Second Chance Read Online Free PDF

suspected car thieves would be shot on sight.
    All over the multistory garage, workers labored to clear cars whose drivers had disappeared. Hundreds of cars had been coming into and leaving the garage when the Rapture had occurred. A little less than a quarter of those vehicles had been manned by people who were now gone. Their cars had continued until they struck other cars or walls, and there they sat, idling until they were out of gas.
    Some of those cars had apparently had full tanks of gas, and if they were still running, workers were able to move them. The biggest job was finding a place for all those empty cars, just to get them out of the way. A long walkway snaked from the garage to the taxicab staging area, which was empty. All the cabs and cabbies swarmed the departure and arrival levels, seeking riders.
    Of course, many of the cab drivers had disappeared as well. Fortunately, with so many others in the immediate area when that happened, this had resulted in just a bunch offender benders. Other cabbies had grabbed those idling hacks and gotten them out of the way.
    Judd shuddered as he and Vicki walked through the garage, passing cars with full suits of clothes in the driver’s seat. He saw the occasional car with a stunned or weeping person who was sitting atop someone else’s clothes, trying to maneuver the car out of the tangled mess.
    Everywhere, workers were adding a gallon or two of gas to cars that had idled their fuel away. The workers all wore surgical gloves and masks, no one knowing what germs or diseases might have been left by whatever it was that had made these people disappear. Judd knew there was nothing to be afraid of, but he couldn’t blame the emergency personnel for being careful.
    At one end of the parking garage, a huge crane had been brought in, probably from a construction site at the airport. It was being used to lift cars over the guardrail and set them gently down in an area near the end of the garage.
    When Judd found his father’s car at the end of one row, he realized he was not in an advantageous position. Four cars blocked his, and in the row he would have to reach to get to the exit, workers were laboring over agridlock of steel. A Chevy Blazer whose driver had disappeared had climbed one of the combination wood and steel parking guardrails and hung itself up. It was still idling.
    Judd carefully surveyed the situation. Four cars were lined up bumper to bumper from the wall at the end of the line where he had parked. They extended back past where he needed to back up.
    â€œVicki,” he said, “do you think if we could get all four of those cars pushed back, I could get out of that parking spot?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “Let’s walk it off and measure it.”
    There was a gap between the last of those four cars and a smashed up mess behind them. The question was, was the gap wide enough for all four cars? Measuring it with their steps, Judd and Vicki came to the conclusion that there was room for the four cars, but not much room for Judd to back out. He would have to do it in several moves if he could do it at all. They had to try.
    â€œWe’ll just have to take them one at a time,” Judd said. He peered into the window of the last car in line. There were no clothes on the seat. The engine was off, but the keys were still in the ignition. “This must have been someone who panicked and ran off,” he said. “Lucky for us they left their keys.”
    Judd started the engine and backed the car up as far as possible. He slowly maneuvered it until it tapped the first car in its way.
    â€œThe next car is still running!” Vicki shouted.
    â€œBack it up here,” Judd said.
    â€œI’ve never driven,” Vicki said. “You’d better do it.”
    Judd jogged up and opened the door, quickly realizing why Vicki didn’t even want to try. This car was full of empty clothes. In the