"Tim LaHaye - Left Behind Kids 02 - Second Chance" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

At the parking garage, cops with bullhorns were stationed at the entrance. Judd heard one explain the
process. "You're free to go sit in your car, if you wish," the cop said. "But don't start the engine until you
see a clear pathway to the exit ramp. So far only those parked on levels one and two have even a chance
of getting out into the traffic jam here, and you can see you're not going to get far anyway."

"I'm on level two," Judd told Vicki. "Maybe they've cleared the way for me."

The cop told everyone the elevators were not running, the pay booths were wide open, and that any
looters or suspected car thieves would be shot on sight.

All over the multistory garage, workers labored to clear cars whose drivers had disap-peared. 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 taxi-cab 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 dis-appeared as well. Fortunately, with so many others in the
immediate area when that hap-pened, this had resulted in just a bunch of fender 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 person-nel 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 fathers 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 a gridlock of steel. A Chevy Blazer whose driver had disappeared had climbed one of the
combination wood and steel parking guard-rails 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.

"Vicki," he said, "do you think if we could get all four of those cars pushed back, I could get out of that
parking spot?"

"I don't know," she said. "Let's walk it off and measure it."