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to get a better look at whatever had his attention.
    Brent turned, pushing his face against the window, struggling to see whatever the man was now staring at, but the angle was marred. He looked back down at the man, only to see him running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, and back into the apartment building he’d come from. 
    Brent pressed his face against the window again, struggling to see what scared the hell out of the guy. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it.
    Hide , a voice in Brent’s head said. Hide now. 
    It’s coming.
     
    * * * *
     
    EDWARD KEENAN
     
    Saturday
    October 15, 2011 
    2:18 a.m.
     
    The first thing Edward Keenan felt was rain, cold and splashing his face, snapping him from the darkness and into the bright light beaming through a thick canopy of trees. 
    The next thing he felt was pain — everywhere, as if his entire body had been thrown from a building and slammed against every awning on the way down and then picked up again and thrown off the building once more to hit the awnings he missed the first go round. A high-pitched whistle pierced his throbbing eardrums. He reached up to cover his ears, before realizing his wrists were still bound together by plasticuffs.
    Ed stood clumsily, pain shooting through his legs, back, and arms, then glanced around. A faint, flickering glow broke through the tree line. He made his way forward tentatively, stumbling several times, but managing to stay upright. 
    As he got closer to the glow, he could hear the crackle of fire. Could smell the fuel. And there, as he pressed into the clearing, he saw the mangled, fiery wreckage of Flight 519.  
    Ed raced forward, searching for any sign of survivors. The plane was split in half, swallowed by billowing smoke and a quick-spreading curtain of flame.
    Suitcases, clothing, papers, chunks of the plane, and other debris littered the field, with some of the smaller scraps sailing low in the sky. From what he could see of the cabin, nobody survived other than himself. Yet, there weren’t any bodies. He looked back into the woods, wondering if perhaps all the passengers had been ejected from their seats as he had. Perhaps some, but not all of them.
    Where the hell is everyone? 
    The last thing he remembered was his escort, Agent Grant, telling him to shut the fuck up. They’d be in Washington soon enough. Ed decided to take a nap, but didn’t think he’d actually fall asleep. He must have. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground.
    He was torn — go back into the woods and search for survivors, or run as far and fast as he fucking could. Last thing he wanted was to run into Grant — assuming Grant was alive. 
    He took a chance. “Hello?!” he called.
    As he stood at the edge of the woods, another high-pitched sound sailed over the drone in his ears, sounding as if the sky was ripping to shreds above him. He instinctively ducked, glancing up as another airplane shot by maybe 10 stories from the forest floor, on a sharp dive, soaring past the tree line before disappearing into a deafening explosion just out of sight.
    Christ on a cross. What’s happening?
    Ed raced toward the crashed plane as fast as he could, pain shooting through his atrophied legs. He stumbled into the woods, but stopped short when he reached a partition of flames where a large, unidentifiable chunk of the plane had set the surrounding trees on fire.
    There’s no way anyone survived that.
    He retreated, away from both crash sites, following a winding path that led uphill, where he spotted power poles and lines leading toward civilization, he hoped.
    “Happy 44th th birthday,” he said to himself as he slipped into the black of night.
     
    **
     
    Despite being in top physical shape, Ed was exhausted by the time he reached the first row of homes. Falling out of the sky will do that to you. 
    Two - story faux New England architecture lined either side of the street, barely illuminated by the half-concealed moon. Was one