Unsaid

"For the last time Annie, it's not us! It's one of these other cars."

Annie looked around the road, four lanes of traffic, plenty of other vehicles speeding along the route alongside them. Every driver's foot to the floor, just like her husband's was.

Spray glittered past headlights, kicked up by tyres sliding over the slick road, threatening a loss of control with any slight adjustment on steering wheels.

Annie caught the eye of a woman driving a battered looking red Ford speeding past their car. An accusatory glint in her eye. Her passenger seat was empty. A solo traveller, that meant nothing, it could still be her causing all this.

Harry's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched, eyes staring fixedly into the darkness stretching out ahead. His concentration currently keeping them alive, his refusal to consider they were the problem however, may render his efforts completely in vain.

"If it's not us, then there's no harm talking it through though right?" Annie tried again. She didn't want to annoy him to the point he became distracted from the road but this may never end if she didn't manage to get through to his common sense.

In the rear view mirror the storm thundered after them, rolling black clouds filled with flashes of bright white light. Not a randomly occurring weather phenomenon, this was one of the predatory monstrosities that started cropping up a decade ago after the great lightning strike that changed everything.

Lightning hits on data centres weren't unheard of, but during what seemed like a normal storm, one night ten years previous, a freak, colossal bolt had made a direct hit and blown one to smithereens. It was an institute housing hundreds of internet servers in Indiana. The power of the explosion had transferred back up into the storm swirling above and had mutated it. All the rage and contempt festering within the online world somehow manifested itself up into the electrical energy of the storm and ever since then, a new, sentient, rage filled and hungry breed of weather was born and set about chasing anyone holding on to any kind of strong negative emotion. It fed on seething resentment, violent desires, suppressed anger and unspoken grudges. The storm knew your mind, it could feel the electrical signals within your brain, it wanted to feed on them, to incorporate you into its swirling maelstrom.

Harry had refused the therapy that Annie had religiously attended since the World Health Organisation expressly recommended it to every human being who wanted to keep themselves safe. It had been almost impossible to find a single opening at any practice back then, but the industry had swelled since and every high street, every mall, every corner of the world was filled with professionals claiming they could teach you how to 'live positively'.

"It's completely unnecessary for me." Harry had insisted. "There's absolutely nothing up here to feed on." He tapped his forehead grinning at his joke. That was the closest Annie had come to leaving her husband. She knew it would keep her safer, but she couldn't do it; choosing instead to work on rewiring her own mind to come to her truth that everything was fine. Her therapist had given her the tools to do it, he would've disapproved of her use of it in that circumstance though.

And now the both of them, avoiding saying what they should be saying had attracted the ferocious spectre hot on their heels, Annie was sure of it.

They gained slowly on a Sliver Honda Civic and simultaneously rubber-necked to see a truly terrified looking pair of older ladies. The women gazed back at them, begging expressions etched into their pale faces.

"IT'S NOT US!" Harry roared towards them, hand slipping an inch on the wheel and the car gave a sickening wobble as the trailing clouds emitted a deafening rumble. Annie's stomach lurched.

"Please Harry, please. If you can't let go of your pride, you, me and everyone around us could die. What if it is us, and we could end it, why won't you consider that possibility? Please, please, be reasonable."

Unfortunately the scared old ladies had failed to reach any compassionate part of Harry and instead had increased the intensity of his rage.

"The storm appeared before you started your nagging and made me mad, I was perfectly calm when it started, therefore it's not me. When it devours whoever it is in one of these cars that has the anger management problem, we'll be fine and it will be over."

Annie was at a loss now. It was clear she would never get through to him with reason. What was there to do other than try to release the innocent people around them from the danger their situation was creating.

"Harry," she started quietly, hoping to get across the sincerity of her next words with sheer calmness and determination. "If you refuse to talk to me I'm going to grab the wheel and run us off the road." We won't be getting away anyway so I may as well try and save all these innocent people around us."

Silence followed and she let it. She hoped his brain was working through his options, taking her threat seriously, because it was serious, it was genuine. What was the point of streaking through the night until they ran out of gas and the storm caught everyone attempting to flee. If the monster was allowed to feed on their unspoken resentment and frustration it would be saeted for a while, allowing everyone else to escape. If Annie killed them both though- the fuel would be eliminated from the equation and the storm would fizzle out. Both better options than mass casualties as the storm ripped through the convoy of vehicles, slowly catching up on it's target.

"You should've left when you first had the idea." Harry said emotionlessly, without glancing away from the road. "I know you wanted to, I think I've been waiting for you to do it."

Annie didn't know what to do. Hadn't she wanted him to open up? Wasn't that their way out? And yet suddenly she was more inclined to open her door and fling herself into the pitch black than have what she thought was about to happen, happen.

"We have to break up don't we?" Harry continued still calmly. The roaring around them was retreating incrementally as he spoke.

"Do we?" Annie asked earnestly. She had always imagined them talking openly would lead to a deeper level of their relationship, with Harry's anger a thing of the past. Was digging deeper not actually the way out she had assumed?

"I think I've been angry that you didn't pull the trigger like I thought you wanted to, but maybe- you never actually wanted to break up did you?"

"I...no. Is that, what you want?" Annie felt the silence around her, Harry's foot was easing on the gas. Winds had stopped buffeting the car from behind.

"I don't want it, but I think I need it." He said simply into the stillness.

How could Annie argue? She felt numb from head to toe but also unexpectedly calm.

Glancing in the mirror she saw the last whisp of black cloud swirl and disapate behind them and they drove the remainder of their journey home shrouded in complete, relentless silence.