Albert Peterson - The Hibernia Strain

She stumbles as she lands with a shuffle inside the supermarket, quickly yanks her skirt back into place and without pause, turns to give me a look that would kill a goat. I raise my eyebrows and grin back in response.

Once we’re both inside the supermarket, her first stop is the girl’s toilet. I suspect her change of view on looting is as much a result of her desire not to pee outside, as it is the realisation that this infection thing isn’t as temporary a situation at it first appeared.

I stand guard outside, and when she comes out we stay in eye contact as we shop for essential s. She gets what she wants while I grab a pack of two hundred pep pills and raid the tinned food section, taking a bit of everything except beans, I fucking hate beans.

Despite our little make up in the car park, conversation is still at a minimum between the two of us and that suits me fine.

It’s obvious there’s something there between her and Matt and even more obvious she’s worried sick about him. I was a little concerned myself but I know Matt, he’s far too stubborn to die when he’s chasing a bit of tail as tasty as Emma.

We carry our haul outside in shopping baskets and start loading up the car. As I busy myself packing away the food, I see Emma staring blankly into the boot.

“Don’t worry, you can’t get rid of him that easily, believe me, I know.”

It’s a small and essentially meaningless reassurance but the effect on her character is immediately apparent.

Once the car can hold no more and I’m struggling to get the boot closed, I take a quick glance over at Emma who’s getting into the front passenger seat. Taking my chance, I grab her supplies box and quickly fire it across the car park and out of sight. The boot snaps closed, and it’s time to hit the road again.

“Can I drive for a while,” Emma asks, “It might help me get my mind off it all.”

I give her what she wants after a light hearted but genuine warning about putting a single scratch on my VW.

As I switch with Emma and un-tense my back into the leather bucket seat, I realise this is the first time I’ve rested in nearly two days.

I was neck deep in a job last night, designing an identity for some nobody start up company, whose idea of a logo brief was, “Give me a unicorn with an exploding galaxy behind it, but keep it simple.”

Like usual, I was avoiding fatigue with coffee and a few special blends of my own. The days seem to meld together when you’re an insomniac, never sleeping but never really awake. I had to gather my thoughts and make sure I wasn’t dreaming when I got the call from Matt about pale faced weirdoes sucking the blood from unsuspecting taxi drivers.

I’m still making my mind up about how real any of this actually is, although Emma has far too many clothes on for this to be a dream of mine.

Once we’ve been driving for a while, Emma starts to talk, opening up and telling me a bit about herself. I’ve no real intension of listening, but I don’t see this as a reason to stop her now that she seems to be on a roll.

I lean my forehead against the passenger window and stare out into the distance. I’m noticing the bright, fresh greenness of the Irish countryside turning into an unsettling version of itself, as we pass what can only be described as an endless string of victimless accidents. There’s plenty of blood, and I think I even spot limb or two as we speed past, but no bodies.

From what I’m witnessing, it’s hard to interpret what events could have led to this carnage but there’s no doubt they were bad.

My mind starts to wander, drifting as close to sleep as I usually get. As we drive down this stretch of road; this twisted version of what would yesterday have been a mundane commute for hundreds of people going through the motions of their normal everyday lives, I consider the chaos that’s going on everywhere. With this apparent self-destruction of society I have to wonder if this is now the new normal , the next inevitable evolution of society. Is this the new everyday world we’re gonna be faced with from now on?

The realisation of this possibility leads me to further ponder as to whether this world of entropy and random violence, where we’re forced to live on reaction alone really makes any less sense to me than the everyday life of nine to five. A life where people collect their dog’s shit in the street and smile every morning to people they can’t stand. A world where everything everyone says is coded to such a degree by social convention and political correctness that they’re not even sure what they’re saying themselves. Yeah, I think I’ll fit in about as well in this new world as I did in the last. Roll on Society 2.0.

I waft back to reality and to the realisation that my thoughts are becoming less than rational. I’ve rarely been in a worse state than this before, and I can’t afford to be in anything but top form in this situation. I need time to rest properly and to eat something more substantial than the cold slice of pizza I ate for breakfast yesterday.

I can’t tell if it’s been hours or minutes since we left the supermarket, but I notice that the previously chaotic scenes outside my window have taken a more structured, sinister complexion. We’re now encountering wreck after wreck of head on collisions, as if people were intentionally ramming each other off the road.

I’m also suddenly aware of the reason for my return to reality, the background noise of Emma’s life story or whatever has ended. I look over at her wondering if she finally said something that required a response of some kind from me, only 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.