The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (15 page)

“Whatever you say, boss,” he murmurs as he watches her with fascination.

“How come you think he didn’t take any of this?” she asks on a whisper.

“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t have time to get back to the hospital. Maybe he took what he thought he’d need and left this room intact. Who knows, maybe he’s one of the dead people we passed on the way up here,” he answers equally quiet.

She hands him rubber tubing, and he winces at it and what it represents. He’s all too familiar with what it is used for, and the last time he’d seen one it had her blood flowing through it into his brother. She also hands him some kind of strange, breathing apparatus thing.

“Yeah,” she reflects with remorse, not noticing his reaction to the tubing. “It doesn’t matter now. We’ll be able to use all of this. They are mostly pain meds and shit, but we’ll use them eventually. You could get higher than a kite on some of this if you were into that kind of thing.”

“Think I’ll pass. Besides, I’m high on life,” he jokes to lighten the mood.

“No shit. Most of the time I think you
are
high. Sometimes you’re like Hannah,” she notes snidely, leaving him to feel insulted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John asks, but he’s not sure he wants to know her answer. Most of the time she is insulting him, and he’d like to point this out to her.

“You’re just in too good of a mood for all the shit that’s always going on. I mean, come on, look around. The world kind of just ended, and you’re always making jokes and being a goof,” she remarks on an angry sneer.

“I’m just like that. Maybe when you’ve seen what I have, then you just become thankful to be alive. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to kill myself like that doc downstairs?” he asks and this time he really doesn’t want to hear her response.

“Do you really want me to answer that?” she mumbles, making John want to ruffle her curly head. The urge to touch her is sometimes unbearable.

“Do we need this much anesthesia? I mean, let’s hope you don’t ever have to do surgery at the farm. Good grief. That would suck. That would really suck if it was me you were doing surgery on,” he says with a grin. Her green eyes squint, and her mouth twists into a mischievous smirk. “Thanks,” John tells her and this time does ruffle her hair which pisses her off.

“I don’t think we need this much, but they don’t need refrigerated, so I’m taking them. They would come in handy if we ever had to do a C-section on my idiot sister that keeps getting pregnant or any type of minor surgery that we can’t put someone all the way out for. We need to find another one of these offices where I might get some antibiotics and some other meds.”

He ignores the jab at Sue because he knows how much Reagan loves her sisters. Their dynamic is slightly off-kilter sometimes as sisterly affection goes, but they still love one another.

“Maybe you’ll have to do a C-section on your other sister someday,” John hints as she hands him more small glass bottles of clear liquid, injectable medicine. How the heck does she know what these are for and what doses to give someone? How does her giant brain even fit in that tiny body?

“Hannie? Get real. How would Hannie ever get pregnant? She’s not even married,” she says distractedly as she reads another label, puts the bottle down and grabs up another.

“Hm, I don’t know. Could happen. Could happen sooner than you think,” he murmurs and looks away. This stops her dead in her tracks, her hand still suspended in mid-air reaching for a shelf.

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” she accuses with a jaunty arch of one eyebrow. John returns the look and tips his head to the side.

“Really? Are you the one who’s blind and not Hannah? How can you not notice anything around you and be so smart?” he asks, earning a disapproving scowl from her.

“Are... are you... interested in Hannah?” she stutters apprehensively and won’t make eye contact. How the heck had she come to that conclusion?

“What? No, I mean I like Hannah. But like a sister, not like that. It’s definitely not me,” he hints. Her eyes glaze over for a second, and then she stares fiercely at him. Bingo!

“No way! Fuck no!” she hisses crudely to which he turns down his mouth with censorious irritation. “He better stay the hell away from her.”

“Who are you, her mom? She’s a big girl, Reagan. I think she’s old enough to make her own decisions about who she wants to be with, and she sure as heck doesn’t need relationship advice from the likes of you,” he sneers.

“Bullshit! That... that big jerk better not lay a paw on her, or I’ll kill him,” she says referring to poor Kelly who’s been judged for his size so negatively his whole life, unless of course you needed him to carry your shot up butt out of a battle zone to an evac point. Kelly told John once that he was a skinny, scrawny kid and used to get bullied in school until he hit his senior year. Bully time was officially over.

“Reagan, grow up. She deserves to be happy. And hey, news flash, so does he. He’s a good guy. He’s very loyal, hon. He’d take care of her for the rest of her life. You’d never have to worry,” John explains more patiently. It dawns on him that this is a bizarre place to be having this conversation. But sometimes when the world fell apart around you, you just had to take the time where you could. She’s pensive for a second before turning to him.

“
I’ll
always take care of Hannie,” she counters coolly.

“Really? You think that’s realistic? What if the farm was overrun? You gonna use your colorful language on bad-guys? Or beat them up with your ninety pound bad self?”

“I weigh more than ninety pounds, stupid,” she counters more childishly this time and juts out her jaw at him.

“Yeah? Well you aren’t qualifying for any heavy weight divisions any time soon, shorty,” he teases and smirks down at her. Sometimes he likes to stand up nice and straight and tall with his shoulders back so that he towers over her. He knows it pisses her off from the glint he’s seen in her eyes, the same glint he sees now.

“I weigh one-sixteen for your information,” she adds cockily.

“Whoa, intimidating,” he goads because he can’t help himself. She punches at his stomach which he easily deflects; then grasps her wrist. “What about the other parts of life you’re not thinking of for Hannah?”

“What do you mean?” she says and yanks at her wrist which he won’t release.

“You know like... marriage and love? I know your sister loves you, but that’s not the same kind of feelings I see when she’s around Kelly,” he tells her. She furrows her brow. John uses the pad of his thumb to stroke her wrist.

“There’s no way she’s interested in Kelly like that. He’s, well, he’s... too big,” she argues. John raises both eyebrows at her in shock. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t mean it the way it came out.

“Well, I can neither confirm nor deny that, but I’d say you might be right on that account,” John says and he chuckles. Her eyes grow wide, and her breathing elevates as she glance back and forth between her wrist and his eyes.

“I... I didn’t mean it like that!” she hisses, shakes her head and yanks her arm again.

“Now who’s the pervert? Pervert,” he drawls and grins. John releases her wrist, and she resumes glaring at him. It’s adorable when she acts like this. It’s also not intimidating, though she means it to be.

“Hannah’s not like that. Not everyone thinks with their dick,” she spits out with embarrassment.

“I certainly hope she doesn’t think with her dick. We might have to have a different kind of talk,” he razzes her which makes her even madder.

“You know what I meant!”

“I know. You are the pervert,” he accuses and her eyes flash fire. “All this dick talk, good grief! Next you’re going to want to talk about mine. And let me tell ya’ it’s off limits till we’re married, woman.” Unless of course she wants to take him up on it right now, or later, or at the farm, or in the horse stalls or the hay loft or the meadow on the high ridge with the yellow wildflowers. It was basically never really off limits.

“What? No, I’m not. I don’t care about your... argh,” she growls in frustration and turns her back to him, deciding instead to review the meds on the shelf she can barely reach. “Just let me get this shit so we can go.”

“Ok, boss. No more talk about sex and dicks and all your kinky perversions. God, focus, woman,” he teases with feigned exasperation, and she glares one more time over her shoulder at him as he smiles broadly. “But for the record, you mark my word that Hannah and Kelly will get together. And you should seriously think about your sister’s happiness and not your own fears.” He dutifully holds the bag again as she crams a few tinier bottles into it. There’s a permanent scowl marking her forehead. John knows she’s thinking about Hannah.

When they’re done, John says, “Let’s shut this place back up the way it was in case we need to come here again. There’s still a lot in the back there that we could probably use some day if we had to.”

He’s referring to the wall-length shelving unit that holds items like bandaging, medical tape and more packages of gauze than he can count. John is in serious mission mode again and the teasing and talking is done. They don’t have a use for any of the other items at present, and there’s no sense in taking all of it and more importantly taking up room on the horses when they might need to haul other items. Doc already has more bandaging and tape and gauze and sterilizing solution than they’ll use in ten years. Hopefully.

“Yeah, ok,” she agrees as they leave the room. Reagan is also re-focused and alert. John rolls and places the bag in his backpack, and Reagan helps him get it onto his back again.

“Ready?” he asks, and she nods as they leave the room cautiously and return to the hallway. A chill of apprehension runs up his spine right before he hears voices coming toward them.

Chapter Nine

Hannah

“Grandpa, can I come in?” Hannah asks with a knock from the doorway of her grandfather’s study. She has just finished folding the laundry in the mud-room. She and Em had brought it all in from the clothing line outside just off of the laundry room, and the young waif had helped Hannah to fold and sort everything.

“Absolutely, honey. I always have time for one of my favorite girls,” her grandfather says with great affection.

Hannah closes the door behind her, uses her cane to find her way to one of the overstuffed chairs in front of his desk where she knows he is sitting on the opposite side.

“What are you working on?” she inquires because she hears him fussing with something.

“Oh, nothing much. I thought I heard something on this radio the other day, so I was just double checking. It’s always static nowadays. But if I heard right, then it could be someone trying to make radio contact again out there. Maybe our government or the President. You just never know,” he offers wisely.

The room smells of stale pipe smoke and old books. Some people might find these odors offensive, but to Hannah they just remind her of her cherished grandfather and his wonderful, creative genius.

“How long do you think this will go on? Or do you think it will ever get better?” she asks.

He sighs deeply before responding. “I don’t know, Hannah. I really don’t. But if I’m being honest with you, then I will say that I think that in my lifetime this is going to be the way it is. Maybe when you and your sisters get a little older things might get better. Maybe you’ll all help our country to get better,” he answers honestly.

“Oh,” Hannah laments. “I kind of thought as much. I mean I don’t want things to go back to the way they were, not exactly. Our country, our world was so... I don’t know how to say it. In a hurry? Everything was so out of control,” she says.

“I would have to agree with you on that one, Hannah. The world has been a mess for the last fifty years if you ask me, and it all led up to this happening. I’m not sure why it came as such a surprise to everyone out there that it even happened,” her grandfather admits and puff puffs on his pipe.

“Yeah,” Hannah agrees softly.

“Now, what did you really want to talk to me about?” he asks perceptively. He knows her all too well. Reagan has told her many times that she doesn’t hide her feelings well enough, and that she should be more judicious on how she expresses herself around others.

“Um, I don’t know,” Hannah lies.

“Hannah, you girls all know that you can talk to me and your grandmother about anything. Sometimes it’s best to just say it, get it off your chest. It’ll probably make you feel better if it has you this upset,” Grandpa says softly. Hannah takes a deep breath and exhales.

“How did you know that you were in love with Grams?”

“Ah, this is the topic, eh? You want to talk to me about love?” he asks and Hannah blushes with embarrassment. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Hannah. Love is the only thing that matters, honey. Not money and fame and expensive, big homes, none of it- especially not anymore. How did I know I loved Maryanne? I guess when she saw me at my worst, my lowest, my poorest and she never ran off to find something better, someone better, a quicker better. I was only just starting out when we met, you know. And boy was I some kind of arrogant joke. Thought I was something, though. I was cocky and way too arrogant from working in the big city hospitals. Of course, it helped that I was damn good looking then,” he adds with a chuckle which makes Hannah laugh, too. It feels so normal to be sitting in Grandpa’s study talking and laughing like they used to. He continues his story.

“And Maryanne, she let me know my place real quick. She wasn’t for the showy, braggy behavior. She was all about a person’s character. And when I met her I just felt like God had put this one person, this one woman on this great big earth just for me. That was it. I just knew. And later when we were married and the babies didn’t come and I stuck by her, that’s when she knew. Sometimes you gotta get through some of the bad together to know how good the good really is,” he reminisces and Hannah feels tears spring to her eyes at his touching, powerful love declaration of his marriage to her most cherished grandmother.

“Can... can love be scary?” she asks timidly, feeling stupid and gauche.