The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (43 page)

“I see them,” Doc declares as he
bursts through the porch door into the kitchen.

Out of everyone on the
farm, Paige likes Herb McClane the most. He’s so kind and
even-tempered. She sees so much sadness in his blue eyes, sadness
that she understands all too well. He’s lost the love of his life,
and it shows
in
the
crinkles
and lines around his eyes, even when he smiles.
Paige had certainly not felt anything like that about her boyfriend
in college. She’d
been
sad when he’d been killed, but there really wasn’t
any time to even process his death. She had been too preoccupied
with just staying alive after that. But once her tiny group had
settled into the old abandoned farmhouse for the winter, she hadn’t
mourned him then, either. She had even begun to feel like
true
love was just
a phrase people liked to throw around. Her parents had been more
like partners than great lovers. Her dad respected her mother and
likewise, but they were very distant and
cool
with each other. They had also
married quite young, and Paige believed them to be more like good
friends than crazy-for-each-other lovers. Her faith in love has
restored exponentially since arriving on the McClane farm, however.
She sees love all around her. The three Rangers and their wives
and, unfortunately, Herb have renewed her belief that love is still
out there and attainable. She’s not, though, sure if she’ll ever
actually find someone. Having Simon back in her life is plenty good
enough for her. And thank the good Lord, he’s back.

“Yep, I see ‘em…” Reagan agrees but
pauses. “Wait, there’s an extra vehicle.”

“They’re moving really
slow, too,” Doc says
on
a hard frown as he moves to another window.
“Something’s…”

Sue and Talia have joined them in the
music room. The family dog, Molly, begins barking. The hair on her
back stands up like she’s been shocked by electricity. Doc shushes
her, which gets an immediate response of her crossing the room and
sitting at his feet. The other dog is tied at Sue’s cabin in the
woods. He’s a lot more hyper and playful, so he gets secured out at
their cabin a lot to keep him from being a pest when the situation
on the farm is hectic. He also doesn’t listen as good as his
mother.

“Wait a minute. Shit!” Reagan yells.
“That’s more than one extra vehicle! I don’t think that’s them.
There are three or four trucks coming, and nobody radioed in. Those
aren’t our men!”

“Everyone, get ready,” Doc
says
calmly
though his eyes read an underlying fear. “Sue, get downstairs
and tell Hannah. Make sure Justin and Huntley have their guns ready
and keep the door locked unless we call out for them. Then get back
up here and take up
position
. The rest of you secure the
windows with me. Quickly now!”

What the hell?
They gave
a gun to
Justin? And Huntley, too? Those kids are like pre-teens or young
teens. And Hannah’s blind! How the hell could they possibly defend
themselves?

Everyone springs into
action. Reagan, Talia, Gavin and she run from room to room on the
first floor securing the windows by
shoving
up and opening the ones that
face the oncoming traffic, but closing and locking the steel bars
on the inside. Simon had explained the windows to her after she’d
freaked out about the black bars that close from the inside in the
big house making her feel caged in. He’d said that after the
assault by the visitors, which she knows was her Aunt Amber’s
group, the men had welded and screwed bars on the insides of every
window of the house to ensure an impossible entry from anyone on
the outside. Bolts have been screwed into the floor right behind
every exit door so that they either lie flush or are able to be
pulled up and turned to prevent the doors from being opened from
the outside, too. Talia makes sure to double check those bolt
mechanisms.
To say that the McClane
men take the security of this farm serious would be a massive
understatement.
The cabins in the woods
don’t have similar security systems, but the forest alone conceals
them from even being viewed.

When they are done, probably less than
a full minute later, and back in the main hall with Sue and Doc,
they all nod.

“Go now,” Doc says quietly. “Sue, kill
that light.”

His voice is grave and
speaks volumes as to how he feels about this situation. Paige is
scared shitless. Why don’t they just pile into that big SUV out
back and take the hell off? The light he was referring to was a
single oil lamp in the music room. They’d wanted to conserve their
solar power for this very reason. This family always seems to have
some sort of
contingency
plan or another, but they hadn’t really counted on
something this bad. How could they?

Gavin goes out the front
door where he’ll cover the house from there, squatted down behind
shrubbery. She and Reagan sprint out the back door. Strategies were
reviewed about five times with the men about scenarios like this
should it happen that creeps would come to the farm while they are
gone. Nobody really thought it would happen. According to
Simon,
it never
has before. This could all be for naught, though. Those could just
be people out there looking for help.

They are almost to the cattle barn
when Paige suggests, “Why don’t we just take that car and go? This
is crazy.” Her voice shakes with a fear that she can’t help. The
anxiety she’d felt waiting for the men to come home safe and sound
has turned into full-blown fight or flight survival
mode.

Reagan stops and painfully yanks
Paige’s arm, pulling her to a halt.

“We don’t run,” the shorter
woman says vehemently. “We’re McClanes. This is the
McClane
farm. We aren’t
leaving. This is our farm. This is
your
farm now Paige. The only
people
leaving
are them. In body bags.”

Paige nods but still feels scared. The
vehicles are less than two hundred yards from them. Reagan reaches
for Paige’s pistol and flicks off the safety.

“When you need this, just aim and
pull. It’s ready to go,” Reagan tells her with one firm nod before
returning the handgun to the holster on Paige’s hip and turning
away.

They continue on through
the dark until they reach the barn where they both carefully climb
the ladder to the hay loft. Reagan gives the ladder a hard
shove,
and it
tumbles over into a big pile of loose hay below them. A cow moos
softly, probably thinking she’s getting another meal. The
headlights draw closer as she and Reagan take up
position
at the
opening of two different
wide
slats. Simon explained to her
earlier today when he’d
brought
her up to the loft to discuss
her role should this happen that these wide slats were made
wider
by the men
so that they could be used for this exact purpose. She’d
barely
paid
attention because the idea of this happening was
unimaginable.

“Remember, three shots each. Quick.
Then we move,” Reagan reminds her.

“Got it,” she affirms.
“Reagan, I’m not that good
of
a shot. I’ve only ever shot a gun
twice in my life.”

“You’ve got that rifle.
It’s good enough for the both of you. Just aim center mass. Don’t
try for
head-shots
. Just aim
to
their center.”

“What if they aren’t
bad
people?”

“They are,” Reagan says with decisive
irritation. “Take a few deep breaths. Take a breath before
squeezing that trigger and let it halfway back out. It’ll help to
steady your shot. You can do this, Paige.”

The other woman pokes her
rifle’s barrel through the
slat
and pushes her cheek against the
black stock. Paige copies her.

“You
will
do this,” Reagan demands without
taking her eye away from the big scope. “You’re one of us
now.”

And with this one poignant
sentence, Paige realizes that she
is
one of them. She and her brother
and friends may never be able to leave this farm. She certainly
doesn’t think Simon would ever even want to. His heart is embedded
into this farm and these people. The security and sense of family
and belonging
are
like nothing she’s ever had, not even with her
boyfriend from college. This McClane family has opened their home
and their arms to her, and she’d
held
back. Not anymore. Reagan was
right. This
is
her
family, and she’s willing to fight to her dying breath for
them.

The four trucks of variable
size, yet with similar loud mufflers, pull straight
onto
the back yard
of their farm, leaving their headlights on. A man jumps out of the
passenger seat and crawls over the side of the bed to stand in it.
He has a megaphone in his hand. This is apparently their leader.
This is obviously not a group of people looking for their
assistance. Other men also alight their vehicles and the beds of
the trucks. They are all armed with guns or baseball bats. There
must be close to thirty of them. Paige takes more than one deep
breath to steady her nerves and stop the quaking in the pit of her
stomach.

“Light ‘em up, Grandpa,” Reagan says
to herself softly.

A moment later, Doc has hit
the switch on their breaker that illuminates the whole entire
outside property with spotlights and floodlights without giving
away any easy viewing of the house or outbuildings.
Hopefully,
it is
blinding them.

“Nice,” Reagan whispers. “Hey,
assholes.”

“Should we shoot?” Paige asks
nervously.

“Steady,” Reagan returns. “You know
the plan. I lead off.”

“’Kay,” she says, her voice
shaking.

“Easy, Paige,” her companion whispers.
“We’ve got this. They don’t know our farm like we do. Nobody knows
this farm like us. We’ve got the biggest advantage in that. Keep it
in mind when you start moving.”

Her logic makes sense enough. These
men have never been here before tonight. They are at an extreme
disadvantage.

The man on the megaphone turns it on
and begins monologuing, “Hey, inside the house, we don’t come
meaning no harm.”

Reagan scoffs. Paige even smirks with
derision.

“Just come out with your
hands
up
and nobody has to get hurt!” he continues. “We know your men
ain’t here. Surrender now and
…
”

“Fuck you, asshole. We don’t
surrender,” Reagan says with fire in her veins and squeezes the
trigger.

The speech giver takes a
head-shot from Reagan’s high caliber rifle. His body falls over the
side of the pick-up, landing out of view. Simon told Paige
always to take
out
the leader of any group first. Apparently Reagan also knows this.
Paige had really not listened that closely when he’d
lectured
her on
tactical maneuvers. Most of it was going over her head. She’d
always figured on running away with him if it came to
that.

Instantly there are shots
fired from all positions within the McClane home and Paige pulls
the trigger of her own rifle. Beside her, Reagan reloads and fires
again, hitting another man in the back. Paige’s shot isn’t as
clean, but at least she got one of the men
in
the shoulder who’d been
brandishing a shotgun. He’s lying beside the first truck screaming
in
pain
or
perhaps shock. It looks like every member of the family has hit
their intended first targets as close to a dozen men go down and
then another from Reagan’s second shot. Unfortunately, the men are
returning fire now and ducking and hiding and spreading out, making
it
more difficult to get
them. Shots hit buildings but are completely
ineffective since they haven’t quite figured out where she and
Reagan are hidden. Good.

Paige squeezes the trigger again and
wings a guy in his leg who’d thought he was hiding behind the third
truck a whole lot better than he actually was. After sighting in,
she finds another one near the back porch, takes a breath, and
shoots him, too. Reagan takes her final shot, hitting a man in the
side of his neck as he runs toward the big house. The farmhouse is
taking more gunfire than they are, which scares Paige that a bullet
will go through the wall and strike one of the family. The only
thing that makes her feel any better about it is the fact that the
children are all safe in the basement.

“Let’s go,” Reagan says in a
rush.

They both leave their heavy rifles in
the hayloft and grab the short-barreled shotguns that were waiting
for them next to the hay pile.