SUSAN BAILEY<br/><br/>There was not much traffic on Darios. I think we were too close to the mess for people to be able to get to their cars and get away, mostly I guessed they were trying to get away on foot. When we reached Ennerdale though it was a different story; there was a queue of cars waiting at the intersection while a cop held us up and fire trucks and rescue trucks and a dozen other sorts of truck - mostly painted red we could see further down North Darios massed outside the firehouse. Men seemed to be running into the building, grabbing gear and stowing it in the trucks before driving off north.<br/><br/>"What are they doing?" Katie asked from the back seat.<br/><br/><strong>"Moving house I think,"</strong>I said.<br/><br/>"Yeah," Todd added ruminatively, "They're running away. Look." He pointed west up Ennerdale and there was fighting going on. Lots of it. A few cops were around and a fire fighter or two but mostly the people with the fighting spirit seemed to be Rockford High students. Armed with baseball bats, metal table legs, chairs, various clubs and sticks they were swinging away at the rioters... no... the Dead People. They were dead. Zombies. As Todd had said, like in comics. One student had picked up a police shotgun and was blasting heads off at point blank range until he ran out of ammo and began using it as a club.<br/><br/>I saw some kids working as teams. It definitely looked like 'go for the head' idea had caught on from the movies and applied here. The #1 kid would swing a bat or something which the zombie would grab and try to wrestle away from him and while his arms were busy the #2 guy would<em>thwack!</em>his bat down on the zombies head. It seemed to be working. Trust high school kids to have a better idea of how to tackle zombies than the cops.<br/><br/>The three of us sat and watched in shocked and awed fascination as the battle went on, though a lot of people were just plain running as fast as they could and the defensive line looked awful thin.<br/><br/>"Hey... guys... we can't stay here..." It was Katie and she sounded nervous. "Syeda's out cold. I think it's loss of blood or something. Guys? Todd?"<br/><br/>Todd seemed to jerk out of his daze. "Yeah. Yeah, right. Can you get through here Su?"<br/><br/><strong>"This cop won't let us through! There's a big stack of traffic waiting to cross the bridge, and all that stuff round the fire house."</strong><br/><br/>"We need to move Su, like... now."<br/><br/><strong>"I know! But I can't! I'm boxed in!"</strong><br/><br/>"Can you back up? Go past them?"<br/><br/><strong>"On the wrong side of the road? I can't do that! The police!"</strong><br/><br/>"The cops are freakin' busy Bales! Just fuckin' drive! Those dead<em>things</em>are less than fifty yards away!"<br/><br/><strong>"I'm not bloody Jason Bourne you know!"</strong><br/><br/>Suddenly a red Pontiac went by on our left, cutting down the wrong side of the road. A blue Ford van followed it. Immediately at the intersection the cop stepped out, his hand up. The Pontiac driver gunned his engine and swerved round the cop and with a squeal of tyres shot away up Darios North. The Blue van skidded to a stop in front of the cop. A white Chevy that was following the van slammed into the back of it, the van bounced forwards and hit the cop who went down, rolling on the ground.<br/><br/><strong>"Oh crap! He hit him! Oh no!"</strong><br/><br/>"The sidewalk Bales. The Goddam sidewalk or we'll be trapped here!"<br/><br/>"Please!" Katie whined, "Just go! Go!" She sounded close to panic.<br/><br/>I turned in my seat, laying my right arm along the back of Todd's seat. A white pickup was behind me but a couple of yards back. I selected reverse, backed up until I nearly hit him - he honked loudly and then I spun the wheel right, selected first and pulled around the car in front of me. There was a gap between two parked cars on my right and slewing the wheel this way and that the Mustang bumped up onto the kerb and slid. There was a horrible scrape of rear fender on brick walling and then I straightened out and floored it. The sidewalk was mercifully empty and in seconds we reached Ennerdale only to see a solid queue of traffic standing still and heading east to River Bridge.<br/><br/>I didn't even think. I roared across Ennerdale and swung hard right, thumping up onto the sidewalk on the north side of the street and wrestling the powerful car's tendency to prefer to surge in a straight line. I went east until we got to Mackinnon Avenue which cut off north-east at an angle, though here there were people on the sidewalk, mostly runners from further west on Ennerdale and I leaned on the horn to get them out the way. They did, diving to the side and yelling abuse.<br/><br/>I grinned. This was fun! We reached Mackinnon without killing anyone. There was a narrow strip of public park on the west side of Mackinnon and to the east a thin residential block before the grassy strip of park and River Walk. I swung into Mackinnon and barrelled down the road, leaving the choked queue or cars trying to get over the river.<br/><br/>I applied power, Steve fishtailed again and with more thumps and squealing Goodyears we left the sidewalk and accelerated down the road. I passed a couple of slower cars as the needle crept up - 40... 50... 60... 65...<br/><br/>"Fuck yeah!" Todd was grinning too, "This is like awesome! Grand Theft fucking Auto!"<br/><br/>I laughed, though it was mostly a laugh to hide my fear. At the north end of Mackinnon I braked and slid impressively, gave a tweak of handbrake as I let off the brake and applied power into the turn, the rear end sliding round as I counter-steered and then corrected when the rear began to want to go ahead of the front. Fortunately a Mustang has a lot of weight at the front which helps balance the rear wheel drive and with another satisfying wiggle of the rear end we went towards River Avenue. There is a complex junction here where Meahe Street goes east-west and River Avenue north-south and Mackinnon cuts in from the south-west. I shot across to go up River Avenue but a whole ton of cars were coming up River Avenue from the bridge further south. I had to brake hard and nearly wrapped us all around a tree but I got things under control and I slid into the column of slower moving traffic just behind a big beefy Ford pickup with several kids in the back.<br/><br/>"Hey, that's Cal Winslow! Yeah, Cal!" Todd shouted and stuck his arm and head out the window. The guys and a couple of girls in the back of the pickup didn't hear him so he reached over and blipped the horn. Now they all looked round and Cal did too. He saw us and Todd waved again. I flashed my lights. I didn't know them but it was good to see a bunch of people got out of the school okay.<br/><br/>"Where ya goin'?" Todd yelled, "We're making for the hospital. Got an injured girl here!"