The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (18 page)

His large hands linger only briefly at her waist before they travel south to cup her bottom as he lifts her against the old barn wall. At six five he would surely have to stoop quite low to kiss her. She doesn’t mind her new position, though. Kelly’s mouth expertly moves over hers as his tongue pushes into her mouth and retreats and plunges again, leaving her breathless and panting and mindless. She has almost no experience with kissing, but, to Hannah, it seems like Kelly has enough for the both of them because he seems like quite the expert. Hannah clings onto his shoulders for dear life as she comprehends somewhere in the recesses of her mind that her dress is shoved up almost about her waist and that his huge hands are gripping into the undersides of her thighs and kneading and moving and sliding against her skin, creating a frenetic friction.

Wantonly, Hannah wraps her legs about his middle, and immediately his hands travel north, north until the one rests on her breast and the other grips the back of her head and neck to hold her in place. She cries out softly. His hand moves into her hair, tangling, twisting. His other hand caresses her breast gently until he skims lightly over her nipple, causing her to catch her breath and freeze momentarily before he resumes their kiss. She’s never had anyone touch or kiss her in this manner, and it makes every nerve ending in her body come alive all at once. Kelly’s touch is more than persistent; it is almost rough, and she loves it. He presses his chest against hers, moving his hand back down to cup her bottom. As a person with other senses that are at all times heightened to make up for having no sense of sight, it’s almost too much for her to bear, and she whimpers against his mouth. He pulls away abruptly.

Kelly grasps her about the waist and sets her back to her feet where he leans his forehead against hers while they both catch their breath. Hannah, having no experience with this sort of thing, doesn’t know for sure but she’s guessing that Kelly is just as moved by their encounter as she is and having trouble coming to terms with it, as well.

“Hannah,” he exhales in a rush of unstable air. She doesn’t answer because she is incapable of speech at the moment and will have to get back to him another time on it.

Neither of them moves or says anything more for some time, and Hannah is just fine with standing there forehead to forehead, breath mingling, fingers interlaced between them. His fingertips stroke gently, lightly over the backs of her hands.

“I need to take you back,” he finally says calmly and clearly, more under control, more Kelly-like.

Hannah doesn’t answer but simply nods while he picks up her discarded cane from the ground and kindly hands it to her. They walk arm in arm back to the farmhouse where he leads her up the back stairs and leaves her at the door without another word. No words are necessary at this point. Hannah has all the answers she’s been searching for this day.

Chapter Ten

Reagan

The voices coming at them are moving fast, so John shoves Reagan behind him until she is back inside the anesthesiologist’s office. He closes and locks the door quietly and waits a moment. She holds her breath and waits for him to make a decision. John turns the lock on the knob, the sound reverberating loudly in the mausoleum tomb this hospital has become. It’s hard to believe her grandfather used to do rounds here twice a week to check on his local patients.

The indiscriminate voices draw closer, and Reagan hears the soft weeping of a child or more than one child. The grimace on John’s face lets her know that he plans to open the door. He signals with two fingers for her to stand on the opposite side of the door, safely hidden behind it.

Unlocking the door again, John turns the knob and cracks the door just slightly to listen.

“...I think they’re gone,” a woman’s voice says rather frantically.

“I don’t know, Jess. They could still be following us. I’m dripping blood again. We should find somewhere to hide,” a man half whispers quickly.

“Daddy, I’m scared,” a child cries out.

“Dad, we gotta go. I heard them,” an older boy’s voice interjects breathlessly as if he’s just jogged up to them.

John’s obviously had enough. He makes brief eye contact with her, nods, which she returns, and opens the door the rest of the way. Popping his head into the hall he gives a short, “Psst.”

Reagan stays where she is because he holds his palm up to her without looking directly over at her. She doesn’t dare disobey him and barge forward.

“Hey, man, over here,” John whispers and a moment later the entire family cautiously, but quickly enters the doctor’s office with her and John.

There is indeed a mother and father, two small girls and a boy who doesn’t look much over fourteen or so. They look terrible and frightened. The fear in their eyes is evident, but their appearances are what concern Reagan. The children are thin, the parents, as well, and they are dirty, haggard. The father is holding his hand over a bandage on his arm that has seeped through with blood.

More voices further away echo through the halls, so John expediently shuts the door. Depending on who is coming after these people and what weapons they have, that wood door isn’t about to stop them. John realizes this, too, and ushers her and the family to the secret meds room.

Once inside, Reagan and John both click on their flashlights and try to shush the children and family, who look surprised at the hidden room. John pulls the panel shut again.

“Why didn’t you lock the outer door?” Reagan asks quietly.

“Don’t want them to think anyone’s hiding in the office. They won’t find this room, but if we locked the outer room’s door and they got in, then they’d know something was up. Doors tend not to lock themselves from the inside,” he explains patiently. Reagan notices that the mother keeps looking at her and John’s rifles with trepidation and new fear.

“It’s ok. We aren’t going to hurt you,” Reagan explains. “Try to keep the kids quiet.” The woman does as she’s told and presses her two little girls to her abdomen.

It doesn’t take long before they hear the stalkers of this family. She and John both click off their flashlights so as not to take the chance of any shaft of light giving away their position. They listen in dead silence. Even the children must realize the importance of being quiet as a group of men enter the anteroom but leave just as quickly. John turns his flashlight back on.

“What’s going on here?” John asks bluntly. There is tenseness in the set of his shoulders that Reagan is starting to recognize.

“We live just outside of the city and our neighborhood was taken over by bad people. We heard rumors that there are some temporary military bases set up for people where it’s safe. We came to Clarksville hoping to find somewhere safer, anywhere safer,” the father answers. His brown eyes are deeply troubled.

“That didn’t happen,” the mother answers.

“Those temporary bases are gone, done now. It got too out of control, and they were abandoned What are your names?” Reagan asks. “I’m Reagan and he’s John.”

“I’m Jess and this is my son, Peter, and our daughters, Frannie and Lila,” the mother explains with a sad smile.

This woman is just trying to keep her kids alive, and Reagan can understand her anxiety over it. This woman could be any mother in America right now. She could be Sue. Reagan can’t imagine going on the run with her niece and nephew. This is no environment for children.

“I’m Paul,” their father replies. “Those jerks out there tried to take our food and supplies yesterday, and we’ve been hiding from them ever since. We were able to get away, but they did get my son’s backpack that had some of our food in it. Plus, I suspect maybe they were thinking of taking Jess.” There is a lot of unspoken insinuation in those words that Reagan doesn’t want to dwell on. His eyes now refuse to meet anyone’s gaze as he considers what could’ve been his wife’s fate.

“They shot my husband, too. That’s why his arm is bleeding,” Jess supplies.

“She can help with that. Reagan’s a doctor, and we just found some supplies that will help her take care of it for you,” John offers which surprises Reagan that he’d reveal anything like this to them. Obviously he doesn’t feel like they are a threat.

“How many of them are there, Paul?” John asks and Reagan sure as hell hopes he doesn’t plan on going after them.

“Four, there’s four men and they have guns. Obviously,” he says and gestures to his wounded arm. John says nothing but nods solemnly. Reagan’s seen this look on him before.

“I’ll be back,” John says without hesitation, but Reagan grabs his arm. Her eyes grow wide with agitation. “Come on, Reagan. Come outside with me for a second.”

When they go back into the doctor’s office, minus the terrorized family, Reagan turns on him.

“What the hell? What do you mean you’ll be right back?” Reagan exclaims on a whisper.

“I need to take care of that problem,” John replies so calmly, but Reagan grabs his forearm.

“No way. Fuck! You aren’t leaving me here with them, John. I’ll go with you. I can help,” she pleads frantically. Jesus, what is he thinking?

“No. I need you to stay here and keep them safe in case those guys come back here before I get to them. They don’t have weapons to defend themselves,” he tells her.

“No way...”

“Yes. I told you not to argue with me. Stay. Reagan, stay here,” he orders firmly, his blue eyes flashing, which pisses her off beyond rationality. “Go back in the secret room and wait for me. I’ll knock twice, ok? I’ll be back, babe. Don’t be scared.”

He squeezes her hand gently, lays his other against her cheek and turns away. The metal of his gun safety being disengaged makes a hollow clank in the empty room.

She doesn’t answer, but glares angrily. Suddenly she feels very alone. She also mentally rolls her eyes at him. It makes her angry as hell that he knows that she’s scared. Reagan watches helplessly as he crosses to the door, peeks out and disappears from her line of sight in the blink of an eye. She wants to scream and rant and rave at him. She wants to yell at him to stay with her, not split up. She wants mostly to tell him that she needs his protection and needs him to stay with her because she’s afraid of him being killed. But there’s no way in hell that she’d ever tell him that part. And now she has to tell herself that she’s afraid of him being killed because she is worried about making it home to the farm safely if he’s killed. These little lies she convinces herself of come easily because the truth is too hard to face.

Once inside the room again, Reagan tries to explain the situation to the family who seems frightened that John would go and purposely seek out danger.

“He’s an Army Ranger so don’t worry,” she tells the dad and then flicks off her flashlight. They stand together, huddled together in the dark that holds so many terrifying secrets in this hospital of death.

Less than two minutes later Reagan hears the familiar rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire followed by shorter, single tap-tap-taps. Then a moment later another tap-tap sounds off even farther away. Then she hears nothing, just silence again. Her breathing picks up pace, and she’s thankful they stand in the dark so that the family doesn’t see the pure panic rolling through her in waves.

Moments turn to minutes that turn to a quarter of an hour that turns to an hour, or at least it feels that way when it is probably only less than ten full minutes. A moment later two raps knock at the door, and then it swings inward. John stands before her. He’s not winded, nor is he jittery. He appears very sedate.

“What happened?” she blurts in a rush. “Did you find them?” His eyes tell her that he has, but he shakes his head instead.

Is he just trying to hide it from the children who all three look on in expectant fear of the big guy with the guns and muscles? John is now carrying a shotgun with a sling, and two pistols that don’t belong to him stick out of the waistband of his pants. He tosses a black Nike duffle bag onto the carpeted floor.

“Hey, that’s my bag they took!” the son exclaims before kneeling to rummage through it.

The adults all exchange a look of understanding, knowing full well how John has come to be in possession of this boy’s stolen bag. There isn’t much left in it, but at least he has it again.

“We’re cool. They’re gone. Perimeter’s clear,” he replies easily. “Come on out. Let’s get this man’s wound treated.”

Reagan uses her medical kit, which she had stashed in her backpack for their trip, to treat Paul’s bullet wound in the former doctor’s office. She pulls on a pair of tight latex gloves that snap when she releases them. It’s a familiar sound, one she thought she’d be hearing frequently once she graduated. Now all she ever does is sew people up. It is getting old.

This time John does lock the door. Luckily for Paul, the bullet passed through the fatty tissue and muscle of his bicep and didn’t lodge in bone. And more luckily still is the fact that she’s just found a huge stash of morphine and other local anesthetics in this doctor’s hidden room. He sure as shit shouldn’t feel near as much as she and John had during their stitching sessions at the farm. Poor John hadn’t had any pain blockers at all after he’d been stabbed in the shoulder blade the night of the Reynolds raid.

She loads a small amount of local anesthesia into a shot and injects near Paul’s wound in four different locations. This man’s wife and young daughters sit on a sofa against the far wall so that the little ones don’t have to look at their father being sewn back together or the gore that comes with irrigating and cleaning out a wound. His son stands bravely at his father’s elbow, though. He looks like he would like to puke.

“Look, you can’t stay here. You can’t stay in the city, Paul,” John explains while standing guard near the door.

Reagan doesn’t pay much attention to John, but she is listening intently to what he’s saying. He paces occasionally but mostly sticks by the door. Her hands are steady and sure as she sews the last flap of hanging skin together. She doesn’t think he’ll have residual problems with tightness or pulling from this wound. It should heal up nicely if he’s careful and doesn’t push it or lift anything heavy for a few weeks.