The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (19 page)

Paul sadly admits, “We have no place to go.”

“There’s a condominium community, nice homes, near here. It’s about an hour west. I can give you directions,” John tells him. He’s not really asking but being very insistent.

“Where we were last week?” Reagan asks without looking. She’s just about done covering Paul’s freshly stitched arm.

“Yeah. There are a couple of women and some kids trying to defend their homes. They were overtaken once, and I’d like for that to not happen again,” John explains to Paul.

He doesn’t look much older than John, maybe five or so years. His wife also looks to be in her early thirties. John’s not yet thirty, but sometimes he seems as wise as someone twice his age.

“I’d like to help if I can. We definitely can’t go back home. That’s for sure,” Paul answers gravely as his eyes cloud over from bad memories and pharmaceuticals.

Reagan pulls out a tube of antibiotic cream and smears it over the stitches to help prevent infection. He was shot yesterday, and the wound was fairly dirty before she even started. She hopes for his sake that it’ll heal without infection. She pulls the gloves back off and discards them inside-out on the floor. It isn’t like following sterile medical procedures matter anymore. Hell, she didn’t even have anywhere to scrub up first. But at least he won’t bleed to death and hopefully not infect, either.

John comes to stand closer briefly before retreating again to the door. “I’m gonna call this in and send you their way. When you get there, my friend will meet up with you and help you and your family get settled in, introduce you to the other survivors. The only way this country’s ever gonna get back to normal is for good people to band together,” John tells them all and temporarily meets Reagan’s eyes. She knows he’s thinking of their own group at the farm.

“Yeah, yeah that’s a good idea,” Paul says and his wife agrees readily. There are deep lines of fatigue on her face. “I don’t have a car to get there, though. We parked it a little way from here in a grocery store parking lot, but when we came out it was gone. There wasn’t much left in that store, either. Now I have no vehicle or food for the kids. That wasn’t too smart, but there wasn’t anyone around when we went in, so I thought it was ok to leave the car sitting there. Is it an hour’s walk or an hour’s drive?”

“It’s an hour’s drive, less maybe. Probably about forty minutes or so, but don’t worry about the car. I’ll get you one in a minute. Let’s move,” John tells him and scans out into the hallway again. Where the hell is he going to get a car?

“Reagan, bring up the rear. I’ll take point. Paul keep yourself and your family between us so that we can cover you should something happen,” John says and they depart the room, travel down the hall and come to the stairwell.

After Reagan is the last one through the door, she shuts it as soundlessly as she can and follows John and the family down the stairs to the first floor again. John takes the group back through the cafeteria where they fan out and grab whatever items they can find. The teen boy finds a sack of dried beans while his mother stashes two large cans of pre-made chicken noodle soup into her bag. Paul and John snake bags of chips, two bottles of water from the floor and a surplus box of snack-size bags of pretzels and peanuts. Reagan stands watch per John’s instruction and keeps the two girls behind her so that they don’t have to look at the dead cafeteria employees. When they finish in the cafeteria, John takes lead again. They go past the dead guard and out into the bright midday sunshine that glares off of the windshields in the parking lot. Having been in the dim and, in some areas, completely dark hospital, the harshness of the sun’s light is difficult at first to adjust to.

“Reagan, wait here. Keep down low. Stay by this wall,” John orders her toward a cement half-wall where the glass window above it has been completely destroyed and broken into millions of shards.

She nods twice as she and the family all squat onto their haunches. Even the three kids remain quiet and still while they await John.

Reagan watches in complete amazement as John sprints across the parking lot where he tries a door on a dark blue SUV. It must be locked because he tries another door on a black, extended cab pick-up truck which opens. A moment later and he has the engine roaring to life. Apparently he isn’t only a skilled locksmith but also knows how to hotwire a car. She doesn’t remember ever reading on any of those Army recruitment posters about this particular skill being offered during training.

He pulls over to the “ambulance only” parking area five feet from them and puts it in park. John hops to the ground, leaves the door open and doesn’t cut the engine. He’s left the weapons in the truck that he confiscated from the men who were after this family.

“There’s over half a tank of gas in it. That’ll get you there,” he declares and looks to Reagan. “Everyone, get in. Reagan, help me with the directions on how to get them to the condo community.”

She joins him at the hood of the truck where they sketch out directions on a piece of cardboard John salvages from a dumpster near the ambulance bay. The permanent marker, they’ve borrowed from the security room. When they are finished, Reagan stashes the marker in her pack, and John gives her a funny look. She just shrugs. It is hard to leave anything behind. Someday she might wish she had a marker with which to take notes.

He jabs a finger at the cardboard drawing. “Take a right out of here. Try to stay off the highway. You’re gonna want to take a left on the second road you come to. It’s a county road. See on the map? I’ve marked them as best as I can,” John instructs Paul, father of three terrorized children and husband to Jess who is also only trying to keep her family together.

Reagan glances into the truck and sees that the children are eating greedily at the nuts and pretzels packs. Apparently it’s their first meal in a while. It makes her feel like shit seeing kids like this. She drops to one knee while the men continue to yammer on about directions, something that would’ve been unheard of six months ago. She takes out her sandwich and granola bar that Grams has packed for her. She also takes out two of those disgusting vitamin packets. She doesn’t like them anyways, so it’s not much of a sacrifice. It leaves her with a cookie, an apple, and a sports drink. It’s plenty to hold her until they get back to cabin later.

“Here, take this,” Reagan says when she comes around to the mom’s passenger side of the truck. She hands them through the open window.

“Oh no, Reagan. I couldn’t take food from you. You and John have already done so much for us,” Jess acknowledges kindly, but Reagan will have none of it and practically shoves the items through and onto her lap. The other woman tears up.

“I don’t need any of it. I’ve got plenty more,” she tells Jess and turns away. Seeing that much emotion pouring from the other woman makes Reagan highly uncomfortable. She’s just not good with that kind of feeling. And when she looks to John, he’s smirking like an ass. She’d like to flip him off, but there are kids in the truck.

“Got any experience with weapons, Paul?” he’s asking the father.

“Yeah, yeah, man. I’ve shot before. Used to go to an indoor target range and take my son. Had a few handguns and a .22 rifle for target shooting. But when our house got raided, I used all my ammo trying to defend us. When I ran out that’s when I took my family and left in the middle of the night,” he answers.

“Well, that’s not good. Take those. I already checked them,” John says as he gestures to the three confiscated guns on the console between the front seats. “Don’t worry. I put the safeties on. Safeties are on for all three of them. Now you’ve got about a half magazine in both those pistols but only three shells in that shotgun so use them sparingly if you have to.”

“Man, this is more than I can ever repay, John,” Paul says as his eyes tear up like his wife’s.

John doesn’t turn away like she had, though. He extends his hand which Paul shakes vigorously.

“Don’t roll up on my friend with any of these guns stickin’ out of the windows. He’s a nice guy but tends to shoot people who have guns trained on him. Sorry, just a bad habit. Hard to kick,” John says with his usual good humor. “Just try to look out for those other women and kids, Paul,” John insists firmly.

Apparently he’s been worrying about them. It had felt horrible leaving them there, but they could hardly just invite every orphaned family in the state back to their farm.

“Be careful,” John states firmly.

Paul nods, and they shakes hands once more before he pulls away with his family. She and John stand there a moment until the family is gone from sight. She fervently hopes they make it to that suburban neighborhood safely. There’s been so much death, destruction and destroyed families in this new country in which they all live, and they deserve a little help, a fresh start.

Chapter Eleven

Kelly

The radio clipped to his jeans sounds off static and then again before Kelly gets it yanked free and presses the button on the side to speak.

“Black bear actual, over” he says into the screened-in section on the front.

“Yellow tail one here, over” John comes through. The static isn’t too bad, but the reception isn’t as good as last night from the cabin.

“Got ya’, yellow tail, over” Kelly replies and signals to Derek to cut the tractor’s engine.

They’d been in the middle of tilling under the end of the garden that is finished for the year. There are plenty of crops in many of the other aisles, but this end had been dedicated for early season plants that have now been completely picked out. Derek hops down from the tractor and comes to stand next to him while using the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face.

“Family found, survivors. Sending to grid coordinates: golf course. Rendezvous at checkpoint and notify current tenants, over,” John says and this time the transmission is crystal clear.

“Roger that. E.T.A., over,” Kelly asks for the estimated arrival time of these people.

“Approx 14:00, over,” John replies through a bit of static interference.

“Roger that, over,” Kelly tells his friend. Apparently his day is about to get thrown for a loop. He’d been concerned about getting farm chores done and now he is being sent on a mission. It just never ends.

“Black bear, these people are gonna need food, over,” John says, though Kelly figured that their conversation was done.

“Roger, over,” he returns and looks to Derek who frowns with anger. If there’s one thing any of them hate, it’s kids being hurt by these sickening current events. John said he was sending a family their way, so they must be lugging along children with them. Kelly really couldn’t see Reagan agreeing to help anyone if kids weren’t involved. She isn’t exactly the touchy feely type.

“Yellow tail over and out,” John finishes and Kelly returns. There isn’t much else that needs said. But now he needs to get his ass in motion, grab his kid brother and move out for that condo village on the golf course.

In the past when they were in the field, they would call in grid coordinates in the form of numbers, literally map coordinates for highly specific locations to call in air strikes, mortar fire or for moving around behind enemy lines. It was how they all communicated with each other and back with their central command center where computer nerds like Derek or his team could work their magic behind the scenes. “Golf course” isn’t exactly a grid cord, but Kelly knows what John is talking about regardless. There isn’t any danger of bad-guys intercepting the transmission and heading them off. There are many golf courses in the tri-county area according to Doc. Plus, the golf course condominium neighborhood with the two widows and their children looks completely abandoned. It isn’t like anyone with malicious intent would purposely pull in there to raid it. It has that just-raided look about it, according to John.

“Seems like I’d better get moving,” he says to Derek who nods, removes his ball cap and dusts it off on his dirty and torn jeans.

“Yeah. You go and take Cory, and Herb and I will stay here to keep guard,” he says with a frown.

“Yep, got it,” Kelly says and trots away.

Time to get some weapons and find his little brother. He’d planned on taking him on a short run to the burbs. This is just coming a little sooner rather than later. However, he’ll be able to ascertain Cory’s readiness in potential bad situations if he takes him now. Even though Cory’s a teenage boy, it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t learn how to go on a raid or run or whatever covert operation they need to perform.

Kelly finds Cory easily enough because the little kids are following him around the barnyard like baby ducks follow their mothers. Their squeals and giggles of excitement, especially five year old Ari, are easy to hear from just about anywhere on the farm. And they are especially noisy when they are with Cory, all fighting for his attention. He is so cool in their estimation. For a seventeen year old boy, he sure seems patient with them. Whether he wanted to be a big brother to two extra kids or not, Cory didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Since they’d come to the farm, Derek and Sue’s two kids follow him everywhere, hang on his every word. Their own little sister, Em, also tags after him. But Em stays so close to Cory because he’d been the one to keep her alive after their parents had been killed.

Fifteen minutes later they’re ready to move out and are going over plans with Doc and Derek on the back porch.

“I’ll disarm the driveway charge and wire it back up once I’m through. When I come back I’ll use the radio,” Kelly tells Derek.

“Sounds good, man,” Derek says. “I’ll come up and disable and re-enable the switch when you come back.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come, too?” Doc offers kindly.

He’s always trying to be helpful, but the men don’t want him involved in skirmishes should they arise. He’d only be a liability, and he is definitely more useful at the farm since he is also a doctor like Reagan. They sure as shit don’t need to get their seventy year old benefactor and host killed.

“No, sir,” Kelly tells him firmly while still being respectful. “We need you here. Never know what could happen while me and Cory are gone. Anyone comes down that drive with the same intentions as they had over at the Reynolds place and Derek’s gonna need your help, sir.” Not really, but there isn’t any sense in hurting the man’s feelings. Although Kelly’s pretty sure Doc McClane could hold his own in defending his farm.