We drove on again as fast I could drive without putting us at risk in the low visibility brought on by the downpour. We passed by more cars that were pulled to the side of the road or crashed, but I didn't dare stop to see if anybody was alive.
The woman's voice played over and over in my mind like a broken record. But even louder was my inner voice urging me to find Jessica; I had to find her before whatever was lurking in the storm found her first. I glanced down at my body, I was soaked and I wasn't sure if it was mostly from the rain water or my sweat brought on by panic.
It wasn't until ten minutes of anxious driving later that we actually started to see some traffic; cars driving away from the city. Most of them sped by us erratically and we never once saw anybody heading towards the city.
Five minutes later I heard honking and shouting up ahead, and I knew what we were in for.
As we turned the corner, I cursed at what I saw. A huge truck had fallen over in the middle of the road, blocking both sides from passing. There wasn't room to go around it because the sides of the road slanted down into a hill. A group of police officers were standing around the scene of the crash, as a tow truck was attempting to get into a position to move it. On the other side of the truck I could hear honking and people screaming for them to hurry up. A few people walked down the hill and around it, wearing backpacks overflowing full of stuff. Crap, this was bad. There was a lot of noise coming from the other side. Who knows how long those people had been waiting or how long it would still take to move the truck.
I brought the car to a stop. I decided to not waste any time and at least see if anyone in the vicinity knew what was going on.
"Aaron I'm going to ask one of the police officers some questions, see if he knows anything about what's happening in the city. I'll be right back" I turned to face him, he was pale and his eyes were wide.
He only nodded.
I opened the door to the car and was greeted by a huge rush of wind to the face. As I stepped out, the wind violently slammed the door shut behind me.
"I'll only be a minute or so, just stay there!" I tried to sound reassuring.
As I walked towards the nearest policeman, the heavy rain drenched me in a matter of seconds. With each step I took water splashed up from the flooded ground and onto my already soaked legs. I had to yell in order for the policeman to hear me. He turned towards me surprised. I could barely make out his features in the torrential rain.
"What's wrong?" he said as he approached me.
I paused for a second, thinking about how exactly to word my question. I simply settled for "What's going on in there?!" while gesturing towards the city.
He let out a grunt, "The thing is, we don't know what's going on. There was an earthquake just outside the city this morning, and then suddenly it's pouring down raining. One second the sky was clear, and poof! Instantly it started to rain! We're not from Arborline branch, we were sent here to keep the peace because they already have their hands full in there... That's all I can really tell you"
"Alright, thanks," I was about to walk away.
"Oh yeah, and another thing... I don't know if I believe it, but some people think they're seeing this bi-"
He was interrupted by a loud rumbling noise that began to fill the air around us. At first I thought it was the sound of more jets flying over us or an exceptionally loud car motor, but as the noise grew louder I realized that I recognized it from somewhere. It rumbled on at a low pitch and then suddenly rose in volume to the point where I could almost feel the air around me vibrating.
