Breakout (Final Dawn) Read Online Free Page A

forever.
         Frank and Jesse’s plan was to remove most of the cars and park them on the adjacent block, where there were no survivors. Mainly just to get them out of the way. They’d keep a couple of them, though. They could use Jesse’s pickup, and another F-150 down the street, to make food runs at the Symco warehouse half a mile away. And the ones blocking the open end of their dead end street would remain in place, to let marauders know they weren’t welcome.
         But most of the cars were just taking up space. And they’d have to go.
         They got the generator to Frank’s Chevy Malibu, parked in front of his house. He remembered loving that car so much he’d spend hours polishing it on the weekends. Now it was just another piece of junk.
         They cranked the generator back up and used the jumper cables to connect it to the battery.
         “Let’s let it run for a few minutes and go check on the boys.”
         The pair walked three houses down, where Bobby and Mike were digging around the stump of a huge oak tree.
         The tree itself was laying in the street, having been felled with Tony Pena’s chain saw. As Jesse’s boys dug out the stump, Tony was busy cutting the tree into small pieces that could be used as fireplace logs. His wife Sally and son Mike were gathering the wood in two wheelbarrows, then stacking it on the front porches of every occupied house on the block. Since the power company had gone down, firewood was the only source of fuel for heating and cooking.
         Jesse asked , “How are you guys coming?”
         “Well, put it this way. I’m glad we started with the biggest tree first. After we finally get this sucker out of the ground, the rest should be a piece of cake.”
         “What’s your game plan?”
         “Well, it’s funny you should ask that, because we needed to talk to you about it anyway. We took a count, and there are three vehicles on the block that have trailer hitches. That red F-150, your truck, and an Explorer. We’d like for you to leave those three behind until last. Until we get all the trees off the block. We’re going to tie ropes from the stump to all three of the trailer hitches and pull them, all at the same time. We’re hoping that’s enough power to pull the stumps out of the ground and into the street.
         “Once we ha ve all the stumps in the street, we’ll push them up against the curbs, so they’re more or less out of the way. And we’ll just leave them there for a few months, until we’ve had enough rainstorms to wash most of the dirt off the root systems. That way Tony can come back with his chain saw and cut them into pieces without the dirt gumming up his blade.
         “How’s the vehicle moving project coming?”
         “Well, not worth a damn, yet. But we’re getting ready to jump start the first one, and then the rest should be a piece of cake. We’ll have them all out of here by late this afternoon, except for the three you want to use.”
         “Are y’all still planning on making a supply run?”
         “Yes, but we’ll hold off until tomorrow. We weren’t expecting the cars to give us this much trouble, and we don’t want to head out so late that we’ll be caught after dark. Just because we haven’t heard any gunshots lately doesn’t mean there aren’t still marauders out there.”
         Tony took a break from cutting up the tree and walked up behind them.
         “Hey, Tony, how you doin’?”
         “Fine, Frank. You guys still going to Home Depot?”
         “Yes. We were just saying we’re heading that way in the morning, to stock up on rain gutters and garbage cans. And to see if they have any seeds, just in case the ones we got from Walmart don’t work. What do you need?”
         “A second chain saw. Mine’s s till working fine, but Sally could run one too if we had a second one. And with twenty four trees to cut