The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (51 page)

Sam croaks out a confused,
“What?”

Tears stream down her
cheeks. Why is he angry with her? He places his hands on either
side of her face, cradling gently. He scowls
deeply
as he gazes at her
scratches. She doesn’t dare confess that her tears are making them
burn.

“Don’t cry,” he begs brokenly. “Damn
it, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

She’d like to laugh. Reagan
yells. Kelly
yells
. Cory downright bellows. But Simon
doesn’t
yell
. He’s much too in control and refined for something so
common.

“I don’t understand,” she says on a
hiccup.

“Sam, I was worried
about
you
,” he
admits softly. “Not the farm, not everyone on it, not even Paige as
much. Just you. I was worried about you.”

Sam flings herself against
his bare chest and
cries
in earnest. She’d
been
just as distressed over him.
Sometimes she feels like Simon is the only person she has left. She
has the McClane family, but she and Simon have been through more
than any of them could ever understand. The tragic events of their
pasts have bonded them forever. He just stands there and strokes
her damp head.

“I know, Simon,” she admits. “Me, too.
You’re my best friend. You’re the only family I have
now.”

He pulls back and frowns at her as if
he’s not quite sure of something.

“You have
family
…”

Sam stops him, “Not like you. You’re
all I have left, Simon.”

He kisses her forehead
gently, and they resume their hug. She feels him nodding
against
her, his
chin to her forehead.

“Yes, I know,” he says softly, the way
he normally speaks.

“Stay up here with me tonight, Simon,”
she suggests and pulls him toward the messy hay piles. She pulls
two dusty horse blankets from one of the trunks.
“Please.”

“I don’t think that’s a
good idea,” he says
with
a shake of his head to decline. “If anyone were to
find out, they’d not like that, Sam. The guys would not approve.
Grandpa would definitely not
approve
.”

“Nobody will know.
Everyone’s exhausted and already in bed or on patrols. I don’t want
to be alone,” she returns
with
a sad smile.

“That’s not a very
appropriate thing to do, Sam,” he says
on
a sad grimace.

“Just one night? Nobody will find out.
It’ll be just like we used to do,” she reminds him of the times
when they’d sneak off to sleep in the barns, just the two of
them.

“We’re not kids anymore, Sam,” he
berates and tightens the line of his mouth.

“Please?” she pleads and holds out her
hand to him. “I’m afraid to be alone.”

Simon nods reluctantly, and they lie
in the hay together after he extinguishes the lantern. She rests
her head on his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around her to keep
her warm.

They talk for a short time
longer until she is sure that she’s made him feel a bit better.
They talk until neither of them can stay awake. Sam falls asleep
curled up against the one person who means more than anything in
the world to her. He’s the one person she can never lose. She knows
that he thinks of her
like
a little sister, just like Cory does. But Sam has
been in love with Simon since that day he’d
tried
to hide her away from the men
and women who would and did mean her harm. He was a boy back then,
but she’d
seen
such a nobility in him, such a deep-seated honor that she’d
never
seen
in another human being. Now he is a man of even stronger
conviction. And if someday he chooses to be with someone else, then
she still hopes he’ll always remain her best friend. He’ll always
be her knight in shining armor, the man who’d stolen her young
heart and kept it, even if he never knows it.

Chapter Twenty-four

Simon

A few hours later after the sun has
started to rise, Simon dislodges his arm out from underneath Sam’s
head. He covers her with his jacket and the blanket, grabs his
holster and pistol and leaves. Simon doesn’t want to be lying in
the hay in the barn with her when she awakens all warm and fresh
and sweet-smelling and tousled. He creeps down the stairs to the
lower level. There is much to do and no time for lazing about in
the hay with a dark-haired angel with fair skin and soft
curves.

He jogs to his cabin,
retrieves his
work-boots
and a t-shirt, an old one that he doesn’t mind
getting ruined. He isn’t worried about the chill hanging in the
air. There is a lot of back-breaking work awaiting him. When he
returns to the barnyard, Kelly, Derek and John are already loading
dead bodies into the enemies’ pick-up trucks. Simon jumps right in
to help.

“Get any intel on the group
from the survivor?” Simon asks
of
John as he grabs a dead man’s feet
while John hefts his shoulders.

“Nope,” John returns. “Not a thing. He
said they were holed up in that Target, and he had no idea where
the ones that got away would go next. Said they didn’t have
anywhere else to go.”

Simon nods with the same frustration
that John feels as they toss the body into the bed of the truck to
join four others there. This is grisly work, but it must get done.
These men will not be afforded a burial on the McClane
farm.

“My sister awake yet?” he asks
next.

“Not that I know of. I think we’re the
only ones up,” John says. “Well, Doc’s up, but he’s the only one
from the house up as far as I know. He’s on the front porch smoking
his pipe. I think he’s upset about last night.”

“That’s understandable,” Simon agrees
with a nod. “It should’ve never happened. Man, we got
played.”

John’s mouth sets in a
tight line and he nods with anger. The men have
obviously
been working most of
the night. Simon helps load the last ten bodies with John and
Kelly’s help. Then Kelly and Derek hop into the cab of the rusted
red pick-up. Simon is left with the expensive, jazzed-up and flashy
silver Dodge Ram. John comes over to the window, which is already
rolled down.

“This truck didn’t have the keys in
the ignition. We’re not picking their pockets to find them, either.
Remember how to hot-wire one?” he asks.

“Yes, sir,” Simon answers.

“Alrighty then. I’m taking Doc’s
truck. I’ll follow you guys. We won’t be bringing back anything of
theirs other than the gas,” he explains before jogging
away.

Simon and Cory were taught
everything that the Rangers know, including skills that are
nefarious like hot-wiring cars, breaking into buildings, picking
locks and such. Within a few
minutes,
he has the truck’s engine
roaring to life, and they are heading out on the oil well
road
in
formation
. They drive about five miles from
the farm on one of the main roads and then back into the town where
the Target raid had occurred. When the bodies are dumped, they
siphon the gas and leave the vehicles on the side of the road. They
travel home to the farm in Doc’s pick-up truck, and Simon rides in
the bed with Kelly.

“How’d they know where we were?” Simon
asks. “How’d they find the farm?”

“Shithead said they
found out
from an
old man in town. Beat him to death to get it out of him. We don’t
know who it was yet, but I’m sure that we will by the end of the
day. You and John are going to town later. Gotta
check
in with the
townspeople and Paul, make sure they did all right through the
night.”

Simon knows with absolute
certainty that Shithead is the man who’d survived. He doesn’t envy
the methods that the Rangers would’ve employed to pry information
from that prick. He is sorrier than he can even express that an
older man in town gave his life in such a violent manner to these
bastards, though.
Whoever
it was had certainly not deserved such
abuse.

“Yes, sir,” Simon answers. “You’ll be
staying at the farm?”

Kelly gives him a nod.
“Yeah, Hannah can’t take me being away again so soon.
She’s not doing so great.”

Hearing this makes Simon feel like
crap. All he can do is give Kelly a tight nod of understanding.
Nobody likes the women to be in the doldrums, especially not fair
Hannah. She’s too delicate for this wretched, disgusting
world.

When they get back to the
farm, the men change their soiled shirts before being around the
family or the people in town. None of the family needs to see
blotches of other men’s blood on their clothing. It certainly won’t
help the frightened people in town to see them in
a poor
state,
either.

They meet in the kitchen,
not bothering to sit as Sue shovels food onto their plates. The
four of them eat a fast meal for the long day ahead of them. None
of them have slept, but this was part of Simon’s conditioning
during the past four years of training. John and Kelly had pushed
Cory and him to and
way
beyond their
physical
and mental limits, putting them
through the same training they’d had in the Army. They called it
“smoking” them. Simon used to joke that they were killing them, not
smoking them. They’d known how far they could push them, though.
Simon hadn’t known at the time. Neither had Cory. Simon wasn’t in
good shape like Cory because he hadn’t played high school sports.
Simon had belonged to the chess club. They’d
thought
that they were
literally going to die sometimes. When their arms were like rubber,
John demanded another hundred push-ups. When their legs were like
cement columns, Kelly ordered three more miles of running. When
they were physically and mentally drained, Derek took them out and
taught them how to hot-wire vehicles and how to go on no sleep for
days on end. And finally after three days with no sleep, John had
taken them to Clarksville in the Hummer and had left them with
nothing but a compass and their rifles. Then he’d left. It was a
terrifying moment for them both, but they’d
made
it. He and Cory made it out of
the city alive but not without problems from a small group of
creeps. Then they had managed to make it home in two days’ time on
foot. They’d hunted for their food. They’d
scouted
for and found water.
They’d
traversed
the treacherous back country of Tennessee the
whole twenty mile trek back to the farm where they’d been greeted
with another hundred push-ups. The men had all three laughed at
Simon and Cory’s hardships many times and simply told them to
“Ranger up.” At first he hadn’t understood the saying, but then
Simon had finally got it. He
understood
why they pushed and demanded
and then demanded more. It’s what has made them the survivors they
are today. He’s thankful for what the men have turned him into,
even though sometimes he doesn’t like doing what he does to
survive. He only wishes he’d known one tenth of it back when he’d
first found Samantha hiding in a closet.

Reagan stumbles sleepily into the
kitchen and says to her sister, “Kids still out?”

Her frizzy curls are standing on end,
and she wears a black tank top and matching shorts. On one foot is
a black sock. The other is missing, but she seems
oblivious.

“Yes, thank goodness,” Sue answers.
“I’m letting everyone sleep in.”

Simon is trying to shovel his biscuit
smothered in sausage gravy into his face as fast as he can so that
he and John can leave for town. Reagan plops into an island chair.
Sue tries to place a plate of food in front of her, but Reagan
simply grimaces, shakes her head and pushes it back.

“Babe, you should eat
something. You know you lost some weight being sick. I don’t think
you’ve gained any of it back,” John advises and lays a hand
on
the back of his
wife’s head.

“My stomach’s sick from stress and not
getting any sleep,” she returns, takes his hand from her head and
presses a kiss to the back of it. “I’m not sick. I’ll eat later
today.”

John scowls but concedes to his wife’s
wishes, as he usually does. As Simon regards Reagan, he can tell
that she doesn’t feel well because she is pale, which is unlike
Reagan’s usual coloring.

“Think I’m gonna ride over later and
check on Chet. That gunshot wound could infect. I just want to be
cautious with it,” she tells John with sad eyes.

“Ok, just take Kelly or Derek,” he
says, the lines near the corners of his eyes deepening with
concern.