Chapter 9: Things Turned Cold
A family of three burst into the pharmacy.
The man held up an old Remington 870. The woman gripped a Glock. A scrawny kid — fourteen or fifteen — lugged a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun with pink anti-slip tape wrapped around the stock. All three had bloodshot eyes and moved like frightened animals.
Hanks' right hand drifted to his holster, then froze halfway.
"Don't move!" the man rasped, the barrel of his shotgun leveled square at Hanks' chest.
Three muzzles pinned them in place.
Hanks raised his hands slowly; his baton clattered to the floor.
"We just need medicine to save someone," he said as evenly as he could. "Put the guns down and we can talk."
"Talk?" The father sneered, eyes raking the bulging pack on Hanks' back. "Even cops come to steal now?"
Maggie started to explain. "My brother's got a fever—he needs—"
"Shut up!" the woman screamed, finger tightening on the trigger. "Why are you stealing my daughter's meds?"
The boy's gaze flicked around, twitchy. Suddenly he yelled, "They've got food in their pack! I saw cans!"
"Throw the bag! All of it!" the man snapped, voice rising, finger already hovering on the trigger.
The air tightened like a drawn wire. Hanks' inner alarm spiked—sweat prickled his skin. The breathing, the trembling muzzles, the dilated pupils—one wrong move and someone would be dead.
"All right, all right, we'll do what you say," Hanks said, bending slowly as if to set his pack down.
At the lowest point of that bend, his right hand moved like lightning.
Quick-draw—American Iaijutsu—one practiced motion: draw, chamber, fire.
BANG! BANG!
The first round punched cleanly into the man's brow; the second ripped through the woman's throat.
Before the blood could even fog the air, Hanks' muzzle swung to the boy.
Maggie's scream choked into a short, sharp gasp: "NO!!!"
The boy's right shoulder erupted in a geyser of red; the shotgun flew from his hands. The recoil and force threw him backward into a row of vitamin shelves.
Hanks didn't hesitate. He stepped forward, P226 trained on the boy's head.
"Stop!" Maggie lunged, grabbing his wrist with both hands. Her voice was shaking, barely recognizable: "He's only a kid! He's not a threat anymore!"
Hanks' forearm trembled under her grip; the pistol barrel jittered slightly, but remained fixed on the boy who writhed on the floor in pain.
The boy's shoulder was a ragged ruin, blood soaking his threadbare T-shirt. He whimpered and sobbed—eyes unfocused but burning with hate.
"He's just a child! Hanks—he's almost crippled now!" Maggie pleaded through tears, voice cracking into a sob. She couldn't fathom the killing intent she'd just watched, even if the three had posed a fatal threat.
"Hanks, let him go," she seemed to beg the universe rather than command him.
"Let go, Maggie." Hanks' voice was low, cold as a slab of stone—an order that brooked no argument. He believed in a dark, Darwinian code; he didn't buy peaceable solutions, not when lives were on the line. Besides—those people had already reached for murder.
"Do you forget what they tried to do? If my pistol had been slow by a second, we'd be on the floor!" he said, each word almost a rasp. "I've already made an orphan out of him—do you think he'd thank us if we spared him?"
His tone hardened, edged with something like a warning.
"Move," he said, and the O in his words carried an undercurrent of steel.
He was a living, breathing human being — and so was Maggie.
Just because she was a "main character" in the show didn't mean Hanks would keep backing down.
"We can take him with us! Or tie him up! We can't kill a kid!"
Maggie clung to Hanks' arm with all her strength. Her entire life's moral compass screamed against what was happening.
She couldn't accept executing someone who was no longer able to fight back — especially a teenager.
"Take him with us? Bring him back to your farm? And then what — wait for him to get his strength back and shoot us in our sleep?!"
Hanks' voice was ice-edged steel.
"You want to feed him, heal him, and give him a chance to slaughter Hershel in his own home? To kill Beth?!"
Every word hit Maggie like a hammer to the chest.
"Raaaghhhh!!!"
A chilling chorus of growls echoed from outside — the gunshots had rung across the silent town like a dinner bell.
The boy curled up beneath the shelf, clutching his mangled shoulder, sobbing and trying to crawl backward, away from them.
"Hear that?!"
Hanks yanked his arm free — but kept the barrel aimed at the boy's forehead.
"We're out of time! Do you want to risk your brother's life so three strangers can keep theirs?"
The kid seemed to realize his end had come. He stopped crying, staring up at Hanks with eyes full of despair — and hatred.
Maggie's face drained of all color. She turned her head away, eyes squeezed shut, voice barely a whisper:
"Monster…"
For a moment, a flicker of emotion passed through Hanks' eyes — regret? Maybe.
But it was crushed beneath cold resolve.
BANG!
The gunshot was deafening in the cramped pharmacy, drowning out even the rising growls from outside.
[Attribute EXP +3]
The system notification flashed coldly across his vision.
Hanks' heart dropped — but survival shoved everything else aside.
"Move!" he snapped, grabbing what ammo and weapons he could from the floor.
"Back door — now!"
He didn't look at the bodies again.
He grabbed Maggie — numb, hollow-eyed — and pulled her toward the storage room.
Thankfully, the back exit was only a wooden door. Not barricaded. Not even locked.
Hanks kicked it open. A narrower, darker alley lay beyond.
Walkers' snarls flooded from the direction of Main Street, but the alley itself was clear — for now.
"This way!"
He checked orientation, then sprinted toward where the truck was parked, dragging Maggie with him.
Their footsteps echoed through the passage, drawing two walkers sniffing around the trash bins.
Hanks reached instinctively for his baton — then remembered he left it behind.
Without hesitation, he drew his pistol and fired twice, dropping them cleanly with two fluid headshots.
As easy and emotionless as wringing a chicken's neck.
Maggie followed in a daze. Her legs moved, but her mind was somewhere else — replaying that one shot over and over.
That moment of cold resolve carved a mark into her memory.
Hanks was handsome, calm, strong, decisive — but also… terrifying.
They stumbled back to the pickup.
Several walkers were pounding on the truck, drawn by the earlier noise.
Hanks released Maggie's arm, raised his P226, and fired:
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three walkers dropped. He yanked the driver door open.
"Get in!"
Maggie climbed in mechanically, clutching the bag of medicine to her chest like a lifeline.
Hanks jumped in, started the engine, spun the wheel, and floored the gas.
The pickup roared away like a wild horse, wheels screeching as they sped off — leaving the gathering horde behind in a cloud of dust and rot.