Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse Read Online Free PDF Page A

leaned over and hugged him tight.
    He was putting the truck in gear when she said , “Hold on. I can’t just leave the Shaws.”
    “Who are the Shaws?”
    “The young couple I was showing the house to.”
    “Diane, I’d like to help them, but we don’t have time. We’ve got to get Gregory and Emma from school and then hit the grocery store before they’re cleaned out.”
    “You think it’s that serious?” The rising fear in her face was starting to show for the first time.
    “If you only knew.”
    Diane glanced out the window at the Shaws and he knew her heart was heavy. She was a good Christian woman, always eager and willing to help anyone in need, but in a situation like this, chauffeuring people around Knoxville was only going to endanger her family. It was a dilemma John had already faced a half-dozen times since taking Betsy out of the garage. Sure, it would have been nice to help as many stranded motorists as he could. But then what would happen when things got too dangerous to risk leaving the city? The shock that had stunned and perhaps tranquilized most of the population into temporary docility wasn’t going to last much longer.
    They left Cedar Bluff and headed to pick up the kids at West High School. With so many high-school kids running around it was going to be difficult to find Emma and Gregory, but the school’s emergency protocol was to send the kids to the football field in orderly groups. Hard to imagine any evacuation going off well without the principal being able to use the intercom.
    John and Diane were approaching Interstate 40 when his wife gasped. A second later he saw what she’d been looking at. Hundreds if not thousands of people up on the raised highway walking. They’d left their cars and had become a herd on a mass migration. At once it made John think of 9/11 and the thousands who’d fled Manhattan by foot across the Brooklyn Bridge.
    Neither of them knew where the crowd was heading, but one of the off -ramps led to Sequoyah Hills. Surely at least a small portion of the mass would divert in search of supplies and a way home.
    “We’ve got to hurry,” John said, gripping the steering wheel and pushing the Blazer.

Chapter 7
    T hey were driving south along Hollywood Road when they came to the accident. A pileup was probably a better way of putting it, since at least a dozen cars in both directions had collided once their engines had cut off. By now many of those involved had simply left their cars and walked away.
    On one side was a narrow sidewalk next to a short stone wall. On the other was a field, but there wasn’t enough room for the truck to pass by. The only other road that cut under the interstate wasn’t for miles and the highway was little more than a sea of pedestrians.
    “We’ll need to go back to the next turnoff,” Diane said, tapping the flat of her nails against the passenger window. She was deep in thought and likely feeling the same disappointment John was.
    He nudged Betsy forward.
    “John, you’re not thinking of—”
    “We don’t have the luxury of going around , Diane.”
    She tightened her grip around the overhead grab handle. “I don’t think it’s safe.”
    Betsy’s tire clearance was such that John might be able to keep his right wheels on the sidewalk while his left rolled over the stalled car blocking his path. Luckily it was a Corvette that had crashed into the opposite lane which meant the car’s low hood was facing Betsy’s front left tire.
    “This is someone’s property , John. You can’t just drive over it.”
    “Honey, these cars aren’t much more than hunks of metal now. Besides, if the insurance companies don’t go completely bust then he can get it repaired.”
    Like nearly everyone else ’s, Diane’s thinking was still in line with a society that had ceased to exist the minute the power went out.
    John pressed the accelerator and Betsy lurched as the front tire hit the Corvette’s bumper.
    “I’m not sure about