Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 40

It was a cacophony of beats, fainter at first, but getting louder, stronger, thumping above our heads like a roaring river at an incoming flash flood.

It was the roar of engines and motors, and as I looked out of the bus's windows, black iron and steel swamped the skies. It wasn't the typical thing you'd see during sunrise.

Miguel gently pushed on the breaks and looked out. "What the hell is going on?"

Planes, helicopters, and drones flew above us, moving south toward Union City. They were military planes, that much I could tell, and some of the bigger helicopters, which looked like those twin-engined CH-47 Chinook models, transported large amounts of stacked crates secured by thick nets. At first, I thought that maybe they were supplies for the survivors, food, water, perhaps some weapons, but they weren't dropping it into the city.

"And are they leaving?" Logan asked.

"It looks like Uncle Sam is abandoning the city," I said.

Luke gasped, straining his neck out the window for a better look. "They can't be! What about that evac zone in Central Park?"

Logan scoffed. "Oh, just like them telling the entire country that the city has mostly evacuated? Yeah. I call bullshit on that one."

"But they're the army. They're supposed to help us!"

"If they're leaving, does that mean they lost control?" Logan asked nervously.

"We don't know that," Luke said.

"But something's off," I finally said out loud. "Something is really, really off."

I had a bad feeling. A deep knot in the back of my stomach churning like it wanted me to do back-flips. My head was swimming, and I suddenly had a massive headache looking at the planes and helicopters like a flock of birds flying away before a natural disaster.

"You okay?" Logan asked.

I nodded, but he wasn't convinced. I walked up to the front and tapped Miguel on the shoulder. "Go," I said, "and drive fast."

Miguel stared at me for a few seconds, his tough facade dropped like a pin, and he nodded without saying a word as he stepped on the gas. He saw something in my eyes that I didn't understand until now as I am writing this.

He saw trouble coming. I guessed for a man who saw the look in my eyes each day living on the streets of New York; it was enough for him to know when to flee as far away as possible.

As Miguel drove toward the cathedral, my mind was reeling.

——

"I don't understand why we aren't going to Central Park?" Aria asked.

Aria and the others in the cathedral had also heard the emergency broadcast on the radio. Though it might sound promising, a real hope, I've seen enough movies or heard from my father that when the military and the government said everything was going to be okay, trust your gut that some fucked up shit were going to go down.

My father said that.

"We're going for the boat," I said. "I trust my gut, and my gut tells me we should not go there," I said.

Aria ran her hands over her hair and sat down on the pew, huffing loudly. "Well, my gut tells me we should stay."

"We saw the military leaving the city," said Logan. "I think they're abandoning us."

"Yeah. Because of the evacuation," Yousef added. "That's what an evacuation is. They might be transporting people out of the city!"

I shook my head. "An armada of helicopters and planes transporting survivors out less than an hour after the broadcast? I don't think so; pack everything so we can get out of here? We might not have time."