The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (12 page)

“You’re here!” she exclaims and hugs Paige
tightly.

“Hey, baby girl,” Paige says to Maddie and
swoops her into her arms after she and Talia have parted.

Sam notices that Paige’s eyes tear up at
their reunion. Every time her friend has come over for a visit
during the past few weeks, Paige has been in town working on the
wall.

They go into the house where
they meet up with Bertie and Vickie, the lady that’s been staying
on their farm who was severely abused by men that were friends with
the Target group and was held captive in a cabin in the
woods.
There are signs of wedding planning going on by
the looks of the dried flowers and patches of lace on the kitchen
table.

Reagan leads Hannah to the table where she
takes a seat and immediately starts reaching for things.

“Talia’s going to wear my wedding dress,”
Bertie announces with a smile.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Hannah exclaims. “I
brought you our grandmother’s pearls to borrow for the wedding if
you’d like, Talia.”

“Really?” Talia asks. “I mean, that’s
generous of you but are you sure?”

Reagan interjects with, “Absolutely. She
would’ve wanted you to use them. Sue wore them on her wedding day,
too. And so did Hannah.”

“Didn’t you, when you married John?” Paige
asks of Reagan.

Hannah snorts and answers for her, “We were
lucky just to get her into a dress. Are you kidding?”

Everyone laughs at Reagan’s expense, and she
grins.

“Sue said she’ll come over tomorrow
morning to go
over
the meal plans
again with you, Bertie,” Hannah says.

“Oh, good. I need all the help I can
get.”

“We’re bringing sweet corn enough for
an army, and Hannah and Sue are making cheese and
breads
, too,” Reagan tells
her.

Hannah offers a demure smile. Sam has noticed
that her dark depression over the loss of Grams and Em has lifted
just slightly since Cory returned. She is glad for it, too. They
all love Hannah. Nobody wants her to be sad all the time. Grams
especially wouldn’t want that for her.

“The men are working on butchering one of the
steers because we’re almost out of freezer beef and have a lot of
people to feed this coming weekend,” Bertie tells them.

Sam doesn’t miss the grimace on Paige’s
face, but she also doesn’t laugh at her friend. Since Paige used to
be a
vegan,
perhaps she doesn’t
find the idea of slaughtering a cow too delightful.

“Yeah, the Johnsons are coming and so are a
few of the families from town, I hear,” Hannah says.

“Yep, it’s going to be great,” Bertie
says. “A lot of bad things have been happening this summer and we
need a day to just celebrate being together and joining up with our
families and friends.
And
to
celebrate my new sister.”

Talia smiles and loops her arm through
Bertie’s. Sam is so happy that Bertie finally has a few women
living on their farm. For too long she was alone with just Chet and
Wayne as her companions. She needed women for company. It’s also
been good for her little daughter to have Maddie to play with, as
well.

A few hours later after they’ve helped them
with some decorating projects and have stowed it all away to be
brought out in two days for the wedding, Sam and her group leave
their farm. Paige hugged Talia for an extra long time before they
departed.

“I’m so happy for Talia,” Sam observes.
“Chet’s such a nice man. He’ll be
a
great
husband and father.”

“Yeah, he seems cool,” Paige says as they
ride back to the farm.

The four of them chat about the wedding
and the happy couple and how lucky little Maddie is to be adapting
well
to
the Reynolds family. When
they reach the barns again, Hannah and Paige dismount
first.

“Hey, Paige,” Reagan says, “will you see
Hannie back to the house? Sam and I are going for a quick
ride.”

“What do you mean you’re going for
a
ride
? That was a quick
ride
. Why would you want to prolong the
torture? Are you a secret sadist, Reagan?” Paige jokingly
asks.

“Well, I did get married, so…”

“Maybe John is the sadist,” Hannah remarks
coyly.

Reagan laughs bawdily, and Sam joins in.
Hannah simply smiles tolerantly at their humor.

Paige says, “I told Simon that I’d help him
anyway. You guys have fun… if that’s possible.”

Hannah loops her arm through Paige’s. Sam
watches the other two women head toward the back of the house
before shooting an inquiring gaze to Reagan.

“Let’s go for a ride, kid,” she says to her.
“It’s been awhile since we had time for it.”

“Ok,” Sam agrees but with a certain amount of
suspicion at Reagan’s motive.

They ride past the horse barn and take
a familiar route into the woods and up into the deeper forest. The
shade provided by the thick foliage and leaves won’t last much
longer. They trot through
an especially sparse
area
and
canter
across the top field. Nothing in the world could be more
joyful to Sam than a warm fall day racing across an open pasture.
Her mind frees itself from the entanglements of her dark past, the
ever-dangerous
present,
and her
uncertain future. It is just her and the beat of the horse’s
hooves, the rhythm of their bodies moving as one graceful unit, and
the wind whipping through her loose hair.

They slow down once again as they enter
the top pasture’s wooded section. A short distance to their east,
the men have run fencing so that the cattle can graze throughout
the woods now, too. She even hears one
mooing
, probably frightened by the noise the horses
are making as they pick their way through the forestry. They ride
for a while discussing the farm and the clinic in town. Then Reagan
gets quiet for a few moments.

“I want to know what you know,” Reagan states
and pulls her horse to a complete stop.

Sam circles around and reins in beside
her.

“What… what do you mean, Reagan?” she asks
nervously.

“The radio. I know you heard something. Spill
it,” Reagan orders bluntly.

“Um… I don’t know,” Sam says, biting her
lower lip.

“I’m not asking, Sam. I need to know. And
I’ve been watching you. You’re walking around this farm with this
big secret. Just tell me.”

“I don’t want everyone else to know, Reagan,”
she admits. “I’m afraid. I don’t want anything to split up our
family.”

“Me neither. And I can help if you tell
me.”

Sam sighs and furrows her brow. Her
mare
sidesteps,
and she reins her
back under control.

She begins slowly, “I was tidying up
Grandpa’s room for him. You
know,
like Grams used to?”

Reagan nods and urges her to continue.

“The radio was already on. I went over to
change it to a music cd when the static just stopped and an actual
voice started. He said that he was the President. He said some
political stuff I didn’t understand. Then he started talking about
the military. He barked off orders.”

“Like what?”

Sam recalls, “He said that all
military men, former and active duty when the country fell apart
and are of the age of less than forty-five should head to one of
the three states where they were re-establishing the
military.”

“I remember part of that came through,”
Reagan says. “It was Iowa and Oklahoma. Where else?”

“Colorado,” Sam tells her.

“Did they say why?”

“He said that the acting President had
basically gone insane and that the soldiers were to report
in to
the commanders that the Vice
President had set in place in those states.”

“Bullshit, it is a coup,” Reagan
snarls
. “He’s trying to overthrow the
old President with force. They’re going to have a damn civil war.
What else?”

“He said any member of the military who
doesn’t report in shall be hanged,” Sam says, feeling the color
drain from her face.

“How the hell would they even know that?”

“I don’t know. He said that his troops will
be traveling the country rounding up men to join his army and will
also be searching for men and women with military experience.”

“Fuck him,” Reagan states simply.

“What if they find our family members? What
if they take John and Kelly and… all the guys because they are of
the right age?”

Reagan snorts, “Do you really think that’s
gonna play, Sam? Our guys wouldn’t leave the farm to join this
jackass’s fight just because he says to.”

“Right,” Sam says with a worrisome frown.

“The game has changed. The country fell
apart. They can’t just decide to call up the military for their
little pissing contest.”

“There was more, but it was pretty sketchy.
He said something about an EMP. I don’t know if one was used or
not. John and Derek said that we weren’t nuked, so I don’t even
know if that part’s true.”

“We weren’t nuked, but something could’ve
happened since. Hell, if these two dudes are going at it like this,
then maybe an EMP was used. I don’t know.”

“He even said stuff about politics and the
suspected locations of the camps of soldiers working with the old
President.”

“Way to be a rat,” Reagan says with disgust
about the message. “What about the attack, the sickness you said he
spoke of that hit a few years ago? Did you really not remember what
he said or were you just saying that?”

“I don’t remember the name of the
disease, but it was
terrible
. It
wasn’t the pneumonic plague, but I can’t recall the name. He said
hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions worldwide were
wiped out by it and that the CDC doctors were taken to some
research facility in a bunker to work on it. The way he was talking
made it seem like it was a biological weapon, like someone released
this disease. I’m not sure I understood that part, though. Then it
got fuzzy again, so I don’t know if it was ever
resolved.”

Reagan nods thoughtfully before
contemplating.

“A lot of different countries in the
Middle East had weapons like that. I don’t know how the hell they’d
release one over here, though. What’d they hop on United Airlines
to get here? I don’t think so! We also had weapons like that, not
that our government would’ve ever admitted to it. We kept a lot of
dangerous diseases and cured sicknesses at research facilities,
too. But anyone wanting to hit us with
bio
warfare
would’ve had to get it overseas to the U.S.,
and I don’t know how they could have unless they had a badass
rowboat. Still interesting, though.”

Sam nods thoughtfully, considering her big
sister’s words.

“It sounded like variance or something.
Sorry,” Sam says, trying her best to recall the disease.

“Variola Major?” Reagan asks with a sharp
glance her way.

“Hm, maybe,” Sam says. “That sounds like
it.”

“That’s fucking great,” Reagan swears.

“What?”

“Variola is
smallpox
. It has killed millions and millions of
people since the beginning of recorded time. It’s highly contagious
and very deadly. It was wiped out with a preventative vaccine, but
not anymore. If people haven’t been
vac’d
, and they haven’t been since the fall, then
there’s definitely a possibility of it making an
appearance.”

“That’s so terrible. Have we been
vaccinated?” Sam asks with definite concern.

Reagan bumps her gelding forward and they
begin moving again.

“All of us adults would’ve been, but not the
kids. Many doctors weren’t even recommending vaccinating children
for it anymore because there was such a small risk of it popping up
in the United States.”

“When I went to Nashville with my mom
when the fall first started, my Uncle Scott vaccinated
me and my siblings
for just about
everything.”

“Oh, I’m sure he
vac’d
you for pox if you weren’t already,” Reagan
reassures her.

“Do you think the men would leave if we told
them about all this?” Sam asks, trying to hide her fear.

“I’m not sure,” Reagan says.

They ride for a distance in silence. Sam
doesn’t even take in the beautiful views around her.

“Don’t tell anyone else, Sam,” Reagan
orders.

“Oh, um…”

Reagan stops her horse again and turns
in the saddle to face her. “I mean it. Do not tell anyone, not even
Simon. Never tell any of the family what you know, what you heard.
The men could
de
cide to leave.
They
fe
el such
a fierce
loyalty to our country. We have to protect
them from making
a wrong
decision, Sam. Tell no one.”

Sam nods vehemently. Reagan reaches
over and takes her hand, squeezing it to give her strength. This is
a big move for her older sister. She doesn’t
typically
initiate touching. Reagan doesn’t flinch
as badly as she used to, but she doesn’t enjoy her space being
crowded or people needlessly touching her.

They continue their ride, talking about other
subjects like the kids, the animals, the harvest and their
town.