Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 82

The vectors roamed the streets, alert and hunting for prey.

Jun and I had been navigating through his supposed route around them, but we had been sneaking all afternoon, and we were still not halfway there. Luckily, Jun had a watch with him where I could track the time. It was past six in the evening, merely three hours until sundown, and I was quickly losing the light. I shuddered to think what would happen if I'm surrounded by darkness, alone with the crazies.

We had navigated through back alleys, shambled streets, and on rooftops, the latter we stood on by the time we got closer to downtown. Colby was almost a quarter of Albany's size, but it's still a large town, nonetheless. There was evidence that the CRA had once controlled Colby during the mandatory evacuation. There were roadblocks and some neighborhoods sealed off by makeshift walls, traffic barriers, and gates, dozens of posters encouraging the residents to evacuate, and many other things we had to trek around, padding more hours into our hike. But the CRA men were long gone now, probably to Binghamton.

"Are the CRA still around this town, or maybe some of them still left?" I asked to make sure.

Jun shook his head.

"Maybe these guys are former CRA."

"No," he said. "Too amateur-ish with guns."

"Oh."

We walked in silence for another few minutes, and then he pointed me to another route that I saw would take us another hour to go around. "You said this was the quickest route," I said, not letting my annoyance a secret.

Jun pressed his lips together. "I told you safe, not fast."

I rolled my eyes. "But still—"

"Not my fault," Jun said, shrugging. "I wasn't the one making noise."

"It's not just me, it's the...what were they called again? Ah. Alphas. The dick squad. They must have gone through here and rattled a horde."

"Correct."

I stopped, looking at him. "How'd you know?"

"Smell the air," he said. "Gunpowder."

"Seriously? You can tell from that? All I smell is piss, shit, rotting bodies, and burning rubber."

Jun ignored me and pointed ahead. "See that?"

I followed where he was pointing at a tall pole with a top logo, advertising some local diner called VINNY'S BURGERS: BARSTOW & DINE-INS. Next to it was a building around the tail-end of downtown. Well, at least we didn't have to go through the center, I thought.

"Our last stop," Jun said.

"Oh, sweet Jesus. Finally."

Jun sauntered over to the edge of the roof, where an emergency ladder led down to the alley below. A black arrow sign was drawn by a permanent marker on the ledge, one of Jun's symbol that marked his route. "It's three more blocks," Jun said.

Three blocks might not be much, but it would take us another hour to get there, given our pace.

I sighed. "Well, lead the way, boss."

Jun blinked at me without letting slip any expression, nodded, and went down the ladder. I went down the ladder after him.

Three more blocks, I recalled in my head. Yep. I can do that just fine.

"Get down!" Jun hissed, pulling me behind a concrete barricade, meshed with a chain-linked fence with coils of barbed wires on top. I only managed a glimpse of the street beyond as a pickup truck passed through. Jun pressed his fingers to his lips, and I nodded.