The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (26 page)

The sun has almost set outside of the
beauty salon, so he moves fast at securing the back door to prevent
anyone from sneaking up on him in the middle of the night. Then he
works to get a fire lit. He rushes to one of the ceramic bowls
meant for washing and rinsing a woman’s hair in and kicks once,
twice, and three times to free it from the plumbing works jutting
out of the wall. There’s no danger of flooding the place. The water
in this city probably stopped working within the first few weeks
after the apocalypse when the electricity failed. Most people
trying to live here at that time had probably used up most or all
of the water they had, thinking it would simply keep pumping out of
their faucets forever. Those who hadn’t drained their pipes or who
hadn’t been home had paid the price of frozen and broken pipes and
a flooded home the first winter.

He plugs the bottom of the
bowl with a few small rocks from outside and then proceeds to build
a base for kindling, a handful of dried
hay
and twigs. Then he lights the
tiny structure with a match taken from the inside pocket of his
coat. Once it sufficiently catches, Cory adds more sticks and then
three small logs. It’s good enough for tonight. He just needs to
warm up and dry out his gear and hopefully his clothing. He places
the saddle, pad, and blanket on the back of a salon chair that once
used to swivel to enable the big reveal. The front door of the
salon, he leaves about half open to ensure proper ventilation and
to not kill himself from fumes in the middle of the night. He sets
a trip wire across the entrance to add to his security. He’ll not
add any more logs to this fire tonight. Once it has burned down,
he’ll zip up his cold weather sleeping bag and be done with
it.

He rummages through the
break-room, finding two old cans of soda, which he’s fairly sure
have no expiration date and takes them. He also finds a snack size
bag of pretzels and then a pack of
four-year
expired, strawberry yogurts in
the fridge. Everything in the refrigerator is spoiled and stinks
like a dead person. He does spy three bottles of water, so he snags
those, too. He quickly shuts the door and exits that room, which
he’s already ascertained has no windows.

Cory strips out of his soaking,
drenched through clothing and hangs them around the room on
furniture and lighting fixtures. He’s stripped to his thermal
underwear. Pulling dry socks out of his pack, he puts them on
quickly and sets his boots closer to the fire. The first thing he
needs to do is get food into his empty stomach. He removes the
squirrel carcass from his sack. He uses one of the counter-tops,
which he first wipes clean with a towel that he finds in a
cupboard, to cut thin strips of the meat from the body. He cuts as
much of the meat from the bones as he can and places them in a
small cast-iron skillet that he and the other men from the farm
always carry on a mission run.

He makes a fast meal out of
squirrel meat cooked on the fire and canned green beans from the
farm. His food supplies from the farm will be gone soon. He has a
jar of dried oatmeal, some applesauce, three granola bars, a bag of
beef jerky, two jars of creamed corn and three apples from Helen
and Gus’s house. Cory eats his meal of squirrel and green beans and
finishes it with a granola bar as it is more perishable than the
canned goods. He uses another towel, meant for drying a freshly
shampooed client, to wipe out his skillet, clean his fork and put
it all back into his bag. It’s best to hide all evidence of cooked
food and the aroma of it. They’ve had quite a few problems
back
at
the
farm and out on supply runs with wild dog packs,
coyotes
and even a
few stray bear. Wild dogs had even killed one of the dogs on their
farm. Reagan and John had found its remains in the forest behind
the farm. They’d
chosen
to tell the children that it had run away. After
that, the security at the farm had been amped up against wild
animals. They’d
had
to set snare traps, leg
traps
and other devices to dissuade
the wildlife from encroaching.

He slips his boots back on
and slings his rifle behind his back. Once
outside,
he checks on his horse in
the dark. Cory removes the feedbag from his halter. The horse
nickers appreciatively to him as he sets a flake of hay on the
ground in front of Jet and then re-checks the lead line holding him
secured to a pole.

Once he has the area
secure
, the horse
fed and he double checks the back door again, Cory sets about
wiping down his rifle and pistol with an oiled rag since they’d
also
been
soaked in the icy rain. A rusted or dirty weapon can cause it
to malfunction, something he can’t afford. This machine will keep
him alive and allow him to do his work.

When he’s finished with the guns, he
raids the upscale salon using his small penlight. He’s able to take
two pairs of scissors, a bottle of shampoo that will also double
for him as soap when next he finds a stream in which to bathe. He
also takes a small round mirror, not for gazing at himself all day
but for use as a diversionary device as a reflector. Next, he
throws the six remaining, white towels into his pack. They’re small
but handy. He finds a straight edge razor and folds it closed,
places it in his cargo pocket. Two boxes of rubber bands are next.
He knows from learning from John that he can mix these with
gasoline in a metal can and create a small incendiary device that
will burn hot like napalm. He locates cotton balls, a bottle of
peroxide and a brush and stashes those, as well. He hasn’t used a
brush in a while as he’s not too concerned with his appearance at
the moment, but the rest could prove useful.

He removes three cotton cushions from
a nearby sofa and places them on the tile floor below the front
windows of the store. He’ll sleep right there for the night to
ensure the security of his horse since the stallion was too big to
fit through the narrow door. Cory lays out his sleeping bag on the
cushions, then pulls on dry clothing and his boots before he slides
down inside the awaiting comfort. He knows to be ready at a
moment’s notice. Kelly had taught him and Simon this. They always
sleep fully dressed and with their shoes on when they are on the
road.

His rifle he places beside him and his
pistol right under his makeshift pillow which is just a balled up
shirt. He zips the sleeping bag up to his chin, pulls the bearskin
up, as well, and hunkers down. The low burning fire will help to
ward off the chill, but by morning, he’ll be freezing his ass off.
As soon as the sun rises, he’ll be moving on from this
spot.

This is the worst part of
the day for him. It’s quiet, nothing is going on but the silent,
still of the night. It’s when his mind races with memories, good
and bad. He remembers all the hours upon hours of training that
Kelly, Derek and John had put him and Simon through. He can field
strip a rifle, shotgun, or pistol of any make or caliber. He knows
how to track and hunt animals
…
and people if need be. He knows how to
set up a secure perimeter no matter where he is at the time. He’s
proficient with just about any weapon including a shotgun, hunting
rifles, handguns, grenades- which they’d found a small box of one
time in the dirt basement of someone’s bug-out shelter. First
they’d found the owner’s dead body in the woods and had traced him
back to his shelter. The man had a damn arsenal which included
older rifles which he’d converted to fully automatic. There was
even a SAW, which Kelly used
to
frequently shoot
in the Army. They’d loaded
it all onto their horses and the two extra pack
horses
and had taken the
bounty back to the farm. He and Simon also know how to reload their
own rounds for each of the weapons at the farm. Simon doesn’t
really have the stomach for killing people, although he’s done it a
few times. Hell, he’d even
stabbed
his own dirtbag cousin who’d
attacked Reagan. But he’s softer than Cory, which is fine. Cory
never judges his best friend. John had explained it to Cory that
some men just have the ability to lock that shit down. Simon
doesn’t. He’s more adept at healing people and studying herbs
somewhere out in the forest than killing people. He’s a peaceful
kind of person and soft
spoken
unless they are in
danger,
or the
family is in harm’s way. He’s the complete opposite of
Cory.

He remembers the last years
of his life with acute detail. Kelly became a father for the first
time and nearly lost his mind over it as a consequence. He’d
helicoptered around Hannah twenty-four seven until he’d driven her
nuts. And on the day that Mary was born, he was a complete mess.
Cory thought Reagan was going to kill his big brother. Kelly
vowed
never to get
Hannah pregnant again. But once Mary was born,
he’d miraculously forgotten all about his vehement protestation of
Hannah’s pregnancy and any future pregnancies. And no wonder. Mary
is probably about the most precious little girl ever born on the
face of the earth. Being her uncle, Cory’s opinion is just slightly
biased, but she’s still damn cute. Her black hair mimics her dad,
but she gets her light eye color from Hannah. And she has everyone
at the farm, himself included, wrapped around her teeny
tiny,
two-year-old
pinkie finger.

Sometimes he thinks about
Sam, but he tries not to. She’s like a kid sister to him and
reminds him so much of Em. The girls had been very close, which
makes his guilt tear away at his heavily-weighted conscience. She’s
already been through so much bad shit that he hates thinking
about
how this new
loss could be making her feel. He’s not sure what all happened to
her when she was held captive by those bastards that had
squatted
on th
e farm. Simon never talks about it, and neither does she.
Either she’s sworn Simon to secrecy or perhaps he also doesn’t wish
to speak of it. Sam hangs out a lot with Reagan, too. He’s not sure
why, though. He’s always been a little scared of Reagan. She’s not
quite right, but she’s come a long way since Cory first came to the
farm with his brother, Em, and John. Sometimes she’s even nice,
which must be the side that Sam sees in her. They go to the clinic
in town often together where Sam acts as the
clinic
nurse.

Em had been a girly-girl, though.
She’d preferred hanging out with Sue and Hannah in the kitchen or
hiding from the younger kids up in one of the hay lofts. She’d
never taken to medical work or gardening, but she did help out a
lot with cooking with Hannah. Sam and Em shared a bedroom on the
second floor of the house, his old room. He wonders tonight if Sam
is lying awake unable to sleep because she, too, is missing his
sister.

A wind gust blows a fine
mist of snow into the salon through the partially open door. Sleep
is alluding him, as it does most nights. The last few weeks have
been nothing but hunting and stalking and then usually killing.
He’s killed another seven men. Men who were murderous, thieving
low-lives. Two of those men in Kentucky even had a woman chained to
the wall of their shelter, which happened to be a former lawyer’s
office. He’d
freed
her, gave her some food, and let her go. The men
he had not let go, nor did he offer them any sort of compassion.
He’d
shown
them the same mercy they’d
shown
that poor woman. The other five
had been in a group of
sorts
in another town in Tennessee. He’d
watched
them from
afar for a few hours one night through his night scope. They were
raiding
house
to house in a small neighborhood where it seemed a few
families were trying to survive. After the first few rounds from
one of their guns had pierced the silent night air, Cory had jumped
into action. He’d taken out the first two, who were supposed to be
keeping watch at the end of the street, with his rifle. The
attached silencer had afforded him the opportunity to do so without
drawing unnecessary attention to himself or the muzzle flash. The
others he took out one by one, catching them unaware, and finishing
the deed by killing the last man with his knife. Some of the people
living in that small neighborhood had come out to thank him. Cory
had given one of the men the dead raiders’ guns. He’d
made
a quick exit,
grabbed his stallion and took off. He didn’t want or need their
gratitude.

A mewling near the door alerts him,
and Cory springs to his feet with his pistol aimed. It’s just the
damn dog again.

“I said get outta here, ya’ damn dog,”
he hisses through clenched teeth.

The German shepherd just stands
there.

“Go on! Get!” he shouts this
time.

It whines which further
irritates Cory, so he throws an empty shampoo bottle from the floor
at it. This method of getting rid of her is
effective
because she scoots around
the corner and leaves. No sooner does he get back to his sofa
cushion bed, does she poke her head inside the salon again. She’s
whimpering softly and crawling on her belly trying to cross the
threshold.