The Hibernia Strain (7 page)

9

I know the bridge we’re heading towards well. It’s stuck in my head because I nearly lost the front of my car to a speeding truck three weeks ago, while trying to pull of it onto the road we’re currently hurtling down.

An awkwardly placed wall and the general lack to pruning of the roadside trees make it a death trap, and that
just so happens to be what I need right now.

The jeep is reaching top speed.
I tell Emma to watch the road and take the wheel as I focus all my attention on the car across the river. They’re about five car lengths ahead of us now and still pulling away slowly.

She seems to trust me enough to do what I
’ve asked without the need for an explanation. I’ve got to get the timing perfect and I’ll only get one shot to time this right.

I begin to ease off on the accelerator, allowing them to pull
even further ahead. Emma looks at me with a mix of urgency and puzzlement on her face. I see her stare at me in my peripheral vision as I focus on the other car.

She pauses for a second or two before her expression drops and she turns a shade whiter with the realisation that we
’re not trying to outrun them; it’s a collision course we’re on.

I continue to subtly reduce my speed
, as they put more and more distance between us, hoping they’re stupid enough to think they have us well beaten.

My eyes are glued to
their car as I use every brain cell I have to try and judge their speed. I know we’ll lose sight of each other on the approach to the bridge and I need to predict when they’ll pop out the other side.

As they disappear behind the trees I straighten up, snap back control of the wheel from
Emma and unleash the full power of the VW. There’s just enough road left ahead to reach ramming speed by the time we reach the junction.

It
’s all down to the accuracy of my prediction now. I block out Emma’s protests but they do inspire slivers of self doubt.
What if I’ve placed too much faith in the jeep’s durability? What if I don’t get the timing right? They could build up enough speed to cause us some serious damage. What if I’m in the middle of a sleep deprived, pep pill fuelled craze and leading us to disaster? Thank fuck I went for the jeep with the bull bars.

Whether its adrenalin or the pep pill cocktail taking effect, I
’m feeling sharp, I feel good. I can see sweat droplets dripping off my hands and running down the wheel, I’m barely even aware of Emma’s presence next to me anymore but I know she’s shouting something.

If this is
Society 2.0, well then I’m going to be a contributing citizen. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, I didn’t even realise I had a smile on my face.

The exit of the bridge is appro
aching at a blistering pace, thirty metres... twenty metres... ten metres, with no sign of the anything.
I fucked it up.

At
the last possible second, just as the self doubt is at its highest, out shoots the car. I catch a quick flash of the emotionless, dead eyed faces before the shock of impact and the detonation of multiple airbags shocks me back to reality. T-Bone!

I come to my senses to the sight o
f a large bloody chunk of hair, with scalp still attached, smeared across the shattered windscreen.

We
’re at a dead stop five metres down the road and facing the opposite direction. I feel rattled to my bones, like I’ve just been rolled down a mountain in a barrel, straight into 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 together but what I see in her face now is shock.

Her ruffled clothes
are fluttering gently in the wind as it starts to spit rain. She’s standing in the beam of the one headlight left on the jeep with a slight slouch, putting all her weight on her left leg, clearly rattled after the crash. It’s shock on her face alright but she’s not looking at the bodies around our feet, she’s looking at me.

“W
hat were you thinking? You could have killed us,” her voice is low and bewildered.

“You just killed all these people
,” she continues, this time backed with a little more aggression.

The accusing tone of the statement hits a nerve and I feel the urge to defend myself.
With renewed feelings of confidence in my recent actions; I begin to lay out exactly what’s on my mind.

“
Look Emma, it’s time you realize things aren’t the way they were. We’re not driving to the shopping centre to buy skinny lattés. We aren’t obeying the same rules of society that we’re used to anymore. This is something new, and survival is the name of the game. It’s the law of the jungle from here on, ‘
Kill or be killed’,
and these guys at your feet are the predators. We could never have out run them, I saw my chance and I took it. The reason they’re dead is because they came after me, and I was better.”

She
’s not happy with my ranting, but offers no argument either. She’s smart, she knows I’m right.

Having said all that, it wasn
’t that coherent and logically thought out in my mind as it was all happening. I was reacting on instinct and maybe something else, something more primal... but she doesn’t need to hear that.

The downpour that was threatening
hasn’t arrived, and the clouds are parting just enough to reveal the sun hanging low in the sky.

I walk up to her and in a softer voice I say, “Are you h
urt badly? Let me see your leg.”

She lifts up the hem of her skirt
. The pain is evident on her face as she reveals a shallow scrape in the middle of some bad bruising that’s already starting to turn a yellowy purple.

“It
’ll get worse before it gets better, but it’s nothing you can’t handle, from what I’ve seen,” I tell her in an attempt to be reassuring without sounding patronising.

She manages a smile as I dab away the blood droplet from between her eyes and before I can lower my hand she gently takes hold
of it with both her hands.

“Oh, your finger!
”

“It
’s not as bad as it looks,” I reply.

We
’re standing here motionless, hand in hand as the warm tones of the setting sun illuminate her face and the gentle breeze is playing with her hair. The space between us has reduced to nearly nothing at all.

“Thank you for saving us
,” she says, almost whispering. The gaze of those big brown eyes of hers penetrates to my core.

All of a sudden there
’s an uncomfortable pause. I get the feeling we’re both thinking the same thought, the thought that Matt’s dead, meaning there’s nothing wrong with this and even if he isn’t, we’re all adults here, surely he’s dead... isn’t he???

T
he pause turns into an eternity and I start feeling like a bastard. The moment passes and we both move off like it never happened. I’m not sure where either of us expected it to lead anyway.

The less time we have to spend on the road the better. It’s quiet now, but there could be another gang of spooks along to take over this group’s place at any time and the cars headlight will stand out like a homing beacon in the fading light.

I
poke the bodies off the front of the VW and use the expended airbag to clean off as much blood and bits as I can. It’d be a shitty way to get infected.

Before we pull off, I kick out the shattered front window, which is going to make the rest of the journey very uncomfortable. Luckily
, we’re not far from the hotel from what I remember.

I
’m still buzzing after the pep pills and I want to be in control if we meet anymore trouble, so I take the wheel, which suits Emma fine.

I
’m thinking clearer now with the blood flow restored back to my brain again after our
close encounter
. We’re not bad people, Emma and I; we’re just victims of being caught up in the moment and a very romantic setting.
Well, except for all the corpses.

Hu
mph, cock blocked by a dead man. You better be dead Matt, or else I’ll kill you myself.

MATT

10

I wake with
an immediate understanding that I’m not alone in the room. It’s dark out with hints of silvery moonlight fighting to break through a cloud infested sky.

I can just
about identify the outline of the shadowy, hooded figures that surround me on all sides. I don’t know how they could’ve gotten in without me hearing them; I had the doorway so well blocked up.

My
scrambling hands urgently search the bed covers for my sword. I can’t find it.

As my eyes grow more accust
omed to my gloomy surroundings, I notice one of the prowlers removing something from under his attire. It’s my sword. The cheeky bastard. I resort to hurling curses towards them.

Two grab me from either side
before I get a chance to move, and hold me down by my shoulders while two more restrain my legs.

The
evident ringleader proceeds to slowly extend the blade in my direction until its smooth flat side lies flush against my face. The cool steel would be refreshing against my warm flesh if it wasn’t being held in such a sinister fashion.

He flicks his wrist and I wince in pain as the tip slices my skin. I try to scream but my throat feels like its paralysed. No sound will come out no matter how hard I try to summon it.
I’m powerless to do anything.

Without warning t
he hands that were restraining me remove themselves and I have my freedom of movement again. I scuttle backwards until my back is jammed up against the headboard.

With no sign of an escape route
I decide to position myself in a cradle like pose with my knees tucked in to my chest, and I bury my head down into my lap. It’s the same defensive stance that I used to take if I got scared when I was a kid.

I hear a
voice mocking me, “You useless good for nothing little runt.”

It
sounds awfully familiar.
It can’t be him. What would he be doing here?

I look up and su
re enough I recognise my uncle’s fat, ugly face unveiling itself from behind the hood. It makes no sense for him to be here. How did he even know where to find me?

“I
’ll finish you right this time,” he taunts as he raises the sword above his head and draws down an almighty swing that severs my throat.

I lurch upright in the bed clutching my neck and panting for air. My clothes are drenched with cold sweat. It takes a few seconds to realise where I am and that I was only having a nightmare. It felt so real. 

I
’m dying for some water as I have a major case of cottonmouth. I forgot some important information from my conversation with Shawn regarding nutmeg. Ingesting large amounts of the stuff can have unpleasant side effects including dry mouth and sometimes feelings of impending doom. Apparently recreational drug users sometimes consume it to give themselves a cheap high.
That explains the shitty dream then.

My uncle huh, I though
t I’d left him in my past, blocked from my mind never to bother me again, but I guess not.

I reach out
to the bed side locker for an old bottle of Emma’s water and place it against my lips. The coolness and wetness provide instant relief to my parched mouth and throat.

I sit motionless in the bed. Apart from the
now relieved dryness and a case of slight dizziness I feel like myself again. That is, I don’t have any overwhelming desires to go around running amuck amongst society and convert others into infected zombies.

A sense of relief washes over me. It looks like I
’ve been spared the indignity of wandering the streets as another infected mutt. I tense up at the thought of how close I came. To say I’m very lucky would be a massive understatement.

I decide to blame the nutmeg high for
the mellowed out and indifferent attitude towards death before my sleep. My usual self would have been freaking out and unable to get a single wink of slumber.

I look at the ti
me. The clock reads ten. I must have slept about eight hours. Eight hours!

My concern turns to
Emma and Shawn. I wonder if they made it to the hotel in one piece. I have no other choice but to believe they did.

I lean back against the headboard. The thick padding cushions my head.
It’s a hell of a lot nicer now then in my nightmare. I try piecing together everything that I’ve learned so far.

People are becoming infected but despite their condition they still seem to be vulnerable to injury and death just like normal people.
The first thing that seems to be affected is their vocal abilities and the longer they survive the more seized up their limbs become. This could prove advantageous. The virus may be controlling them but it’s obvious that they are intelligent enough to think out ambushes like the one on the bus. They don’t seem to simply be mindless drones but instead appear to work together. The president said that communications were down. Is this because the virus has turned them into such impressive hunters that they intentionally aimed to sabotage such a vital commodity?

I close my eyes to help myself think more clearly
. I have to focus on planning what to do next. My main priority is linking up with the others, but it’s at least sixty miles away, so going on foot is not really an option. I’ll to have to obtain transport somehow. My car is still across town so I can’t see that happening.

It
dawns on me the taxi from last night is still abandoned just up the road from here. As far as I can recall, the driver left the keys in it. I can easily make my way to it undetected. Without any other alternatives, I decide this is the most logical conclusion.

With
the basis of a plan figured out my spirit feels lifted slightly. I’ll get to the hotel and it’ll be safe there. The three of us will be. There’ll be plenty of room to hide and all the facilities we need like running water and a kitchen.

I opt to wait until darkness falls fully before
hitting the road. There’ll be less chance of being sighted with the shadows acting as my cloak.

Half an hour passes and the night has taken hold. It
’s time to make my move. I unblock the bedroom door and move through to the kitchen. The stench of the corpse has become highly pungent. So much so, that I have to cover my nose and mouth as I raid the fridge.

I
take a fresh bottle of water and some easy to carry bits to eat. Typical student, there’s flip all to choose from, so I make do with a banana and another bar of chocolate and stuff them into my hoody pockets.

I un-
cordon the front door and take a step out into the balmy night air. It’s a typical late Irish summer night for when we have a spell of good weather, which isn’t too often.

It isn
’t as dark as I had hoped, but it’ll be enough to conceal my movements as long as I’m careful. I close the door behind me as quietly as possible and proceed on my way.

I notice curtains ruffling
in some windows of the surrounding apartments. Scared residents keeping lookout no doubt. I wonder if it’s possible some people mightn’t even know about the disaster unfolding.

These people
probably think I’m crazy venturing outside. I can’t help but think the same. After all, the darkness may hide me, but that just means it can conceal other would-be assailants too.

Maybe this wasn
’t such a good idea. Should I go back and wait until daylight? No, I’ll carry on. Indecisiveness is my enemy in this situation. Any wrong move or decision could have dire consequences.

I make my way along the route that
Emma and I had used in the morning, using walls and bushes to mask my presence.

In the distance I can see signs of buildings burning. They form an orange glow that eats into the skyline. Some aren’t all that far away and feel a little bit too close for comfort, as it indicates there could be enemies nearby.

I can
also make out what sounds like gunfire far away. Presumably it’s the army fighting. They’re pretty much the only ones with guns in Ireland. I wish we had the American lack of regulation on gun control here. It would come in mighty handy to be packing some weaponry right about now.

Now and again I spot bodies moving in the distance an
d avert my course enough to ensure I keep off the radar, but at the same time not allowing myself to stray too far from my destination. So far I’ve managed to remain unnoticed every time.

It appears there
are a lot more infected roaming around the place compared to earlier. Does this mean more and more people are falling victim all the time or do they just prefer to skulk about at night time?

I maintain my stealthy approach towards the car. When I eventually get close, I crouch crestfallen behind a hedge. Not too far from the abandoned automobile two dreary looking teenage lads are shuffling about, neither coming or going. They just seem to be loitering.  

T
o top off my bad luck, the parking lights of the taxi have been on this whole time and now they’re only glowing dimly. The battery is surely going to be too weak to get a turnover from the engine.

Contemplating
my options yields two results. I can make a dash for the car and hope to god that it starts before I attract attention or attempt to find some alternate form of transport. The latter seems like a better idea but I can’t formulate any sort of plan how to actually go about it.

The longer I wait here amongst this hedging like a peeping tom, the greater the risk of being discovered. I need to make
a move now, one way or another.

With no inspiration or other plan
forthcoming, I decide to revert to my initial arrangement.  I wait patiently until there are no eyes peering in my direction, and then I sprint towards the kerb stricken car.

I keep a low profile as I run
, looking somewhat similar to someone running towards a helicopter in the movies. What I wouldn’t give to have a chopper come and fly me out of here.

I
manage to reach the car unnoticed and slip in the driver’s door. I huddle into the seat. The keys are in the ignition; at least I was right about that. I peer over the top of the dash and wait until the two teens eventually saunter off into the distance.

I switch off the lights to give the car every chance of starting. I pop it into neutral and pump the accelerator as I
try turning the key.

Rrrrrr rrrrr rrr r... The battery dies a pathetic sounding death. Now what do I do? I
sit motionless for a moment, racking my brains. Maybe I could try a push start. It’d be difficult on my own, although the road does slope significantly back the way. Is it even possible to hill start a car going in reverse?

I wish the internet was working on my phone so I could Google the answer. The only way to find out now is to
go ahead and try.

I examine the road behind me and surmise a trajectory for my roll. I
turn the key to the on position and then release the handbrake but the car doesn’t budge at all. The rear left wheel is marginally caught on the kerb. Not badly caught, but just enough to prevent the car moving without a measure of force being applied.

I straighten the steering wheel so t
hat all four wheels are aligned. Opening the door, I stand up and push backwards. As I do, the sight of the hoodlums from before sprinting towards me is enough to make me shit a brick.

The pitiful sound of the engine must have attracted their interest. How the hell did I not spot them before now?
They’re only two hundred metres away and closing fast.

I have approximately twenty seconds to get myself out of jail
here. I push hard and the car rocks but doesn’t move. I try again. Same result.  A quick panicky glance over my shoulder reveals the hunters have halved the distance. There’s only time for one more try.

I step back and make a barging thrust into the door frame
. The metal and rubber dig deep into my shoulder, but I’m too preoccupied to notice any pain.

The car tyres crunch on the tarmac as they slowly begin to
turn. I drive my feet hard against the ground and give one last almighty heave with all the strength I have in me.

The runners are
just a matter of metres away. I have no choice but to jump in the car. I slam the door behind me and lock it just in time before they finally catch up to me, and start banging ferociously on the windows.

The car has freed up enough from the kerb to begin rolling slowly down the incline
under its own weight. It’s still not fast enough to try to start it. I’m going to have to get the timing just right, otherwise I’ll cock it up and end up stationary and helpless in the middle of the road.

I
’m beginning to pick up momentum, so I make good use of my mirrors to ensure the best possible position on the road is maintained.

Aggrieved
eyes stare in the windows, intent on capturing me. One to the left of me, the other to the right and here I am stuck in the middle with Drew, that being the name on the taxi drivers identification, that’s stuck to the dashboard.