The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (44 page)

“Remember, these aren’t good for long
distance,” Reagan reiterates as her husband had earlier today. “You
use your pistol for that.”

As they exit the barn a
different way than they came in, Paige hears the continuation of
people firing at one another. Sue is on the attack in John and
Reagan’s room. The neighbor, Bertie Reynolds, is in the other
bedroom on the second floor, doing the same. The new woman who’d
been chained to a freak’s cabin is on the first floor using the
windows there with Doc. Talia is in Sam’s bedroom on the second
floor shooting out of the two opposing windows sporadically to add
to the enemy’s confusion. And little Samantha is behind
the med
shed
moving furtively around in the dark sniping people. She is to cover
all of the buildings near the house, including the house and
flanking up around behind it to the equipment shed, as well. Gavin
is ensuring that no men come around the front of the house to sneak
into it or onto the porch. Paige and Reagan are covering the horse,
hog and cattle barns, using them for cover and to add to the
overall chaos of the scene. They split
up,
and Paige goes toward the back
of the chicken coop while Reagan runs for the area near the horse
barn. Nobody shoots at them, which is nothing short of a giant
miracle. They haven’t been spotted yet thanks to the spotlights
likely blinding the men.

Just as she is rounding the
corner, a man comes barreling toward her from around the other end
of the coop. Paige barely hesitates before blasting him with the
shotgun. She steps back for just a second, hiding around the
building again before risking a peek. The sharp recoil of
the
shotgun
surprised her. She hadn’t expected that. Two more men reveal
themselves by standing under a spotlight maybe twenty yards from
her. She’s not sure if that’s out of range for the shotgun, but
she’s about to find out. Her indecision is interrupted by a loud
explosion followed by the horrific sound of men shrieking and
bawling. Sections of the farm are booby-trapped for fights like
this. They’ve apparently wandered into one and are either on fire
or blown to bits.

Both men under the light
turn to look, so Paige shoots the one in the back. The range
is
fine
.
The other man she grazes to the left rear shoulder. She fires again
and misses. Damn. She can’t remember how many bullets this shotgun
holds. She doesn’t want to be wasteful. He goes down bellowing in
anger and pain. He is literally cursing her out, although he has no
idea where or who she is. Now her directive is to move again per
the soldiers’ battle instructions. They are only to take a few
shots from any one position. She’s pretty sure she needs more
bullets for the shotgun from her back
pocket
but doesn’t have time.

Paige hears Reagan popping
off three more rounds in quick succession. She certainly doesn’t
know whether or not that is from the shotgun or the pistol she
carried. Guns were strategically placed
around
the farm before the men
left. Reagan told her that this is what they do every single time
the men leave the farm for any reason. If the house is attacked and
overrun, they can get out and hopefully get to one of the guns. She
sends up a prayer that her new friend is all right.

Moving quickly, avoiding
the lighted areas, Paige sprints behind the detached garage. It’s
almost pitch dark in this
area
which creeps her out. She draws her
handgun and slings the shotgun over her shoulder. She needs to add
more bullet
thingys
to it. She
low
shuffles to the edge of the garage
and glances around it. Men are scattering everywhere. Paige watches
as one climbs the back stairs to the main house but is met with a
round from Doc’s rifle or shotgun. He immediately re-shuts the
kitchen door and probably locks it.

Another man shoots and
shatters the
glass
somewhere near the front of the house. If things
get any worse, then everyone outside is to make their way closer to
the house to protect the children inside. They have no idea what
men like this would do with them or their precious children. They
could kill them, abandon the kids, kill Doc or destroy the farm.
After killing so many of their men, Paige is quite sure that her
fate at the hands of these men will not be kind. Her small group
had run into men like these before, but not in such big numbers. It
hadn’t gone well for her group. It was before she and Talia had
learned
to defend themselves
better
, or learned
just to run
.

Paige chooses a small cluster of men
who look like they are thinking about flanking the farmhouse. They
sprint around the back of their pick-up truck to apparently
regroup. Paige presses her back tightly to the cement block wall
and doesn’t dare take a breath. A high-power rifle round sings out
from the horse barn area, followed by more screaming from a man.
Reagan has made her way there to her favorite rifle, as she calls
it. From what Paige saw on that furtive glance around the building,
there are still close to twenty men in the scattered
group.

A trickle of sweat runs
down her forehead. She’s too scared to move in order to wipe it
away.
She hears the men drawing
closer.
She holds her breath, lest the
vapor of it hitting the cold night air will give her away. They
darn near walk right past her hidden in the concealing shadows of
the garage wall. She waits until they pass. She waits another
second until they are
basked
under the illumination of the garage’s single
flood light spilling into the barnyard. Then she raises the pistol
and takes aim. She squeezes off one round and hits a man in the
buttocks. Her next shot misses her target. A long range
round
hits the
man
from
Reagan’s rifle. Then all hell breaks loose for Paige. Men she
hadn’t seen before come running toward her from the last remaining
truck and are shooting rapidly at her. She
shoots
three more quick rounds and
dashes. She doesn’t even know if she hit any of them, and she’s not
sticking around to find out. Paige literally dives down into the
weeds and crawls on her stomach away from the danger. Another
window explodes in the McClane house, followed by a woman’s scream
this time.

“Don’t shoot
‘er
,” a man shouts
loudly behind her.

“Fuck that,”
another yells
.
“She shot Mac.”

Paige knows they are
talking about her. They
ensue
in an all-out argument as Paige
finally manages to get to her feet. She stumbles over something,
almost falls but keeps her balance long enough to run. Peering over
her shoulder, she sees one of them coming at her. She barks
off
a round
from her handgun while trying to continue
running
forward. That’s when
she runs into a wall. Although it’s not a wall. The wall is a man,
a
very large
man.

“Got
‘er
,” he yells.

Paige tries to swing her pistol up to
shoot him, but the man knocks away her hand, causing her gun to
fall somewhere. Then he grabs her by the throat.

“How many of our men did you shoot,
bitch?”

Paige doesn’t answer. She
can’t. He’s nearly crushing her esophagus. Instead of waiting for
her reply, he slaps her square on the cheek. Then the man yanks her
arm roughly, throws her shotgun to his friend and hauls her along
with him to the spotlighted area. She makes a break for it,
wriggling free. A second later he has her
around
the waist as she kicks and
fights against him. He’s too damn
strong
. He’s holding her like a sack
of
potatoes
as if her wrestling around is just amusing him.

Men in his group are hiding
behind the trucks and lighting bottles with rags sticking out the
top. He joins up with them. One of them runs forward and tries to
throw the flaming bottle onto the front porch. He takes a shot from
Sue in the attic and falls dead. Unfortunately, the bottle explodes
right at the base of the porch. If it isn’t put out, the fire could
spread onto the wood porch and into the house. Talia and Maddie are
in that
house
. Her little Maddie is in the basement where she wouldn’t be
able to get out if the house is engulfed in flames. Paige’s heart
races
harder,
and she feels like vomiting as she watches another man run
toward the front of the house where Gavin should still
be.

“You people come
out
or I’ll kill
this bitch right now!” her captor shouts above the melee and comes
out from behind the shelter of the trucks.

“Let me go. Don’t come out! Stay
inside! Don’t come out here, Dr. McClane!” she calls to Herb. Paige
fights against his hold, causing the big man to club her over the
head with the butt of his gun while still keeping her
upright.

“You got to the count of twenty to
throw down your guns and come out!” he calls out.

His words come out fuzzy. Paige’s mind
is cloudy, too. She wonders if he hit her with his pistol hard
enough to cause permanent damage.

His group starts to
merge
and gather
in a cluster near them as her vision blurs. Some come out of
hiding. Paige wants the family to shoot them, even if it means
these men kill her in the process. The freaks are feeling more
confident since he’s holding a gun to her head. They begin jeering
the family, her family, as the end of Paige’s life moves as if
spinning on a slow-motion real in a bad action movie.

Chapter Twenty-one

Sam

The
bad
men have Paige. Sam can see
them from her concealed position at the dark,
farthest
end of the equipment
shed. A big man has Paige, holding her like a rag doll. He’s
yelling and carrying on, but Sam can’t really tell
exactly
what he is
saying because they are too far away. The way he is motioning with
grandiose, she believes that he is using Paige as a bargaining chip
to get what he wants. She’s going to have to do something. They’re
on their own out here. The men are long gone in another town
fighting other
bad
men who’d attacked their clinic yesterday. It’s up
to them to save Paige and themselves, as well, from whoever these
horrid people might be.

Her hands shake violently, matching
the breaths that she expels. She has to do this. She’s a better
shot than Sue, so she knows that her older adopted sister won’t
take it. Reagan is an even better shot, but Sam has no idea where
she is and why she hasn’t done so already. Do one of these men have
her somewhere, too? Has she been killed, or does she just not have
a good enough angle for a clean shot? And why hasn’t Gavin done
something? There haven’t been any shots fired from his position for
a while.

Sam has shot and killed two
men already tonight. She knows she killed them and not just injured
them because they fell hard and never moved again. What would Grams
think of this? Would she be disappointed in her? Would she be
worried about Sam’s soul?
She
sure as heck is. Taking a life is a
sin. Freely giving your life to another without putting up a fight
for it should be a sin, too. She knows what it feels like to be in
Paige’s position. She also knows what it feels like to lose this
fight, and she has no intention of allowing that to happen to her
best friend’s sister. Simon would never forgive her if she didn’t
do everything she could to save Paige.

Sam takes a deep breath,
rises from her squatted position, intending to slide inside the
building and move closer. A hand grabs her from behind, covers her
mouth as another large hand slides around her waist, lifting her
clean off the ground. She yelps a stifled scream of fright and
surprise. Now she’ll never be able to save Paige. She’s gone and
gotten herself captured, as well. She’d
been
so careful not to get
flanked.

“Shh, it’s me,” a familiar voice
whispers into her ear. “Don’t move, Sam. It’s just me.”

Sam
nods
and Simon releases her. She
looks over her shoulder to also discover John a few feet away with
his back against the wall of the shed.

“How’d you guys get here?” she
whispers unsteadily as her poor heart beats like that of a
hummingbird’s.

“We found out that they were headed
this way and came in off the main road,” he says. “Did they use the
oil well road?”

“Yes, yes, they did!” she
says, not letting her voice get loud. “They drove in from the oil
well road that comes in
through
the back of the
Johnson’s.”

Simon looks over to John and they both
nod. “That’s what we figured. We’re parked up on the road. We ran
in. The other men are here, too.”