The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (14 page)

“What?”

“Come on. Let’s just go back, ok?” he says as
he takes her hand and pulls her along with the horse. “There’s work
to do. We don’t have time to be out here screwing around and
arguing.”

Sam scowls hard up at him, but he refuses to
look down at her again. He tugs her, forcing her to follow after
him on the narrow path. He gives her the reins to her horse. As the
barns come into view, Simon picks up the pace until he’s dropped
her hand and is pulling away from her.

“Simon, wait,” Sam calls
weakly
.

“I have stuff I need to do,” he barks in a
clipped tone over his shoulder.

He jogs away as if he can’t stand to be near
her a second longer. Sam slumps against the back wall of the horse
barn, far away from the eyes and ears of the family. There she
slides to the ground, ignoring her horse who is impatient to be
returned to her friends. With the reins still in her hands, Sam
draws up her knees and presses her fists to her eyes and cries in
earnest. Simon’s rejection hurts more than she wants to admit. She
thought just perhaps he might have feelings for her like she has
for him and has kept hidden so well all these years. Apparently the
kiss at the clinic had been nothing more than boredom or the idle
experimentation of a young man who has nobody else with whom to
practice. She can handle just about anything that happens to her.
She’s proven that to herself many times over. But the idea of him
leaving the farm is enough to break her.

Chapter Seven

Simon

As usual, the plans change and Simon ends up
going on a quick run for the hydraulic hoses with Cory instead of
with his brother. Derek needs Kelly’s help in the cattle barn. Last
week’s rains had flooded a section in the far west corner and left
the foundation unstable in that area. Erosion can ruin an old barn
like the cattle barn, and Simon knows that Derek and John will need
Kelly’s strength to help dig out the mud and dirt by hand and reset
those barn stones. They’ll likely work on that project well into
the late evening hours.

And so, he and his friend are
moving
around
the town in the
near dark looking for supplies, anything worth taking, and fuel and
tractor parts to finish the harvest. They’ve raided abandoned
homes, garages, sheds and barns many times over the years, as well.
They are usually hunting for any supplies that can be taken back to
the farm or to the town. They’ve found medical supplies, ammo,
sometimes weapons, helpful books, canned goods, bedding, clothing-
especially for the growing kids- and on the rare occasion, coffee
for Doc. Unfortunately, they’ve also seen a lot of dead bodies in
those homes, which are always images that Simon wishes he could
forget. They’ll also scout out for fencing materials. They’ve been
to this city a few times before. Ashland City is or was a small
town, but at one time they did have restaurants, a grocery store, a
few pharmacies, and several car repair shops. Sam went with them
the last time, but that was during the day. For some strange
reason, the cities are usually more dangerous at night. Naturally,
they’ve left her at the farm for this one, and Simon’s glad for it
because she doesn’t need to be in danger. And he doesn’t need to be
around her.

Her confrontation in the woods had left
him unsettled.
He was glad that he didn’t have
to stay at the farm tonight because some of the family was going to
meet in the music room to discuss Jay Hernandez’s group, who have
segregated from their town. Then it was family time.
Simon doesn’t want to be forced into family time with Sam in
the same room. He’s a rat bastard who doesn’t deserve to be in her
presence. When he’d gone to town the other day to work at the
clinic, he’d taken some time and searched out a place to live. Even
though Reagan had gone off the deep end at the idea of him moving
out and so had Sam, Simon feels like it might become necessary.
He’d found a small one-bedroom apartment that didn’t appear to have
been damaged by flooded pipes back when the first winter after the
apocalypse occurred. So many homes and structures were destroyed by
water lines. It would be nothing like living on the McClane
farmstead in that small apartment, but at least he wouldn’t have to
be around Sam on a daily basis and worry about losing his
self-control again.

“Up ahead,” Cory’s voice breaks into his
thoughts.

They are moving on foot through a once
industrialized section of the town where a large shopping center
complete with a small, three screen movie theater and shops had
encroached on the commercial industry there. Simon immediately
spies what Cory has also seen. There is a faint, glowing light,
likely from a fire, coming from a building near the end of the
short street. Even though it’s still early fall, the weather has
been chilly for the past few nights. It appears that someone is
using fire as a source of heat if he were to guess. The last time
they came to this particular city, they didn’t have a whole lot of
trouble. Simon’s hoping for the same again.

“Check it out?” Cory asks.

Simon
wavers
just a moment before answering with a nod.
He’d rather they just get the supplies they need and head back to
the farm, but there could be people up ahead who may need their
help. They aren’t the saviors of the world, but they try to help
when and where they can.

“I’ll flank,” Simon offers, gets a nod
from his friend, and starts out at a slow jog toward the rear of
the building with dim interior illumination. They both wear
headsets
with throat mics so they can
communicate if and when they separate. This sort of communication
with the other members of their team in the field is essential. It
prevents confusion and errors.

Simon creeps to the rear
entrance,
peeks through a broken window
there and doesn’t come up with much. He tries the door. Locked.
Damn. That would’ve made it easier. Now he’ll need another source
of ingress. He may be able to use this locked door once he’s inside
as a point of egress if he needs to get the hell out
quickly.

He checks around the corner and finds the
alleyway empty. A long row of windows, some broken, line the side
of the brick building. It appears to have been an indoor storage
facility of some sort. After trying a few windows, he finally finds
one that has broken panes and is unlocked. Cory should be making
progress in the front, as well.

Simon climbs through the window and
moves silently around in the old building, careful not to knock
into the debris on the floor and the left-behind articles scattered
nearly everywhere. He comes to a storage locker where bunk beds and
cots are lined against the interior walls. As they’d suspected,
people are living in this building. A little girl is dead out
asleep on the bottom bunk of one bed. She is perhaps seven or eight
years old. Under her bent arm is a threadbare stuffed rabbit.
Nobody else resides in the room, but all of the occupants’ items
are in crates and boxes stacked against the wall. Two picture
frames sit near the bed on the floor and contain photographs of a
family
obviously
taken before the
apocalypse. There is a father, mother and three young kids in the
photo, and they seem genuinely happy
posing
for the professionally-snapped and edited
picture.
It was apparently taken before the
apocalypse because they are clean and neat in appearance and not
haggard and tired and dirty like so many people that he’s come
across during the past four years, especially those who come to the
clinic for help and have had a rough go of it.
He
wonders if the other members of this family are still alive or if
this child is an orphan like Jacob and being raised by other
people.

Simon sneaks down the hallway as
quietly as possible, not running into anyone as he goes. Another
locker provides a view of the same, minus a sleeping child.
Personal belongings and items are being kept in plastic storage
containers, and there are two twin-sized beds inside. Tattered
blankets and quilts lay
on
the
beds, and only one bed has a pillow. He quietly backs out of the
room again.

“All clear,” Cory says across the air.
“Families.”

“Got it,” Simon answers in a whisper and
backs slowly down the hall and right out the same window.

They don’t bother with families, especially
ones who seem to be doing fine on their own. There is no sense
going in guns blazing when they are obviously self-sufficient and
trying to establish a community. Even if it is in a formerly
climate-controlled storage unit facility.

He makes it to the other end of the alley
again and meets up with Cory.

“Run into anyone?” Simon asks
of
his friend.

“I saw three adults talking in a big room
where the fire was going. Looks like they’re all living there
together. Saw a couple kids sleeping.”

“Yeah, that’s what I found, too,” Simon
tells him. “I think there are probably a bunch of families in
there. There were emptied out storage units being used as
mini apartments
or
something.”

“Cool,” Cory says as they walk away.
“Whatever works, bro. In Cleveland there was a group of people
living on the second floor of a hospital. It was huge. That
hospital was like city blocks big, man. But they were pretty smart
if you ask me. They had beds, towels, maybe even some water or
power or medicine if any was left.”

Simon nods. Then they slow jog toward a more
densely congested area of stores, gas stations and restaurants.
They already know that the big places like Walmart have already
been stripped clean in most cities. They need gas for their
vehicles, parts for the farm equipment and anything else they deem
as usable. The family relies on them for these types of missions,
and Simon would hate to let them down.

They’ve left the Hummer outside of town, near
a park with a copse of tall, dense trees to keep it concealed.
Whatever items they do find, they’ll need to haul them back to the
vehicle to then be transported home. They won’t, however, be
spending the night in the area. They are needed back home as soon
as they can get there. The last time they came to this city with
Sam, they’d ridden horses since it’s so close to home. Simon’s glad
that Kelly approved the use of the Hum-Vee.

“You know, I was thinkin’ why couldn’t we
just use hooch for the vehicles?” Cory asks as they slow to a walk
and head toward Main Street.

“What do you mean? What the heck is hooch?”
Simon asks, crossing the street with him.

There are absolutely no lights on
anywhere else in this town. It is for all intents and purposes, a
ghost town
with the exception of
the occupied indoor storage units. It was the same the last
time they came. He doesn’t even remember seeing the fire in the
storage units building then, but they hadn’t gone to that section
before. Simon’s not sure where the residents have disappeared to,
but they are mostly all long gone. They hadn’t run into one single
living person or animal when they came before. This town is only a
few miles down the road from the farm, and therefore, a good place
to try to salvage supplies. Unless, of course, the people that were
living in the storage lockers turn out to be dangerous and hunt
them down and kill them when their backs are turned. He glances a
few times over his shoulder to make sure they aren’t being
followed.

“Hooch, moonshine. That’s the jars of
stuff I brought back. It’s liquor. I
was
thinking
since it’s mostly pure alcohol that we
could
distill
our own and make
enough to fuel the vehicles,” Cory suggests.

“I don’t know. Maybe we could talk to
Derek. He seems to be good
at
figuring that stuff out.”

“Or we could ask K-Dog,” Cory adds.

Simon knows he is referring to the Navy
Seal living
at
the condo
community. He was a dog trainer with the Seals and thus the
nickname. His real name is Keith, but nobody calls him that. Except
maybe his wife, Anita. Mostly the men call him K-Dog. He brought
his dog with him when he flew home from the Middle East and ended
up back in Little Creek, Virginia, where he was part of Seal Team
Four. And his Navy dog, Tracker, lives at the condo community with
him and his new family. Keith says that she is an invaluable member
of the security team there and walks the night beat with him when
he’s on duty. K-Dog is great with figuring things out and finding a
solution to problems that come up. And he and Derek tend to pow-wow
on issues when their respective groups become stuck
on
some dilemma or another.

“Yeah, he’d probably know if we can use it,”
Simon agrees.

Cory points to their west, indicating they
should move in that direction. He’s spotted a mom-and-pop auto
repair shop. It could be a fortuitous find. They haven’t been to
this particular mechanic’s shop before, so hopefully nobody else
has found it either.

Simon
flanks,
ascertains nobody is in the building and
meets back up with Cory in the front before they go in together.
They search shelves, tool boxes and the storage area in the back of
the small building but don’t come up with any parts that can help
for the farm equipment. Cory grabs a set of brakes that he says
they can use on Doc’s old pick-up truck when the current ones wear
out. Simon finds a set of socket wrenches, but they don’t find a
part for the thresher.