The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (69 page)

“What is it?” Simon asks.

“Let’s seal the doors and torch it. Shoot any
of them that get out,” Cory offers.

Simon considers this for a moment before
saying, “Do you think that would work?”

“It’s better than taking on a group that big
by ourselves. No sense in putting ourselves in danger. We gotta’
get back to the girls soon. We’ve been gone a long time,” Cory adds
with a thoughtful expression, one he doesn’t often show.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Simon agrees. “Where do
we start?”

A short while later, they have a steel bar
threaded through the handles of the main gym entrance and an
aluminum pipe blocking the other. One man door is left, which is
the one Cory will use to make his escape after he starts the fire.
He’ll then seal off that door, as well. The windows are high off
the ground, at least two stories up, surrounding the top edge of
the gymnasium. Unless the men inside have ladders, they aren’t
escaping through a window. The only available exit will be the
three small windows on the farthest east side of the gym where
bleachers reach high enough to connect to them. Simon is positioned
outside of the building in case that happens. Cory spied on the
group to ascertain the man’s story of the number and sexes of the
persons inside. The details they were given are accurate. The women
were detained in the rape room far away from the men, so Operation
Torch is on.

“We’re
a
go
,” Cory tells Simon in his earpiece.

A moment later, his friend is sprinting
across the street to join him. Not many minutes after, a prophetic
gray smoke begins billowing out into the street from beneath the
door that Cory just came through and then blocked with a piece of
lumber under the handle.

Soon the entire building is on fire, the red
and orange flames licking the night sky. Two men try to make their
escapes from the windows only to be taken out by Simon. Another
tries to get out, and Cory shoots him. It seems a cruel fate, this
killing of people by burning them alive. But, then again, what they
did to those women and girls was even worse in Simon’s opinion.

They wait until the heat of the fire is
more than they can bear and nobody else tries to escape. The
screams have stopped anyway. Simon knows they have most likely all
succumbed to smoke inhalation. A glance
toward
his friend and he notes the
thoughtful
pursing
of Cory’s lips
as he rubs the scruff on his chin. He seems unmoved by this murder
scene. Simon isn’t sure what his friend is thinking, but he almost
never does. He looks like he’s working out a difficult math problem
in his mind. Cory is so guarded now, unlike how he used to be.
Losing his little sister has changed him, darkened his heart, and
made him more cautious about letting anyone in.

They
double-time
it back toward the cabin, stop at the
creek to wash up, and jog in their damp clothing the rest of the
way. Simon wasn’t in too bad of shape, but Cory had blood
splattered on his face and neck, likely from killing the man in the
locker room. His sister is already leery of Cory; Simon doesn’t
want her to be
downright
afraid
of him. It’s important to him that they get along and seeing his
friend covered in someone else’s blood could turn her even more
against him.

When they arrive at the cabin, they find
Paige asleep on the front porch in a sleeping bag with her rifle
resting beside her.

“So she needs some work on watch duty,” Simon
jests and barely gets a grin from Cory who seems more stoic and,
strangely, upset at seeing her.

She snaps awake and scrambles to her knees as
they climb the stairs to the front porch.

“It’s just us, sis,” Simon reassures her.

He reaches down and offers assistance, but
she jumps up and flings herself against Cory, hugging him close.
His friend appears as shocked as Simon and just stands there. Then
he hugs her back with slightly less fervor but inhales deeply of
her hair and neck. What the hell’s going on? Simon’s jaw flexes
tightly.

“I was worried. Thank God you’re back,” Paige
mumbles against Cory’s chest.

“We’re fine,” Cory
says quietly
.

“Uh… sis?” Simon says confusedly. “I think
you got the wrong guy.”

“What?” Paige asks, stumbles back from Cory
and sends and awkward glance toward Simon. “Oh…yeah. Sorry,” she
blurts and steps away from Cory. “I…I thought you were my brother.
I was just disoriented.”

Cory doesn’t answer but retrieves her rifle
from the floor.

“That’s all right,” Simon allays her
humiliation, although she doesn’t actually seem all that
embarrassed after all. “Honest mistake. It’s dark out here.”

“Right,” she whispers as she tries to slide
past Cory.

“You shouldn’t have been out here,” his
friend growls angrily and snatches her upper arm. “You were
supposed to wait inside with the door locked.”

His friend’s concern is almost at dramatic
proportions. He is more bent out of shape than Simon, and Paige is
his sister. She doesn’t answer Cory but yanks free, yawns widely
and brushes past Cory into the cabin. She smells clean, her
clothing is fresh and she has braided her long hair, which looks a
little damp. Perhaps that is the reason for his friend sniffing
her. It had better be the only damn reason.

Simon hopes she doesn’t get sick from
being out in the cold, but it’s too late now to warn her. Her
spirit is pretty
tough
. He’s
discussed with Paige some of the hardships she’s endured on the
road. Simon isn’t so sure that his sister can’t weather just about
anything. Once they are all in, Simon shuts and locks the door.
Cory places another log
in
the
wood-burning stove while Paige sits on one of the chairs at the
table.

“Shh!” Paige whispers and points toward
Sam.

They both nod to her.

“There’s a lot of food left,” she offers.

Simon unloads his gear on the table,
keeps his pistol on, and shrugs out of his jacket. He’s looking
forward to some sleep. Cory quietly allows his
equipment
to fall to the floor. Apparently his
friend is also whipped.

Cory pulls his dirty, blood-stained shirt
over his head, and Simon notices that his sister averts her
eyes.

“Nah, beanpole, we’re just gonna sack out
now,” Cory tells her, which doesn’t get a response from Paige. “You
can make us breakfast in a few hours, though.”

She tosses a pillow at him. He catches it but
doesn’t give it back.

“Let me treat that wound before we sack out,
brother,” Simon offers, noting the fresh streak of red on the white
cotton covering a small section of Cory’s stomach.

Normally he’d get an argument, but
tonight Cory just stands still while Simon disinfects his hands
first and then the wound. Cory barely
winces
at the stinging solution. His gaze seems
fixated on Paige, who is not looking at them at all. Simon is able
to apply a clean bandage and tape to hold it down and keep it
covered. Tomorrow when they get home, he’ll have Doc or Reagan
check it just to be safe.

“See, Professor?” Cory says as he turns away,
not bothering with another shirt. “Just a scratch.”

“I don’t know about that, but I think it’s
gonna be fine without stitches. I’d probably advise you to take it
easy for a few days so that it can heal.”

“And I’d probably not take that advice but
thanks anyways,” Cory boasts.

Simon turns back toward the table where their
belongings are being stored, removes his boots, pulls on a clean
shirt and leans his sniper rifle up against the wall where the
window is located.

“How’d it go?” his sister asks.

“Fine,” they answer in unison, not wanting to
give away the gory elements.

Paige pushes, “What happened?”

Cory says, “Everything went fine. We even
made a stop at the school again. There won’t be any more people
falling through that floor. They had women and girls stashed away
there, too. It was a regular creep fest.”

Simon interrupts before Cory gets too far
into the details, “It’s safe now. We took care of everything, and
Dave’s group is looking after the women from the river encampment.
We sent a few injured people to Pleasant View to the practice and
radioed the family to let them know. Everything’s taken care of.
Don’t worry.”

“Ok, sounds like it was dangerous. I didn’t
know you were going back to that college. I wouldn’t have wanted
you to.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted us
not
to if you’d seen the abused women
and kids they had locked up there,” Cory remarks as he wipes down
his rifle and replaces the missing cartridges to the magazine. “I’m
learning, beanpole, that you do have a pretty damn strong sense of
right and wrong. And that fucked up shit at the college was all
wrong. They got what they deserved and are in a lot hotter fucking
place tonight than this cabin.”

“Hey,” Simon reprimands for the inappropriate
language in front of his sister.

“Good, then I’m glad you went,”
Paige
says softly
and moves to
sit cross-legged on the other bed. “I just wish you guys
woulda
’ told me first.”

“We’re good, Paige. Just get some sleep,”
Cory says.

His friend’s tone is kind and patient,
unlike the way he
frequently
responds to Paige. Simon is glad to hear it. He’s not so sure
about that bullshit embrace on the porch, but he’s happy they
aren’t harping at each other.

“Paige,” Simon whispers to his sister. “Sleep
with Sam. Let me and Cor have the big bed.”

“I’m good with the floor,” Cory says as he
uses the same sleeping bag in which Paige had just been resting on
the porch, spreading it out and plopping down with fatigue.

“Sam said she wanted you to sleep with her. I
didn’t feel like I should argue, so I didn’t.

“But…” Simon tries to
debate
.

“She was really upset, Simon. Now shut up and
go to sleep,” Paige insists and rolls to her other side.

Simon slides in beside Sam but makes
sure to stay above the covers. Her body heat immediately spreads
like
a low
fire against his side.
It’s a lot better than sleeping next to Cory, he has to admit. He
waits a while until he’s sure Paige is asleep, knowing that Cory
won’t be yet.

“Cor,” he whispers in the dark.

“Yeah?” his groggy voice returns.

Simon sighs a moment before asking the
question that’s been bugging him. “Have you ever
torched
a place like that before? I mean with
creeps inside? You seemed like you knew how to do it.”

A lot of time passes before Cory answers
him.

“Yeah, it’s how I killed the bastards
that shot my sister. I locked them in, lit it up, and
shot
the ones who escaped.”

“I thought maybe that might have been the
case,” Simon remarks without judgment. “I always wondered how you
took on so many that night before John and Kelly got back to
you.”

“I could’ve probably done it another way, got
a few here and there, waited. But I wanted them to suffer,” Cory
admits quietly.

Simon doesn’t answer but eases onto his side
so as not to disturb Sam. He is dismayed to find his sister staring
at him from her bed. Her blue eyes are wide in the firelight, her
expression troubled. Great. He wants her to like his friend, not
despise or fear him even more.

To his surprise, Paige says, “Cory, it sounds
like you did the right thing. If they’d killed my brother, I’d want
a slow, agonizing punishment for them, too. Now both of you quit
talking and go to sleep. This isn’t a girls’ slumber party.”

They both chuckle. Paige rolls away from him
and

goes to sleep, and he’s sure that Cory does
so, as well, because his friend snores softly. Simon lies awake for
a long time, though, pondering the dark stain on his soul that this
night has blemished.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Reagan

Dawn is breaking on the horizon, the first
drab gray haze of light filtering through the windows when she
finishes with the injured and sickly women at the clinic brought
there by her husband’s friend, Dave the Mechanic. She sent Grandpa
home a few hours ago with Kelly. She and John are still at the
clinic with sentries, also sent over by Dave, plus their own town
guards who are keeping watch over their little medical clinic until
she is done. A few of the women have been put up in an old yet
spacious Victorian across the street from the practice because they
were too unstable to be moved to Dave’s town. One of his men didn’t
pull through from his injuries. He’d been a type O negative blood,
and they hadn’t had a donor. He’d mostly bled out on the trip to
the clinic. She may be less cynical since John has come into her
life, but Reagan is also pragmatic enough to realize that the
soldier may not have made it even with the blood transfusion. His
friends are going to return him to Hendersonville for burial. He
had a wife and two small children. Reagan hadn’t taken it well when
Grandpa had called it. She never takes failure well, but she’s
learning that it comes more often than not with post-apocalyptic
trauma medicine. If she’d been in a working hospital, she could’ve
carted him off to surgery with a room full of nurses, residents,
equipment, an anesthesiologist and about six bags of blood.
Survival and life is so fragile now. When she gets home, she’ll
sleep downstairs with her baby boy. She doesn’t want to miss a
single second of opportunity to shower that kid with love. She’s
caught John many times standing over Jacob’s sleeping body just
contemplating. She knows what he’s thinking.