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almost every other step, Dana breezed down the stairwell to her parking lot and quickly found her Prius. She clicked a button on her car key and the Prius chirped and unlocked. Dana dove into the driver’s seat, buckled, and quickly adjusted her mirrors before jamming her key into the ignition. With a twist of her wrist, the tiny vehicle hummed to life. A pop radio station blared from the speakers. Dana mashed a radio knob, hoping to find a news station, before yanking her gearshift into reverse.
    Dana backed out and popped the car into drive. Her tires let out a quick squirk as the car peeled off down Oak in the direction of Maple. Hoping to hear anything about her school, she anxiously scanned from one radio frequency to the next.
    “Residents are urged to stay indoors… fzzt …Police neither confirming or denying if the incidents are related… psst …Seven bodies were discovered in the Coney Island hotel… bzzt.…”
    Feeling frustrated, Dana spun the radio knob one final time.
    “East Violet Police are on the scene of a bus accident at Henderson High school. We’ve yet to learn of any injuries in the crash and information is slow at best, but stay tuned to 103.9 FM for more information as it becomes available….”
    Dana sighed. She clung to the steering wheel with white knuckles, and a nervous sweat began to glaze over her forehead. In her rearview mirror she watched the flashing lights on Elm vanish behind her, when suddenly—
    “Oh, shit!” she hollered. Her briefcase flew off of the passenger seat and onto the floor as she stomped the brake pedal. The nose of her Prius dipped down as her tires squealed.  She had been so distracted by what was happening behind her that she almost rear-ended a maroon sedan waiting at a red light in front of her.
    A figure in the driver’s seat of the sedan looked back at Dana, glared, and raised a middle finger out of the driver’s window.
    The light turned green. The maroon sedan had barely begun to roll into the intersection before a black police cruiser blew its stop light and came barreling into the intersection. The lights on top of the vehicle flickered to life just seconds before it collided with the maroon sedan.
    Dana screamed, then threw her gearshift into park. She jumped out of her car, leaving her door open.
    By the time she made it into the intersection, the officer driving the cruiser was out of his car and checking on the occupants of the maroon sedan.
    “Get outta’ here,” the officer commanded in a thick New England accent.
    Dana put her hands up in front of her, frozen in place.
    “Didn’t you hear me? I said get the fuck outta here! ” the officer barked.
    Dana ran back to her open driver’s side door. A line of cars had formed behind her, honking impatiently. She pulled her door shut and sped through the intersection before the light changed back from green to red.
    What is going on? Dana thought, her heart beating faster and faster and faster. Why is this happening? What the hell is going on?
    The Prius turned left onto Maple Avenue and headed towards Pigeon Hill. Dana drove with extra caution, still shaken up by the accident she watched unfold just a moment ago.
    Maple narrowed from four lanes to two, and the houses on either side of her became spaced further and further apart. Pigeon Hill had a layer of morning fog still enveloping it, and it gave the town an eerie look in the morning hours. Considering the circumstances, some early Halloween decorations looked particularly spooky in the fog. On a house to her right, Dana noticed a plastic skeleton hanging from a tree swaying in the breeze.
    Dana continued on the mostly empty street when the song she was listening to was abruptly interrupted by yet another high pitched tone.
    “This is a test of the Emergency Action Notification System. This is only a test—”
    The Prius hummed louder as she began the uphill drive towards Henderson High. Above the sounds of her motor and stereo, Dana