Raid

Two Men, One Race Car, 1,600 Dead

Two men from Riverside went to the Irvington Speedway for a look. They came back with a stock car, a hangover's worth of gunpowder and 1,609 fewer neighbours.

By the Rebel News wire desk. Irvington Speedway, Monday 27 September 1993. 1 min read.

A green number 12 stock car slides sideways through a dirt speedway turn, mud flying, a crowd of zombies in the infield; the driver, in a grey winter hat, ski goggles and a half-mask respirator over a police vest, grips the wheel while the passenger in a SWAT cap fires a rifle back at the crowd from the window. — Number 12 leaves the paddock with company. The infield disagreed with the decision. Rebel News picture desk

IRVINGTON. Nobody has raced at the Speedway since the world ended. On Monday morning two men from Riverside fixed that, briefly, and at considerable cost to the local population.

They arrived at three in the morning, parked outside the fence and went to sleep. Beds had started working in Knox County that very evening, so as far as this paper can tell the first proper night's sleep anyone has had since July was taken in a car park next to several hundred zombies. Both men woke up. This is the least believable part of the story.

Wake-up call

At six they climbed the fence and started shouting. HEY YOU! from the one with the rifle. OVER HERE! from the one in the respirator, twice and muffled, as if the first one had been unclear. The Speedway is a bowl. Everything in the bowl came to the noise, and the noise had an automatic rifle. Four hours later it was quiet enough to hear birds.

OVER HERE!
The mask, to a grandstand

Number 12

In the bays behind the racetrack mechanic's shop sat two stock cars nobody had touched since July, a 12 and a 34, tyres up, tanks full, keys on the pegboard. By noon the pair were putting in laps of an infield full of the walking dead.

The tally, Sunday to Mondayzombies

The rifle1,520running total 6,956
The mask89mostly with a katana
What they told us2,000we printed the ledger

They left hours later, gas tank almost empty, looked at their Riverside SUV, looked at the race car, and made the only sensible decision: two grown men, one two-seater, pedal to the metal. Somewhere on the KY-60 the needle went past anything the dial was built for. The scoreboard now says 220. Rebel News did not see it. Rebel News printed it anyway.

The green number 12 stock car from behind, two men inside, one arm out of the window, on a long straight country road into a blazing orange sunset. — Westbound on the KY-60, into the sunset, needle past anything the dial was built for. Photographed from a safe distance, which was not far enough. Rebel News picture desk

The 12 now lives in the Riverside compound. The 34 is still in the bay at the Speedway with a full tank.

Sources: the server logs. All of them. We have nothing else to read.