Her eyes glint with adrenaline as dappled sunlight reflects off the bonnet through the dense canopy overhead. ‘What do you think, can we make it?’

‘I don’t know, it’s pretty old.’

A muddy, rutted track, congested with a battalion of stones and debris, unrolls itself before me. I notice a pine tree scarred by buck shots on my left hand side. Unable to hide my nerves, I stutter slightly: ‘It would probably be best to just turn back.’

‘You’re such a girl.’

‘Screw you. Running bridges in the middle of Rednecksville, Nowhere strikes me as a ten-point-ten on the Bad Ideas Richter Scale, is all. I give us five minutes before our first ass…’

The crackle of breaking branches echoing through the forest dries my throat, stopping the words dead. In the corners of my paranoid peripheral vision, the sinister shadows following us detach themselves from the murk.

‘I’m going for it,’ she screams, flooring the accelerator.

My gut lurches as wheels spin, struggling for traction in the dust, the ominous chasm and dilapidated bridge coming up on us fast.

‘I knew it was a bad idea to let you do the map reading.’

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