The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (2 page)

“I don’t care where you go. But if you get yourself killed like an asshole, then Sue and Derek are gonna be pissed at me,” she lies. There are other reasons, reasons she doesn’t like to explore, as to why it would be bad if John were killed.

“Yeah, right,” he returns with a chuckle before he pivots to leave. Reagan glances over her shoulder at him. He’s grinning as he re-tightens his mare’s cinch strap around her belly. It’s something they do when they take long trail rides to ensure that their saddles don’t get too loose. His grin also pisses her off.

After another moment they are back on the trail, and Reagan doesn’t have to think any more on why it would bother her so much if John were killed. There are plenty of distractions like keeping their horses on the correct path, monitoring the horizon for dangers and keeping their asses in their saddles when they go down steep inclines. There will also be plenty more to worry about tomorrow when they go into the city. It’s bound to be dangerous, possibly life-threatening. The family needs tractor parts and medical items that they just don’t have at the farm. She and John are to bring back these much-needed supplies. They are the best chance of getting these items. Driving a car into a city of death and destruction is out of the question. Nobody moves around by vehicle anymore. It just isn’t safe, and most people are just plain out of gas. Horses are the easiest way to get around, even if it takes ten times longer to travel where they need to go. They are luckily armed to the hilt with weapons and a satellite radio to call for backup from the farm. She also has John, who seems to keep her safe. She’s just not sure if she can keep herself safe from John.

There is no getting away from him. He’d moved into her damn bedroom back at the farm under the pretense of needing to help her keep watch on the front of the property at night from her balcony. It irritates her that he’d so easily managed to convince her family that it was a good move. And pretty much anything she did or anywhere she went he was her constant freagin’ shadow. She can’t shake him- not even when she went on her morning run or rode her horse on a morning patrol of the farm’s perimeter. Since the country fell apart so many months ago, security is all that seems to matter anymore.

“Storm’s coming,” he says as they cross a gentle meadow dotted with white daisies and tiny yellow flowers of late summer.

Soon they’ll come across oil well properties owned by the government. Then it will be another ten miles before they hit the hunting cabin for the night’s shelter.

“Scared of getting wet, tough guy?” she asks with a snarky attitude and a sneer. His hand tightens its grip on the reins, and Reagan takes note of the blood still staining them.

“Are you?” he drawls with more sexual implication than she cares to hear from him.

Her cheeks burn, forcing her to turn her face away in order to hide from him and his brilliant, mega-watt smile. Damn him!

“Don’t be an ass,” Reagan mumbles after a moment of calm collection. His response is an obnoxious laugh. Damn him again.

“Want me to help you test whether or not you’re afraid to?” he asks, but this time she shoots him an angry glare to which he grins arrogantly. Of course. Nothing she ever does seems to intimidate him. It definitely never puts him off bothering her, either.

The first low murmur of thunder rumbles many miles off in the distance as a sharp wind gust spirits through the ravine and ricochets against the ancient layers of sedimentary rock which are covered with green moss and jutting out of the hillside. This does nothing to ease her apprehension from earlier or from the nerves she feels over going to the city tomorrow. They could both be killed tomorrow. She could possibly never see her family again, and this scares her more than having to spend the damn night with John in the hunting cabin together. Alone.

Chapter Two

Kelly

Kelly had awakened before dawn to do the morning chores and milking, and John and Reagan were long gone as he knew they would be. Derek was hitting the hay for an hour or two or for whatever he and his wife did after his watch shift ended. He could pretty much guess on that one. He’d unfortunately run into Hannah and her grandfather before heading to the barn. Hannah usually awakens right after him, so he’d rushed to get out of the house lest he run into her in the kitchen. But apparently nobody could sleep and were too filled with anxiety over Reagan and John leaving.

He always figures it’s best to steer clear of Hannah or he’ll get himself into more trouble than he needs. Eventually her grandfather is going to figure something out, and Kelly and the kids will be looking to move into the Johnson’s abandoned farmhouse whether they want to or not. He wouldn’t blame Doc, though, because he sure as hell wouldn’t let his daughter or granddaughter be with someone like him. Moving away was something he’d been considering lately anyways. If he could put enough space between himself and Hannah McClane, then maybe he could forget about her, move on and just concentrate on his siblings who need him. Maybe he could forget her strange, different-colored eyes. Maybe he could forget her bare feet that always stick out below her ridiculously long dresses. Maybe he could forget how just looking at her made his blood stir with lust. And then again, maybe he’d wake up tomorrow and all this shit will have just been a dream and he and John will still be in Syria getting ready to invade North Korea for setting off that first nuke that had led to all of this shit.

It’s also the only reason he’s squatting on the McClane farm in the first place. His unit disbanded; he, Derek and John had deserted; and he is now the sole guardian of his much younger siblings. Cory and Em are too young to fend for themselves with their parents having been murdered. The country had fallen apart so fast that there really wasn’t much of an option other than to stay with Derek and John on the McClane farm. At least Derek belongs here, though, since he’s married to a McClane. He and John don’t exactly belong, but the family has welcomed them with open arms.

The first place Kelly hit was the water troughs, making sure none of them needed topped off. Next, he’d fed the chickens and pigs, mostly slop and crap from the compost pile for the pigs. The horses are pretty self-sufficient as long as they have pasture grass to munch. They only get grain in the evening if they are ridden on patrols that morning. The grain is stored in massive, metal containers to prevent rodents from getting into it. The men rotate the animals about once a week to ensure the proper usage of the fields, grazing of the animals, and fertilizing of the farm. The cows are always the biggest burden of work, and he’d shoveled silage into a long, narrow feed bin of scarred old oak for them to push and shove their heads into. The smell of their feed has a pleasant, sweet tinge to it, and they are always grateful to be getting it. And now he’s sitting on the tiny stool milking a black and white Holstein in the cow barn. Sometimes it’s surreal how much his life has changed overnight, going from soldier to glorified farmer. He actually knows the different breeds of cows, horses and pigs on this farm. Before this he knew more about tanks, weapons and tactical gear. It’s not the most unpleasant change-up. There’s a certain amount of peace he feels here on this farm and in the simple act of keeping it functioning. It’s the problem with Hannah that is slightly less peaceful, mostly to his nerves.

After about a half an hour, Cory joins him in the next milking stall over and starts with the Jersey.

“Nice of you to show up,” Kelly says good-humoredly as he pumps away at his own heifer.

“Sorry, bro,” Cory laughs. “These hours are kinda’ weird. I mean I used to get up for school but not before it was even light out. About the time we sit down and eat breakfast here is when I used to get up. And forget it on the weekends. Mom would let me sleep in. Me and my friends would stay up and play video games or go out to a movie and hang out. It was so different then. Feels like a long time ago.”

“It’s cool. I was just giving you a hard time. And yeah it feels more like a hundred years ago if you ask me. Seems like yesterday me and John were trekking it out of the mountains of Turkey and then kicking ass in Syria,” Kelly tells the younger man. “Somebody always needed a good, solid ass kicking.”

“Wish I could’ve went, too, like I planned on when I graduated,” Cory says quietly after he finishes laughing. The regret he feels is evident. For Kelly, there had never been any other options. He’d been born for the life of a military man just like John and not just because of his size. His ability to shut down his feelings and emotions to get the job done was a skill set that he excelled at and something for which he could thank his worthless real mother. When you were constantly disappointed in the one person who should never disappoint you, you get really good at closing off your feelings. But Cory is going to be a lot like Derek as he gets older because of his love of electronics and engineering. Kelly had hoped that his brother would go to college and forgo the military career altogether and just be a computer geek or run his own business somewhere nice and quiet and safe. Now, they’ll never know.

“Man, I’m glad you didn’t, Cory. There’s a lot of nasty shit out there, kid. People can be cruel sons a’ bitches when they wanna’ be,” he tells his impressionable brother. What he says is true. He’s seen it all, literally.

Of course everywhere in the world, including their own damned country is a mountain of pure evil filled with hatred and devoid of humanity. If his little brother can avoid any small amount of the dehumanization of people, then Kelly will be happy. But in the end, Kelly’s a realist and he’s glad that his dad taught Cory how to shoot, hunt and fish. Living on the farm is the best place for the kids, and it is sure as hell the safest for the time being. They’ve adjusted about as well as anyone could expect for losing both of their parents in one night, surviving on their own for days, being uprooted from their home, losing their way of life, their youth and coming to live in a strange place with unknown people. Em still worries him, though. She interacts great with Derek’s kids, but she hardly speaks to any of the adults. She clings to Cory as if her life depends on it. Wherever he goes, she usually follows. She’d not dealt with him moving to the second floor to his own bedroom very well, either. Em had even cried, and Kelly had had to console her and talk to her in private about the fact that her brother was only going to be two floors up. He’d patiently explained that he’d still be right in the next bedroom and that Cory was much older than her at seventeen and needed more privacy. He knows that most of what he lectured her about went over like a lead balloon, but in the end she’d relented and become even more withdrawn, lost. The three youngest kids are still sharing a bedroom in the basement, but she just hadn’t been ready to give up her big brother. He’d been the one to keep her alive when their parents were killed. She was his little shadow; he was her great big protector.

Many times, Cory has told Kelly how much he likes it in the cow barn and helping with the milking duties and Kelly is more than glad to have his assistance. John isn’t wild about the cows, though, and is vocal in giving his opinion about them and his opinion on the milking of them, more specifically. And Derek is better suited to working on the tractors with Doc McClane and doing the field work with them than he is around any of the animals. He doesn’t much care for the horses, either, and had only taken a few of Reagan’s drill sergeant style riding classes. In short, he just isn’t an animal person and much prefers something with a motor. Kelly can ride almost as well as John, but he’d not wanted to leave the farm for the city in his friend’s place because of the responsibility of the kids, and John knew it. His friend knows him better than anyone and had approached Kelly first about not taking the risk of traveling with him to which Kelly had objected and then seen the reasoning behind it.

“Yeah, I know. I got to see some of that shit first hand,” Cory says over the back of his cow. The men all allow Cory to swear because it gives him a sense of belonging with them, and he’s smart enough not to do it around the kids or, most importantly, Grams. Doc may be the man of the house, but his wife is in charge of it.

“I know, bro. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone,” Kelly tells him, referring to the murder of their parents. “I should’ve been there.” Regret is just something that everyone who is still alive is gonna have to swallow hard these days. It could eat a person alive, or it could be a useful tool from which to learn to never again let their guard down for any reason.

“Nah, you didn’t know that was gonna happen, Kelly. None of us did. It was like they overran our neighborhood in one night, ya’ know? One minute I was hanging with my friends at the park where we’d meet and talk about how screwed up the world had gotten and how we all wished we could enlist that same day, and then two days later it was like the whole town had just gotten taken over,” he explains.

Kelly is quiet, pretending to still milk his cow, which he’d finished a few minutes earlier, because he knows Cory needs to get this shit off his back, unload his burden onto him. It’s ok with Kelly. God had seen fit to give him these wide shoulders for a reason. It is like a heavy load the kid has been carrying around, weighing him down, and he’d not opened up to anyone about that night as far as Kelly knows.

“After that first night when I hid with Em till they were gone, I called you and you told me to go and hide in the woods with her. I did and the next morning I went back and got us some supplies so we wouldn’t starve out there, and she was real scared. I mean real scared, kept crying and all. I went over to my best friend’s house to check on him. I didn’t go out in the open, though, Kelly. I did like you told me and snuck around, tried to use the woods as much as possible. And I took Em with me, too. Don’t worry. I didn’t leave her behind. We crossed back through Grant Park and came out to the neighborhood that Mike lived in. It looked worse than ours, man. I hid Em in a bunch of bushes and went to Mike’s house, thinking we could stay there till you came for us. But they were gone. They packed up their shit and split sometime in the middle of the night.”