With Scarlett and her older brother reunited, we decided to bring our two groups together. It seemed that when Logan and Liam met Iris and Jamie, they felt saddened because they had just lost their mother. I knew that it was going to take some time for them to adjust to this new reality, Jamie seemed to pick up on Logan and Liam's attitude towards them and was concerned but I didn't think it was my place to tell her their story. The seven of us decided that it was best to keep traveling in separate cars as it gave us more room for our things, but we were still stuck on the highway because of the traffic jam. "Is there any new information that you heard about the refugee camp?" I asked Clark, the seven of us were all standing together by our car. "Not much, all I really know is that there is another camp that is being set up which is what I heard from my sheriff." Clark crossed his arms, leaning back against the car door. "Do you know where the other refugee camp is being set up?" Scarlett asked, "I believe they said somewhere in West Virginia, there is another CDC office there. They work alongside the ICD Lab here." He explained, "How long would it take to get to West Virginia from here?" Liam asked, I opened the passenger's side front door and grabbed the map that I had folded partially, which was sitting on the dashboard. I grabbed my mini flashlight and handed both to Scarlett, who spread the map out across the hood of the car. We all gathered around, the streetlights giving us some light but the flashlight I had made it better to see the map. Everyone gathered around, Scarlett and I standing in front of the map while Clark stood to my right. Clark took the flashlight from me and turned it on, shining it down on the map and above my shoulder.
"See, this is where we are." I pointed to the highway that we were currently on the map. "Getting from where we are to West Virginia would take us six hours, possibly even more. We could be looking at days rather than hours." I looked up from the map, "Then our best bet is to go the camp in Philadelphia." Scarlett suggested, "Yes, it would. It would at the most take us a day to get there with the way things are now." I said, "Where exactly is the camp located in Philadelphia?" Jamie asked, placing an arm on her hip as Iris moved in front of Clark to see the map. "The newscaster said that the camp is set up here," Scarlett grabbed a pen from her pocket, circling the area on the map.
"It's set up just between North Philadelphia and South Philadelphia." Clark noted, "Isn't there a river that runs alongside that route once we get out of New York City?" Jamie asked, "Yes, there is."
"The Delaware River runs alongside the I-95 route," Clark answered.
"So we have to get off of this highway and get onto the I-95 S to get there?" She furrowed her eyebrows, "We could go that way," Logan nodded, I didn't know if taking that highway was the best idea. Most of everyone was probably taking that route to get out of New York and possibly get elsewhere, which means that the highway would be extremely backed up. "No, we can't take that route," Liam spoke up, all of us looked at him as he came walking over to the group with a phone in his hand. I didn't realize he had a phone on him, he must have forgotten that he had it because of all the things that happened so far. "Why not?" I looked at him in curiosity, wondering why he looked so concerned as he looked at the dimly lit screen. "Because there was huge accident involving two semi trucks, it has completely blocked all traffic from leaving. Nobody has been able to get around the accident and it's completely backed up, nobody's moving." He explained, making me sigh and hang my head.
"Damn it," Scarlett cursed.
"What does that leave us with? What route can we take to get to Philadelphia?" Logan looked back at me, I looked back down at the map and nudged Clark to shine the flashlight down. I looked along the other routes and found one, "We can take I-78 W," I looked up at the group, "That'll take us about two hours, possibly more but it's our only way out of New York City. What do you think?" My eyes shifted to Clark, "We can do that, first things first, we'll need to get our cars out of this traffic." Clark said, looking around.
"We'll have to go over the median." We were just about to head out when another family nearby had overheard us talking, it was a family of four. The father stood an inch taller than Clark, looked to be around his late 30's. He had short black hair that ended just before his ears, emerald green eyes and a mustache that looked perfectly maintained, he was broad shouldered and had tan skin. He was a shade darker than me, next to him was who I guessed was his wife. She had black, wavy long hair that went down past her shoulders. She was just a tad lighter in skin tone than the man standing next to her and light brown eyes, she stood an inch shorter than Jamie. She looked to be around Jamie's age or maybe a year or two younger, although, I don't know Jamie's age. In her arms was a small child, who was the same color as her father and she looked to be no older than five years old. This little girl was the spitting image of her mother, same eye color, same nose and everything. Standing beside the father was a young boy, who looked to be younger than Liam and Iris. This young boy looked like the spitting image of his father, though he had his mother's skin tone, he even had his eye color as well and his hair was a light brown color.
"Is there really a refugee camp in Philadelphia?" The man asked, "Yes, there is. Why do you want to know?"
"I want to get my children and wife to safety. Is it possible for us to follow you there to this camp?" The man asked, Clark looked at me and Scarlett and I nodded.
"Yeah, you can follow us. We have to get on I-78 W, it's the only highway we can use that isn't blocked by traffic like this." Clark looked back at the man, "Thanks, man. You don't know how much this means to me. I'm Jeremiah by the way. This is my wife, Penelope. Our daughter, Piper and our son, Jack." Jeremiah held out his hand to Clark, "Clark. It was no problem, it's nice to meet you." Clark shook his hand.
"This is my sister Scarlett," Scarlett gave them a way, "her best friend, Blake." I shook Jeremiah's hand and smiled at him. "Logan and his brother Liam," Both boys nodded their heads, not saying a word. I had a strange feeling that Logan seemed a little skeptical of Jeremiah, not sure why though. "And Jamie and her daughter, Iris."
"It's nice to meet you," Jamie shook Jeremiah's hand, "Likewise." Jeremiah answered. "Do we have a way of communicating with each other? There's no phone service anymore, I've tried making calls to family and have been getting the busy signal." Jeremiah asked, looking back at Clark. Clark nodded and headed over to his car, he came back with three walkies. I was surprised that he had that many on him, he handed one to Scarlett asking her to find an open channel. "Channel Six is open." Scarlett said, Jamie took the other walkie from Clark and switched it to that channel while Clark set up the last one. "We'll be on Channel six, if anything happens, you press this button to speak and you'll know when it's on if the light is red." Clark demonstrated how to use the walkie, handing one to Jeremiah, who nodded. With that, we broke into our original groups and got into our cars. I sat in the driver's seat this time, letting Scarlett take a much needed break. When everyone was buckled in, I watched Clark go up over the median and followed after him, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a black SUV following me which I assumed was Jeremiah's car.
"What the-" I looked through the window, watching helicopter fly over the highway and head towards the city. "Why are there helicopters heading to the city?" Liam asked, "I don't know but I don't have a really good feeling about this." Logan shook his head, "Neither do I." Scarlett answered. She grabbed the walkie and continued looking out the window as I started driving.
"Clark, are you seeing this?"
"Yes, I am."
"What are they doing?" Before Clark said anything, there was a loud whistle sound followed by a large boom. "Oh god," I choked out in disbelief as I stopped the car, Jeremiah also stopping behind us. We watched as several more explosions went off in the city, "They're bombing the city." Logan said, I silently prayed that everyone else we knew in the city had already gotten out. I started driving, unable to watch it any further but Liam continued looking out of the window.