Adaptation Read Online Free PDF Page B

out the way back.”
    David turned right onto a wide street. They passed quiet office buildings; another strip mall; another gas station. Its windows were also broken, and the gas pump hoses trailed onto the stained concrete. The area was eerily quiet—as if it had been evacuated. The entrance to I-215 came at a deserted intersection where red traffic signals blinked slowly.
    David clenched his fingers over the steering wheel. “I think we came from…”
    “That way,” Reese said, pointing to the on-ramp for 215 East.
    “Yeah,” he agreed, and accelerated onto the interstate. The eastbound side was bordered on the south by a high wall, blocking off the neighborhood they had driven through. The three lanes were as empty as the streets they had just come from, but across the low concrete divider the westbound portion of the highway was packed with cars moving at a crawl. They were fullof passengers, just like the ones outside Phoenix. Some cars were stuffed to the brim with suitcases and bedding as well.
It
is
an evacuation
, she thought.
    Ahead of them, they saw a green sign for I-515 and two highways, 93 and 95.
    “Weren’t we on one of those? US 93?” David asked.
    “I think so. We should take it south to go back to the gas station.”
    But as they approached the exit, they saw that the southbound ramp was blocked off with movable concrete barriers and orange cones.
    “New plan?” David said.
    “Maybe we can turn around farther north.”
    David headed for the 93 North exit, speeding up the elevated concrete ramp that swung around to the interstate. As their car swept up the curve, they could see the maze of the highway interchange beneath them to the left.
    Reese gasped. “Look!”
    On the southbound side was a long convoy of military trucks. Behind the trucks were tanks, their gun turrets all pointed south.
    “Where do you think they’re going?” she asked, watching the trucks uneasily.
    “It can’t be anywhere good,” David muttered. “Not with that many weapons.”
    Reese twisted in her seat to look out the back window and saw a plume of black smoke in the distance. She wondered if it was the fire from the gas station. The tanks were all heading that direction. “Do you think we should turn around somewhere?” she asked.
    “We’ll get stuck in that—whatever it is,” David said tersely, gesturing at the convoy.
    “But what about Mr. Chapman? We have to go back and—and identify him.”
    A bead of sweat worked its way down David’s right temple. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Keep trying the phones. We have to get through sometime.”
    Reese gritted her teeth. It felt wrong to leave Mr. Chapman there. But turning back meant spending more time in Las Vegas with its crazy carjackers and blockaded roads and army tanks. She definitely did not want to be in this city anymore. Every nerve in her body was telling her to
run
as far away and as fast as she could. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll keep trying, and if I can’t get through, we’ll find a landline the next time we stop.”
    The freeway was lined on both sides by tall concrete walls that blocked the city from view. Beyond them Reese could only see flat rooftops and a few scraggly trees. There were a few other cars heading north, but otherwise the multiple lanes of the highway were wide open. On the southbound side, the military convoy continued for at least ten minutes—Reese kept glancing over at the tanks as she tried to call 911—but after the convoy ended the road was deserted, as if it had been blocked off somewhere up north.
    And then Reese noticed something else that was unusual. All the exits on the northbound side were closed off, though the on-ramps remained open. It was as if drivers were being purposely directed away from the southern parts of the city.
    “We can’t get off the freeway,” David said, echoing her thoughts. “Are you having any luck with the phones?”
    She took a shaking breath.