happening, it was quickly getting worse. Sonya could see the sudden red flashes of the lights of countless hastily applied brakes, burning brightly through the grey gloom of the early morning. Even over the sound of her own car's engine and the radio station she was listening to she could hear strained mechanical whines and squeals as drivers struggled to control their cars. Almost immediately the screaming brakes were replaced with grinding thuds and heavy groans and thumps as vehicle after vehicle after vehicle slammed and crashed into the back of the one in front, literally hundreds of them quickly forming a vast tangled carpet of twisted, wrecked metal along the entire visible length of the motorway.
She had no time to react. It was getting closer now. There was no obvious way to avoid the carnage. Now it was starting to happen all around her.
Forced to slam on her own brakes as the vehicles immediately ahead of her lurched to a sickening halt, Sonya braced herself for impact. She didn't know what she was going to hit, what was going to hit her or even from which direction the first impact would come. All around her every vehicle seemed to be losing control. Just ahead, in the rapidly disappearing gap between the front of her car and the huge pile up which filled the road, cars, vans and lorries were swerving and crisscrossing the carriageway as if their drivers had just given up and stopped trying to steer them. The first collision she felt came from the right as a solid four-wheel drive vehicle smashed into the passenger door behind her, the force of the shunt sending her car spinning round through almost one hundred and eighty degrees so that she found herself facing away from her original direction of travel. Now head on to the rest of the traffic, Sonya's shock and surprise gave way to utter disbelief and abject fear.
An expensive executive's car was heading straight for her. For a few short seconds (which felt like painfully long minutes) Sonya watched the driver of the car thrashing about wildly. He was clawing at his neck with one hand, scratching and scraping at it desperately as he struggled unsuccessfully to hold onto the steering wheel with the other. His face was red and his eyes wide with pain. He was choking. Distracted as the car was rocked again by a collision from the left, she turned and looked out through her passenger window. A tanker had smashed into a van which had, in turn, smashed into her. The driver of the van had been hurled through his windscreen and now lay sprawled face down over the crumpled bonnet of his vehicle. His bloodied head slammed down onto the battered metal just a short distance from where she sat. She looked away in disgust and caught a glimpse of the tanker driver's face. The middle-aged man's face was pressed hard against the shattered glass of his side window, frozen in an expression of terrified agony. Dark red blood dribbled freely down his chin, contrasting starkly with the rest of his blanched white face. The executive's car ploughed into Sonya at speed, sending her flying back in her seat and then lurching forward awkwardly. Consumed by a sudden wave of nauseating pain as her distended belly and her baby were momentarily crushed again, she briefly lost consciousness.
In the few minutes that Sonya was unconscious the world around her changed almost beyond all recognition. She slowly woke and cautiously half-opened her eyes. Slumped heavily forward with her face pressed hard against the steering wheel she pushed herself upright, struggling for a moment with the weight of her unborn child. Her own safety was of no concern as, for a few seconds longer, she remained still and closed her eyes again, running her hands over her tender belly until she was sure she had felt the reassuring movements of the baby inside. Her split-second feelings of relief and elation were immediately forgotten when she lifted her head again and looked around.
Apart from the occasional hissing jet of steam rising up into the morning air and smoke and flame from numerous burning vehicles, the world was completely silent and still. Nothing moved. Where she had expected to hear voices and cries for help there was nothing.
Sonya instinctively tried to open the door to get out of her wrecked car. Another crashed car to her right, however, had wedged it shut and she was unable