17
Ianto noticed that the wind had grown angrier the higher the SUV climbed, and he felt some relief when he came to a huge decline in a road that snaked like a helter skelter.
He was going to have to slow down even more because of the bendy road, but at least it was now spiralling downwards.
He released a sudden gasp and hit the brakes when something darted out into the middle of the road. Once the SUV stopped, Ianto slowly placed his head on the steering wheel and began to laugh to himself.
"A squirrel," cackled Ianto. "A pissing squirrel."
His laughter began to diminish, after all, it wasn't a squirrel that was chasing him before.
He had no idea what that was.
He moved off again, paranoid that he was still being chased. It was obvious that some kind of infection or outbreak had occurred and although Jack knew, he was now holding a frightened Toshiko as the rest of the inhabitants slept.
Andy and the girl were following in Andy's car, procured from the roadside creating a two car convoy. Jack had agreed that it might be prudent to have two, in case of a breakdown.
It had been a surreal evening even before these events had happened, with the eerie countryside and the evil weather.
As he continued to drive, his mind wandered.
Ianto eased off the gas once the cars had reached the bottom of the spiral, and once the road straightened up he remained off the gas and could feel his eyes becoming blurry with tears.
He wiped the tears away with his forearm, and cursed himself.
He had no idea what he was crying for. Yes, he had just experienced a horrific episode.
Yes, he was frightened. And yes, he was now at least a mile away from the possessed humans that ran after him, but what was going to be the overall outcome?
He released a harsh yawn and applied a little more gas to make this horrific, arduous journey a little quicker. He drove for another five minutes and suddenly felt the steering wheel getting heavy and pulling to one side.
"You've got to be shittin' me."
He tried to continue to drive, despite the flat tyre, but with the pouring rain and the vehicle continuing to pull to one side, he gave up and thought that he was going to do further damage to the vehicle if he continued.
He allowed the SUV to come to a stop, and Ianto looked out of his window, unsure what to do.
They couldn't sit in the cars all night! He just hoped this episode would be a lot quieter than when he first stopped.
With the paranoia urging him to hurry the hell up, he wasted no time in jumping out of the SUV, checking which tyre was bust, and headed for the boot. He didn't want to waste time by dwelling on it, but he did wonder if he should turn his headlights off. If these...things were still heading his way, which he very much doubted due to sheer exhaustion, he didn't want to help them reach their target by showing them the way with his car all lit up.
However, he decided to leave the lights, so he could see what he was doing, and get a move on.
He took the tyre iron out of the boot of the car and looked over both shoulders before closing it.
"Pissing hell," Owen snapped. "This is like something out of the Twilight Zone. All we need now is the car not to start, followed by thunder and lightning."
Ianto snorted his agreement as the window went back up and Owen huffed in the passenger seat.
Ianto took out the jack and began raising the vehicle up. The rain continued to lash down, and despite leaving the car lights on, it was still too dark to see what he was doing. He felt for the nuts, took hold of his tyre iron and began unscrewing them.
With the noise of the wind and the rain, Ianto knew any danger coming from behind was going to be hard to hear, especially see, and tried to go as quick as he could.
"I need to pee" Cheryse whispered to Andy who nodded and helped her over to a copse of tree for some privacy.
It never occurred to him to tell the others.
Once the tyre was free, he pulled it off and rolled the thing away from the car, eventually swallowed up by the darkness. He speedily went for the spare in the boot, still glancing around in the darkness, and began tightening the nuts on the spare.
There were four nuts in all, he wasn't caring about the wheel trim, and by the time he had managed to put the second one on, he could hear a faint growling noise, like something from the cat family.
Oh no.
He didn't want to waste any more time, and once the third nut was on he thought, to hell with the fourth, and quickly lowered the car. Leaving the jack in the road he jumped back into the SUV, threw the tyre iron onto the passenger seat and started the engine.
Screams had them turning to see Cheryse on the ground and Andy struggling with ….
Ah fuck.
As soon as the car started to move, Ianto jumped and yelped in fright when he heard a loud bang come from behind him. He turned around and could see a man that was dressed in only a hospital gown, was trying to get in by punching his way through the back window.
"Fuck" Owen struggled to get a gun out of the glove box and Ianto checked the rear view mirror, finding Jack silently awake, listening.
Ianto waited and Jack whispered, "They're both gone. Move."
Once the SUV was gathering momentum, Ianto had slipped it into third. The noise continued and Ianto looked above him in fright once he heard that this thing had managed to get on the roof of the car.
Shit! All this time, it had been sprinting its heart out to get to me. If I had dithered and decided to put the fourth nut on...
It wasn't worth thinking about.
Before giving the man the opportunity to punch his way through the sunroof, Ianto began to swerve the car to the left and right in the darkness, in a desperate and dangerous attempt to throw the thing off. It clung on somehow and Ianto was aware with the torrential rain, the darkness and the roads, his desperate strategy could end up becoming his eventual demise.
Owen fired a few shot off, opening the roof to the rain and Jack struggled out from under Toshiko.
Gwen struggled to the front seats as she crouched and aimed up as well.
With his full beam still on, Ianto could see another straight stretch of road and his right foot went down a few inches and increased the pressure on the gas pedal.
The car speeded up, whilst punches to his roof rained above him, and once it hit sixty, Ianto slammed the brakes, throwing the man off of the roof.
He flew twenty yards away, his body rolling along the hard road like a thrown dice, eventually coming to a stop. Ianto's breathing was loud and filled with angst; he looked out to the body that was lit up by the car's headlights, and could see that it was lying in the middle of the road, yards away. He felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach once he saw some movement coming from the body.
Is he getting back up?
Ianto shook his head in disbelief and released the handbrake and darted forwards, heading for the body, wheels squealing. The car went over the thing and Ianto's body jumped as if he had driven over a speed bump too fast.
He then released a sigh and hoped that that was the end of this nightmare and surreal episode he had just endured.
"Well done" Jack crooned, rubbing Ianto's arm before turning back to assess the terrified inhabitants.
Still driving and two minutes later, Ianto could see up ahead that his nightmare wasn't finished yet.