The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (6 page)

“Don’t know,” John mutters as he pokes
at the fire
to keep it going.

“Shit! I don’t want to wait here for him. He
could
be hurt
,” Kelly stresses, his bloodshot
brown eyes frantic.

“He’s smarter than that, Kelly,” John tries at
appeasing his friend. “We wouldn’t even know where to
start.”

“No, but I could take a run into the city and
start looking,” he says with frustration.

“Just stay here, Kelly,” Reagan says. “He’ll
show up. His gear’s all here.
Literally the
only things that are missing are the guns. Look, even his
backpack’s here.”

“What if those men came back and found him
here? Maybe they took his horse. Maybe they
…
”

“No way, bro,” John stops him. “Simon said
they killed the last two. There’s no way they could’ve tracked Cory
and Simon here at night even if there were others that got away.
There aren’t any tracks in the snow outside, either.”

“Right. You’re right,” Kelly says.

Reagan has to look away from her
brother-in-law, this man who has become so important to her family.
Despite their rough beginning, Reagan has come to love and care for
Kelly like a brother. She’s also come to love Cory and poor little
Em, who has now
been taken
away from them.
Fuck! She was just a kid. Reagan can’t think about
it
or she’ll lose her shit
…
again.

“We’ll wait for him here,” John asserts.
“He’ll come back here. He has to.”

“Right,” Kelly agrees. “He’ll come
here.”

Kelly may be agreeing with her husband, but
he’s still pacing. He’s still worried sick about his kid brother.
They’ve already been through so much together and now for Cory to
lose Em on his watch must be an enormous amount of
guilty
burden. Last summer they’d lost Grams to cancer
though she’d fought for nearly three long years to win her battle.
Grandpa had been ripped apart by this loss. And Hannie hasn’t been
the same
since
.
She’s lost so
much of her joy and spirit.
Many days she just sits in the
music room by herself or with her and Kelly’s daughter, Mary.
They’d named their baby girl after Grams before any of them had
even known she was sick. Reagan’s glad that Grams was still alive
to see Mary born. It would’ve made it even more difficult
on
Hannah not having their grandmother be a
part of her first child’s life. Mary is two already, which reminds
Reagan of how fast time moves forward, even when they don’t want it
to.

They sit or pace or check out the windows at
least a hundred times each over the course of two long hours before
they finally hear the familiar
nickering
of
Cory’s stallion. Kelly rushes out the front door, followed by John
and then Reagan. When Reagan sees Cory, it’s almost like looking at
a stranger.

“Cory,” Kelly says in a rush and nearly yanks
him from his horse.

Reagan and John stand back, holding hands and
giving them some space.

“God, I was worried about you,” Kelly exclaims
and hugs his brother so tightly Reagan is afraid he’ll hurt
him.

Reagan quietly observes Cory’s appearance and
demeanor. He’s not returning the embrace but standing perfectly
still and unmoving. When Kelly pulls back, she can see that Cory
has spots of dried blood on his face, some splattered on his coat,
and his hands are covered with it. His eyes seem vacant and
empty.

“I’m sorry, Kel,” he finally says.

“It’s not your fault, little brother,” Kelly
says and grasps his brother by both shoulders.

Cory won’t look at his brother.
Instead,
he stares at the ground or off to his
left.

“It was my fault. I let her go with us to
watch the horses. I should’ve made her stay here at the cabin,”
Cory analyzes in monotone syllables.

“No!” Kelly says vehemently. “It’s not. It was
their
fault, the bad-guys. Not you and not Simon. Don’t ever
say that.”

Reagan has to look away when Kelly’s voice
cracks. Tears spill onto her cheeks
again,
and
she wipes them quickly so as not to spread that emotion throughout
their group. Everyone’s trying to process this, to deal with it on
any level.

“Cory?” Kelly speaks softly.

His brother’s semi-catatonic state is
obviously
starting to worry Kelly. Reagan’s
also concerned about Cory. His brown eyes flit around but won’t
make direct contact with anyone.

“We’re here to help,” John says and steps
forward. “We’re going after this group that did this. Reagan will
stay here, and me and you and Kelly are gonna go clean house on
these bastards.”

“It’s already done,” Cory replies.

This time he does look up, but Reagan isn’t so
sure she’s glad that he did so. His eyes are so hard and cold that
it sends a chill creeping up the back of her neck. There is no
warmth in his brown eyes anymore.

“What do you mean, Cor?” John asks.

Reagan steps forward and
sidles
in against her husband’s side.

“They’re all dead,” Cory answers.

“Who’s dead? The men who killed her
or
...
” Kelly asks.

“Yeah,” Cory says. “They were with a bigger
group that I located in an old warehouse. Thirteen of them. I took
care of it.”

Reagan,
John
and Kelly
regard each other with even more concern. That would’ve been very
dangerous. He could’ve been killed. How the hell had he killed
thirteen people on his own?

“Cory? Are you serious, little brother?” Kelly
inquires nervously.

“There’s bound to be others out there like
them,” Cory relates in an empty tone.

“We’ll head back to the farm and reinforce. We
can go after anyone you want to, brother,” Kelly offers.

“You can go now,” Cory dismisses them and tugs
his horse along to the barn.

They follow him, but Reagan and John hang back
while Kelly talks again. Cory begins
untacking
his stallion by placing the saddle, blanket, pad and bridle on the
hooks and railing surrounding the makeshift stall.

“You need to come home now, Cory,” Kelly says
and places a large hand on his young brother’s
wide
shoulder.

“I’m not coming home,” Cory answers in haste
and steps away to brush down his sweat-covered horse.

Reagan is
fairly
sure that
this is the first time his stallion has rested since he left the
farm two days ago. His chest and flanks are covered in
white
lather
, and the stallion
shivers from the cold air hitting him when the last of his padding
is removed.

“What do you mean you’re not coming back?”
Kelly asks. “You need to
come
with us and go
back to the farm.”

Cory momentarily stops brushing his horse and
turns to face Kelly straight on.

“I’m not coming back. I have work to do,” Cory
states emphatically and turns away again.

Kelly blows up.

“You are coming home!” he shouts. “Get your
shit packed up. You’re coming home with
me,
or
I’ll drag you. You’re not staying out here by yourself. Do you hear
me?”

“I’ll only be here a few days and then I’m
moving on,” Cory tells them as if he has a plan.

“Moving on to where exactly?” Kelly asks
angrily. “The only place you’re moving on to is back to the damn
farm, Cory.”

“I’m not coming back. You need to leave. Go
home. Go
home
to Hannah and your daughter.
They need you. I don’t need you anymore, and I’m not coming
home
,” Cory declares calmly.

“Cory, this isn’t safe,” Reagan tries. “Honey,
come home. Please.”

“Sorry, Reagan,” Cory answers her.

“You need to be with us, not out here in the
middle of nowhere by yourself,” Reagan implores.

“You all need to get back before dark,” Cory
suggests. “You know the roads are more dangerous at
night.”

“You have a long ride, too,” Kelly tells him.
“It’s going to get dark for you, too, and I don’t want you making
the ride home in the middle of the night.”

“I’m not coming,” Cory says with remarkable
clarity.

Kelly is about to step toward his brother, and
Reagan believes that he is literally going
to drag
Cory physically
out from under the barn shelter. But John
grabs Kelly’s jacket and jerks him slightly back. Her husband nods
over his shoulder to indicate that they should talk in private.
Kelly frowns hard but follows. The three of them walk toward the
cabin. When Reagan glances back, she notices that Cory just
continues to brush the horse.

“You gotta let him be, Kelly,” John tells his
friend.

“What?” Kelly asks with a mixture of hard anger
and anguish and helpless misery in his tired eyes.

“Let him go, Kelly,” John repeats.

“What the hell, John?” Reagan questions her
husband and looks into his blue eyes. “That’s insane. He needs to
come home. This shit isn’t safe out here. It’s not safe anywhere
alone anymore.”

“He’s not staying here by himself,” Kelly
affirms.

“You can’t stop him. If you force him to come
home to the farm, he’ll only leave again,” John explains. “You
gotta let him go, man.”

“To hell with that. I’ll stay with him then,”
Kelly reasons.

“Kel, he’s not staying because he wants to,”
John says.

Her husband removes his stocking cap and rakes
a hand through his blonde hair. He is haunted by his own bad
memories, and Reagan can tell that he’s trying to impart a wisdom
to Kelly that she can’t comprehend.

“No,” Kelly
retorts
.

“He can’t come back, not yet,” John says and
lays a hand gently
on
Kelly’s shoulder. “Let
him go.”
“No way,” Kelly repeats.

“You have to let him deal with this on his own.
He’s not coming home, man,” John says.

“I can’t,” Kelly says and his voice cracks
again. “I can’t lose him, too.”

“You won’t, bro,” John says with confidence.
“He has to do this. He’ll come home someday, but if you make him do
it now when he’s not ready, it’ll break him. He’ll never reconcile
this. He needs to do what he has to do. You know this. We’ve
seen
this before, brother. Kelly, we’ve seen men like this
before.”

Kelly hangs his head and nods. When he raises
it again, there are tears in his eyes. He leaves them to go to Cory
again. John takes her to the porch where they’ve left their packs,
a crate and bags full of supplies. Together they unload the
provisions inside the cabin. John gets into the burlap sack he’d
lugged
along and stacks cans of vegetables,
home canned jars of soup, potatoes, beans and meat. She didn’t pack
these things. She’d only
brought
enough for
them to eat one meal at the cabin with Cory. He must’ve packed
these provisions. Had he known this would happen? They leave
everything on the table and bed and go back outside. It’s probably
enough food for a week or maybe two if Cory is conservative. She
just hopes that by then Cory has settled this demon within him and
has returned to the farm where he belongs.

Kelly joins them near the cabin. Cory has
followed.

“There are some supplies in there for you,
Cory. Food and stuff,” Reagan says awkwardly.

“Thanks, Reagan,” he returns.

Kelly walks forward and embraces his young
brother again, although it is not returned. He pats Cory on the
back three times and steps away. Kelly nods and his brother does
so, as well. Kelly turns and walks swiftly
toward
their path, leaving her and John to stand there
with Cory.

Reagan doesn’t hug him, not because she doesn’t
want to.
She’s done so many times in the last three
years.
But it seems like he doesn’t want anyone to. She can
relate.

“You should wash that… off,” she indicates
toward his bloody hands and he nods.

“I will, Reagan,” he says.

Reagan walks a few feet away so that John can
say his good-bye with some privacy.

“Take however much time you need, bro,” John
says.

Her loving husband, who is so openly and easily
affectionate with most everyone, takes Cory’s hand in his. Reagan
thinks he is about to pull Cory in for an embrace, but he doesn’t.
Instead, John slaps an extra mag for Cory’s rifle into it with a
resounding crack.

“You do what you have to do, Cory,” John says
very intensely. “You come home, but only when you can. Do you
understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Cory answers.

“Only when you can,” John reiterates
firmly.

Cory says nothing but nods with a new
fierceness in his brown eyes. John nods a few times and turns from
Cory.