Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 125

Day 94: July 11th, Sunday
Reclamation Day

Morning came.

It had been three months and three days since the outbreak began in New York. Three months and three days of constant running, fighting, and drawing blood that I had lost count of the quiet nights I had cried myself to sleep, thinking to myself why I had deserved to live in such a hellish place, or what sins were so heinous that some deity would grind and crush our souls into nothingness. But I had never been a religious person, so I would smack myself to get my head together and move on to more practical stuff.

And that meant the war.

When President Marshall said that today's events would define every human being on the planet, he wasn't exaggerating. With billions of people watching across the globe, the combined military forces of the United States, Canada (and an assist with Mexico, Great Britain, and France) advancing across the Delaware line was the most well-documented piece throughout human history, down from the tantamount victories in the Battle of Baltimore, the Beat of the 3rd battalion, or the Maytown Flowers. And also down to the darkest days from the Drowning of the Chesapeake Bay, The Panic of Rochester, the March of the Twenty-Thousand...

And the Massacre of Harrisburg.

I remembered the fervor, tension, and awe that day rippling within Harrisburg and the rest of the country, anticipating the success and dreading the failure of the entire war. Sgt. Murray took us to a hiding spot while we waited for the military to cross the river. He had found an abandoned apartment, a two-story penthouse, on top of a luxurious condominium. Since the owners weren't going to come back, we might as well stay there for the rest of the day. Murray had used it as a hideout when the Alphas would breach downtown, staying there for a couple of days, and he would just goof around with his team, play board games, drink some hard, expensive liquor from the mini bar, or watch TV—a mini vacation.

I remembered walking out of their massive balcony overlooking the rest of the city, feeling like the king of the world as the wind flipped my hair back, the river murky brown after the rain. The military was mobilizing from across the waters, lining up every street with tanks, Humvees, barriers, dugouts, watchtowers, soldiers, everything. Planes flew above the sky: fighter jets, helicopters, Black hawks, CH-47s, news crews, and many more. On a rooftop not far from us, a bunch of reporters had been dropped off by a helicopter, and each crew started assembling their gear and prepared for the campaign.

President Marshall had promised the twenty thousand troops for each front, and there were many more sent to cities adjacent to the Susquehanna River.

The city of Harrisburg was one of the large cities lining the river, and if the military retook it from the vectors and the Alpha's iron grip, they would be able to hold countless operations within the Red Zone. It was one of the most important strategic points in the war, and I realized now why President Marshall was adamant at putting all his efforts in Harrisburg (and the other city being in Baltimore since its the last line of defense against a massive horde heading toward Washington DC, the capital).

More troops marched on the Capital Beltway, seemingly spilling out of the edges, and I was afraid the bridge wouldn't be able to take their combined weight. They continued to march into the city. Soldiers rappelled from the transport copters down to rooftops, parks, and Andy open grounds they could find. Luckily, none had chosen to land on the penthouse. One had even touched down in front of the State Capitol building, where most of the troops had made the place the HQ for the campaign. Murray told all of us to avoid that area.