The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,110
backward, the centripetal force throwing everybody forward against the firewall. Lilly slams her shoulder against the gun rack, knocking half a dozen carbines to the floor like kindling. Gabe and Bruce roll, slamming into each other. Unbeknownst to the others, Gabe has his fingers under Bruce’s shackle now and he starts wrenching at it. Bruce’s gag has come loose and he booms a garbled cry: “YOU MOTHERFUCKERS, NOW WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”
The van bumps over an object, and then another, and another—the wet, muffled thumps rocking the chassis—and Lilly holds on to the side brace with her free hand, scanning the cargo hold.
Martinez scrambles on hands and knees toward the fallen walkie-talkie while the black man spits and curses, and Swede aims the muzzle of his .45 at the bald black man. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
“YOU MOTHERFUCKERS DON’T EVEN—”
The rear of the van slams into an unknown object and bogs down, the rear wheels spinning on something slick and gooey on the road, the g-forces flinging everybody into the corner. Guns fly off across the hold, and the Governor rolls against a stack of cartons that fall on him. He lets out an angry cry—the duct tape hanging from his chin now—and then he gets quiet.
Everybody gets quiet as the van sits there for a moment, very still.
Then the entire vehicle shudders. The sideways jerk gets everybody’s attention. Broyles’s voice crackles from the fallen two-way, something about “too many” or “getting out,” when all at once the roar of Broyles’s AK-47 from the cab pierces the silence, followed by an eruption of broken glass and a human shriek.
Then things get quiet again. And still. Except for the low, droning, mucusy moans of hundreds of dead voices, which, coming through the walls of the windowless van, sound like a giant turbine engine rumbling outside the van. Something bumps the vehicle again, jerking it sideways with a violent convulsion.
Martinez grabs an assault rifle off the wall, jacks the lever back, lurches toward the rear hatch, and grasps the handle, when he hears a deep, whiskey-cured voice come from behind him.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Lilly glances down at the floor and sees the Governor—his gag loose—struggling into a sitting position against the wall, his dark eyes smoldering. Lilly holds her Ruger on him. “You’re not giving orders anymore,” she informs him through clenched teeth.
The van jerks sideways again. The rumbling silence stretches.
“Your little plan’s gone all to hell,” the Governor says with sadistic glee. His facial features tic with residual trauma.
“Shut up!”
“Thought you’d leave us out here, feed us to the biters, and nobody would be the wiser.”
Lilly puts the muzzle of the .22 against his forehead. “I said shut the fuck up!”
The van shudders again. Martinez stands frozen with indecision. He turns, and he starts to say something to Lilly, when a sharp blur of movement near the front takes everybody by surprise.
Bruce has managed to free his hands and suddenly lashes out at the Swede, knocking the gun out of the older man’s grip. The .45 goes off as it clatters to the floor, the boom so loud it ruptures eardrums, the blast chinking metal out of the floor and grazing the Swede’s left boot, making the older man cry out and slam against the back wall.
In one smooth movement, before Martinez or Lilly can fire, the big black man scoops up the hot .45 and empties three rounds into the Swede’s chest. Blood sprays across the corrugated side wall behind the older man as he gasps and writhes and slides to the floor.
From the rear, Martinez spins toward the black man and fires two quick, controlled bursts in his general direction, but by that point Bruce is already diving for cover behind piles of cartons, and the bullets are chewing through cardboard, metal, and fiberglass, setting off a series of muffled blasts inside the boxes, which send puffs of wood shards, sparks, and paper into the air like meteors—
—and everybody dives to the floor—and Bruce gets his hands on his bowie knife—a weapon he had hidden on his ankle—and he’s going for Gabe’s shackles—and things are happening very quickly now all around the cargo bay—as Lilly swings her Ruger toward the two thugs near the front—while Martinez leaps toward Bruce—and the Governor screams something like “DON’T KILL THEM!—and Gabe is loose now and scrambling for one of the fallen carbines—and Bruce slashes the knife at Martinez, who dodges the blow, and then stumbles against Lilly, sending her slamming