The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (66 page)

“What?” John asks. “Who’s Mr.
Harrison? Don’t call me that. Geez. What am I, an old
man?”

His brother, Derek, laughs beside him,
too. They are standing near the new gates to the town.

John jabs at his brother and says,
“He’s the old man, not me.”

“Our dad’s name was Mr. Harrison.
We’re just Derek and John, Paige,” Derek tells her. “You keep
trying to call us that, but we’re not going to answer to
it.”

“Sorry, I just…”

John lays a hand
on
her shoulder,
“It’s cool, kid. Anyway, I got this new padlock for the front gate.
Those slider gates from the dairy farm are great, but we need to be
able to secure them closed.”

“Right, I agree,” Paige says
nervously. “We should lock the town down at dusk and have sentries
posted.”

“Yeah, we’ve been talking with one of
the guys here in town who’s been working on the construction of the
wall. Jason’s his name. He had some good ideas, and we added to
them,” John tells her.

“We’re thinking of building
a platform
with
an overhead shelter that is higher than the tallest section of
the fencing,” Derek says.

This piques Paige’s interest. She
looks to John to explain further.

“During the Vietnam War, there were
sentry posts like this used at the American fire bases,” he
explains patiently. “We surround them with sandbags to help protect
them from hostile fire. We should also build them in a few other
areas around town at the fence, too. Find some places where we can
get a good view. Can’t be too careful.”

“That’s a
really good
idea,”
she concurs. “It would keep the guards out of the weather but also
let them see who might be trying to approach the fence, especially
at night. The sandbags will help, too. That’s smart.”

Sue walks over to them with
containers of water. They all take a cup and ladle some out. July
in Tennessee feels like the surface of Mars. The humidity is
through the roof. Paige wishes that she’d have taken the time to
braid her hair this morning before leaving the cabin. It’s just
hanging down to the middle of her back and causing her to sweat.
She’s wearing a pair of Reagan’s shorts, which actually fit since
they aren’t full-length jeans. They fit her waist but come off as
some sort of attempt at being sexy since they are pretty short on
her. She can’t help the fact that her legs are much longer than
Reagan’s. Hell, everyone’s taller than Reagan. Back at the cabin,
she’d grabbed a plain white t-shirt from her box of clothing that
Simon had foraged for her from an empty house a few towns over when
she’d first come to stay on the farm. She doesn’t like to dwell on
where the owners of that house could be today. They are likely dead
somewhere. Her navy blue, satin bra is probably showing through her
t-shirt, but she doesn’t have much of a choice since she only
owns
two
and the other is in the dirty clothing pile in the cabin. She
also wears her only pair of shoes, which are black leather ankle
boots.

“Hey, guys,” Sue greets them. “What’s
going on?”

“Just scheming, planning and more
scheming,” her husband answers. “The usual.”

Derek pulls her close and kisses her
cheek.

“Gross, Derek,” she complains. “You’re
all sweaty and dirty!”

“Since when does that stop us?” he
teases. “How do you think we got three kids?”

Sue
blushes
and steps away from him.
Paige just grins. The other day Sue had cut the men’s hair in the
backyard. They are all freshly groomed with shorter locks, but
Derek had his wife buzz his off micro-short. He seems to be a man
of strict, military discipline. Paige assumes it is likely because
of his long service in the Army.
Even Simon’s unruly waves are shorter.
Paige only wishes she’d lined up and had Sue lob off about a
good ten inches of her own hair. It was strange because Herb
McClane had seemed particularly sad when he’d observed from the
back porch swing his granddaughter cutting everyone’s hair. Paige
meant to ask Simon about it, but so many things are always going on
that she
simply
forgot.

“Why don’t you go and scout
out a few places that those
watch
towers
could go?” John asks her.

“Oh, sure,” Paige replies, delighted
that he would have so much faith in her to do a good job of it.
“I’ll go right now.”

“Good idea,” Derek says. “We’ll need
to be able to get them built in place before winter sets in. It’ll
make it easier to keep an eye on the town.”

“No problem,” Paige says. “I’m on
it.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Sue offers. “I
brought a basket of food for the single man that was burned. I know
he doesn’t have anyone to help him.”

“That’s really nice,” Paige praises as
they leave the men. “Simon and Dr. McClane were supposed to be
heading over to check on them after they visited with Anita
again.”

“They’re back from
Anita’s,” Sue clarifies for her. “I went with them to see the new
baby.
She is so cute.
Good grief. I think my baby-making hormones amped
up just looking at her.”

Paige laughs aloud and is
joined by Sue as they walk down the sidewalk in the secure section
of town. They both still wear a pistol on their hips. And it still
feels
highly
strange on Paige’s.

“I don’t know about the baby hormones
thing, but she is really adorable,” Paige acknowledges.

“Makes me wish I could have more,” Sue
pines as she swipes a loose tendril of mahogany hair back into her
ponytail.

“Yeah, I heard that you can’t have any
more kids. Sorry about that,” Paige says.

“It’s ok,” she says
with
a nod. “I’ve
got three great ones, so I’m lucky. And they’re healthy, so that’s
kind of all that matters now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Paige
says.

Sue bumps her elbow against Paige’s
arm and says, “I’ll just wait for you to have kids and then I can
play with them and not have to get up in the middle of the night
for feedings.”

“What?” Paige exclaims. “Not me, no
way.”

“Never?”

Paige furrows her brow and
thinks a moment before answering, “I don’t know. I used to think I
wanted that. You know, the house, the 2.2 kids, the
dog
and a big back
yard.”

“You can still have
children
. We’ve
got plenty of dogs on the farm. And you’ve got a lot more than a
yard there, too. You’d have a few hundred acres instead of a yard,”
Sue jokes, causing Paige to laugh again.

“Things are just different now,” Paige
says after a moment.

“I know about your boyfriend from
college that was killed,” Sue allows.

Everyone in the McClane
family, of which she is now a part, seems to know everything about
each other. Her family was more reserved when she was growing up,
dignified, proper, sometimes even
cool
and distant. They were expected to
behave a certain way because of her father’s job. Even in the
middle of a world-wide apocalypse, the McClane family seems to find
joy and laughter and even love. No wonder Simon loves them all so
much.

“Yeah, he was. But I don’t
really even know how
serious
that would’ve become. I mostly moved in with him
and my friends because I knew I didn’t want to live on campus. He
was fun. I was young and independent for the first time. It wasn’t
like it was the greatest love story of all time.”

They stop at the burned man’s small
home on a side road, and Sue drops him off a basket of homemade
baked goods and two jars of soup. He is more thankful than Paige
would’ve thought. Part of his face and a section of his right
forearm are covered in bandages. He has fared better than some of
the others who were burned a few days ago.

When they finish with him, Sue starts
right back up where they left off as Paige walks along the
completed fence sections looking for a good spot for sentry
posts.

“So you don’t think you’ll ever get
married or have kids now, is that it?” she asks.

Paige scoffs as she examines an area
where people from town are working, “I doubt it. I mean it’s not
like there are a lot of single guys to choose from out on the
McClane farm. You know, unless I’m gonna count my own
brother.”

Sue laughs and says, “Well, you
certainly have enough admirers when we come to town.”

Paige whips her head to the side to
look at Sue, “What?”

Sue grins slyly and
indicates toward a group of men taking a break on the build. “Seems
like there’s a few of your
fan
boys
now.”

Paige peeks over her
shoulder. Two men immediately turn their heads as if they are
embarrassed to be caught staring at her, but a third
continues
to stare
openly
. Unfortunately, he also rises from
where he and his buddies are sitting on a stack of lumber and walks
toward her.

The slim, young man extends his hand
and says, “Hi, you’re Paige, right?”

Paige shakes his hand and says, “Yep,
that’s me.”

“I’m Jason,” he answers with a grin.
“John and Derek were talking to me about building some guard
posts.”

He has light blonde hair and brown
eyes and is about her height because she is looking directly into
his eyes. He’s also rather handsome. He’s also not interested in
her as Sue had incorrectly guessed. He simply wants to discuss the
wall.

“Um, yeah. That’s a good idea,” she
replies and tries to hide her disappointment. Good grief. She’s
obviously a hell of a lot lonelier than she’d thought.

“I have a drawing over here if you’d
like to check it out,” he offers, indicating a card table someone
has set up in the middle of the street. “I know how you like your
architectural drawings.”

His comment gains her attention, and
Paige’s eyes dart to his. He’s teasing her, exposing his dimples on
his clean shaven face.

“I’ll catch up with you later, Paige,”
Sue says to her. “Make sure you’re back at the truck by five. That
gives you about an hour.”

“Oh, ok, got it,” Paige
answers.

“I’ll make sure she gets there, Sue,”
Jason says.

Paige regards him with open
astonishment. She hardly needs him to walk her back to the clinic
at five o’clock. Sue just laughs, agrees to it and leaves. Paige is
feeling set up all of a sudden. Is Sue Harrison trying to play
matchmaker? She tries not to groan, even if Jason is
good-looking.

She walks with Jason over to the table
where he has laid out his own drawing which is more of a rough
sketch. She gets the general concept behind his idea and suggests
some improvements like a longer roof overhang and a slightly higher
platform elevation.

“How do you know Sue? I mean it seems
like you know her,” Paige asks.

“I went to school here in town with
the McClane girls,” he tells her.

There is a sophisticated
finesse about Jason. His hair looks like it was
professionally
highlighted
in a salon, but Paige knows it’s from working
outside, likely on this wall all summer.

“Oh?” she prompts for more
information.

“Yes, Sue was older than me. Reagan’s
closer to my age, but little Einstein bumped ahead and went to
college, leaving the rest of us dummies behind,” he
jokes.

Paige affords a lop-sided
grin.

“And you?” she asks, genuinely curious
now. “Did you go to college?”

“I did. I went to Yale,” he answers
proudly and then frowns.

“Really?” she asks with
surprise. He looks like a grungy construction worker covered in
dirt and wearing
work-boots
. “What was
your
major?”

“Economics,” he tells her.
“I worked for a law firm over in Nashville. I know, that’s kind of
a strange place to end up. But I handled all of the accounting for
them and their clients. Their
clients
were corporations,
so
…
”

“How did you end up back
here?”

“My uncle’s the vet.”

“Oh,” Paige says. She knows the
veterinarian is an alcoholic and has been through his share of woes
since the apocalypse hit. He literally has nobody
anymore.

“Yeah,” he agrees with her knowingly.
“My folks were on vacation in France when it all started, so
they’re gone. I lived over closer to Nashville, so I moved back
here when it all started. I figured I could help my uncle and his
family, but I was too late. Now I just live a few houses down from
him in my folk’s old house and try to keep an eye out for
him.”

“I’m sorry,” Paige says as they start
walking around the fence perimeter looking for more ideal spots for
guard towers.