Albert Peterson: The Hibernia Strain

Shawn breaks the silence. “Well we won’t be going to any safe area,” he states with a cynical laugh.

“Why not?”

“Because I passed that way to get here and the whole place is fucked man. I mean, it’s like well and truly fucked. We’re just lucky it hasn’t spread on a large scale to this side of the city yet. And I mean YET. It will spread here; it’s just a matter of time. Our only safe bet is to get the hell outta the city, as far away from here as we can.”

This resonates in my brain. Society was collapsing all around us, and we were completely clueless. We thought it was just some random, violent thugs out to cause trouble when, in reality, the picture was bigger, much bigger!

I look over at Emma who has been really quiet this entire time.

“You ok?” I enquire.

“Does it not upset you that we just maimed and probably killed several people back there?” she retorts.

True this realisation never dawned on me until now. I guess in the heat of the moment I had overlooked this fact. I turn away in silence. Remorseful thoughts are running true my head.

Shawn butts in, “Look it was them or you. They wanted to kill you, so it was self-defence, ok? Anyhow, you can hardly call those shitheads human anymore. They’re more like a pack of animals now.”

Yea that’s a valid point. I shouldn’t feel guilty. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they wanted to cause us harm on the bus. Of course, I don’t want people to die, but if it’s them or us then I’ll always pick us.

With dismay in her voice, Emma shouts at him, “Maybe they did have bad intentions but they’re still people. They’re just sick is all.”

“Okay okay, Jesus I’m sorry,” Shawn apologises half heartedly. “Anyhow, I don’t know why you’re feeling so bad seeing as I’m the one who actually ran them down sweetheart.”

“Nice friends you keep Matt,” Emma utters as she throws her hands in the air in a frustrated gesture.

“Shawn apologise,” I order in an ushering tone.

“Matt I’m not going to apologise for speaking the truth, just because you want to get in her knickers.”

I hear Emma let out a disgusted, “Ugh” beside me.

“Shawn,” I exclaim, this time in a more assertive tone. He looks at me, and I raise my eyebrows insistently. He silently mouths to me the words, “Okay fine,” as he throws his eyes up to heaven.

“I’m sorry if I offended you Emma. Sincerely I am.” Shawn’s declaration seems genuine enough for Emma to accept reluctantly. Jesus these two are as stubborn as each other.

The cab of the jeep falls quiet again.

“Well if everyone is finished making friends then maybe someone has some useful suggestions what to do next?” I say breaking the hushed atmosphere.

“Well, leaving me home would be a start,” asserts Emma with a scowl on her face.

Oh she’s pissed off .

“Fine if that’s what you want then there’s no problem there,” Shawn says almost joyfully. He changes course and directs the jeep back towards the vicinity of Emma’s apartment before even finishing the sentence.

I try to lighten the mood a little and ask Shawn how he obtained his new set of flashy wheels.

He starts by telling us how he had left his place to come and pick us up. He was walking to his car, a beat up old Volkswagen Bora, when he noticed a big deal of commotion happening out on the street. Much the same as what Emma and I had witnessed outside the takeaway.

There were people running for their lives’ from a horde of menacing figures. Others who were not fast enough to escape were been assaulted both sexually and physically.

The route to his car was blocked, so he doubled back to his place and looked for something to defend himself. The obvious choice being a short bladed samurai sword he acquired on a holiday to Japan some years back. He points to the back seat, and sure enough to support his story there’s the sword lying in its sheath.

He brought me one back from that trip too. It’s currently is in my house, but that’s no good to me now. They’re lethally sharp but obviously only used as display objects. Also, to my own knowledge, it’s illegal to own them in Ireland. Not that it’s an issue right now.

From there, he sneaked out the back to avoid an encounter with the ‘Virus Squad’ as he calls them. By that stage, it was obvious to him that the shit had hit the proverbial fan, and the city was in full riot mode. And what do people do during riots? They loot and rob.

So Shawn decided to pay his local motor dealer a visit at three AM and helped himself to a new ride. He also tried ringing me several times but couldn’t get any coverage.

From his description, I learn three things. Firstly, his network must have gone down shortly after I rang him the first time. Emma’s phone is obviously on a different network, so it didn’t go down at the same time.

Well the second thing I already know, Shawn is an egotistical maniac, and three, it sounds like the aim of those infected is to try and pass the virus on to those who are uninfected, not actually kill anyone.

It’s fair to assume that like most viruses they use up the resources at their disposal until they are depleted thus resulting in the virus itself dying out. So death for the host is probably inevitable after becoming infected. But how long? A day? Two? A week? There’s no way for to know.

By the look of Toma’s physical decline, I’d wager that she’s not far from deaths door. But I could be wrong. Also, judging from the taxi drivers’ quick transformation the initial effects seem to be fast acting.

So in this case the virus seems to be intelligent enough to be able to control the infected person and make them pass it on to the next unlucky sod, ensuring its survival. But for how long? Until there are no more people left in the country to infect? Now that’s a scary thought!

If that’s the case, and these zombies are running loose around the city attacking people, then is locking yourself up at home really going to make you any safer?

We arrive at the car park belonging to Emma’s apartment complex. Shawn pulls up as close to her door as the jeep can go and leaves the engine running. There’s no sign of anyone life around.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask in the hope that she’ll change her mind.

“I’ll be fine,” she insists.

“Okay I’ll see you in then,” I offer.

Pleased by this, she looks over at Shawn and thanks him sincerely for having saved our skins earlier. The signs of anger towards him appear to have waned slightly. Maybe the scale of the situation has finally sunk in.

He accepts the gratitude and wishes her the best of luck, but I know him well enough to be able to tell he doesn’t really give a rat’s ass.

Emma gets her key ready as I take the sword from the back seat and remove it from its sheath.

We hop out of the jeep and dart for her doorway. When we make it she quickly inserts the key.

“That’s funny,” she spouts, “It’s not locked. I thought for sure I had locked it.”

I clearly remember she did lock it as she checked it twice to make sure.

“You did, and you double checked it,” I reply.

This whole scenario just got real dodgy.

“I probably just had a blonde moment,” she insists as she turns the handle and walks in. I follow close behind with a tight grip on the sword’s hilt.

The place is the same as we left it, but I still find it awfully strange that the door was unlocked. I slowly skulk my way from room to room, gradually and carefully opening doors and checking if there are any unwanted intruders. I puff out sighs of relief with each unoccupied one I find.

I come to the last room which is Emma’s bedroom. Opening the door I find a young man standing there, staring me down. A glowering look on his face. He’s handsome, blond haired, and I’d judge him to be in his early twenties. I raise the sword in front of me and assume an aggressive stance.