William Brown - The Undertaker

“Who was the idiot who thought this one up?” Sandy asked as three lanes of cars whizzed by us at sixty-five miles per hour, weaving, changing lanes, and honking.

“You are. You wanted to come along, remember?” There was no turning back now. “Pretend it's touch football,” I screamed over the loud roar of the traffic. “We're going to run between them and you don't want to get touched.”

Koo-bee Bryant hits a trey…

As we stood on the divider, about to begin our mad dash out into traffic, I looked back over my shoulder. Tinkerton's blue LTD came careening sideways down the slope at us, digging itself axel deep into the mud until it slid to a halt behind the Lincoln. Tinkerton sat behind the wheel and one of his goons rode shotgun. In their case, the goon probably did have a shotgun, but I tried not to think about that. When Tinkerton spotted us standing on the expressway barrier, he pounded his fist on the steering wheel in angry frustration.

“You know, you have a real talent for pissing people off,” Sandy quipped.

“Years of practice, honed to a fine edge,” I fired back as I took a firm grip on her hand. “Stay with me, one lane at a time.” I turned and searched the onrushing flow of northbound traffic for a break, but I didn't see much of one.

“Now!” I yelled as I jumped off the barrier and ran between a black BMW and a big moving van, and stopped on the first white line. An Atlas Van Lines eighteen-wheeler roared behind us and tight line of cars swept past in front of us, horns blaring, buffeting us with their back drafts. Four cars later, I saw another break coming and squeezed her hand again. “Now!” We sprinted in front of a red Dodge mini-van with a wide-eyed soccer mom behind the wheel, through a gap in the third lane, and jumped up on the relative safety of the next concrete divider that separated the local lanes from the express lanes.

“What a hoot!” Sandy screamed as she clutched her leather shoulder bag to her chest with one hand and me with the other. “God, they ought to put this on “The X-Games”, Talbott,” she said as we wobbled precariously on the divider.

“You wouldn't listen, would you?”

“What fun would that be?” She grinned from ear to ear.

Up ahead, a four-car El train pulled out of the station on the southbound tracks, taking most of the waiting passengers with it. Behind us, Tinkerton and the goon had gotten out of the LTD and were standing on the other side of the first divider, three lanes away, pointing at us, screaming. Two Chicago cops ran up next to him, pistols out, with expressions of total confusion. No doubt, they had never been in a high-speed chase quite like this one. Without a whole lot of thought, I smiled at Tinkerton and flipped him the bird, holding my finger high over my head. That completely unhinged him. His face turned red and he looked ready to have a stroke right then and there. He ripped a large automatic pistol from his shoulder holster and took aim at me. He would have shot me too, if one of the Chicago cops hadn't pulled his arm down.

“That's real smart,” Sandy shouted. “Why don't you get him good and pissed?”

“He didn't shoot did he?”

“Not because he didn't want to.”

I could almost read the cop's lips as he yelled at Tinkerton and pointed at the cars whizzing by on the freeway. I doubt it was compassion or concern for us that motivated the cop. More likely, it was the mountains of paperwork and the lawsuits he'd find himself buried in if Tinkerton missed and hit the wrong people. Frustrated and even angrier, Tinkerton surprised me by climbing over the divider and following us out into the fast-moving local lanes. He still had the gun in his hand, but at least it wasn't pointed at us. His goon followed, most unhappy about it, and the two Chicago cops took up the rear.

“I don't know about you.” Sandy's hand tightened on mine. “But I don't want to share this divider with anybody that big and angry, especially not one with a gun. Let's go.”

Together, we jumped down into the express lanes and I saw this was the big leagues. There were four lanes rather than three and the stream of cars was thicker and faster than in the locals. We could see panic on the face of almost every driver who flashed by us, and I'm sure they could see it on ours.

“Now!” I screamed and we cut behind a delivery van and kept moving through a gap between a Honda and Cadillac. We stopped, halfway there, toeing the white line as we waited for a break in the third lane. Behind us, I heard loud honking of horns and a sudden squeal of brakes followed by a sickening “Thump!” I looked back in time to see a blue-clad Chicago cop bounce high off the hood of a Toyota in the local lanes. He cart-wheeled through the air, arms and legs extended, followed by a loud series of sharp crashes as a half-dozen cars rear-ended each other trying to avoid the cop and the careening Toyota. The, all Hell broke loose, with more crashing metal, more squeals, and more loud horns.

“Well, that ought to slow them down a tad,” she yelled, wide-eyed.

Maybe, but we had enough problems of our own at that moment. Cars were speeding past, front and back. I glanced left and saw a Greyhound bus changing lanes, heading right for us, straddling the bright white line we were standing on.

“Oh, shit!” Sandy said as she pulled me forward. We darted in front of the bus and kept running, across the last lane of traffic, and onto the relative safety of the El station median. Hand-in-hand, we jumped onto the low concrete retaining wall as a big Mercedes sped past behind us, horn blaring, narrowly missing us. The wall was perhaps twelve inches wide and four feet high, separating the busy express lanes from the steel tracks. Twelve inches wasn't very much. Sandy tottered back and forth next to me as we fought to keep our balance. Maybe I was too concerned about her making it up to the top with me, and maybe I was a bigger klutz than she was to begin with, but I couldn't stop. I let go of her hand, but my momentum carried me over the top and I fell face-first on the grimy, sharp-edged gravel of the railroad bed.

“Eee-Yeeagh!” My hands and knees rebelled in pain.

“Uh, Talbott,” Sandy shouted a warning. “See that blue-black rail in the middle? The one next to your left hand?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I looked down. My shins rested on the brightly polished track where the train's wheels ran and my right hand was a few inches away. Next to my left hand, where I had narrowly missed landing, was an evil-looking, blue-black rail.

“That's the third rail. There's about a gazillion volts of electricity in that thing. You touch it; it'll ruin your whole day.”

“Hey, I'm from LA,” I replied. “What do I know from rails?” Carefully, very carefully, I rose to my feet and brushed the dirt and gravel off my hands, giving the third rail a wide berth. Sandy jumped down next to me and we looked up at the subway platform. The concrete slab was even higher than the divider, at my eye level, and there was no ladder or stairs to climb. To make matters worse, I saw the front headlight of a fast moving train coming up the northbound tracks, heading straight for us.

“Here,” I said as I put my hands together and bent my knees. “Give me your foot. Quick. I'll boost you up.”

“No sweat, it'll slow down as it comes in,” she announced confidently, slowly raising her left foot and placing it in my hands. As she did, I glanced past her again. The train was close enough for me to see the panicked expression on the engineer's face as he saw us standing on his tracks.

Fortunately, Sandy did not weigh very much. “One, two… three,” I yelled and flipped her upward. She soared onto the air in a tight, acrobatic flip and landed on the platform on both feet, light as a feather.