We drove on towards Jessica's work. My anxiety was pushing me to drive faster, but because of the fog and rain I had to keep it slow against my own wishes. I had given Aaron the radio, asking him to fiddle with and try to find a working station. There was nothing but static.

Our drive was uneventful for quite some time. Still nobody in sight. Although it was incredibly eerie, it still wasn't that crazy that there was nobody around. Yeah, it made sense that we didn't see anyone since we weren't too deep into the city yet. Everyone on the outside had already escaped. Yeah.

My attempt at trying to calm myself by rationalizing things failed, and the eyeless corpse flashed back into my mind. The only person we had seen in the city was dead. Not only dead, but brutalized. I was almost expecting to find everyone in the city dead...

After about twenty minutes of driving, I was surprised to see a living human walking on the sidewalk. Finally. It was an older man, stumbling along with an uneven gait. I honked to get his attention. He ignored me and continued to stumble by. As we drove by him, I was about to roll down my window and yell out to him, but before I did I saw his eyes. There was no light in them. He looked like a dead man walking. He didn't even acknowledge his surroundings. I shivered and drove a little faster. A few minutes later, a car almost rammed into us, stopped for a moment and then sped away with its tires squealing. Great, we had only encountered two living people so far and they both didn't even acknowledge us.

We went further and further into the city, closer and closer to the core of the storm. It seemed like the fog had gotten a bit thicker where we were, but that might have just been my imagination. The winds seemed a bit less forceful, but the rain persisted at the same rhythm. The destruction around us was toned down a little bit, until the only damage we saw were a few broken windows here and there. I didn't know exactly what that meant. Were we distancing ourselves from whatever had caused the damage elsewhere? That eased my mind a little bit; maybe Jessica was fine after all. I started to notice some signs of other people; lights coming from the windows of buildings and cards left running outside. Occasionally we'd see someone walk by. Most of them had the same lost look in their eyes. None of them seemed to have a goal in mind, they just walked aimlessly.

Ten minutes later, and I saw a policeman standing on the sidewalk. I decided to pull the car up to him. As I approached, his head jolted up. He looked startled, but sighed when he focused on us. I rolled down the window, "Hello"

"...Hello" he replied. His voice was a bit shaky. I almost laughed at the casual way we had greeted each other despite the situation.

"I'm wondering if... Wait, you can come into the car if you want, it's better than staying out there in the rain" I offered.

He hesitated for a moment, noticed Aaron in the backseat then opened the door. "Thank you," he said as he sat down in the passenger side next to me, "But stay here, I'm looking for somebody and I think they're nearby."

I could see him much better in the lit car. He was young, he couldn't have been any older than twenty. He wore a poncho over his police uniform, and he brought his hood down to reveal short dark hair and a clean shaven face.

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"I'm looking for someone too," I started, "My wife. Me and Aaron were out of the city before the storm came, and... I'm really worried about her. Oh yeah, my name's Markus by the way," I pointed to the backseat, "and that's my son, Aaron. Do you have any idea what's going on? My wife works at the department store on Jonah Street, is everything... intact there?"

"What's going on? Hah! I'd like to know too. The military hasn't told us a damn thing about what's happening. We just have orders to calm down the civilians and to keep people away from the center of the city. That's where the military is. Every now and then I see a tank or jet go by... I haven't seen any of them come back. I can't even begin to guess what's happening... unless... Never mind. And as for the department store, my squad and I were near there a while ago. Everything seemed fine. That's where... That's where I lost them. Say, you haven't seen any other police officers around, have you? We, uh, got separated in that damn fog. My brother's with us, so I'm really starting to get worried"

I shook my head.

He sighed, "Damn. This is my first week on the job, great way to start, huh? My brother's been a cop for a while, he's dealt with some crazy stuff but nothing this crazy..."

There was a pause for a moment. He had hesitated to say something before. In my thirst for answers, I pressed him a little.

"Hey, you really don't know anything else? You didn't see anything weird?"

"No, er, well... sort of..." he hesitated, and then decided to tell me, "There's been this rumor going around from the survivors that have been close to the center of the storm. They say that... they saw these huge silhouettes moving around at the very far edges of their vision. Like, they could barely see it because of the damn fog. They didn't say anything else about it, other than that whatever it was seemed big. I think they're just seeing things. With fog like this, it's a wonder that you wouldn't think you saw some weird stuff. I don't like it one bit, sometimes even I think I see something... but of course it's just my mind playing tricks" he paused again, thinking. "Oh yeah, and there's been some talk about some strange noises. People hearing some sort of screams, apparently."

A chill coursed down my spine, but I composed myself. "...anything else?"

"No, nothing. There's such a huge lack of communication going on, mainly because everybody's either running away or staying planted where they are. All we have to go off is rumors."

We sat there for a few moments listening to the rain, and I thought of what I had clarified and what I had learned. Those screams weren't just that woman's delusion. They were real. But just what in the hell were they? I thought of bringing up the corpse I had seen in the apartment complex, but the officer suddenly spoke up, "Well, I better get going. I don't want to just wait around for him, I've got to find my brother."

He opened the door, "Oh yeah, and by the way the name's Jared. It was nice to talk to another human being for a little while. It can get pretty creepy out here, ya know?"

"Yeah, thanks for the info."

"No, I'm glad I could help... good luck on finding your wife, she should be fine."

"Good luck to you too."

He closed the door and ran to the sidewalk again. I honked goodbye and started to drive away when I noticed where we were. The department store was only three blocks away.

I turned excitedly to Aaron, "Don't worry buddy, we're almost there, then we can leave with mom."

He smiled. I turned back to face the road, and started to speed towards Jonah Street. Seeing that there were still sane people in the city was reassuring, and Jared had said that the department store looked fine. Jessica was okay...

My heart beat quickened as we passed by a car that had its entire hood smashed in. We had to drive around a brick wall that had fallen onto the road. The store was one block away. We passed by a car that had smashed through a storefront. The begging in my head grew louder. Please Jessica, please be okay.