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

the road right outside his house. The drivers looked confused. One of them, a man in his mid-forties, was lifting the hood of his Jeep Cherokee.
    “That’s just the damn edest thing,” his neighbor Al exclaimed. He was fiddling fruitlessly with the knob of his radio as water ran from the hose in his hand.
    John wondered for a moment if this was all a dream. Maybe he was still asleep in his bed. He crossed his lawn, heading for the road, feeling the grass slide between his toes as he did.
    No, this is no dream. This is real.
    Other cars were stalled in the distance. Most with people who were likely on their way to work. No one knew it yet, but if John was right, they wouldn’t need to worry about getting to the office on time. Not for the foreseeable future.
    Al was coming this way, the hose discarded carelessly on the lawn, dribbling precious water.
    “Ain’t this just the da mnedest thing?” his gray-haired neighbor said. “What do you make of it?”
    John swallowed hard. “Only one of two things can cause something like this, Al, and neither one of them is good.”
    Al was at a complete loss. John could tell the words ‘blackout’ were on the tip of his neighbor’s tongue, but even that was far too mild.
    “I’m all ears.”
    “If we’re lucky it’s only a solar flare, like the Carrington Event that hit in 1859, knocking out telegraph systems across Europe and North America. Some telegraph pylons burst into flames.”
    “Solar flare.” Al sounded like a man learning a new language. “And if we’re not lucky, John?”
    “The only thing worse than a solar flare is an EMP.”
    “A what?”
    “Electromagnetic pulse. A high-altitude atomic blast. If so then just about every electronic device and vehicle in the country, maybe even the continent, has just been wiped out.”
    “Holy cow! Are you saying I’m gonna miss Masterpiece Theatre tonight?”
    John let out a burst of nervous laughter and so did Al. Soon both men were grasping their bellies, clenching their teeth with the pain, both of them knowing that nothing about their situation was the least bit funny.

Chapter 4
    “ D iane and the kids,” John said once he’d regained some measure of control.
    Al nodded. “I should go inside and speak with Missy. If we wait long enough, the power might come back on, don’t you think, John?”
    There was a heavy dollop of desperation in Al’s voice.
    “I might be wrong about all this , Al. Last thing I wanna do is play Chicken Little and have everyone running for the hills.”
    The woman and man whose stalled vehicles were stopped dead bumper to bumper waved them over.
    “And if you’re right?” Al asked.
    “Then it won’t be long before law and order begins to break down. Think about it for a second. What part of our lives isn’t connected in some way to electronics? Then consider that most households have three days’ worth of food. Those eighteen-wheelers on the highways you’re always complaining about. Like it or not, that’s how over seventy percent of the goods we need make it to grocery stores. If the cars we see are any indication, the highways have become parking lots. My advice to you, Al, is to fill your bathtub and as many buckets as you can find with water. It won’t be long before even that cuts off for good.”
    The worry on Al’s face was turning to panic as John walked back to his house . “Where are you going?”
    “To get my wife and children, ” John replied.
    The man and woman came over then.
    “Excuse me, sir,” she said to John. “I was wondering if you could give us a boost.”
    “A boost isn’t gonna help you,” he answered.
    Other neighbors came out of their houses, looking at one another with perplexed expressions. For most of them, this was the strangest power outage they’d ever seen. But with no cell reception, no radio, television, or even internet, there wasn’t any proper way of informing people what had happened.
    “It’s worth a try , isn’t