"Richard Paul Russo - Just Drive, She Said" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russo Richard Paul)

and gunfire. From busy but orderly streets filled with calm pedestrians
and cyclists to chaos, people running from shelter to shelter, and
vehicles burning on the roads.
I saw the crater in front of us just in time, swerved, and jolted up a
curb, knocking over a metal canister that spilled fuming liquid across the
sidewalk. I got the car back on the road, but half a block ahead of us was
a barricade manned by armed soldiers. Huge guns were aimed directly at us.
I hit the brakes and made a half-accidental U-turn, downshifted and
punched the gas. Gunshots exploded, something hit the car, but we were
still going.
"Shift us the hell out of here!" I screamed at her.
"I can't, you fucking moron! It's too damn soon!"
I turned down the first side street, nearly losing control of the car,
then, seeing more barricades up ahead, swung into an alley that dead-ended
in a heap of trash.
Victoria was out of the car before it stopped, shoving aside the
trash--blocks of foam rubber, huge wads of paper, and other lightweight
bundles. I drove the car into the opening she'd made, half burying the car
in the mound. I got out, locked the doors, and helped her finish hiding
the car with the foam blocks and wadded paper.
No one seemed to have followed us. I wondered if we should have just
stayed in the car, but Victoria was already crawling through a broken
window into one of the buildings lining the alley. I followed her inside.
The building was dark, and nearly silent; the only sounds came from
outside, muffled by the brick walls. There was enough light coming in
through the grimy, cracked windows for us to make our way. I followed
Victoria through jumbles of complex machinery.
"Where are we going?" I whispered.
"I want to get above ground level. I'll feel safer. Then we can find a
window where we can keep an eye on the car."
She found a stairway, and we went up. The doorway to the second floor was
scarred and warped, the door blown off its hinges. We went through it, and
came out in a maze of clear-walled cubicles filled with cracked glass
cylinders.
We made our way through the maze, the floor covered with huge chunks of
broken glass and twisted coils of wire. Every step made loud crunching
sounds. Eventually we reached a window looking down on the alley, only to
see half a dozen people dressed in fatigues and carrying weapons. At first
I thought they were searching the alley, but it soon became clear that
they were actually making camp for the night. The car looked to be safe,
but we had no way to get to it.
The soldiers erected a structure that was half tent, half lean-to against
the brick building across the way, and started a fire inside a squat metal
cylinder.
We watched the soldiers and the fire for a while, but it was obvious they
weren't going to leave, so we set up for the night ourselves. We cleared a
space to sleep in, scrounged some scraps of cloth and some torn cushions
to make a bed. Then we tried to sleep.
I didn't sleep much. Sporadic gunfire sounded throughout the night, and
bursts of bright color regularly lit up the window, reflecting shards of