Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse Read Free

your life was something they never told you during enlistment. But what they really neglected to mention was that the worst wounds would be the ones you couldn’t see.
    Diane came up from behind and wrapped her arms around him. Her right hand caressed the lump of discolored flesh on his abdomen. That was where the flaming shrapnel from the frag had torn into him all those years ago.
    “I think Emma has a boyfriend,” he said, trying to convince her he wasn’t thinking about old battles.
    A smile grew on her face. Her eyes were twinkling. “It was bound to happen.”
    “She’s only fourteen,” John said, his heart beating a little faster. His fists clenched.
    “ We weren’t much older.”
    The two of them had been high -school sweethearts and hadn’t done much more than sneak a few kisses before they were married. But times had changed since then. John had read about kids in some of the bigger cities having sex in middle school. The thought made him sick.
    “What did Emma tell you about him?”
    “She denied it.”
    Diane slapped his shoulder playfully. “Well, there you go. And you say I get all worked up over nothing.” Her hands went to his shoulders, where she began massaging a knot of hard muscle. “You can’t protect them forever, John. Eventually, they’ll need to fly on their own.”
    “Eventually,” he whispered. “But not just yet.”

Chapter 3
    D iane dropped the kids off to school on her way to work, which was just fine with John because a ton of work lay ahead of him. He was in his basement office, sipping a cup of warm coffee, trying to calm his nerves. Two important deliveries destined for the construction site had been a no-show this morning, one a load of drywall and the other a thousand pounds of Italian marble. John would need to spend the next thirty minutes tracking down his suppliers and getting answers. Afterward, he’d hightail it to the work site to make sure everything else was going according to plan. A screwup this big could cost him the job and with their family only starting to get back on their feet after the economic meltdown, it was a loss he couldn’t afford.
    John dialed his marble guy first and checked the planner on his laptop at the same time to ensure he’d given everyone the correct dates.
    “Sal here,” the gruff voice said on the other end.
    “Sal , it’s John. Get Mario on the phone right now.”
    Sal normally liked to chitchat, but even he could tell now wasn’t the time. “Uh, sure thing.”
    John heard Mario’s name being called over the speaker system at the warehouse. A few minutes later a voice came on.
    “John, you won ’t believe the morning we’ve had—”
    Then the call got dropped. John began to redial and then noticed the cell phone screen.
    It was b lank.
    But that wasn’t all. His laptop was gone too and so were the lights in his basement office. The roo m was mostly dark except for faint light bleeding in from the doorway. If he’d closed himself in like he normally did, he would have been in pitch blackness.
    You’ve got to be kidding me!
    Hitting buttons on his cell wasn’t going to do a darn thing, but John tried it anyway, the same way people tried to make elevators speed up by mashing the button over and over.
    His first thought was that he’d somehow overloaded the circuit breaker.
    But your laptop and cell phone are battery-powered , that little voice said.
    John grabbed a Mag lite he kept by his desk and went to flip the breakers anyway. It didn’t take more than a second after doing so to realize the power was really out.
    Running up the basement steps two at a time, John raced into the kitchen and saw that the stove and microwave were both blank. He snatched the portable phone and swore when he realized that it too was dead.
    Ne xt he went for the front door, curious to see if anyone else was having the same problem. He swung it open and when he looked outside all the air went out of his lungs. Two cars were stopped on