The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (41 page)

“We just need to do some foraging for our kids. Please. My wife’s in the car with our two kids. We’re passin’ through, ok? We don’t mean any harm. I’m tryin’ to get my family to Oklahoma. To my folks’ place,” the man pleads his case further.

“You armed?” her companion asks brusquely. He never speaks this way. The man starts babbling in double-time.

“No, sir. We’re not armed. Look, I had a gun, but we ran outta bullets a long time ago. My dad’s pistol. I never took the time to learn anything about guns, though. What an idiot, right? Thought I was gonna be some hot-shot commodities trader and look what that got me,” the man whines. This guy is getting on her nerves.

“Turn around and go back toward the front of the store. When you get there, count to fifty and then come back in for what you need,” John tells him firmly.

“Ok, man. Like I said, I just want to get my wife outta these cities. We have two year old twins. I was still in college...” he explains.

“Who cares? What caliber is your gun?” John rudely cuts him off. Reagan almost laughs.

“Caliber? Oh, it’s a .45. My dad’s gun,” he explains again as if he’s afraid they’ll judge him for playing with his dad’s gun.

What a tool. Reagan remembers so many people in their country turning against firearms and the strict gun laws that had passed over the years, even though everyone had said it could never happen. Her grandfather had always been dead set against any and all gun legislation, although many of his friends had not agreed with him. Now Reagan’s quite sure that all of the unarmed people in the country were wishing they hadn’t been so yielding to the wishes and demands of those set against the second amendment.

“Get out of this city before dark, ya’ hear? Now go,” John barks at the guy who shuffles quickly away.

“Thanks, man. I mean it. Thank you, sir” he says as he makes his retreat to the front of the store again.

Within a few moments John is back, and he takes her by the elbow as they go out through the delivery area and exit into the setting sun. When they are about a mile away and hiding in an alley again, John takes Jacob from her, and they rest a minute.

“Why’d you ask him his caliber?” Reagan asks as she tries not to notice the dead body across the alleyway lying face down.

“Gave him a magazine. It’s the least I could do. I could see his wife out in their car. They both weren’t much older than you. It looked like she was holding two little kids. He’ll be lucky if he gets to Oklahoma, but that mag of ammo might help,” he tells her and subconsciously pats Jacob on his little back.

How can he pat this baby so soothingly, give a spare magazine that they might need to a virtual stranger- an obvious incompetent idiot at that- and kill three men with his bare hands in the same day?

“I’m surprised you didn’t invite him back to the farm,” she ridicules with a grin. He smiles and forces her to take a drink of her nasty, vitamin-infused water. He does the same, sharing out of hers without permission.

“Was going to but I figured you’d throw a fit and beat me up or something,” he teases and pulls her to her feet again.

He straps the baby carrier onto his chest and slides Jacob into it. How the heck did he even know how that thing worked? It looked like a bunch of confusing straps, buckles and strips of material to her. The kid goes back to sleep, sucking his thumb, pressed tightly to John’s chest.

He turns directly toward her. “Let’s get the heck out of this city before dark. You ok?”

“No, let’s get the
hell
out of this city before dark,” she corrects with the more appropriate swear word, and he grins down at her. She almost smiles back.

The sun is setting at their backs as they sprint in a completely different direction than the first time they came in. She was expecting him to take her past all of the same stores and down the same roads and alleyways that they’d used when they had come earlier, but he doesn’t and they end up in the alley where the items are still stashed in the silver car.

John grabs the two bags, hands a lightweight one to Reagan, and they keep moving. He uses all new streets and alleys and buildings for cover and passage this time, and she’s completely lost by the time they come to the same park behind where their horses should be awaiting their return.

He stops behind the public restrooms and holds Jacob so that Reagan can make use of the facility. First he checks it for safety and then tells her to be quick to which she frowns at him. And he calls her bossy! When she re-emerges, he is zipping his fly, obviously using the stop for the same reason, so she raises her eyebrows at him, mockingly suggesting he should hurry, as well. He actually smiles and shakes his head at her right as the first bullet whizzes past her ear and hits the building, chipping the concrete block and throwing debris toward her face.

John literally snatches her and rounds the back of the building where he waits, listening.

“Shit! Where’d that come from?” she whispers frantically.

“South,” he says. “No matter what, don’t stop. Don’t shoot. Don’t do anything. Just run with him to the horses, and if I go down, don’t stop for me. Don’t come back for me.”

Reagan’s eyes widen in fear and panic, and she shakes her head to disagree for the first time during this excursion. John grasps her shoulders firmly and forces her to look at him.

“Listen to me, Reagan. Take him. Here,” he says and unclips the baby carrier and re-clips it onto Reagan’s shoulders and around her waist, tightening it to fit her more snugly. Another bullet hits the building corner closer to where they hide, crouching. John peeks quickly around the side and then turns back to her. “We don’t know how many there are. Just run straight for the horses. I’ll cover us. Reagan, don’t argue. Just do it.”

His tone is so intense that she forces herself to nod. John unscrews his silencer and stashes it in Reagan’s pack which is easier for him to reach. He flicks the safety off on his M16 and takes his pistol out, also clicking the safety to ready and cocking a round into the chamber.

“Stand up. When I say run, you run your tail off. Hey, it’ll be ok. I’ve got your back,” he whispers and touches her cheek.

“Who’s got yours?” Reagan asks and leans into his hand briefly.

“I’ve got my own back. Just do as I say,” he orders, touches her cheek, plunks a kiss to her forehead and turns toward the edge of the building again. “Ok, run,” he whispers.

Reagan can hear the sound of John’s rifle as he fires it and the return fire from their enemies. She doesn’t turn around, though, and it’s probably because she’s carrying a helpless baby against her chest. She can’t think of John right now. She has to make it to those horses and get this kid back to the farm. The baby babbles loudly as he’s being bounced around in a way that he’s never felt before. It isn’t like most people do all-out sprints while carrying their babies. He quiets down rather quickly, probably from confusion at the bizarre jostling.

More gunfire cracks noisily into the darkening sky, and then a final shot rings out right as Reagan’s horses come into view in a low-lying ravine below her. She stops dead in her tracks.

Has he been shot? Is he dead? John seems so invincible, but Reagan is not foolish enough to believe that he truly is. Nobody is anymore. The thought sickens her that he could be lying back there in that park injured, bleeding or worse yet, dead. Why is there no more gunfire? Are they coming for her next? It’s enough to spur her into motion again, and she forgets the burdening backpack and the weight of the baby at her front and pushes through the burning in her lungs and the fatigue in her legs as she runs the rest of the way to her horse. Reagan jams the rifle quickly into the scabbard attached to Harry’s saddle and sticks her foot in the stirrup. The other horses will just have to be left behind. She can’t make a fast getaway with two extra horses and the baby.

A hand grasps her mouth from behind, stifling the scream she attempts and the alarm she feels at being grabbed.

“Easy, it’s me. It’s just me,” John says into her hair.

She turns and almost flings herself into his arms, but Jacob would get squished in the process. John grabs her by either side of her face and nods, though, and it’s poignant enough to express how they both feel at the moment. Her lower lip trembles, tears threatening to spill over from anxiety and then the sudden release of that anxiety.

“We’re cool. It’s clear. It’s ok. Just a couple of morons wantin’ our autographs or something,” he jokes.

She knows that he’s killed them, but whether or not he’s serious about it only being a couple of people or twenty, she’ll never know. For all the shots that rang out it could’ve been a battalion.

“Ok,” Reagan gasps on a near sob. Her relief at seeing him again cannot be held back, though she tries. He plunks a kiss to her forehead and releases her just as quickly. Her hands shake horribly.

John stows the bags as fast as he can manage on the extra horse’s saddle, using the metal clips. His hands are so steady, and he seems completely unbothered by this latest skirmish. Next, he ties the third horse to Reagan’s saddle as she’ll be handling him since John will have the baby.

“Up you go. Give me the squirt, ok?” John tells her.

Reagan nods as he takes Jacob. They leave this God forsaken city as the sun is setting, and John kindly hands her the other set of night vision goggles like a would-be suitor offering his lady a flower. Her hands are still shaking, but John doesn’t notice or chooses not to comment for which she is thankful.

When they get to the top of the highest ridge overlooking the city, Reagan glances back and can see the bedlam that has taken over again in the once-beautiful town of Clarksville. There is gunfire, killing, people sprinting here and there, cars set ablaze, a minor explosion of some sorts, and general chaos and violence. Even though they are quite a distance away, a scream can be heard now and then, dictating the terror that is taking place down below them.

Reagan is glad they were able to get so many much-needed supplies, especially the medical and farming items, but she’s also pleased to be leaving. She’s happy they are going home to the safety and comfort of McClane Farm and their family members who await them. And she’s glad that John is going with her.

Chapter Twenty-four

Hannah

The screen door to the kitchen slams open, startling Hannah who is deep in thought as she screws a lid on a quart-sized jar that contains the last batch of this season’s harvest of corn. The women have been canning all day, and she and Sue are finishing it. Everyone has also been on pins and needles all day worrying for John and Reagan. Hannah has heard a lot of murmured conversations throughout this frenetic day between Derek, Kelly and Grandpa on how they will handle the situation if they need to get reinforcements to them.

“Is it John?” Sue asks and moves around the island to be near Derek who has just come in. Kelly is right behind him, and they’d been out in the med shed “checking weapons,” whatever that means.

“Yeah,” Derek answers. Grandpa has also entered the kitchen from somewhere else in the house, probably his study. “We got ya’, yellow tail one,” Derek speaks into their communicator.

“We’re cool, over” John replies.

“Good news, brother,” Derek returns.

Why do these men not use more words to communicate? The whole lot of them is frustrating for Hannah who cannot read emotions on people’s faces.

“Thank God,” Grams says from behind her as she expels a deep breath.

“How’s the Old Macdonald?” John inquires presumably after the farm.

“Locked down and tight, over,” Derek tells his brother.

“Bringing a permanent guest, over,” John says.

Is that code for something? This is another annoyance for Hannah- when they speak in their weird Army lingo because she already can’t understand so much of what they communicate.

“Come again, over?” Derek asks.

“Orphan, over,” John states simply, much to Hannah’s already-heightened frustration.

Everyone is quiet, trying to figure this out, but Derek and Kelly discuss it without the confusion that everyone else seems to be feeling.

“Kid. Must’ve found it,” Kelly says, referring to a child.

Kelly called the child “it”? That wasn’t very nice.

“Age, over?” Derek inquires of his brother into the satellite walkie-talkie.

“Ten months, over,” John returns after a few seconds of static.

“Oh my goodness,” Sue exclaims, and Grams follows suit.

Hannah lowers her gaze to the floor. This is a calamitous event. There are a million questions floating through her mind all at once, but she knows that Derek won’t ask John any of them.

“Roger that, over,” Derek replies. Oh, irritating man!

Is the child a girl, a boy and what happened to the parents?

“Black bear actual, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, home tomorrow, over,” John says poignantly.

“We’ll be waiting, over and out,” Derek ends the call.

“Oh my, they’re bringing home a baby? What could’ve happened?” Grams asks the room.

The children are still outside playing because Hannah can hear their giggles of delight, and the dog and pups are yipping and barking along in the merriment. Dinner has come and gone, the chores completed and soon the house will be still and silent again.

“It’s hard telling, Maryanne,” Grandpa tries to soothe Grams. “Perhaps the child was lost from his or her parents, or they were killed. Either way we have plenty of room here for another child, and I’m sure John and Reagan have taken the baby because there weren’t any other options.”

“I agree, Grandpa,” Sue chimes in. “The baby must’ve been abandoned or something or they wouldn’t be bringing her here.”

The family continues to discuss the baby and how he or she has come to be under the care and protection of John and Reagan as Hannah continues to dwell on Kelly and their tryst in the back of the barn the other day. The feel of his strong, sure hands on her thighs as he lifted her into midair against the rough barn wall, and the coarseness of his beard against the sensitive skin of her chin was simply too much for her senses. She has never been intoxicated before, but if this was how it felt, then no wonder people became alcoholics. Hannah subconsciously touches her fingertips to her lips and remembers how they had felt under Kelly’s excellent tutelage as a warm blush spreads up her neck and onto her cheeks.