The Ghost Planet by Murray Leinster — Read

There was ungodly panic in Pasadena. It was ten A. M., a time when shopping would hardly have begun and the industries of the cities should have emptied the streets of men. But as the _Weddington_ came clumsily toward the city its ways were black with fleeing humanity.

For once the moving sidewalks were so crowded that passengers were edged off, reeling, into the throngs which fought to get on. Ground vehicles -- trucks and commercial vehicles almost exclusively -- blared and roared their sirens among crowds afoot which had overflowed into the vehicular ways. All of Pasadena struggled furiously to get from where it was to somewhere else. Mostly, to be sure, men battled to reach their families and mothers ran desperately to the schools to relieve their children.