, locked tight with a solid padlock.
Hanks slid the ring of keys into the keyhole and turned it slowly.
Click.
The tumblers shifted—then released.
A soft snap followed, and the lock dropped into his hand.
He pushed the door open just wide enough to slip through.
The automatic ceiling lights flickered to life with a hum, illuminating rows upon rows of shelves packed with medicine and supplies.
"Move—find anything for cardiac arrest or angina. Nitroglycerin, beta-blockers, anything strong!" he ordered, stepping inside first.
Lilly followed quickly, adrenaline overriding her fear.
Within seconds, she spotted a drawer labeled "Cardiovascular Emergency" and yanked it open.
Inside were several vials and bottles—nitroglycerin tablets, a few boxes of isosorbide, and some other heart medications.
"I found them!" she said, her voice breaking with relief.
She stuffed the bottles into her jacket pocket without hesitation.
Hanks gave a curt nod, still scanning the shelves, sweeping up a handful of antibiotics, painkillers, and disinfectant—anything useful in a world where infection meant death.
And then—
WEEEOOO—WEEEOOO—WEEEOOO—!!!
The air exploded with a blaring alarm.
The sound was shrill, metallic, and deafening, like a thousand knives tearing through the night.
Both of them froze.
A flashing red light on the ceiling corner pulsed like a heartbeat gone mad—an old infrared motion sensor alarm, still functional after all this time.
Its howl cut through the silent streets of Macon like thunder, shattering the fragile stillness the survivors had clung to.
Lilly screamed, stumbling backward and almost collapsing from the shock.
"MOVE!" Hanks barked, his voice slicing through the alarm.
He grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward the exit.
The rest of the group had already gone rigid.
Faces drained of color.
Every heartbeat syncing with the relentless wail of the alarm.
Outside, at the far end of the street, the scavengers' shouting stopped abruptly.
Then, in perfect unison, they turned—every flashlight beam snapping toward the pharmacy.
The entire county seemed to jolt awake.
The dead city stirred.
And then came the sound that made every human soul seize up in terror—
"RRRAAARRHHHH—!!!"
"GGGHHAAA—!!!"
Screams—dozens, hundreds—rolling in from every direction.
The walkers were calling back.
Howling. Answering.
The alarm had become a beacon, summoning them from every alley, every broken street, every building still standing.
Within seconds, the faint moans grew into a chorus—a wall of hunger and death converging on the pharmacy.
"LEE! KENNY! Is that truck ready?!" Hanks roared, voice barely cutting through the wailing siren.
"Just finished!" Lee shouted back, trembling as he jammed the fuel cap shut. The sound of it echoed too loudly in the chaos.
"EVERYONE—ON THE TRUCK! NOW!" Hanks bellowed.
The command tore through panic like a whip crack.
Whatever fear they had, the authority in his voice overrode it.
Even in the apocalypse, when Hanks barked an order, people moved.
He slammed the storeroom door behind him, twisting the key hard in the lock.
The tumblers snapped shut, trapping the blaring alarm inside.
He tossed the keys into a corner, where they clattered faintly against the shelves.
"Back door! GO!"
Kenny and Lee were already at the wheel of the pickup. The engine growled to life—no time left for stealth now.
Glenn and Carly grabbed Clementine and Duck; Katjaa and Doug hauled the pale, terrified Larry to his feet, practically dragging him toward the exit.
Lilly stumbled after them, clutching the nitroglycerin to her chest.
Hanks was the last to move.
He fired twice into the doorway—
BANG! BANG!
Dropping two walkers that had managed to squeeze through the front barricade.
Then he turned and sprinted, slamming the back door shut behind him.
The night outside was alive with chaos—growling engines, shrieking alarms, and the thunder of hundreds of undead feet.
Hanks vaulted onto the pickup's open bed, spinning around and shouting toward the cab:
"DRIVE! SOUTH! GO, GO, GO!"
Kenny floored it.
The tires screamed, spitting dust and smoke.
The truck jolted forward, the engine roaring in protest, the bed packed tight with survivors.
As they sped away, Hanks caught one last glimpse of the pharmacy in the rearview mirror—
the dark mass of the dead flooding toward it like a living tide.
At the far intersection, the scavengers' convoy flared to life—headlights igniting, engines revving.
Without a word exchanged, both groups—the living and the damned—turned south.
Different reasons.
Same direction.
Like destiny itself had set them on a collision course.
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