The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (38 page)

“What are these?” he asks of her leather
cords tied there. “Why do you always wear these? Are they from
him?

“Him?”

Cory’s eyes jump to hers with a scowl, “Your
boyfriend from college.”

“No,” she says and vehemently shakes her
head. “No, not from him. I told you. It was over with him before
the crap hit the fan. Very over.”

“Then who gave you these?” Cory asks in a
demanding manner as if he’s jealous.

Paige looks down
at
the thin strings on her wrist and shrugs, “It’s
not like that. They’re just mine. I learned a long time ago that a
strip of leather can be helpful. It’s more of a habit really.
Sometimes I’ve needed a string or a piece of leather like these.
They’re good for a lot of things. You know, like patching a
shoestring or tying something together. It’s hard to throw
simple
things
like this
away.”

When she looks up at Cory again, he’s staring
so intently at her, so directly at her face that she shakes her
head and blushes.

“It’s like they are a security blanket. I
just feel safer, like I can foolishly control my environment and my
future or something. I can’t describe it to you. You wouldn’t
understand,” she says and twirls one of the strips on her wrist
nervously.

She looks up again, afraid that he’ll
laugh at her. But he doesn’t. As a matter of fact, he has
a deep
scowl on his face and his mouth
is set in an angry line.

Cory nods once and says, “Let’s keep
moving.”

“Yeah,” Paige agrees and follows him through
the doors. She’s not sure why he seems angry.

They don’t find much in the pharmacy
area worth salvaging, but Cory does come upon a trampled
Popular Science
magazine on the floor
for Simon. Paige smiles at this. So far today, he’s only scouted
out things for other people. He’s not actually being a total pig
today. She’s pleasantly surprised by his behavior. Then he points
to a box of condoms and winks. She was pleasantly surprised. He
opens the box and stuffs a handful into his pack.

“Celibate my ass,” she remarks.

“Hey, ya’ never know,” he says with a wink of
devilment.

Toward the front of the store, he finds
a lighter, a few packs of bubblegum that he says he’ll take back to
the farm for the kids and an
instamatic
camera. Paige finds a book by one of her former favorite
authors on the newsstand and stuffs it into the front pocket of her
backpack. It’s not like they can roll into the Barnes and Noble for
the latest bestsellers. The newspaper next to the bookshelf reads
March 4, 2031. Time has literally stood still in America. The story
is still coverage of North Korea using nuclear weapons. Paige
frowns with a touch melancholy. She takes the newspaper. She’s not
sure why, but it seems important. It’s the last bit of written
history. Maybe her grandchildren will look at it one day and wonder
what it was like living in such a broken country. Or maybe she’ll
give it to Simon’s grandchildren. That sounds better.

Cory takes two boxes of taper candles and a
pillar candle and stashes those. They move down the medicine aisle
next. There is literally nothing left there except for some boxes
of eye drops and a few packages of cough drops. He shakes his head
and indicates they should leave.

This time, they use the front door and walk
down the street away from the shopping plaza. Not much is in this
area; just residences, apartment buildings, an old pizza shop
complete with a checkerboard awning, and a few gas stations. He
squats behind a tall hedgerow with her.

“Take a break,” he orders.

Paige doesn’t need encouragement. She kneels
beside him, balancing on one knee. He takes out a map and points to
a red mark.

“The area up ahead was deemed as a
no-go zone the last time we came. It was a little dangerous, a
little too occupied. We’ll avoid it,
come
out
around here,” he says, pointing northwest. “The
college is over there. We can raid there and
rendezvous
with Simon and Sam later.”

“Ok, whatever you say,” she says.

“There’s a lot between here and there,
probably about three miles of ground to cover. We can hit some
places on the way, too,” he says, folding the map neatly and
placing
it in his back pocket again.
“You holding up ok?”

“Yes, I
’m
fine,
” she affirms.

“Let me know if you get tired,” he offers and
helps her stand. “We can stop and rest whenever you need to.”

“Got it,” she says and steps away from him,
although he keeps his hand at her elbow. He nods, and they move out
again.

“I’d like to find a place to steal gas,” he
tells her. “Keep an eye out. If the gas station looks raided like
the pumps are on the ground, that kind of thing, we’ll pass. But if
you see anything else, call it out.”

“What about a gas distribution facility? Like
the kind of place that supplied it to gas stations?”

“Maybe,” he says. “Those were mostly used up
at the beginning by the government and military. I’ve got some
other ideas, though.”

“Like what?” she inquires as they move
through an area with expensive old homes.

“There are a couple
micro-breweries
in the area. I want to see if they
have
stills
in the back of their
restaurants.”

“For what, beer?” she asks as they take
a
shortcut
down an alley
surrounded by tall trees and high fences to support the
relationship
of
good
neighbors.

“Sort of,” he says. “We’ve got the CNG system
and trucks now, but we didn’t know that we’d find them. And it may
not be the perfect solution, either. I’ve been working with Derek.
We think we might be able to make moonshine and run Doc’s old
pick-up truck on it. We’ve definitely got the grain and the land to
grow more if we need to.”

“Really?” she asks, remembering that tragic
night she’d imbibed his jar of the liquid fire. “That wouldn’t be a
surprise. That crap was like drinking battery acid.”

“Exactly,” he agrees on a grin. “It’d be
better running our truck than your skinny body.”

Paige frowns at him and looks down at
herself. When he says things like that, it makes her feel
self-conscious. She’s going to have low self-esteem if she keeps
hanging around him.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” he
clarifies and bumps his shoulder against hers.

“I know I’m skinny. It’s just the way I’m
built. I can’t help it. And no amount of Hannah trying to make me
eat more is going to change it.”

“You’re fine. I’m just
messin’
with ya,’” he says.

Paige looks up at him and scowls. “Not
everyone has the same body. I’ve always been tall for a girl. So I
don’t have big fake boobs and blonde hair like your girlfriend,
Evie Johnson.”

“Her boobs are
not
fake, let me assure you,” he says with a
bright smile.

For everything he’s been through, he
has
a nice
white smile and
straight teeth.

“Spare me the details,” Paige says, rolling
her eyes. She hardly needs to hear about his sexual escapades. They
don’t have all day.

“You aren’t fake, either. That’s good.
No dude wants to bump uglies with the bionic woman,” he jests.
“Besides, you’ve got
a nice
ass.
And that goes a long way.”

Paige’s wide eyes dart to his, her mouth
hanging open. Her cheeks instantly burn with embarrassment as he
calls another halt at a corner.

“Hey, it’s just a fact. I’m not hitting on
you or anything,” he admits with crude honesty and a nonchalant
shrug as he peers intently down a long street full of homes.

She stares forward and doesn’t bring up
anything else that would lead to his physical assessment of her.
They walk for a short while, nearly a mile in silence. This is the
top end of the area Cory said can be dangerous, and he asks her to
be as quiet as possible. She doesn’t allow him to get too far ahead
of her, but he does walk quite a bit faster. Right before
they
clear
a group of buildings,
Cory’s left fist shoots up to shoulder height signaling a halt. He
motions for her to come forward. His hand comes up toward her face,
his index finger pointing toward an open field, a park of some
kind.

Paige sees what has drawn his attention.
There are tents set up there as if a group of traveling nomads is
moving through the area. They even have livestock fenced off in a
small corral. Cory tilts his head to their left as if to indicate
they should leave by that way. She nods in return. They jog more
quickly this time away from the group in the park. They could be
harmless, but there’s no sense in taking a chance. They don’t live
in a society anymore where strangers meet and greet in a public
park and exchange phone numbers for their kids to have play dates.
Now the meet and greet is more like lead slinging and terror.

They move at a faster pace until she tugs his
sleeve for a rest break. He doesn’t argue or ridicule her. He just
stops and leads her into the lobby of a fancy hotel.

“We’re almost to the college. We’ll rest a
minute and keep going,” he says. “The brewery is a few blocks from
here, and there’s supposed to be another closer to the school.”

Paige nods because she’s trying to catch her
breath.

“Get a drink,” Cory orders quietly while
keeping watch.

She pulls her stainless steel container
of water from her pack and gulps down a few drinks. She’s out of
shape for this. It’s been so long since she was out making a run.
She used to be able to jog for a solid hour before her college
classes started for the day. And after the fall, she got used to
walking
for extended periods of
time
. She vows to get into better condition when they
make it back to the farm.

“Ready? Or do you need another minute?” Cory
asks with concern a few seconds later.

“I’m good,” Paige answers and stands with
him.

They find the brewery with no trouble at all
and discover the fully intact still in the back of the restaurant.
Cory says it will take some ingenuity, but he’s pretty sure they
can get it free. She’s not sure how they’re going to get it taken
apart to fit into the SUV, but he says that he will figure
something out. She’s starting to learn that he usually doesn’t
mince words. If he says he can do it, then he probably can.

They leave through the rear exit where
the grass grows with wild abandon up through the cracks of the
blacktopped parking lot. Crude graffiti marks the façade of the
shopping center across the street. The building looks like the far
end of it has been
torched
at
some point. Black soot crawls up the bricks and onto the roof. She
checks her watch, one that Kelly gave her to use
like
the rest of them own. There are buttons and
gadgets on it, and he’d showed her how to use it in case the need
for setting their watches to sync should arise.

“There’s a medical facility, hospital or
something, and a small research building kind of thing over at the
college,” he informs her. “Doc said to check it out. See if they
have anything we need.”

This is the part of their mission that she is
already aware of. She knew that it was supposed to be their job to
raid the college hospital and then the college itself. It will be
the first time she’s been to a college since leaving her own.

“Ready or do you need to rest?” he asks
considerately.

Paige shakes her head. She appreciates his
concern. He doesn’t seem like such a monster today, and his brown
eyes are regarding her with warmth.

It takes a short while to get there,
and she suspects that he is going slower for her. She isn’t about
to argue. A clearing opens up
into
a city green spot complete with picnic pavilions, a
children’s playground and tennis courts with weeds sticking up
through the painted green concrete. She used to love playing
tennis. Signs, most that have seen better days, litter the area
with directions into Vanderbilt University. Cory crosses a street,
cautious as they go and waves her forward. The school rests
directly in front of them on a massive expanse of property that
looks like it used to be lovely. Lots of tall oaks are scattered
about. Everything has become unkempt and overgrown, though. They
squeeze through chain-link fencing to gain access to the college
hospital grounds. Paige has done this sort of thing many times in
the last years trying to find any kind of supplies, mostly food,
that she could for her and her friends.

“What was that?” Cory asks suddenly and drags
her behind a medical van where they squat down low.

“What? What did you hear?” she asks in
a panic. She’d been in a daze thinking about her past and
not
actually
paying
attention.

“Not hear. I saw something,” he says, peering
around the back of the van cautiously.

The soft jingle of his equipment and gear
bring a feeling of comfort to Paige as if it’s letting her know
that he’s fully prepared for whatever the day brings. His combat
boots scuff against the pavement. He inches closer to the edge of
the van and pulls a small pair of binoculars from his pocket.

“What’d you see?” she asks, her tension
rising.