The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (7 page)

“Did you guys ever know anyone who was messed
up like Cory?” she asks.

“Oh yeah, little Doc,” he says sadly and lays
a hand on her shoulder. “Yeah, we knew people like Cory. Sometimes
they work it out. Others don’t, not really. A lot of vets committed
suicide for the very same reason, Reagan. They lose someone close
to them, lost their buddies or friends in combat, and they can’t
get over it. I just pray that Cory has the strength to come out of
it.”

“Do you think he’s been gone killing people,
Kelly?” she asks as the clinic comes into view.

He sighs on a hard frown and nods.

“Yeah, I think so, too,” she agrees.

Kelly unlocks the chain on the clinic door,
and they enter the empty building.

“It might help him to be around the
other young people on the farm that are close to his age,” Reagan
adds as she scans her inventory list. Some of the supplies that
they
normally
keep at the farm
have been moved to the clinic since the town is now doing
twenty-four hour a day patrols. She and Grandpa still keep quite a
lot out
at
the farm since they
don’t want to take any chances of a raid. “I’m just gonna leave a
few bottles of this antibiotic he found and
take
the rest back home.”

“Sounds good. Paul’s been on patrol with the
newbs training people this week in town. But I still think it’s
probably a pretty good idea not to leave everything here. Ya’ never
know,” he foretells.

“Back to the subject of Cory, do you think it
will be helpful to be around the other kids at the farm like Paige
and Simon?” she asks.

Kelly purses his lips and thinks a moment
before replying, “Maybe. He’s always been close with Simon and Sam,
but it doesn’t sound like him and Paige got off to a good start.
So, maybe.”

Reagan laughs as they close up the clinic
again. “No shit. She didn’t look too fond of him. Of course, I
wouldn’t be either if he tackled me and scared the shit out of me
in the woods like that.”

Kelly laughs, too. “Yes, I can see how that
might cause some tension.”

“He’s not exactly tiny, Kelly,” Reagan
says
with
a chuckle. “That
would’ve been like a bulldozer hitting poor Paige, she’s so
frail.”

“I don’t think I’d call her
frail
,” he corrects. “She’s a tough
cookie. I mean, hell Reagan, that kid lived over three years mostly
on the road trying to get to Simon. She’s one tenacious badass chic
if you ask me.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Reagan agrees. “Lot tougher
than me.”

“I don’t know about that, little Doc,” he
says and playfully bumps his shoulder against hers.

They head back toward the town hall to
meet up with the rest of their group. The sun has set completely,
which gives the town a spooky feeling. She’s always on edge when
they are in town after dark. There aren’t street lamps anymore
lighting the sidewalks and roads. No phosphorescent glow comes from
the windows of the stores on the main drag. No traffic lights work.
The only light in town is from the sparse illumination from inside
homes. Most of the families in town are hooked up to solar power,
thanks to the instructions of the men in her family and
Paul,
who’d helped them. But solar is
not as
strong
or consistent as
electricity, so most homes use it sparingly at night. Thus the
limited lighting in the streets.

“Think Jay’s gonna be a problem?” she asks as
they draw near their destination.

He doesn’t answer her, so Reagan looks up at
him. When he stares directly down at her, she wishes he would stop.
The honesty in his eyes is hard to bear.

Kelly foretells, “Yeah. Yeah, little Doc,
they’re gonna be a problem.”

Chapter Four

Simon

A week later, Cory’s friends from the
armory in Ohio finally arrive in Pleasant View. The new sheriff of
their town calls over the radio to let them know of the arrival.
Since Simon doesn’t have a patient, he and Cory jog over to the new
entrance gate to greet his friends from up north. This is Cory’s
first trip to town since coming home, and they’ve been working all
day on the wall. He and Cory had gone across town to check Paige’s
drawing to study an area that could be a potential
breach
spot for intruders. Before they
even got to Simon’s sister, they were interrupted by the new
guests. Paige and Sam also follow along with them.

An older man standing near the big Army
truck extends his hand to Simon in greeting. A young, attractive
blonde comes forward and hugs Cory. He returns the
greeting
but stands back immediately
after. A few of the children run over and hug his thick leg.
Apparently these people really like his best friend. Simon sure
does, and he’s glad to have him home.

Cory introduces them to everyone in the
vicinity, which is mostly McClane family representatives and a
couple of the men from town. The family had informed the
town
of Cory’s impending arrival of
friends. For the past two days, he’d been getting increasingly
anxious about whether or not they’d make it. He was planning on
going out tomorrow to look for them. Now he doesn’t have
to.

“We have two empty homes a couple streets
over ready for you guys,” Cory informs the blonde.

She smiles widely at him before saying,
“Sounds great, Cory. Lead the way!”

They will have roughly four adults in
each home with a small number of children, too. They don’t seem to
care. As a matter of fact, they seem in awe of the small, efficient
town and the minor amount of improvements that they’ve been able to
make. Simon, on the other hand, is highly frustrated at the slow
pace of progress they’ve made. There are simply just not enough
hours in the day to get it all done. He has so many ideas
for
even more projects and improvements
they could be doing. But
before
long
, winter will be upon them again, which will make
getting projects done more difficult.

They get the group settled in,
introduced to their new neighbors and leave them to do their
unpacking. They didn’t have much, Simon noticed. It hadn’t taken
long to haul their meager possessions into the furnished homes. The
one house belonged to the local butcher, a single man who’d been
killed right at the beginning of the apocalypse. The other
home
belonged to a retired school
teacher in her eighties who’d passed away less than a year ago. The
people in town left the former owners’ belongings and furnishings
in the homes. Simon’s glad that someone will be occupying the
lonely, desolate homes. They have quite a few others in this
town.

The remaining residents of Pleasant View,
especially the new sheriff, hadn’t been very open to the idea of
having new people coming into their tiny town. Once they’d heard
about the ammo and guns they were bringing, it had gone more
smoothly, the medicine easier to swallow.

“I almost didn’t recognize you, Cory,” the
blonde, Jackie, comments as the five of them including her young
son walk to the clinic.

Cory chuffs through his nose, “Well, had to
clean up. The family doesn’t like it when I go full-on
caveman.”

She
giggles,
a light, high-pitched sound. This woman
seems awfully fond of Cory. Simon takes a second to look at her
more closely. She’s
very pretty
,
not very old, but likely older than Cory. She also walks closely
next to Cory instead of walking ahead of them with Paige and
Sam.

Simon says, “Yeah, we thought maybe a
Cro-Magnon man was comin’ out of the woods.”

Jackie giggles again. She’s a short, thin
woman, her hair a pale blonde with matching eyebrows. Her brown
eyes are warm with longing as she regards Cory.

“I like this look on you,” she says. “You
look rather handsome.”

Up ahead of them, Paige
snorts
rather rudely. She has talked to
him repeatedly about how much she doesn’t like Cory and would like
it if he moved back to the big house and out of “their” cabin.
Simon has had to explain many times that the cabin belongs to him
and Cory. He hates to hurt her feelings, but Cory was at the farm
before her. It’s not really a seniority thing, but Cory and the
rest of them built the cabin by hand. It would be like evicting him
out of his own house. Simon can’t ask that of him. She will just
have to get used to Cory living with them.

“Yeah, he just about killed Paige when he
first got here!” Sam tosses over her shoulder.

Simon frowns unhappily.

“Well, I don’t know if I’d put it that way,
Sam,” Simon tries to correct her.

Paige, of course, jumps in, “Yes, he
did!”

“Beanpole doesn’t like me too well,”
Cory says
with
a cocky smirk to
his friend, Jackie. “In case you couldn’t tell.”

To prove his point, Paige sneers over her
shoulder at them. Simon doesn’t really like it when Cory calls his
sister a beanpole. In Cory’s defense, Simon’s heard Paige call him
far worse. They clearly don’t like each other, which makes it
difficult for him. He’d definitely called that one wrong. He’d
thought many times that those two would get along and that he
couldn’t wait for Cory to come home and meet her. He always assumed
they’d be fast friends.

“Cory, don’t call her that,” Simon tells
him

“Sorry, bro,” Cory says, although he doesn’t
say it with any truly genuine feeling. “It’s true, though. She
hates my guts!”

“And don’t forget it, either,” Paige says
without turning around.

“Ok, you two,” Sam scolds.

“Let it go already, beanpole,” Cory remarks
with sarcasm.

“You threatened to kill me!” she hisses
angrily.

“Oh,
my!” Jackie
remarks with unconcealed surprise.

“Minor misunderstanding,” Cory antagonizes
with a nonchalant shrug and waves his hand, dismissing the
charge.

“Misunderstanding my ass! You tried to kill
me,” Paige continues her argument.

Luckily Jackie’s son has skipped ahead and is
running and chasing Cory’s dog. The kids at the farm finally named
her Shadow. It was better than Damn Dog, which is what Cory had
confided to Simon was her real name. She sleeps most nights out in
their cabin.

“What ass?” Cory asks. “You don’t have an
ass, ya’ skinny beanpole.”

“Cory,” Simon warns. He hardly means it,
though. Policing these two could be a full-time job if he wanted
it, which he does not.

“Well, she doesn’t,” Cory remarks on a
smart-aleck smirk.

Great, now Simon is looking at his own
sister’s butt. Gross. He groans. Her
butt
is narrow and lean just like the rest of her.
His sister is built like a lithe gazelle, all long
limbs
and sleek muscle tone. Her body is
completely different from Sam’s. She is short and curvy and soft.
Everything about her is petite, including her delicate bone
structure and
tiny
face.

He has
tuned
out the usual jabbing by his sister and Cory
and is instead staring at Sam in front of him. Her black ponytail
swishes back and forth in time with her hips. She’s still in her
beige riding pants from their morning patrol at the farm. He wishes
she wouldn’t wear those when they come to town. They are way too
snug and outline her every curve. Luckily her t-shirt is too big on
her and is baggy and shapeless. He believes that her shirt used to
belong to her older brother. It has the name of some church youth
group she’d mentioned to him once. She has a few of her brother’s
shirts that she likes to wear to keep her dead family fresher in
her memory. He knows what lies under that shirt that is too big.
They’ve been swimming in the lake at the farm quite a few times
over the last four years. He’d walked in on her when she was
changing. She’d been pressed up against him in the hayloft when
they’d slept there after the Target group’s attack
on
the farm. He knows what hides under
there, and the image of her burns behind his closed eyelids at
night when he crashes at the end of the day.

Sam glances over her shoulder at him and
smiles, rolls her bright blue eyes and turns back. He doesn’t
return it but scowls instead. He knows she is only smiling
conspiratorially at him over the two combatants in their group, but
he can’t even manage a grin. His thoughts about her have turned
lewd and inappropriate on every level. He can’t afford to have
these thoughts about her. It’s not right.

They arrive at the clinic where Cory
introduces Jackie to Reagan and Doc. She is amiable and sweet.
She’s also
incredibly
grateful to
have been invited into their small community. She chats with Doc
about her background as a dental hygienist, offering her services.
They are none too happy to take her up on her offer since they have
not been able to
provide
dental
services yet.
With the winter season fast
approaching, it’s hard telling what they’ll see this year as far as
sickness goes and adding to that is the lack of dental care people
are receiving which isn’t going to help.
He’s just
glad he got his braces removed a few months before the fall.
Pulling those suckers off with a pair of pliers would’ve been
painful.

“Hey, Simon,” Reagan says, taking him to the
side. “Will you and Sam clean up the last two exam rooms and pack
up our gear? I still have one more patient and so does Grandpa.
Paige can help, too, if you want. You don’t mind, do you?”