Free The Hibernia Strain by Albert Peterson

to see it’s the worrying developments outside that have rendered her silent.
    While distracted by a particularly bloody wreck , she grazes the right hand side of the jeep against an upside-down VW Beetle.
    I breathe in heavily and bite my lip. It’s obvious she’s uneasy and trying to keep calm in the face of the sights we’re passing, so I try to express gently that it might be a good idea for me to take over behind the wheel again for awhile.
    By the time I feel I ’ve gotten my point across she’s in tears and angrily telling me to calm down stop shouting at her. Despite her protests, she seems more than happy to relinquish the responsibility of driving and she begins to climb over to the passenger seat.
    I waste no time in hopping out and running around to switch seats . I give the damage a quick inspection on the way, it’s barely a scratch; I overreacted. 
    It ’s not my style to lose my cool so much. I need to get some rest soon. I try to muster some kind of apology, but I’m pre-empted by Emma’s urgent tone saying, “Look, I know, I know, it’s getting to both of us. Can we just get out of here please?”
    That ’s all I need to hear. Just as I’m beginning to turn and face the road again, I spot something over Emma’s left shoulder on an adjacent road in the distance, over the river. It’s a group of five figures standing around an upturned car
    It ’s immediately obvious there’s something unnatural about the scenario. All I can make out from this distance is there are another two figures outside the upside down car, one pinning the other down.
    By this point , Emma, who I imagine was starting to wonder why I was staring at her so intensely, has copped that I’m focused on something in the distance behind her and she swings her head around to investigate.
    The only noise in the car is the hum of the engine as we both strain to see what the two struggling figures on the ground are doing. The movements are far too random and violent for CPR. I quickly glance back at the five figures overlooking the spectacle. My blood runs cold as I realise all five of them are fixated directly on us.
    The implications of this development hit me like a smack in the mouth. The nearest junctions conne cting our two roads are about two kilometres behind us and five kilometres ahead of us.
    I don ’t waste a second, as I stress all two hundred horses under the bonnet to their limit; the VW roars forward.
    This action acts l ike a starting pistol to the creeps across the river, who dart towards their piece of shit car in perfect synchronicity.
    Emma who apparently hasn’t noticed that we were spotted is shoved back into her seat. Before she can disapprove, she sees the car driving in parallel to us with six sets of ominous eyes peering over at us. Her automatic reaction is to buckle herself in, in a frenzy of frantic arm movements.
    They ’re pulling ahead of us. I don’t know where they came across that car or what kind of over funded boy racer souped it up, but they’re going to cut us off and there’s nothing I can do about it.
    I grab the open can from the cup holder and down the liquid inside, spilling a good third of it down my chin as I do.
    The can contains the sweetest, most sugar saturated sports drink I could find in the shop earlier. I opened it as we pulled off when Emma started her driving shift, and I dropped in at least twenty pep pills to dissolve. The idea was I could sip it throughout my next turn behind the wheel.
    There’s n o time for sipping now, as I dodge and weave through the jagged wrecks scattered along the road. I need to focus. The menacing car is still speeding along parallel to us, all the while slowly pulling away towards the bridge up ahead.
    I can feel myself getting carried away again , so in the three minutes or so it will take to reach the bridge I need to quickly review the situation and the few options available to us. We can;
    Stay where we are and try to prepare for