The McClane Apocalypse: Book One (9 page)

Seeing that there’s no sense in arguing with two bullheaded control freaks, Sue carries her bloated body back to her second floor suite again. But she knows sleep is a long way off for her. She climbs into bed and switches off the wall sconce beside her. Then she stares at the intercom buzzer light until her eyes can no longer stay open, and she falls into a deep and undisturbed sleep. It’s the first good night’s sleep she’s had in weeks.

Chapter Five

John

Swirling, black smoke is coming from under the hood like some evil sorcerer has cast a wicked spell on it, and the engine is clunk, clunk, clunking in protest of being pushed beyond its mechanical limits. If it’s the radiator, then they’re crap outta luck. The last of the water ran out two days ago, but John doubts that’s even what’s wrong with the pirated Army Hummer. So much for the reliability of government-issued armored vehicles.

“John, man, we gotta stop. You’re just grindin’ it all to hell,” shouts Kelly above the noise. He’s riding in the back, cradling Derek’s head in his lap.

“Come on, you piece of garbage!” John spits out in irritation and pounds a fist on the steering wheel with frustration.

“It’s done, dude. Just stop,” Kelly shouts again, his deep voice resonating in the confines of the vehicle.

John coasts the Hummer into a deep ditch along the county road and slaps the flat of his palm against the steering wheel again for good measure. He looks out the small, side window beside him and tries to take in his surroundings. It pretty much all looks the same. Black.

“It’s darker than shit out here,” Kelly reflects quietly as if he’s read John’s mind. He is also straining to see out his own window.

“Yeah, no kidding,” John answers him. He knows from earlier in the day when he’d mapped out the way from the interstate that they are on the right path, but it couldn’t feel more desolate. For miles, they’ve not seen a single light in any of the homes and it had become one rolling hill after the other. He isn’t even sure where homes are out in that dark. It is dark as pitch. John turns on his satellite communicator, still nothing.

“There aren’t any cars around here to jack. Now what?” Kelly asks from the backseat, the tension in his voice is tight.

“Yeah, looks like we won’t need to use any of your special talents tonight. Let me turn on a light so we can calculate how far we are,” John offers as he clicks on a dome light. At least the battery is still alive in this junker. He digs into his sack on the seat beside him and pulls out a tattered and torn map of the western Tennessee valley region. “Come on.”

Kelly lays Derek’s head on the seat and joins John at the hood of the Hummer. His buddy holds a flashlight for him as he flattens out the map.

“Look, we should be just about here,” he says, pointing to a specific area. “Before we lost daylight, I checked this last mile marker off when we were still on the interstate. We got off here. And now we should be about here. Hold on,” John says and trots back to the driver’s side door of the Hummer and looks in at the panel. “Yeah, that’s right. I re-set the trip when we left the interstate. So we’ve come almost thirty-two miles. And we needed to go about... thirty five or so before we hit our turn-off.”

“Right, ok, so we’ve only got a few miles to go,” Kelly agrees. “We should get what we can from the truck and get moving.’’

“Affirmative,” John agrees.

“Nothin’ to it, bro,” Kelly jokes and gives a firm nod and a lopsided grin. They bump fists and move into action.

“Just like that run we did outta Turkey that time,” John quips, and both men give a single chuckle. This will be nothing like that at all and they both know it. They hadn’t been travelling at the time with an injured teenaged boy, a little girl and a shot up soldier. They’d also been ten years younger. But they are Rangers and Rangers don’t just sit on the side of the road and cry the blues and wait for someone to save them.

“Yeah, we’re low on ammo, and I don’t want a group of freaks to find us with our arses hangin’ out here,” John says lightly but grim determination is written all over his face. The men make eye contact and nod to show their solidarity.

Both men put on their packs, check the Hummer vainly for any other supplies and come up with nothing. For some reason, John feels compelled to take the keys out of the ignition and almost laughs at himself. In another time, they would’ve torched an abandoned military vehicle, but this isn’t another time. This is now and drawing attention to yourself with a giant blaze isn’t too smart. There will be no more back-up from the air, ground, sea. It is just man against man, and they are men with less than a full magazine left in each of their weapons.

“Let’s move,” John says, his voice hoarse from having no water for almost two days. Luckily he’d had an MRE three days ago and had been able to force some broth from a salvaged can into Derek yesterday before his brother passed out again.

He opens the back hatch and wakes the kids from their fitful slumber. How they’ve been sleeping through the smoking vehicle, the stop and the conversation he has no idea. But, of course, they’d already been awake for almost three days straight. Kelly comes to stand beside him, carrying his rifle and pack.

“I’ll get them, bro,” Kelly tells him quietly. Kelly calls him “bro” a lot, though they both knew they aren’t really brothers. But when a man saves your life and you save his twice, you tend to stop just being friends.

John next goes to the back seat where his actual brother, Derek, is lying on his side. Blood is everywhere. His stomach sinks like he’s just gone down that first hill on the first roller-coaster of the day at the Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio he’d gone to once while on leave in Kentucky. The bleeding hasn’t stopped. It has soaked into the seat under him and spilled onto the floor. He gingerly removes his brother’s body armor and boots, earning him a couple of weak groans. If this is gonna work, he needs to take as much of the weight off of his brother as possible. He also empties Derek’s cargo pockets of any unneeded items that will add bulk. He takes Derek’s sidearm and straps it around his own waist, checking first to see that he has almost a full clip. The armor alone weighs a good thirty pounds. He also dumps his own chest plate and thigh pads on the ground beside the vehicle. Next, he removes his camo shirt and ties it tightly around Derek’s waist. Fortunately, it’s warm enough tonight for John to go in his white tee alone. He rummages around in his rucksack and takes what few items of any value there are and puts them into the cargo pockets of his pants. Leaving his brother’s bag in the truck, John gives a few items to Kelly to store in his bag for him. It is sink or swim now anyways.

Kelly is speaking quietly to the kids, and John knows that he’s explaining their situation and what they must do. The little girl is quiet. However, she hasn’t said much since they’d picked them up four days ago.

“Let me check your bandage, Cory,” Kelly tells his younger brother, who may be younger, but not a whole lot smaller than Kelly. Cory is going to be a big man when he finishes growing and filling out his skinny teen body. He is already pushing six feet. Kelly is a beast of a man. He’d been knick-named “the Hulk” by their Army buddies after the old comic book character. At six feet five inches tall and packing two hundred and thirty pounds of pure muscle, it was bound to happen. The knick-name had been apt, but many people don’t know that Kelly is self-conscious of his size. Derek and John know his dislike of the name, so they never call him that.

“Ow!” the seventeen year old boy retorts.

“Good, the bleeding’s just about stopped.” Kelly informs him. “Hey, peanut,” he says to his little sister. “You hold onto this rope on my pants, ok? You don’t let go of it. It’s dark out here and I don’t wanna lose you, ya’ hear? Em, do you hear me?”

John doesn’t hear the girl’s response but assumes she has nodded because he sees Kelly come around from the back of the Hummer. Em is holding the rope. He’s supporting his brother around the waist. The bullet had only grazed the young man’s calf, but it would be difficult to move too fast on it without Kelly’s help.

Kelly tosses John’s night vision goggles to him and puts his own on, as well. Without these high tech gadgets, they would literally be in blackness. Kelly gives Derek’s set to his young brother.

John grabs two fists full of Derek’s shirt front and pulls him to the edge of the backseat. He manages to get him upright and deftly ducks and swings his brother in one motion over his left shoulder. He could possibly need his right arm to shoot, so he has positioned Derek’s pistol on his right hip. Kelly picks up John’s rifle and slings it over his shoulder while carrying his own weapon out in front of him on the ready.

“Let’s roll, brother,” John declares, and both men and the two children break into a slow jog down the paved county road that will hopefully lead them to the McClane family farm.

***********

John’s lungs are burning, his shoulder is killing him and he’s soaked down the front with a mixture of his own sweat and his dying brother’s blood. It is almost dawn, the sky is turning a light gray and soon the sun will peek up from the tree line behind them. They’d stopped twice to rest, and Kelly had found a spring near the side of the road where’d he’d filled his canteen, allowing the kids to guzzle first. Kelly has resorted to carrying Em and is still moving along with his arm around Cory’s middle for reinforcement.

Kelly had offered to carry Derek, but to John it is more important for Kelly to take care of his siblings. If a firefight were to break out, he doesn’t want Kelly to get hit because he is carrying Derek. Carrying Em in one muscular arm still enables him to brandish his weapon with more precision than if he has to worry about Derek. Besides, Derek is John’s responsibility.

They have to be getting close. The last time they’d stopped, John had looked at the map and seen few a hand-written names of roads on the side. Apparently Derek had marked the map the last time he’d visited the farm so as not to forget where the farm is located. And no wonder. Everything looks the same; rolling hills, farm land and more rolling hills speckled with the occasional home. They’ve still not seen any signs of life, though. They’d passed Ridge Road over a half an hour ago, and so the next road should be Pine Ridge Road. And that one should lead to the McClane farm.

“You ok, man?” Kelly asks from the lead. His group is doing an awkward loping shuffle due to Cory’s leg injury.

“I’m good,” John answers in a rush of breath. “I think we’re almost there.”

“Cory’s leg is bleeding again, so I sure hope you’re right,” Kelly tosses over his shoulder.

John hopes he’s right, too. He can tell he’s running out of gas, and he sure doesn’t want to stop. Derek won’t make it another day.

“Hey, I see a road sign up there,” Kelly yells. “This is it! This is it, John!” They take a moment to remove their night vision goggles.

Relief floods John as he finds a little more fortitude in his gut to push on. They turn right, the only option, onto Pine Ridge Road which is not much more than a gravel cow path. They go at a slightly slower pace because it’s mostly downhill, and they don’t want to risk a fall. The road is completely surrounded by woods on both sides, which helps to block out the sun that has risen and hot already. It’s a welcome reprieve.

“Hey, hold up, man,” Kelly says and puts Em down. “What is that?”

John wipes the sweat from his forehead and stops. Kelly is in the ditch tearing at some vines. He’s discovered a white mailbox that says in red letters, “McClane.”

“Hot damn! We’re here,” Kelly says and lets out a low whistle. John spins and Kelly is out of the ditch looking around, too. “What the hell? Where is it?”

“Derek said it was secluded and off a dirt road. Do you see a driveway anywhere?” John inquires.

“There!” Cory points. “Look, the road turns off here, sort of.” The boy limps over to the side of the road and kicks at gravel.

“He’s right. I think there’s a driveway,” Kelly says. “Yeah, John. Over here. They’ve just covered in the end of the drive with debris and tree branches and stuff.”

John goes through the branches that Kelly is holding back for all of them. He ducks slightly to allow room for Derek’s body to go under, too. The driveway that lay before them is uphill, steep and worse than the gravel cow path road from which they’ve just come.

“Come on, John. We’ll get him up this together,” Kelly insists, and they lower Derek’s body so that they both have one of his arms. They half drag, half carry him to the crest and are relieved when they see that it’s all downhill the rest of the way. Cory and Em have managed to make it up the hill on their own, but they are struggling to even stay on their feet as Cory is leaning heavily on tiny Em.

“I got him now, Kelly. Just help the kids,” John says and swings his brother back onto his shoulder. This time he switches and uses his right.

They make it down the steep incline where it levels out to a more traversable and flat drive. And then the tree line melts away and opens upon a valley with plush green pastures, fencing, barns and an enormous home. From this view, John can see there is a lake behind the house near where another forest starts. It’s breathtaking and huge.

He looks over at Kelly who mouths a “wow.” John smirks as they both pick up the pace feeling buoyed by the idea of what awaits them. They are surrounded on both sides by barbed-wire fencing as the lane flattens out and they are within a hundred yards of the house. A long machinery shed is on their left and a big, stone foundation cattle barn is behind the house to the left.

“What the...?” Kelly yells at the same instant a high power rifle shot rings out and hits fifty feet in front of them. It’s followed by the approach of a person on horseback riding at a hell for leather pace down the driveway toward them, kicking out dust and gravel behind him.

The rider is on bareback, holding the rifle out in front and steering the horse with the reins in her teeth. It’s not a he as John had first suspected but a she. She’s wearing cut off blue jean shorts, her tan, muscular thighs clenching the sides of the beast. Her horse skids to a stop in front of them as the animal stomps, snorts and does a quick spin. Sun-streaked, blonde curls halo about the woman’s head in a wild, blowing frenzy. The way she’s holding the rifle, John believes that she is proficient with it. She’s a fearsome, yet exquisite, wild creature to behold.