The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (48 page)

“So, Pittsburgh, huh? You’re not far
from home then,” the uncle observes. “You’re welcome to stay on
here for a few days. Rest up and then keep going.”

“No thanks,” he rejects their
hospitality. “Gotta keep moving. But thanks for the
offer.”

A few minutes later, he and
his dog are jogging away. Kim’s father and friends had forced him
to take three jars of home-canned peaches, three apples, a small
bag of beef jerky, and a takeaway jar of the bean soup. Plus, Kim’s
young sister handed him a cloth with four biscuits secreted away
inside. She reminded him of Ari. He’d ruffled the hair on her
blonde head. They’d invited him to come back again
anytime
. He’d
politely accepted, even though he knows that he’ll never take them
up on it.

By the time he gets back to
the rustic barn and his horse, Cory is exhausted. He’d gone looking
for a fight tonight. He’d gone looking to kill more creeps. There
are always plenty of creeps in every town. He hadn’t expected to
fall asleep in the hay with Damn Dog near his feet feeling like
he’d
made
new friends. Tomorrow he’ll push on away from
this
city of
Columbus. Pittsburgh surely has lots of the creep types still
lingering around terrorizing people that require his attention.
He’s so much better at the killing thing than the making friends
thing. Friends just remind him of home, the last place on earth he
wants to remember right now. He rubs the gold bracelet that used to
belong to her between his thumb and forefinger before tucking it
back into the neckline of his shirt where it dangles from the black
leather cord.

Chapter Twenty-three

Sam

Grandpa calls out orders to
everyone. Simon carries his sister to the shed, although she
protests it. There is blood trickling and coagulating down the back
of her neck near her braid. Apparently that man had hit her harder
than Sam first thought. Everyone jumps into motion while Sam and
Talia run to the shed to help set up. They put up the dividing
screens and draw the draperies between each of the six areas. Sue
is back and scrambling around with Derek, opening up the
cots
and covering
them with sanitary, clean bedding. The lighting is turned on, and
Sam starts moving stainless steel medical carts out from behind the
storage shelves. Then she instructs Talia on what needs placed on
each one. Talia, who the family has come to like very well, goes to
the next aisle over and retrieves bandaging while Sam gathers
hypodermics and sewing needles and thread. Grandpa has gone to the
house to instruct Hannah and the others to boil pots of water for
them. Sterilization of any and all medical tools will be essential
in keeping the risk of infections down. She’s not sure what types
of injuries they’ll be treating tonight, but she is trying to be
prepared for anything. She swings around and nearly runs Simon
down.

“Oh, sorry, Simon!” she mumbles as she
stoops to retrieve her dropped cargo.

“That was my fault, Sam,” he blurts
quickly and bends to help her.

“How’s Paige?” she inquires in a rush
of worry for his sister.

“She’s mostly shaken up,” he relays.
“Don’t think she needs stitches. But she does have a minor
concussion, I’d say. Doc said the same thing. Reagan’s getting her
bandaged up.”

“She’ll be ok,” Sam acknowledges
again, reaffirming it in his mind. She even squeezes his hand
gently. He doesn’t offer her an answer but gives a half-hearted
attempt at a nod followed by a morose grin. His blue eyes are
troubled.

Simon grimaces and touches the side of
her face delicately with his fingertips only. “I need to clean this
and…”

Kelly comes into the shed a
moment later to announce that their allies are
arriving
and they’ve brought
four injured men.

“No, I’ll live. This is nothing. Don’t
worry about me. It’s gonna be a long night,” she says as she works
quickly, trying to distract Simon from his woes over his
sister.

Simon helps her stand again once
they’ve picked up her fallen items. He’s holding onto her elbow,
although she certainly doesn’t need assistance.

“Sam, I really should treat those
scrapes before they come piling in here with the wounded,” he
says.

“I said
I
’m fine,
”
she dismisses. “Let’s just get ready.”

He nods even more
reluctantly this time and pauses a long moment before turning away
and leaving her. When she emerges with her metal cart on rolling
wheels, Sam can see the changes that have taken place in the shed.
It no longer looks like an empty pole building with shelving.
The
cots
are in place, separated by curtains. Medical carts stand at
the ready near each bed. Canisters of oxygen, most of which contain
very sparse amounts, wait by the beds. Grandpa and Reagan are
suited up in sterile
gowns,
their stethoscopes hanging around their necks.
Reagan helps her into a similar get-up as Simon is securing his own
latex gloves and mask. They are as fastidious as they can be about
germs and the spreading of them since they’ve already been touched
by such deadly, potential plague-like infections on the farm. She
catches Simon’s eyes above the rim of his mask. He’s wearing
his
eye-glasses
that make him look even more like a young professor, which is
the nickname that the men like to call him. He’s still wearing
camouflaged green and black war paint on his face which is a
bizarre combination with his surgical gown. Sam smiles at him
before she pulls up her own mask. Even though his mouth is covered,
Sam can tell that he does not return her smile but scowls
instead.

Kelly comes into the shed
again and announces, “Power’s cut to the house. We’re
good to go
.”

Grandpa replies, “Good. We’re going to
need all the power we can get out here tonight.”

When situations get rough,
they power down the electric to the house to conserve as much as
they can for the shed. They could possibly need to use heart-rate
monitors, the ultrasound machine or the electric ventilator, all of
which pull
a huge amount of
wattage.

“I’ll help her to the house, Simon,”
Kelly says.

He’s referring to Paige, who is fully
awake. Unfortunately, she still seems disoriented and groggy. And
no wonder. She’d taken quite the clubbing from that
thug.

“Thanks, Kelly,” Simon
returns.

They need the room in the shed for
treating wounded men. Paige will be more comfortable in the house
where she can rest. Sam’s also quite sure that Kelly will take
Paige to the music room where Hannah can tend to and mother her.
Hannah mothers everyone, whether they require her tender
ministrations or not.

Sam can read the worry
still there in Simon’s voice and in the crinkled corners of his
eyes. Kelly gives up trying to slip his arm around Paige, so he
swoops her up into his arms and carries her from the building. If
she wasn’t so tall, Sam is pretty sure that even she could
carry
Paige. She’s
still
very thin
, although she has observed Simon trying
to practically force feed
his
sister at meal times. Maybe it’s just her height that makes her
seem skinnier, too.

An engine draws closer and
cuts. Shouting men outside is the next thing she hears. Simon has
set aside his worry for his sister. She can see it in the
grave
look in his
eyes. He’s ready to treat the wounded men. He’s back to business as
usual.

The first man through the
door is Roy from town, being assisted and half-carried by Derek.
He’s a very nice man. He lives in section four in Pleasant View.
His leg wound looks
serious
, and he’s gritting his teeth
against the pain. The bottom of his faded green pants
looks
like the one
leg has been re-dyed to a dark crimson. Reagan immediately jumps in
and starts questioning him on his blood type while indicating that
John should place him in the first
cot
on the left.

The next man looks
even
worse,
if that’s at all possible. Grandpa handles this situation with
Talia acting as his nurse. The man has taken a gunshot wound to his
stomach. It doesn’t look good at all. He’s pale, lifeless and being
carried by Condo Paul.

The third man walks through
the door of his own accord and has been shot in the shoulder. Derek
shows him to the farthest
cot
in the rear of the room. He’s had
some field medic training in his
lifetime,
so Derek will be able to help
that man until one of the doctors is available.

The last man is brought in
by
Kelly,
who carries him in an identical, gentle mode of transport that
he’d used with Paige. His eyes convey all they need to
know.

“Come, Sam,” Simon says to
her.

She nods
firmly,
and they
begin
on
the man who is moaning in pain. When he places him carefully
onto the cot, Sam tries not to notice that the front of Kelly’s
clothing is covered in dark red blotches that match the
man’s
. Kelly backs
away, staring at his hands, also
covered
in the young man’s
blood.

Talia shouts frantically, “Where’s
Gavin? Where is he?”

Sam can hear Reagan talking to her,
“He’s coming. Just help Doc and stay calm, ok?”

Reagan’s speech must subdue
Talia because she quiets again and doesn’t say anything more. Sam
is too busy with their own patient to fret about
Gavin,
or Talia’s
worrying over him.

“Left side. High power caliber,” Kelly
says to her and Simon, explaining their patient’s wound.

Simon nods with no expression and gets
to it. The man on their hospital bed can’t be more than twenty-five
years old. She doesn’t recognize him from town.

“Get me a bp, Sam,” he orders as he
cuts away the man’s clothing.

She does so and reports the
very low blood pressure to Simon, who doesn’t even flinch. They
ascertain that he’s been shot twice. The first was
through
his side
from the front, which Kelly had reported. The second shot entered
his back, high and near his left shoulder blade.

The next few minutes fly by in a blur
as she and Simon work together on the young man. She prays for him
as Simon demands calmly and orders Kelly and her to do whatever he
requires. He finishes cutting away the man’s clothing. Kelly tips
him slightly onto his side so that Simon can view the wound more
critically.

“Came out here,” Simon observes the
man’s side. “Good.”

“Blood type is O positive,” Sam says
after the man tells her to get into his wallet to check since he’s
not sure. Then he gives out a shout of pain as Simon rolls him onto
his back again.

“I can’t breathe, Doc,” the man says
to Simon.

“Just relax… Mr.?” Sam
says.

“Andy. My name’s Andy,” he wheezes in
return.

Sam can hear Reagan on the
other side of the dividing curtain barking an order to
Bertie
Reynolds,
who has come into the shed. Their neighbor has
helped out on occasion at their clinic. It’s difficult for her to
get away since she has a toddler and no other women in her house to
help her out with her daughter. The men in her house stay
twenty-four-seven busy with their dairy farm.

Their patient’s color
starts turning to a bluish gray, and he does seem to be having
difficulty taking in a full breath. She’s never seen this before.
Sometimes they treat gunshot wounds at their clinic, but this is a
first
treating
four at the same time. One time she’d had to witness a
stabbing victim’s multiple, gory wounds. He’d
been
stabbed by a jealous
neighbor who’d suspected him of sleeping with his wife. The town’s
justice system had taken care of his punishment. That man’s stab
wounds and lacerations had been the worst thing she’d
seen
, until now.
She’s never seen this many
severely
wounded
people all piled into one small room before. A
child’s earache or a pregnant mother is nothing compared to
this.

Simon comes around the side of the bed
at lightning speed and yanks Sam a few feet away. Their patient
struggles to breathe and gasps for air.

“He’s drowning in his own blood, Sam,”
he says tightly so that nobody else will hear. “Get me a hose and a
bottle of water, or a clean bucket or container with some water.
Pour half of it out. And when you come back, stand right beside me,
ok?”