Free The Hibernia Strain by Albert Peterson Page B

a brick wall. I think the small finger on my right hand is broken along with what feels like a cracked rib on my right side.
    Emma has a trickle of blood running down between her eyes, and she’s nursing her right leg.
    I clumsily grope around and flick on the wipers, only to see the little stump that’s left of the wiper wiggle about doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. I find this sight quite funny and without thinking I turn to Emma with a chuckle. She obviously doesn’t see the funny side.
     
    ...Matt would have found it funny.
     
    Not much can be seen through the shattered, bloody windscreen, so I poke my head through the hole in the door next to me, where the window used to be.
    I lo ok around to check on our would-be pursuers. It’s clear that four of the six are no longer a threat, especially the one and a half of them spread across the bonnet in front of me.  It’s a grizzly sight. I turn my head and gag a little.
    I regain my composure and step out to survey the damage. I ’m struck by the calm of our surroundings, the speed, the adrenaline, the anger, the excitement, all replaced by the serenity of the Irish countryside.
    The sun is beginning to set, filling the sky with a red tint and apart from the slight rustle of the warm breeze through the grass, there’s dead silence.
      The car they we ’re travelling in is mangled beyond recognition. The jeep tore through it like it was made of tinfoil. The VW has seen better days too. The bull bars took the brunt of the smash, but it’s sitting lopsided on the road with the front end pretty torn up. It’s hard to judge the extent of the damage with two carcasses still clinging to it, but by the looks of it the radiator is leaking a bit.
    As I approach the wreck, I see that two more of them are clearly dead, there’s no doubt.  Another is still in the car, in the back seat where the car took the least damage. She’s twitching and making an intermittent gurgling sound. I’m not even sure if that means she’s still alive or not. The last one is still trying his best to crawl towards me, but at this stage it’s apparent he’s no more of a threat than any of the others.
    He looks to be in his mid twenties, dressed like any average person, a white hoody over a t-shirt and jeans. His clothes are covered in stains of all kinds, most of which are quite obviously blood. His face is white as a ghost with a large, badly infected gash torn along his left cheek.
    I bend over and look in to his eyes. I get close and meet his gaze; I see nothing. No pain, no fear, no hatred, only drive, the drive to reach me. He’s not looking at my eyes; he’s looking at me, like I’m an object. I’m his goal, his sole objective in life.
    The sheer single mindedness of him raises alarming implications. If you’re in a world full of pale faced spooks whose only purpose in life, even beyond their own safety and existence, is to reach you and end you, then what chance do you really have?
    I stand back up and begin to contemplate the moral question as to whether I should leave him this way or finish him off, and if the latter, then how? Does it even really matter?
    I look around at my handy work. A ll of this happened because of me. With the multiple mangled bodies gruesomely scattered around me I realise how unhinged my thinking was becoming. I was losing myself.
    I glance back down and see the last of the group has stopped moving. His eyes are open and they’re no more dead now than they were a few seconds ago, but he’s gone. I just killed all these people, and I did it with a smile on my face. Does that make me a monster? I don’t feel any guilt or remorse. It was either them or us. The only feeling apparent to me at this moment is satisfaction in my victory.
    I raise my hand to my forehead and turn around. Emma is standing in front of the jeep, motionless. Her face confirms it all. From what Matt said she’s seen some pretty messed up stuff and she kept it