Get Out of Denver (Denver Burning Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

out, he started it up again to make sure it would turn over, and then turned it off again. “Best purchase I ever made,” he told Carrie, patting the truck’s wheel affectionately. “This truck is a couple years older than I am! I wish they still made them like this.” He locked the doors behind him and they went up the stairs to Carrie’s apartment.
    “I don’t see Shauna’s car. I hope she can get home all right,” Carrie said. “Maybe her boyfriend picked her up.” McLean didn’t mention how unlikely that was; judging by what he’d observed since the EMP, the chances were probably one in a hundred. Cars weren’t supposed to be as susceptible to electromagnetic pulses as power lines and antennas, but something had obviously overloaded them all.
    Carrie unlocked her front door and they went inside. Everything was in order, just without power. McLean looked around the tidy, homey apartment.
    “Do you have any food and water stored up?” he asked.
    “A little,” Carrie replied, dropping her purse on the kitchen table and checking for any notes her roommate might have left. There were none. “Why? You think it’s going to take a while for the authorities to get things under control?”
    “Yes,” McLean said. “Remember, their phones and cars probably aren’t working any better than most. I did see two cop cars, but they sped away without stopping to help anyone.”  
    Carrie frowned at him, then came over and peeled back his shirt collar to check how her improvised bandage was holding up. “It looks like the bleeding stopped all right. Sit down over here by the window and let me clean this up.”
    As Carrie gathered peroxide, gauze and tape, McLean analyzed the apartment as a bug-in location. He was getting an uneasy feeling in his gut. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Carrie here without any real preps to speak of, and probably alone. “Would your neighbors help you out if you needed anything? Do you know them well?”
    “Um, not terribly well, no,” Carrie said as she sterilized a pair of tweezers with a match from the kitchen drawer. “I’m at work all day. I mean, I’ve met some of them, but I don’t know…”
    McLean was noticing that the place had no alternative exit. It would be a real fire trap when the water pipes and hydrants lost pressure. It was only a block and a half removed from a fairly major thoroughfare. And the lock on the front door could be easily defeated by a determined intruder.
    He got up and checked the water heater in a closet just off the front room, knocking on its side with a hollow boom. “Well, there’s probably thirty or forty gallons of clean water in here. Are you on any can’t-live-without-’em medications?”
    Carrie gave him an uncomfortable glare. “No. But Shauna’s got a heart condition. Why?”
    “I don’t mean to pry,” McLean said. “It’s just that without power and transportation… a lot of people are going to be in a real bind, soon. Pharmacies are going to be really hard hit. This country runs on drugs; you know that as well as anybody. You see the ugly side of it at the rescue mission, I’m sure.”
    Carrie’s frown deepened. “Sit down,” she said, scooting a chair next to the kitchen window where sunlight streamed in.
    McLean sat quietly as she sponged the blood off his shoulder with a clean, wet washcloth and then examined the wound, gently poking at it with her tweezers. The scent of her hair and the touch of her fingers on his shoulder were maddeningly pleasant, but he pushed his feelings away and tried to concentrate on practical matters.
    “Nobody went without medications on 9/11,” Carried remarked, pulling a tiny fragment of metal from the wound. “Nobody starved to death then. Aren’t you being a little alarmist?”
    “The power grid didn’t go down on 9/11,” McLean replied. “Carrie, we both saw criminals springing into action downtown as if they were waiting for an excuse to run rampant. I saw bad guys