The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (41 page)

She whispers, “Could it be the wind?”

“No,” his quiet response comes, sending
a shiver down the back of her neck. She’d like to hold his hand but
thinks better of it. He needs both hands on his gun if they get
into trouble. She’s been with him and Cory when there has been
trouble. However, this time they are split up into two teams. She’s
not so sure she likes this plan after all. She understands the
necessity of it as they would’ve been in the city for too many days
searching out supplies if they moved in
a
big
group of four. But it doesn’t mean she has to like
it.

“Animal?” she whispers, hopeful.

“Don’t think so,” Simon returns.

Sam hears him click off the safety on his
handgun. He steps ahead of her. Simon finds her arm in the pitch
dark and slides his hand down to take the flashlight from her.

“Stay here,” he says quietly.

“’
Kay,” Sam whispers
nervously.

He turns the flashlight back on,
covering the illuminated end of it with his palm. It gives him just
enough light to see by, but not enough to be seen. She watches with
great despair as he climbs the stairs away from her. A few seconds
later and he is gone and so is the light. Now she’s totally creeped
out. She tries to calm her breathing. A feeling comes over her as
if something is going to run
at
her from below. Sam rubs at the gooseflesh on her calves and
ankles before resting back against the wall again. She frowns at
her own childishness because they already searched the lower level,
and it was empty.

“What a baby,” she whispers to herself.

Simon comes back down, hands her the light
and says, “It’s all clear. I checked the stairwell up a couple
floors. There isn’t anyone there. We’re going to be careful,
though.”

“Do you think it was a person?” Sam asks as
they ascend and reach the exit door they need.

“I think so,” he says grimly. “Could’ve been
an animal. Probably a dog. Whatever it was, they’re gone now. We’ll
take this out to the SUV and rest a minute there where I can do
some recon. Maybe we’ll go to the top of the parking deck and check
out the area again. Maybe I missed something.”

“’
Kay,” Sam agrees with nerves that are
fully rattled.

They make it back to the main floor but
take a different exit to the east. It brings them out closer to the
side of the parking deck entrance which will make it faster to get
the supplies loaded. Sam keeps her gun trained out in front of them
as they
fast
walk down the ramp
to the lower level of the parking garage. Simon
loads
the salt into the back of the SUV, tossing
the cardboard box aside.

The trips back and forth take them over
an hour. And after five more similar and thankfully uneventful
trips including for the sugar that Simon found, plus two heavy
sacks of rice, three boxes of dried beans, bags of oatmeal and
twelve smaller boxes of baking powder, they take a break and rest
in the Suburban. Sam lights a
small
beeswax candle and places it on the dashboard. The darkness
of the hospital basement and now the parking deck is just too much.
She needs a reprieve. Apparently Simon either feels the same way or
else he’s just being accommodating because he says nothing about
the light from the candle.

Simon crawls into the back and pulls out
their packages of food from the farm. He hands her a sack and keeps
one for himself. Sam takes a swig of her bottled water, not at all
surprised to find the taste of mint in it. Sue’s handiwork, no
doubt. Fresh baked bread with soft, herbed goat cheese and a slice
of smoked ham await her next. Hannie’s handiwork. There is also an
apple, some slices of hard cheddar cheese, a handful of green
pepper strips, two hard-boiled eggs and a small baggie of dried
deer jerky. She’s not crazy about the deer jerky but will eat it
just the same. She knows her body will need the protein for energy
for the next few days. Another bottle near the bottom of the sack
contains what is likely whey water. This one would be on Reagan’s
insistence. Sam hates the protein water. It tastes like a cow’s
utter. It’s disgusting, but Reagan thinks it’s healthy and good for
them, especially out in the field. Sam will probably leave it for
Simon and hope that he doesn’t notice her lack of interest.

They dig in with earnest and eat in
companionable silence for a short time until their hunger abates
just slightly. He constantly looks
at
the side and rearview mirrors.

“Think we’ll find anything else down there?”
Sam asks, referring to the basement of the hospital.

“Maybe. We sure didn’t get everything. That
was just one small area of that storage room.”

“Right. So are we going back in?”

Simon takes
a huge
bite of
his sandwich and replies, “Yeah, I think we’ve
got time. We should look around for medical supplies for the clinic
if we can find any.”

She consults her watch, borrowed from Derek,
and says, “I think so, too. We’re not that far from Cory and Paige
at the college and where we’re supposed to meet up later. We’ve
still got some time.”

“Hope our meet-up place is still empty,” he
observes and takes a swig of the protein water.

Good. Sam hopes he drinks the whole thing. He
tilts it toward her to offer a drink, but she shakes her head with
a wrinkle of her nose. He just chuffs.

“It’ll put hair on your chest,” he
teases.

“I like my chest just fine the way it is,
thank you, sir,” she jokes. His eyes dart down to her chest and
then away quickly.

“The… we’re… the Parthenon is
a good
place to meet,” he
stutters.

Sam just stares at him with confusion. She
also looks down at her jacket. Maybe she’s spilled something on
herself. She doesn’t see anything. Maybe he wasn’t looking at her
shirt. However, it wouldn’t be like Simon to be looking at anything
else in that area.

“It was empty before,” she agrees. “Let’s
hope it still is. I haven’t been there with you guys. Remember? We
just stayed in the cabin the last time we all came.”

“Yes, but we didn’t have the vehicle. This is
different.”

“I remember going on a picnic at the
Parthenon once with my mom and the twins,” she says, recalling the
event.

“Really? I guess I
forget sometimes
that you were from this
area.”

“Yeah, born and raised. Haven’t been to too
many other places. We used to vacation down at Myrtle Beach with my
grandparents. But my dad’s business kept us from doing much. He
worked a million hours a week.”

“I know what that’s like,” Simon agrees.

“I’m sure, what with your dad being so
important and all,” Sam says with praise.

“I don’t know how important he was. It was
just his job. He took his political career very seriously.”

“It used to be important being a politician,”
Sam comments. “They ran our country for us. I’d say that was pretty
important.”

“Yes, well they’ve done a swell job of it,”
Simon says with a lot more cynicism than he normally shows. “I’m
sitting in the parking deck of an abandoned, post-apocalyptic
hospital eating lunch with a girl who wouldn’t have given me the
time of day five years ago, and now it’s up to me to keep her alive
and forage a trashed out city like an alley rat because of the
bang-up job the politicians of the world have done.”

“Wait a minute!” Sam halts him angrily. “Who
says I wouldn’t have given you the time of day?”

He interrupts her with a chuckle and says,
“That’s all you got out of that?”

“Yes, it’s the only part that’s important
because it involved me and you, Simon,” Sam informs him with
brewing outrage.

Simon looks directly at her and raises his
eyebrows as if she is being ridiculous.

“Don’t judge me like that. You didn’t know me
before. Hell, sometimes I don’t think you know me now,” she
swears.

“Language, young lady,” Simon corrects
her.

This time Sam laughs at him before saying,
“You just insulted me and you’re worried because I said a swear
word?”

“There’s no reason to be uncivilized just
because the world has become so,” he lectures.

“I would’ve talked to you,” she
grumbles
before taking a drink of her
minty water.

“I doubt it,” he argues. “I wouldn’t have
blamed you, either.”

Sam frowns at his put-down. “I wasn’t one of
those girls, Simon.”

“What girls?”

“Snobby, stuck on themselves, those kinds,”
Sam educates him.

“No, you probably weren’t,” he finally
agrees, looking directly at her again.

“Besides, I wouldn’t have noticed you unless
you grew a mane and tail, silly. I wasn’t into boys back then
before the fall.”

For some reason, this comment makes Simon
scowl hard. Is he remembering their shared time with the visitors?
She wasn’t into boys then, either, but she learned very quickly
that interest in the other party doesn’t need to be reciprocal. She
wishes that Simon would just forget that time. She’d sure like
to.

Instead, Sam reverts to their previous
conversation, “Anyway, before we got off on all that. I picnicked
with my mother and the twins at the Parthenon. I think the babies
were maybe a year old. They were still in the giant, pain in the
butt double stroller. I remember that very clearly. That thing was
so heavy and cumbersome.”

“I’m sure,” Simon agrees.

He also seems glad to have left their other
discussion behind.

“I just remember the Parthenon
being
really pretty
inside and
the grounds around it looking like some sort of fancy park. We sat
on the grass near a pond,” Sam tells him as she digs around in her
sack and finds a caramel brownie. Hannah makes these sometimes
because they don’t require traditional brownie ingredients like
chocolate and sugar. The sugar is replaced with creamed honey. The
chocolate is swapped out with ground-up walnuts from the orchard.
They are simply heavenly.

“It might not look quite the way you’re
remembering it, Sam,” he says, stashing some of his lunch items
back into his sack, as well.

“That would be a shame because the artwork
and statues inside were lovely,” Sam reminisces.

“It’s a little rundown. Just be prepared.
We’ll have to be way more careful this time, too.”

“Because Paige and I are with you guys?”

“Yes,” Simon answers with blunt honesty.

“We’ll be
fine
,” she assures him, although she really can’t
be too confident because who knows what could happen. They could
all die today for all she knows.

“You’ll be
fine
because I
say
you will,” Simon says almost angrily.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She doesn’t get an answer because he blows
out the candle with a hasty breath of air and pushes on her
shoulder.

“Get down!” he says fiercely.

“What is it?”

“Headlights,” he says.

Simon pushes the lever on the side of her
chair so that it instantly drops to a full reclining position and
does the same on his side.

“Rifle safety off,” he orders as he
pulls his handgun out, flicks off the safety and readies his
rifle
, as well.

Sam pulls the AR up beside her and flicks off
the safety.

“Shh,” he whispers in the dark. “Be still,
Sam. Someone’s coming.”

Her heart is about to hammer right out of her
chest as dim headlights appear out of the dark. A vehicle descends
the ramp and slinks slowly toward them.

Chapter Seventeen

Reagan

She breathes her usual sigh of relief at the
sight of her husband returning safely from a trip. John and Kelly
park the stolen gas company trucks near the equipment shed and get
out. Derek is already up there, but she and Grandpa need to make
the hike. Reagan would like to jog up the driveway to greet her
husband but will walk at a much slower pace with her grandfather.
Just recently, she’s noticed that he doesn’t get around as fast as
he used to.

“They’re back, Hannie!” she calls into the
kitchen before leaving the house with her grandfather.

“I know,” Hannah replies in her normal,
strange way.

“Basset
hound
,” Grandpa remarks as they go down the back
stairs.

Reagan laughs and pulls her jacket collar
higher. A wind gust whips through the valley, turning what’s left
of the leaves over on the big oak trees. The branches rustle and
clink together like nature’s wind chimes.

“It seems like we’re in for a storm,” she
tells her grandfather.

He sighs and replies, “I think so. Looks like
we’d better get the chores done early tonight. Might be a real
gusher.”

“I hope the kids are ok,” Reagan frets.

“Reagan, they aren’t kids anymore,”
Grandpa says with a chuckle. “I thought your grandmother and me
were
bad
about the
worrying.”

“You were,” she says with a smile as three of
the children run past them, probably engaged in a game of tag.

“I think you might be worse,” he teases.

Reagan loops her arm through her
grandfather’s, relieved the need to cringe from the touch of her
family is nearly gone. She doesn’t like touching other people,
patients maybe, but not strangers. They still give her the willies
and probably always will. Sam has the same issues. Hers just go
much deeper than Reagan’s. Samantha has a tendency to be open and
kind, giving and sweet, but she sure as hell doesn’t like
strangers, especially men.