The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (7 page)

He takes her hand and pulls Reagan along the
path that will take them to their truck. It’s not until they are a
distance far enough away from the cabin that Cory won’t hear that
she loses her shit
…
again. Her knees buckle.
John holds her until she’s all cried out as Kelly continues to pull
ahead of them on the path. He holds her close and imprints his
strength into her. It gives her enough gumption to get her emotions
in check and continue on until they reach the truck
again.

She wants to be home so badly, back
at
the farm and within the safe confines of it. She wants
Em to be waiting there, not just the family, which is so down. She
wants Cory to come home with them. She wants everything to go back
to normal and her grandmother to still be alive. These are useless,
childish
thoughts,
she
knows,
but
Reagan also can’t help them from taking root.

They swing onto the county road eventually,
and Reagan has to have Kelly pull over. She climbs quickly over
John and jumps out. She vomits the contents of her stomach, which
is mostly just liquid and acids because they haven’t eaten since
breakfast, onto the berm of the road. John is right behind her and
rubbing her back soothingly. Then she has a hard time catching her
breath. Just breathing in and out is laborious. It hurts. She wants
Em back. She wants Cory home.

“It’s ok, babe,” he consoles.

“I
’m fine,
” Reagan replies
when she stands straight again. “I just got to
dwelling
on everything and that damn oil well road was
too bouncy. Sorry.”

“That’s no problem,” he tells her. “It’s just
been a bad few days. It’s understandable. Let’s get you back
to
the farm.”

“Yeah,” Reagan says and leans into him for
support.

She climbs into the truck again and lays her
head against John’s chest where she likes to rest. His arm wraps
around her shoulders, and he tugs her even closer. She likes the
slow, steady beat of his heart in her ear. It always brings her
comfort, just like everything about John. She’d
been
thinking about Em and became overwhelmed with
sadness. She’d
been
thinking about the look of
haunted desolation in Cory’s eyes, too. Reagan prays that it
is gone
when he returns to the farm. She never
wants to see that in him again.

Chapter Four

Sam

It’s been almost three
weeks since they’ve buried her friend, Em. Sam’s heart is broken,
crumbled into pieces by this tragic new loss. They’d grown so
close
over
the last three and a half years. They’d shared secrets and
dreams and hopes for the future. Even though she’s almost nineteen
and Em
was
only fifteen, they were good friends. Her friend was a kindred
spirit to her and likewise. Sometimes she was the only person Sam
felt like she could talk to about things because Em had been
through so many of the same horrible situations as her.

Sam’s lost so many people of whom
she’s loved so deeply. Em is just one more loss in the long list of
tragedies in her life. Her parents, her older brother and her twin,
baby siblings were all killed, murdered in the horse barn behind
their home by the types of low-life degenerates that her father had
always lectured her and her older brother about staying away from
when they grew up and moved out on their own.

She’s standing in her horse’s stall,
giving him a good brushing and reminiscing some of the good times
she’s had on this farm with the McClane family and with Em, in
particular. She and Em used to enjoy riding together, galloping
across the high meadow and racing. She was such a happy, free
spirit. Sam sketched portraits of her friend that she’ll put behind
glass if she can find some picture frames somewhere. She knows that
Kelly has a small photograph of her with Cory and their parents
that he keeps in his wallet. It must be from about a year before
the apocalypse. Em still had braces on her teeth in the picture.
Her light chestnut hair was shorter then, too. But she still had
that promise of beauty which she was growing into while living on
the McClane farm.

Sam only wishes that Em had told her
she was going to sneak off to join up with Simon and Cory that
morning. She would’ve talked her out of it, or at the very least
Sam would’ve told Cory. Em had been nagging them for days before
they left. Sam should’ve known her friend would do something
impulsive. Em was that way, impetuous and naïve and
young.

Sam had helped Reagan pack
away Em’s belongings into plastic tubs that were taken to the
basement. When Cory comes home someday, he can go through them and
decide with Kelly what they want to do with them. Simon had told
her that Cory kept his sister’s gold bracelet, the one that all of
the women in the family wear care of Reagan’s pilfering of a
jewelry store. He’d
sent
her body home
with
Simon without it on her small
wrist. Sam knows that he has that item tucked away somewhere on his
person, wherever he is.

A rapping on the stall door alerts
her.

“Hey, Sam,” Simon speaks
softly.

“Hey, watcha’ up to?” Sam
asks. He’s been very distant and even quieter than usual lately.
They all have been. Nobody is dealing well with her loss; everyone
is down. The mood of the family is
ev
en graver and more morose than when
they’d lost Grams. She hadn’t been murdered and taken from them
abruptly, though. Grams had passed away from cancer. She’d
fought
it
valiantly, and they’d all had a chance to say their
goodbyes
. Em has
been ripped from them.

“Working with Reagan,” he answers
solemnly. “She didn’t feel too well, so she’s going in for a
break.”

“That’s weird. She’s never
sick,” Sam says
with
a frown. “Hope she didn’t catch anything working
at the clinic.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he agrees and steps
inside the stall with her.

Simon doesn’t say anything more but
strokes the horse’s neck and velvety soft muzzle. It rubs more
firmly against his hand hoping for a treat.

“We had a few patients last week that
had some kind of flu bug,” he reports. “Haven’t seen anything like
that in a while.”

“Great,” Sam laments with sarcasm.
“What did Grandpa say about it? Does he think it could be another
bad sickness like that pneumonic plague?”

“No, he said he thinks it’s just a
bug, something seasonal. It’s just unusual to hit so late in the
season,” he returns.

“If anybody would know it’s
definitely Grandpa or Reagan,” she says and raises her eyebrows.
He’s not really her grandfather at all. But when she’d come to live
on the farm, she hadn’t really known what to call him or Mrs.
McClane. She’d
started
with “Dr. McClane” but that had felt weird after a
while. Then she shortened it to “Doc” like most of the adults
called him, but that had seemed sort of disrespectful to pretend
that she was on the same level as an adult. So he’d just suggested
one day that if she felt comfortable enough that she could call him
“Grandpa” and his wife “Grams” like their own granddaughters and
great-grandchildren call them. As soon as she’d
tried
it on, it had fit like a
comfortable glove. And she’s called him that ever since. After all,
he’s the only grandparent or parent she’s ever going to have
again.

“Right,” Simon agrees. “We treated
them with elderberry tea and raw honey and gave them a few Tylenol
for reducing the fevers. It’s about all we can do for people
now.”

“Yeah, but you guys are so
great with compounding the herbs and making natural remedies for
people.”

“Reagan gets frustrated
because she wishes that we still had an endless supply of
pharmaceuticals. We are still saving back some of the
important
drugs
for emergencies,” he comments. “But that certainly doesn’t mean
she’s a big lover of herbal remedies, either.”

If there’s one thing Simon
likes to talk about, it’s medicine. He would’ve made a great doctor
someday, although he said he wanted to be a scientist. It’s the
study and research that he gets a kick out of. He’ll disappear for
hours on end looking for herbs in the forest that he and Grandpa
will turn into medicines and herbal teas. During the winter
season,
she’ll
usually go to the clinic with Grandpa and Simon if Reagan doesn’t
go. Sometimes Reagan is called to other tasks such as house calls,
taking care of a sick animal on their or their neighbors’ farms or
working at the farm on research. Sam goes to the clinic so that she
can offer assistance to Simon and Grandpa, but she’s certainly no
doctor. She hadn’t enjoyed the massive amount of studying and
reading that Simon had taken on in order to become a doctor
someday. There is usually a long line of people from around their
area waiting outside the clinic for whatever assistance they can
get
for
their ailments, sicknesses, broken bones, pregnancies and just
about anything else one could expect.

“I know,” Sam agrees.
“Reagan says you and Grandpa are turning into a couple of
hippy-
dippies
.”

“I’ve heard that phrase quite a lot
during the last year or so as we’ve run out of synthetic
pharmaceuticals. I’m used to it,” he says lightly.

“I’m sure you have,” Sam adds to lift
his mood. “Wanna’ go for a walk?”

“Sure,” he says
on
a
nod.

Sam pats Blaze on the neck and tugs
his halter to return him to his friends in the pasture. She and
Simon walk side by side, and he opens the gate for her before they
release the gelding. The snow has let up and now they have a light
dusting covering the ground. As much as she enjoys riding through a
snowy forest when the branches and tops of the tall pines are
coated in white, Sam is also anxious for spring.

She is wearing leather riding boots
which should keep out the moisture, but Simon’s just wearing a pair
of New Balance running shoes with mesh inserts. Her down-filled
jacket helps to keep out the bitter wind that occasionally whips
up.

They walk in companionable
silence toward the woods, avoiding deep mud puddles and slushy
ground when they can. The trees lost their leaves last fall, making
them appear skeletal and angry in shape and form. Sometimes she’ll
sit in the hay loft of the horse barn where she can view the forest
from the
wide
, open
hay
door and sketch the farm and surrounding property. Soon the
spring season will bring growth and with it the rebirth of greenery
and grass and leaves and flowers, which are all preferable to a wet
season of snow and rain that breeds on any farm, dark and
heavy
mud and
dampness that clings to boots and clothing and makes all work more
difficult and miserable. Grandpa is eager for an early spring so
that they can get a good planting season in. And they are all
hoping that the snowstorms like the one that hit last week, dumping
six inches on the ground are gone for good.

“Do you think Cory’s ok?”
she asks as they move farther into the forest. Sometimes they’ll
ride this patrol route together, she, Cory and Simon. Sometimes
Reagan and John still do, but usually it’s Simon and Cory who
handle the patrols by themselves. They even ride along the road
that encapsulates their farm, the
Reynolds
and the Johnson place,
too.

Inquiring after Cory is
painful. It’s like they’ve all lost him, too. He’s
gone,
and nobody
knows for sure whether he’ll ever come home or not. Just saying his
name brings anguish. He’s like her big brother. He reminds her a
lot of her real big
brother;
an unarmed teen boy shot and executed in their
horse barn.

“I’m sure
he’s fine
, Sam,”
he says gently. “He just needs some time to deal with it. Don’t
worry.”

“Yeah, right,” she scolds. “How the
heck am I supposed to do that? He’s our friend, Simon.”

She glances up in time to
see Simon
wince
, which makes her feel terrible. If she and Cory are close,
Simon and he are a thousand times more so.

“Sorry,” she quickly
apologizes.

“It’s ok,” he returns with a lopsided
frown. “I’m worried, too. I wish he would’ve come home with
me.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Me, too. I don’t
like him out there somewhere alone. It’s not safe.”

“I’m sure he’s safe.
This
is
Cory we’re
talking about, remember?” he adds with sad humor.

Sam smiles up at him. This
is probably the first time she’s
smiled
at all in weeks.

“True,” she concurs. “It would’ve been
more accurate if I’d have said I’m more worried about the people he
runs into.”