Over the last few hours the traffic had dwindled on the other side of the A12. Drivers stopped crashing through the central reservation to travel the wrong way down the northbound carriageways. For the first time in several days, vehicles had started heading north again. They were few and far between, with only a couple going past every hour, but as far as the rabbits were concerned, they were the worst kind of human vehicles. They came in all different shapes and sizes, but they all had flashing blue lights on top and if any other vehicle got in their way they would scream at them. The rabbits usually only saw them when the humans had accidents. The screaming vehicles never missed one of those.

Peter picked himself up and looked down the road. The vibrations picked up by his ear were strong, too strong for a car. With the northbound carriages clear he could see into the distance, and the tiny bar of flashing blue speeding toward him from the horizon. At the speed it was approaching, whatever it was would pass them in a few minutes. He hurried out of the road and climbed the curb.

Alexander stood at the roadside with most of the rabbits behind him. Some of them stood on their hind legs in the long grass, but many were more cautious about getting any closer to the curb. They remained at the base of the hedgerow where they felt safe. It had taken a long time for Peter to convince them he could do this, but in the end their own curiosity converted even the most resolute of the sceptics.

Next to Alexander were Mark, Tom and Travis. The coil of barbed wire lay on the ground between them.

"Okay, there's another one coming," Peter reported.

Those gathered jostled with anticipation. Peter nodded at Mark, Tom and Travis and they picked up the barbed wire in their mouth and dropped it into the gutter. Then they hopped off the curb after it and set to work unfurling it.

Mark, who had proved so adept at weighing it down before, sat on the trailing end of the wire whilst his two brothers carefully unwound it. There was a lot of tension trapped in the coil and it sprung back on Tom and Travis more than once. The crowd gasped and winced in equal measure, but neither was hurt. When stretched out fully, the barbed wire reached from Mark in one gutter to Tom and Travis in the other, across both northbound carriageways.

"Alright, you two, back you come," Peter said.

So the brothers let go. The wire instantly snapped back into its original shape. Mark only had time to squeak and hop into the air, releasing his own end. The wire sprung together in the middle of the road and bounced once on the tarmac. Then it was still again. Some of the rabbits in the crowd chortled. Peter frowned.

Meanwhile the flashing vehicle was getting ever closer.

"Okay, quickly now, stretch it back out," Peter instructed.

They went through the entire process again. Mark dragged the coil back into the gutter, sat on his end, then Tom and Travis came over and uncoiled it again. Once they got to the central reservation, they had to sit on the curb side by side and clamp down on the other end of the twisted wire with their jaws. By now the rabbits didn't have to put their ears to the ground to hear the approaching vehicle, though thankfully it wasn't screaming tonight.

Peter stood beside Alexander and looked down at the trap they had set. He was trying to understand the mechanics of the accident Travis had caused, even though this was difficult seeing as even Travis didn't know himself how he'd caused it. From what he could tell, unless the barbs stuck in the tyres and the wheels themselves got tangled up, the vehicle would just drive over the wire. It was only when Tom and Travis almost lost their grip yet again that Peter had his idea.

"Listen, you two," he called across the road. "When that vehicle crosses the wire, at the precise moment its two wheels pass in front of your eyes, I want you to let go of your end. Same for you, Mark."

"But it'll spring back," Mark pointed out.

"Yes," said Peter. "Exactly."

The vehicle was soon close enough to identify. It was a squat white truck, not only taller than a car but taller than a man as well. One of these always turned up at accidents, but they were always last to arrive. They had a set of double doors on the back. The injured humans were plucked out of their own crashed vehicles, fed into the back of this one, then the squat white truck ran away screaming with them.

"Okay, everybody ready?" Peter murmured.

To Peter, the closer the ambulance got, the faster it seemed to go. It had just passed Travis, Mark and Tom's roadside hovel. That journey took Peter half a day to walk from here. The ambulance would reach them in only a few more seconds.

In the gutter Mark squeezed his eyes tight shut and pressed himself up against the curb where it was safest. As the ambulance hurtled toward him at lightning speed the air was displaced ahead of it. The wind whipped up dust and those on the curb shielded their eyes from it or took a step back. Perhaps this was too close after all.

Peter stood on the curb above Mark and didn't close his eyes. He had no intention of missing a moment of this. In the last few seconds before the ambulance sped past he looked over the road at Tom and Travis one final time. They were already letting go of their end of the wire as the ambulance shot past.

On the central reservation, Travis was safe from the dust and wind, but as soon as he'd released his end of the wire he dived into the long grass and buried his face in his chest. Tom stayed at the roadside to watch.

By the time the ambulance roared past Mark in the opposite gutter he was already deafened by its approach. He only knew it was passing him when the vibrations reached a bone trembling crescendo and then he leapt blindly into the air. The wire snapped out from beneath him. He landed safely on the curb and opened his eyes. Peter's planned had worked.

The rabbits by the roadside cringed away from the chattering screech as the wire locked around the spinning axle of the vehicle's back wheels. The ambulance jerked. The rear wheels stopped moving. But the ambulance was going 80mph. It didn't stop. It began to scream, but the screaming came from the wheels, not the siren. Some of the rabbits fled from the cacophony.

White-hot sparks spewed out behind the chugging ambulance and bounced along the tarmac. The back wheels didn't turn at all. Black smoke billowed from the surface of the tyres and engulfed Peter on the curb. But still he didn't move.

Suddenly the rear tyres exploded, first the one on the far side, then the one on the near side. All the other rabbits at the roadside panicked and fled. "Run!" screamed Alexander, making for the nearest rabbit hole.

The wheels were now aflame. Bare metal wheels scraped across the surface of the road. Tumbling showers of yellow sparks danced in its wake. The ambulance shuddered along, slowing gradually, but still it kept on going.

Peter watched as the ambulance shuddered all over the place, swerving and veering from one side of the road to the other. Then the driver finally lost control. The ambulance lurched suddenly to the left, just a short distance up the A12. It bounced over the curb and smashed through the hedgerow.

There were fleeing rabbits in its path, but they all escaped in time.

Rabbits were running in all directions, but Peter alone ran after the ambulance. He stood in the path it had broken through the hedgerow and breathed in the smell of burning rubber like it was the blood of his enemy.

But still the ambulance tumbled rapidly on. It cut across the corner of the cornfield, the soft earth beneath its bare wheels causing it to sway and swerve erratically. Ears of corn fell flat beneath it. Smouldering tracks were left streaked right past two of the four points that led into the warren.

The ambulance didn't stop until it slammed right into the old oak tree.

The oak tree won that battle. It stood firm and the impact barely even made its branches shuffle. The front of the ambulance crumpled into the trunk like dead leaves and the driver flew through the windscreen. He landed on his head. His neck snapped backward and he tumbled over once. Then he lay on his back, completely still.

And then it was over, and there was silence.

The whole crash had only taken a few seconds. In the ensuing moments of quietude, many of the rabbits hiding in the hedgerow noticed the sounds of the night for the very first time. In a not too distant tree there was a tawny owl cooing to itself. Further away, a fox was barking to its mate. The wheels of the ambulance had finally stopped screaming. The only sound that came from the human vehicle now was that of the dying flames licking at the bodywork.

Beneath the surface, Angus hadn't really slept at all. He was bothered about Mark, Tom and Travis. Not that they were bothering him personally, per se. He was just bothered that he cared. He couldn't stop thinking about them. Travis had grown more than his brothers in the year since Angus had seen him last, but that was perhaps understandable given that he was the youngest. Mark now looked like one of the old bruisers who lived in the tunnels adjoining this one. He was blind in one eye and the injury looked recent. Tom had also lost weight. Angus silently scolded himself for thinking of them as any more than common-or-garden trespassing vagrant scum.

He was thinking this when the ground seemed to shake all around him. He immediately leapt to his feet and put his nose to the ground. This wasn't a sensation he had experienced before and he was afraid. A few grains of earth shook loose from the top of his burrow and fell into his straw bed. Angus hopped out. He stood and watched as a little more dirt fell from the ceiling. Mud has a consistency that when a little becomes unsettled, it spreads instability all around. A little more fell.

Angus' whiskers twitched. There are some sounds too quiet even for rabbits to hear, but their ears are sensitive enough to pick up the tiny vibrations. Angus could feel such a sound now, coursing through the soil all around him. He stepped quickly out of his burrow and into the tunnel. The sound was still inaudible, but it was getting stronger, it was spreading, it was all around him now.

Silently, the wall of the tunnel slumped behind him. Angus didn't notice. He was watching the roof of his burrow continue to crumble at the time. It was only when he realised it was all about to come crashing down that he spun round and found his escape route wasn't there anymore. He suddenly felt hot and breathless. He was trapped. He ran back to his burrow. A moment later, that also vanished beneath the tumbling mud. Angus yelped and leapt backwards. He felt like he was being swallowed alive by the earth. He hadn't dug so much as a hole in the ground for years, but when he returned to the slumped wall he began to dig feverishly.

Most of the other rabbits emerged from the hedgerow as soon as it was over. The wheels on the ambulance continued to burn and most of the rabbits sat watching the flames. The fire had them enchanted with its flickering movement, its intense brightness and its warmth. Most of them had never seen flames before. It was almost like a living thing. Meanwhile, Tom and Travis crossed back over the road.

Peter was more interested in the person who'd flown out of the vehicle. He sat at the bottom of the oak tree, closer to the ambulance than any of the others dared to go and peered over the protruding roots of the tree at the body. Just as he was heading over to the corpse, Benjamin Bunny burst excitedly from the crowd and started running rings around it. Peter looked at him sternly.

"What is it? What is it?" Benjamin squeaked.

"I don't know," Peter said. "But I don't think it's human."

This much Benjamin already knew. Most rabbits had seen humans in their cars and most humans had funny pink faces without any fur. This one had no face, let alone fur. Instead he wore a bright yellow plastic suit and a loose hood over his head with a wide and flat circular nozzle where his mouth should have been. He was vaguely man-shaped, thought Peter, so if there was a man inside, why was he wearing such funny clothes today? There was a symbol on his front that reminded Peter of a three-leafed clover, but he didn't understand what it meant.

Nicholas pushed his way through the crowd. He wasn't interested in the ambulance and had been looking for Alexander ever since the crash. He spotted Peter and went over. "Oi, you, have you seen Alexander?" he demanded.

"Nope," Benjamin said, running a circle round him.

"No," said Peter. "Have you tried looking underground?"

"As if the patriarch would be hiding," Nicholas sneered, but as soon as Peter and Benjamin were looking the other way he found the nearest rabbit hole and slid down it. Straight away the tunnels felt strange to him. Hot, airless, musty and stale. Nicholas decided to investigate.

He went through all the old tunnels calling out, "Alexander! Alexander!" First he went to Alexander's burrow. It was close to the surface, off one of the main tunnels, but it was empty. Next Nicholas traversed the four points, and when he reached the fourth he popped his head back up onto the surface to see if Alexander had reappeared. He hadn't. So he headed for the new tunnels next.

"Alexander! Alexander!" he called again as he went along one narrow tunnel that curved sharply straight ahead. Almost immediately he heard his own name being called back from deeper within the warren, followed by feet scampering to meet him. It was Alexander, and he sounded afraid of something.

Nicholas ran to meet him, skidding to a halt at the curve in the tunnel. He saw Alexander belting it along the tunnel toward him, covered in dirt. He looked like he'd been digging. He also looked like he wasn't going to stop.

"Run, Nicholas! Run!" Alexander cried.

Nicholas frowned. Then he felt the vibrations. He didn't know what they were because he'd never been in a cave in before. So he didn't run and the tunnel collapsed a second later. Nicholas froze. The end of the tunnel was now just a whisker's breadth from the end of his nose. Alexander's last order still rung inside his head. But now there was silence. Feeling dirt fall on his ear, Nicholas spun round and ran.

NOTES:
After a very talky chapter with lots of dialogue, I thought I needed to have an action-led chapter for Chapter Eight. The result was the most action-packed chapter so far, with the ambulance crash and the warren collapse. The ambulance crash itself took several rewrites to get right, doubling in length in the process, but working better because the sentences are short and punchy. The warren collapse was only going to effect Angus initially but as I wrote this chapter I made it into a big disaster that could kill off Alexander and give me scope for the next big plot development. I didn't even name Nicholas until this chapter because when he first appeared in the last chapter he wasn't going to have a big role.

Incidentally, the ambulance driver is wearing a yellow radiation suit. I don't know how well I was able to suggest this. The three-leafed clover on his suit is supposed to be the international symbol for radiation.