The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (56 page)

There are
rifles,
pistols
and shotguns littered about the room in case the farm comes under
attack again. Paige hopes that doesn’t ever happen again. She’s not
good
at
shooting guns, not unless the person is less than five feet
from her. She’d
made
a few lucky shots that night, but she is under no
false pretenses that she’ll be the next Annie Oakley anytime soon.
She’d even gotten her own dumb ass taken hostage.

“Did you find them?” Doc
asks
impatiently
as he draws the double doors closed.

These doors are never
closed. The room is always open and airy and full of light and
usually the laughter of children. Nobody has felt much like
laughing lately, not even the children. Her shared laugh with Simon
was
probably
the first this home has seen in a week. She’s never seen the
doors closed to this room, but Herb must not want to take the
chance that any of the children will come back up from their
bedrooms in the basement and overhear their morbid
conversation.

“We found one of them,”
John explains. “They got split up after they left here. He said
some of them were getting out of the
state;
some were laying low. There are
still four left. We’ll find those ones if they’re laying
low.”

“Yeah, right. Even if we have to hunt
them down and go door to door and building to building,” Kelly
says. “They can’t hide forever.”

“Maybe we should just let them go
now,” Hannah suggests gently.

Her husband wraps an arm around her
shoulders and gives them a reassuring squeeze.

“We can’t do that, baby,”
he croons and kisses the top of her pale head. “They’ll come back.
They
will
come
back here. Maybe not today or
tomorrow, but someday they’ll return. The next time we may not get
so lucky.”

Paige doesn’t want them to let those
creeps off the hook. Maddie could’ve been killed or left abandoned
with the rest of the children. Hannah and the other two sisters
would’ve been taken for sure. All of the women would’ve been raped,
she has no doubt.

“I think we need to call a
meeting in town,” Derek says. “This can’t happen again. Hell, it
shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Our
town
’s security
sucks.”

“Right,” John interrupts.
“They need to set up a security detail. Nobody should be
able
to just drive
in anymore. We need guards working details,
especially when the clinic’s open. If people want health-care, they
gotta’ contribute to the safety of the doctors providing
it.”

“Agreed,” Sue says with
resolve.

“We’ll go in tomorrow, get
with the leaders of the different sectors and call a meeting,”
Derek suggests. “I think they’ll agree to it. We’ll train whoever
needs or
wants to be
trained
. Then we’ll make sure they’re
armed.”

“We’ll need to build some
kind of barrier or
fencing
around the entire perimeter of the town where we
have the sections established, beef it up extra good,” Kelly
says.

“Wish Cory was here for
that,” John laments. “He’s
good
with engineering that kind of
thing.”

“Paige could probably help with that,”
Hannah offers up.

Everyone, including herself, turns to
stare at Hannah.

“How’s that?” Doc asks.

“Um, yeah, I could probably
help,” Paige offers. Everyone turns to look at her next, making her
feel put on the spot. She’s normally quiet during these kinds of
meetings. That isn’t going to happen with Hannah’s declaration. She
doesn’t usually have anything to offer that she feels would be
helpful. That was also before she felt like she actually
belonged
with
these people. Now they are her family. Now she wants to
contribute.

“Yeah?” John asks. “How can you
help?”

“Well, I like architecture and
structural building. I’ve studied it for a long time. That was my
college major, too,” she tells them. “I could look at what we have
to work with and start drawing it out. I can work with just about
anything to create a wall. We could use salvaged fencing, building
materials, stone, whatever.”

The men all look to one another. Paige
figures they’re about to burst out laughing at her. She braces for
it, but it never comes. Slowly, one by one, they all
nod.

“Sounds good to me,” Derek
says.

The other men nod and verbally
agree.

Doc says, “That sounds
great, young lady. We could get you set up on that first thing in
the morning. The men can get you a supply
list,
and we’ll let you draw it
up.”

Paige nods and can’t help the smile
that creeps onto her mouth. She feels proud of herself and useful
for the first time since coming to this farm. It’s a good
feeling.

“Anyone find out yet who in town was
harmed for not wanting to tell them about our farm?” Doc asks
next.

“We found out who told them about the
farm, sir,” Kelly offers. “He is dead, too. They did beat him to
death.”

Her brother stands near the
fireplace and has elected not to sit. He’s restless and charged
with stress energy. Paige can see the
tension
in his shoulders and his stance.
He’d gone out in the wee hours of the night with Kelly on a mission
of information gathering and scumbag stalking.

“Took us awhile to figure it out,”
Simon remarks. “Had to go house to house, but we found
him.”

Paige realizes that her brother hasn’t
told her of this.

“We buried him last night, sir,” her
brother tells Doc.

“Thank you for that,” Herb McClane
says and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“They tortured Mr. Lewis
until he told them where we were located, and then they killed
him,” John relays. “Our friend spilled the beans on it today when
we pressed him. Mr. Lewis also told them that he thought we would
probably be coming after them. That’s how they knew to attack when
we were gone. One of his neighbors found him yesterday morning. She
came out to tell the guys last night when she saw Simon and Kelly
doing patrols looking for him.
Sorry
it took us that many days to
figure out who they got to.”

“Ah, George Lewis,” Herb
says
on
a
sad sigh. “He was a good man. He lived alone. I’m sure that’s why
they targeted him. Don’t trouble yourself over not finding him
sooner, son. We didn’t have a name. You men did well.”

“He was nearly unrecognizable, sir,”
Simon tells them. “He was older than you, I’d say. I think he held
out as long as he could.”

Paige watches as Samantha nudges
closer to Simon, who wraps a comforting arm around her shoulders.
He even whispers something in her ear which makes Sam grimace and
nod. She’s seemed depressed lately, too. Sam just has such a
fragile aura about her. Paige can’t imagine her suffering through
traumatic abuse like rape, if that’s what happened to her. She’s so
small and delicate, and she would’ve only been about fifteen if it
happened four years ago. Paige looks away from her because that
thought is making her nauseous.

“George must’ve been around eighty-two
if I were to guess,” Doc says with a melancholy hitch to his voice.
“His wife passed on about a decade ago. His kids had all moved
away. Thank you again for burying him, boys.”

“Yes, sir,” Kelly and Simon both
echo.

“Did you get those women
placed
with
homes?” Reagan asks, changing the subject.

She is referring to the
women who’d been nothing more than slaves to the Target creeps.
They’d found seventeen total. Some had hidden
in the far recesses of the store
to avoid being shot that night.

“Yes,” Kelly answers. “Only three
wanted to stay. Most of them wanted to go back to their own
families. Some were from as far away as Nashville and
Cincinnati.”

“I pray they make it home safely to
their families,” Hannah says with a sad grimace.

“Well, we armed them with those
assholes’ guns and vehicles and got them some gas, so that ought to
help,” Derek says on a smirk.

John and he pound fists.
Simon just chuckles and then bumps fists with Kelly. Sam
immediately steps right back into the space against Simon’s side.
He immediately frowns but wraps a protective arm around her again.
This young woman
obviously
only finds comfort and security from Paige’s
brother. The more Paige gets to know her brother again, the more
she can understand why Sam feels this way.

Even Doc says fiercely, “Good. That’s
good. They need protection. Nobody deserves to be someone’s victim.
There’s no place for that anymore. We need to start taking this
country back from men like that. We need to fight for what’s right.
We need to restore order and stability and create a new society. We
need to work with our neighbors, not against them. We need to build
this America back up again.”

“Hooah!” the three Rangers
call out softly. Paige notices that Simon does so, as well. Her kid
brother, the bookworm nerd, turned
doctor
herbalist, turned badass Ranger.
What a world.

Chapter Twenty-six

Reagan

“Hey, sexy man,” Reagan says as she
slyly sneaks up behind her husband and wraps her arms around his
trim waist. He smells of sweat and dirt. It’s not unpleasant, not
on John. He whips around and lifts her into his arms, into a tight
bear hug.

“Don’t start something you can’t
finish, woman,” he threatens with an ornery grin.

“Who says I don’t want to finish it?”
she teases right before he plants a searing kiss to her
mouth.

John sets her gently to her
feet right in the middle of the crowded street. People from
town
are moving
about, visiting with one another, helping to build fences, working
on gardening projects and mostly getting out into the nicer
weather. The men have been working day and night for the past two
weeks with the team leaders of each city section to build walls
around their small town that will encapsulate them and keep
intruders out. Plans to take down sections of wall from their
individual sectors to use on the big wall were made. The escapees
had burned three homes in town to the ground upon their getaway
from the McClane farm. Those families have been condensed into
homes with others until abandoned
homes
can be opened. Many of the
abandoned homes and buildings everywhere were ruined when water
pipes froze and burst that first winter, so the men will also be
working on helping with those projects, too.

She and Simon worked at the
clinic today, offering what services they could to a growing number
of patients. Three families had even traveled from Clarksville to
receive treatment. Reagan isn’t sure how the
families
heard about their
clinic, but they are happy to offer medical care to those who come
in peace. Some of these people haven’t seen doctors or even a nurse
in almost four years. The problem that they are starting to have is
that some people need dental care. Their town dentist was killed
very soon after the fall when druggies raided his practice. His
widow and two children still reside in
town
with her brother who’d
traveled from Texas to be with them. Reagan guesses that he was
just as shocked as everyone else to find out that his
brother-in-law was murdered.

Reagan presses another kiss to John’s
mouth, a kiss that holds promise. Unfortunately, her handsome
husband pulls back which pisses her off. John is like her drug,
addictive and all-consuming.

“I suppose
this’ll
have to
wait,” he concedes with a frown. “We’re almost done for the day,
and your grandfather should be getting here soon. We’re having
another town meeting tonight at six.”

“I see how you are,” Reagan teases
further. “Guess I’ll just have to find a stand-in husband for when
you’re too busy for me.”

She pivots on the ball of
her Converse clad foot and receives a hard crack
to
her bottom.
Reagan just laughs haughtily at her husband as she walks down the
street back to their clinic. She spies over one shoulder to find
him talking to Kelly. He’s still staring at her, however. Just the
sight of John standing there in a dirty, sweat-covered white
t-shirt and his camo, olive drab pants sets her heart racing. To
call
John
a
sexy stud would be a serious understatement. He shoots her a grin
filled with a hot secret that makes Reagan bite her lower lip and
shake her head. She never dreamed she’d feel like this about
someone. Neither did she ever think she’d feel so strongly about
someone for as long as she has for John. A hundred years with him
won’t be enough.