For a minute I thought we were going to make it out of the city without any problems. But only for a moment. I didn't kid myself for very long.

Things were going good. We made it pretty far through the city, and then it all started to go downhill.

"Why are you stopping?" I asked Jared, who had just slammed on the breaks.

He pointed ahead. I adjusted myself forward into my seat so I could see out the windshield of the car and what I saw made my jaw drop. Just a few feet ahead of us, was a hole in the ground that took up the entire width of the road. The two houses on either side of it were halfway sunken in and from my view in the car I couldn't see how deep or long it was. It extended past the limit of my vision set by the fog, so it must have been pretty huge.

I sighed, "Alright, let's just go back onto another street and k-"

I was interrupted by a loud noise that tore through the air. It was the sound. Like always, it started low, like the noises whales make, but this time it was definitely louder and more clear than it had been before. As it started to escalate in volume, we had to cover our ears as it took on a high, shrieking pitch. I could actually feel the vibrations shaking the air around us when the noise reached its climax, and my ears felt like someone had stabbed a knife into them. Just when the pain became almost unbearable, the sound abruptly stopped.

The fact that it was louder than it had ever been meant one thing: whatever was making that noise was very close. A thought popped into my mind: the major destruction we had seen almost appeared to go on a specific trajectory. It wasn't spread out, it had followed a single path. The fact that the sound reminded me a bit of whale-songs made me start to think... No. There was no way.

That was impossible.

"So that's the sound," Jared said, slack jawed, "What in the hell is that?"

"There's something living making that sound. It's a God damn roar!" I blurted my theory out loud, "Jared, get us out of here right now!"

"You don't have to tell me that twice!" he said as he backed the car up and drove to another street.

I heard something in the distance, something like... loud gunshots. Or maybe cannon fire? Is that what it was? Or missiles? Oh God, the army was here. And they were shooting at something. I heard something else too, a low-pitched purring that occasionally leaped into a higher pitch. Like a more subdued version of the noise.

Jared turned again on the next intersection so that we were heading directly West again. The sounds grew louder. We were getting closer. There was no other way to go except forward or back. We couldn't go back now, we had gone too far.

"Does anyone else feel that?" Aaron said almost in a whisper.

"What?" I asked.

"The shaking..." he said, his own voice shaking as he spoke.

Now that Aaron brought it up, I did notice it. Every few seconds as we sped down the road, I felt the car vibrate. Something was shaking the ground. As we drove on, the gunfire began to get louder and louder, and the shaking became much more noticeable. The vibrations were getting progressively louder as well.

"You said that was a roar?" Jared called back.

"Yeah... at least, that's what I think it is. All the evidence adds up. It's coming from a living being, whatever the hell it is..." But then, judging by how loud the roar was, it had to be big. Just how big was it?

I heard Jared curse up front, "Christ, look at that!"

I leaned forward in my seat again. What I saw made it feel like my gut tied itself into a knot. On the other side of the road, there were military vehicles broken down, either on fire or torn completely apart. The first few we passed were simple transportation vehicles, but the further we went we started to see things like tanks and even a helicopter that had smashed into a building. The tears in the ground and rubble strewn around began to become much more frequent, as did the insistent cries and gunfire that came from up ahead. We were getting very close to whatever was going on. We'd have to pull into the next side street to avoid it...

"Uh... oh no." I heard Jared mutter up front.

That couldn't mean anything good, "What?" I asked, "What's wrong?!"

There was a moment's hesitation, then he spoke up, panic in his voice, "The gas tank's almost empty!"

In all our hurry and panic, we had forgotten to look for a place to gas up the car. Of all the times for this to happen...

Up ahead, at the edge of the fog, there was a flash of light followed by a ball of flames that rose into the air.

"Jared, turn into the road to our right! Now!" I screamed in panic.

He immediately swerved, barely turning in time. We really hadn't come that close to the explosion, but in the heat of the moment it felt like we had only missed it by a few feet. The firing sounds and groaning of what I was now certain was a living creature were plain and clear now.

"Come on car, we just need to get away from this! Please!" Jared begged.

It was no use; we'd have to stop for gas. "Jared, slow down at the next intersection and check the sign, I think there might be a place we can fill up near here." That is, if it's not destroyed or if it even works anymore. But there's no use in thinking like that, we had to try.

"This one! Turn right!" I shouted.

There were less pauses between the gunfire. It was almost constant now. I heard panicked shouting, but I couldn't make out what was being said. Most of the houses we passed had been completely flattened. The light from the gas station sign came into view.

"There it is!" I practically screamed and pointed at the sign that read "Full Service".

Jared slammed on the gas, the engine roared for a moment, it sputtered... and then went silent. We had run out of gas. The little burst of speed had managed to make us roll ahead a bit, but we were still about thirty feet from the gas station.