Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 45 – The Golden Hills Crush

The sun was dragging itself down the sky when Hawk leaned over the dashboard and said the words that shifted the whole damn day.

“RJ… look at the grid again.”

I followed his line of sight across Golden Boulevard, past the cars frozen in place, toward the quiet rows of houses stacked behind the trees. The horde kept grinding behind us in slow, ugly waves, piling into the traffic snarl on Highway 370 like a clogged artery.

Hawk tapped the map on my knee.

“These streets… they choke down to one-lane real fast. Golden Hills, East Dutchman, Bline, Gayle. These are old neighborhoods. Narrow. Tight corners. Parked cars on both sides.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And we thread the bastards,” he said. “We pull them off 370. Drag ‘em down the chute. Let the neighborhood bottleneck them for us.”

I stared at him.

He stared back.

And for once, Hawk wasn’t joking, wasn’t half-assing anything, wasn’t winging it on instincts.

He had something real.

“Walk me through it,” I said.

He pointed again, tracing the streets with the blunt side of a knuckle.

“Golden Hills Drive is the lead-in. One-lane the whole way because of the abandoned pickups and that crooked utility trailer at the bend.”
He slid his finger down.
“East Dutchman? Tighter. Fences practically kiss the road. Anything big enough to move that horde gets squeezed.”
Then the last part.
“Bline to Gayle. That’s where they crush into each other. They’ll jam up so bad they won’t know which direction is up.”

I leaned back and stared at the skyline for a second.

“…so it’s not about outrunning them.”

Hawk nodded. “Exactly. It’s about making the terrain outrun them.”

The idea settled in my chest like a puzzle piece finally finding its slot.

I keyed the radio.

“Neal. Change of note for situational awareness. If the team clears NLC and gets home before we do, we’re taking a detour through Golden Hills. Horde stays on us, but we’re bottlenecking them through the suburbs.”

“Copy,” Neal said. “You need backup?”

“No,” I said. “Just keep the inbound lanes clear at CWP. We’ll come in clean.”

Hawk cracked his neck. “Ready?”

I tightened my grip on the wheel.

“Let’s thread ‘em.”

I eased off the brake and rolled deeper into Golden Boulevard, the horde still packed behind us like a storm cloud pressed against the horizon. A few broke free from atop stalled cars, slamming down onto hoods or windshields, limbs thrashing. But they couldn’t get purchase. Too many bodies. Too little space.

The truck crawled forward.

Golden Hills Drive came into view.

The moment I turned onto it, everything changed.

No traffic.
No people.
Just cramped asphalt and the claustrophobic quiet of old neighborhoods.

I felt Hawk lean forward.

“Perfect,” he murmured.

Behind us, the first row of Zerkers slammed into the bottleneck — the lead edge forced into a single-lane corridor that couldn’t fit the mass pushing behind them. The sound was immediate:

A roar.
Then pressure.
Then bodies slamming into each other in a frenzy of directionless movement.

The horde surged but couldn’t fan out. They compressed.

And the more bodies rammed into the choke point, the slower they moved.

We kept rolling.

Golden Hills bent left around the old utility trailer Hawk had mentioned. The trailer’s back end jutted into the street, creating a natural speed bump that forced the truck to scrape by with inches to spare.

Behind us?

The horde fought to squeeze through.

Bodies slammed into the trailer.
Others tripped over the curb.
Some got pinned between the trailer and the car beside it.
The mass behind them didn’t care — it pushed harder, folding bodies into the gap.

We hit East Dutchman Circle next.

And that street…

That street was a gift.

Fences on both sides.
Parked SUVs closing the shoulders.
A tight dogleg corner that almost forced the truck to creep.

The horde poured in behind us like a river forced through a drain.

But the drain was too small.

I glanced at the mirror.

“Jesus,” I muttered.

Hawk sat up straighter. “Look at that. They can’t maneuver.”

He was right.

The phase-III bodies jammed so tightly they climbed over each other in frantic waves. The ones in front couldn’t move because the ones behind never stopped pushing. And every time the pressure grew too high, a row collapsed, creating a pile they had to climb before the line moved again.

Not fast.
Not coordinated.
And not dangerous to anyone but the empty houses on either side.

We kept rolling.

“Almost there,” Hawk said as we reached Bline.

The street opened for ten feet… then pinched again as two abandoned sedans faced opposite directions in the road.

I squeezed us between them.

The horde didn’t fit.

They tried.

And failed.

Bodies jammed shoulder-first into the sedans and stalled in place. More slammed into them from behind. A howl rose — not fear, not anger, just momentum turning into frustration.

Hawk grinned for the first time in hours.

“This is working,” he said.

Gayle Avenue was the last stretch of the funnel — slightly uphill, narrow, boxed in by mailboxes and parked cars. I pushed the accelerator just enough to keep distance, but not enough to lose them entirely. The point wasn’t escape.

The point was containment.

At the top of Gayle, the neighborhood gave way to a clear intersection.

36th Street.

Open road.

Hawk exhaled. “There’s your break.”

I hit the gas.

The truck surged forward into open lanes, tires gripping the pavement clean for the first time all day.

Behind us?

The horde slammed themselves deeper into the choke point — a mass of bodies trapped by geography, crushed inward by their own numbers, stuck in a labyrinth of thin streets and parked vehicles.

They weren’t getting out of that before morning.

Maybe not even before tomorrow night.

I kept driving north on 36th, engine humming steady, the world widening again after hours of claustrophobic turns.

Hawk leaned back, staring out the window.

“RJ…” he said quietly, “I think we actually shook them.”

“For now,” I said.

“For now,” he echoed with a half-smile.

The sky dimmed into early twilight as we drove toward CWP.

For the first time since the horde latched onto us…

the road ahead was ours again.

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ANONYMOUS FIELD LOG — ENTRY ALPHA
CLASSIFIED — PROJECT ECHO CLEARANCE REQUIRED:

Radio traffic confirmed Anchor and Hawk encountered a large Phase-III mass along Highway 370 and initiated an improvised diversion maneuver into neighboring residential grids. CWP received intermittent updates only: terrain bottlenecking, forced compression of the mass, and eventual dispersal delay. No resonance spikes detected inside CWP during the maneuver. Perimeter remained quiet. Civilian morale elevated once confirmation arrived that Anchor had re-established open roadway access toward 36th Street. Awaiting their return trajectory; no convoy activity visible from CWP vantage points.

========================================
ANONYMOUS FIELD LOG — ENTRY BRAVO
CLASSIFIED — PROJECT ECHO CLEARANCE REQUIRED:

NLC teams monitored open-band transmissions confirming Anchor led a high-volume Phase-III mass away from all coalition routes. Hawk reported successful choke-point cycling through Golden Hills, East Dutchman, Bline, and Gayle. Battalion noted identical traffic patterns on their receivers; no threat approached NLC perimeter. Building remains secure. Med staff continued post-run inventory while listening to radio updates; morale uplift noted when Anchor confirmed he broke into clean lanes at 36th Street. No Phase-III proximity alerts triggered at the facility. Awaiting further instruction.