On the road

In Pictures: Six-Strong Convoy Rolls Through West Point

The gun club drove home at dawn. Six machines, four drivers. One railway bridge.

By the Rebel News motoring desk. West Point, Tuesday 9 November 1993. 1 min read.

Rain on a wide avenue in West Point: a convoy rolls past the GIGA MART car park, led by a mud-green pickup towing a purple Skyline GT-R, then a white Skyline towing a tan Humvee, an olive army cargo truck and, at the back, a police car with its red and blue lights on towing a small trailer; two zombies on the wet pavement in the foreground watch it pass among dead leaves and trash bags, an abandoned taxi and sedans in the car park behind. — Tuesday, 09:42. Twenty minutes off the rails. Rebel News picture desk

A game screenshot from above of the Valley Station gun club lot: a black tow truck and a black army cargo truck with a small trailer beside orange roadworks barrels, a Humvee, a black SUV and a silver pickup on a dirt bed edged with tyres and floodlights, a red fire engine, white and purple Skyline coupes with their bonnets up, three survivors by their motorbikes, white plastic chairs and picnic tables round a fire pit, a long covered firing range behind a chain-link fence, and a fuel tanker parked by a bar counter. — The road home, frame by frame. Rebel News picture desk

A game screenshot from above of the river crossing: the road bridge jammed with dozens of burnt-out cars, a white Skyline and a Humvee crossing on the narrow railway bridge beside it, a pickup towing a purple Skyline and an army cargo truck on the approach road, a police car with a trailer on the far bank. — The road home, frame by frame. Rebel News picture desk

WEST POINT. The gun club packed up at first light on Tuesday and went home in convoy. If you saw it come through West Point that morning, no, you didn't dream it.

It was the best thing on that road all year, and the competition is the dead.

The line-up

Six machines in one line, and two of them aren't even driving. Up front, a green pickup towing a purple Skyline. Then the white Skyline, a car built for Japanese mountain roads, dragging a Humvee that outweighs it by most of a tonne. Then an army cargo truck, and at the back a police car with an army trailer rattling behind it. Nobody planned this. Nobody could.

A game screenshot from above of the convoy on an empty four-lane highway beside a railway line: a dark pickup towing a purple Skyline, an olive army cargo truck, a white Skyline towing a tan Humvee, and at the back a police car towing a small black trailer, bare trees and stumps along both verges. — On the road north. Nobody indicated once. Rebel News picture desk

The bridge

The road bridge over the river is a scrapyard: thirty wrecks nose to tail, twenty-eight of them burnt to the frame. So the white Skyline took the railway bridge beside it, one car wide, bouncing down the sleepers with the Humvee filling the track behind, and the police car went after it. Was it a good idea? Absolutely not. Do it anyway.

Straight down from a helicopter over a grey river: a white Skyline towing a tan Humvee drives along the narrow railway bridge, a police car with flashing lights and a small trailer waits at its far end, and the road bridge below is jammed with dozens of burnt-out cars and two ambulances; on the near bank a green pickup towing a purple Skyline and an army cargo truck loaded with crates drive away. — The trains stopped in July. The tracks didn't. Rebel News picture desk

West Point

West Point was the worst address in the county last week, fourteen dead in and around it. The convoy went through eyes front, past the GigaMart and out the other side. The dead turned their heads. Nobody waved.

The road

Somewhere past town the Humvee got left by the side of the road. A Skyline can only do so much.

Then the road filled up with the dead, and the convoy answered with a minigun, about three hundred rounds of everything else and something that breathes fire, 494 times by our count. Seventeen minutes later it was quiet. You're welcome, whoever drives it next.

Past Fallas Lake the police car gave out, and two of them doubled back for it. Nobody gets left behind. Except the Humvee.

Sources: the server logs, two screenshots and a news helicopter nobody remembers hiring.