The McClane Apocalypse: Book One (8 page)

Sue hadn’t minded taking on the responsibility of the girls. It gave her a feeling of added closeness to her mother, though she was dead. She’d somehow felt that their mother was still with them if she could just make all the right decisions and do all the things she imagined her mother would do were she still alive. And then she’d met Derek, the love of her life.

She’d gone to Louisiana for spring break with her two college girlfriends. They’d all considered themselves much more cosmopolitan than other spring breakers by not going to a beach town, drinking and clubbing for a week. They were going to see all of what New Orleans had to offer. They had gone on midnight ghost sighting tours, eaten French pastries and drunk strong espressos for breakfast and taken a river boat cruise around the area. It was on their third night there that she’d met Derek, who was on forty-eight hour leave. She and her girlfriends were dining al fresco and enjoying the warm Louisiana air. He was alone and sitting on a park bench across the quiet street, eating a po’boy sandwich and sipping out of a large Styrofoam cup. She’d been touched by his behavior as he kept throwing chunks of his sandwich to pigeons. He’d looked her way more than a few times, and she had blushed deeply every time. His actions had seemed a kind act, feeding the birds, until he had become quickly overrun by them. They’d literally started landing on him until he’d thrown his whole sandwich down and fled across the street. He was wearing his military fatigues and Sue’s girlfriends took full advantage of the situation, inviting him to join them, which he accepted. But, try as they might to gain his attention, it had been obvious to everyone at the table that Derek only had eyes for Sue. She’d felt ten feet tall. He wasn’t classically beautiful but hard, angular. His hair was dark brown, cut tight to his skull and matched his cocoa-colored eyes. At five feet seven inches tall, Susan is fairly tall or feels so around her two sisters. But around Derek she always felt dwarfed in size even though he is only five feet ten. He is a stocky guy, “built like a bull,” her grandfather had assessed once.

After paying for everyone’s dinners, he asked Sue if she’d walk with him in the park and he’d see her back to her hotel. She hadn’t even paused before accepting his invitation, which her girlfriends found unusual because she was normally so reserved and cautious. As they strolled more laps than Sue could count around the dimly lit park, she’d learned so much about him and vice versa. He was twenty-four at the time and had joined the Army straight out of college. She was in her first year of college. Her plans had been to be a school teacher. Her plans changed quickly. Within a year they’d married, Justin came nine months later and Sue realized that she had never wanted anything more than to be a mother and wife.

Even though they’d been separated by continents, oceans and war torn countries, their love had never faltered. It is the one constant Sue has always had in her life. He’d always come home, sometimes a little worse for the wear, but he would always come home.

Chapter Four

Susan

Another three days have passed, and Sue is nearly out of her mind as she is tucking her two angels into bed. They’d sat on the sofa in Grams’s parlor and read a bedtime story together as Sue secretly dabbed at her tears. She’s been doing this a lot these days, and she isn’t sure if it is the pregnancy hormones or the worry over Derek.

“Mommy, is Daddy coming home tomorrow?” Arianna whispers softly, her tiny voice scratchy and tired. Her hair is still damp from her bath an hour ago, but the air coming through the window near her bed is warm and soothing.

“Um... maybe, sweetheart. We’ll see. Why don’t we say a prayer for Daddy, ok?” Sue gently urges. She sidles in beside Arianna and runs her fingers lightly over her daughter’s downy forehead. Justin is already snoring quietly. Boys and farms are a good and very exhausting combination.

Arianna is fast asleep before they finish their prayers, so Sue finishes without her. Reaching over to turn off the bedside lamp, she kisses her little girl’s forehead one last time.

“Everything ok in here, sis?” Reagan asks from the door. She’s in a white tank and cut off fleece shorts with her university’s logo on them. No fancy lingerie for her. Her sister’s frizzy ringlets are already springing back, though her hair is also still damp from a shower. Oh, how many times had Sue tried to straighten that girl’s hair?

She rises from the bed and crosses the room on tiptoe, though she’s not sure why because her kids could sleep through a tornado.

“Sure, we’re ok, Reagan,” she says reassuringly as she closes the door behind her.

“Do you wanna talk?” Reagan prods.

“Not really. I’m afraid I’ll just fall apart if I say the stuff I’ve been thinking out loud,” she explains as she goes down the long hall to her bedroom at the other end of the second floor. Reagan follows her and plops onto Sue’s unmade bed.

“It’s ok if you fall apart, Sue. It’s to be expected. You’re pregnant, living in a post-apocalyptic country with two little kids to raise, and you can’t get in touch with your husband- whom you love like crazy,” Reagan hammers straight to the point. Nothing new there.

Sue changes into a worn, cotton nightgown that comes to her knees and sits at her dressing table to unbraid her hair and give it a brushing.

“I just have to hold my crap together, Reagan. I can’t even consider that Derek won’t come back to us.” She watches in the mirror as Reagan lies back and props a pillow under her head.

“He’ll come. Derek’s like that. He’s solid, reliable. Hell, he’s just like Grandpa if you think about it,” she muses, picking a stray thread from the blanket on which she’s lying.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Sue teases. Of course she’d thought about it. It had been one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with the man in the first place. “And you’d better not let Grams hear you swearing, little missy.” Sue takes a second to wag her finger at Reagan.

Reagan only huffs and rolls her eyes. She shuffles to the side of the bed, flipping to her stomach and winces. Then she rolls right back to her back, holding her hand over her stomach.

“What is it? Reagan? Are you alright?” Sue switches into instant mommy mode as Reagan always puts it and is at her sister’s side in a flash.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry. I mean it. Stop looking at me like that. Sometimes my stitched area just pulls funny,” she explains. Sue places her hand on Reagan’s forehead and furrows her own brow with worry.

“Are you sure, honey? I can get Grandpa,” she offers, half rising from the bed. Reagan grabs her arm and pulls her back, though.

“No, stop! I said I’m fine. I just made a big, freagin’ mess with my shitty stitch job and now I’m paying the price.”

Sue knows not to push too hard with Reagan. It only sends her further into herself and then she’ll be done talking and will go off on her own again.

“Do you want me to take a look?” Sue offers, reaching for the hem of Reagan’s tank. It is a big mistake.

“No, don’t! I don’t... I don’t want you to see,” Reagan pleads and shoots off the bed in a blur.

“Honey, it’s just me. You don’t have to feel embarrassed to show me your scars. I’m your sister, Reagan. And hey, I’ve had two kids. Trust me, nothing is as gross as that,” she tries to lighten the mood with a jest. It doesn’t work; she doesn’t even get the slightest ghost of a smile. Reagan crosses to the window and stares out, still holding down the hem of her shirt. Sue tries not to look at her sister’s favorite accessory. Reagan constantly wears a .45 semi-automatic pistol strapped to her right thigh. Nobody ever really even seems to notice it anymore. It is like another permanent appendage. Sue’s kids don’t even make comments about it. It is just who their aunt is now, and if it makes her sister feel safer to wear it, then so be it.

“I’m a hideous freak. I can’t even stand to look at myself,” she whispers, staring out the window. Her eyes are scanning, scanning. Sue knows that Reagan stays up as late as she can each night on self-assigned guard duty, not that she needs to do so. Grandpa keeps the same hours with the same intentions in mind. Sue had tried to take her turn, but she’d fallen asleep within an hour. Grandpa had lectured her on the importance of enough sleep for a pregnant woman and forbade her from keeping night watch until after the baby comes.

“Darling, no, please don’t talk like that. You’re so beautiful, Reagan. A few scars can’t take away from that,” Sue tells her. She’s not buffering it, either, because Reagan is beautiful. She has always been beautiful- clueless, but beautiful nonetheless. Her comments earn her a scoffing snort. “Plus, you’re a healer, Reagan. And that’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”

“Get real, Sue. And who gives a shit anyways? It’s not like what you look like is gonna matter anymore...” Reagan is cut off by the buzzing of the intercom system.

Sue races across the room to answer it. The intercom is not to be used unless it’s a matter of extreme importance. It hadn’t taken long for Grams to instate that law when the girls had first moved in when they were young and mischievous.

“Susan, you’d better come down here,” Grandpa’s voice comes across the speaker with purposeful simplicity. He’s always been a man of few words. Grams said he was just “stingy” with his words. And now he sounds very serious. It’s Derek! It just has to be, Sue reasons. Why else would he call her back down when she’d already bade her goodnights?

She makes brief eye contact with Reagan who is obviously feeling the same way because she barks a stern, “Go!” at Susan. They both sprint down the hall, Sue holding her belly, descend the tall flight of stairs and go straight to Grandpa’s study.

“Is it him?” Sue inquires before she is even completely in the room. Grandpa looks tired, haggard. His hair is unkempt, and he’s been smoking his pipe. The smell is still in the air. Grams wouldn’t be happy.

“I think so. It’s hard to tell. I’m mostly getting static. But it’s coming from this satellite walkie-talkie thing,” Grandpa informs her. He hands the high-tech gadget to Sue as his bony, crooked fingers briefly curl around hers reassuringly.

“Hello? Hello? Derek, can you hear me? It’s Sue, can you hear me?” she pleads into the mouthpiece. Thank the good Lord he’d made sure she took this with her when she’d left their home in Kentucky. She’s had to use this type of phone system before to get into contact with him when he’d been overseas. Most of the satellites in space are worthless now, but this got its signal from a military-only satellite positioned over Alaska. She hears nothing but static and then the lightest whisper of a voice.

“Hello? Can you hear us? This transm... the McClane...” Static stops the transmission again. Sue wants to cry. She’s not even sure if that had been Derek, but they had said McClane. She is sure of that.

“...coming. We’re coming ...shot... coming though... lot o’ blood. If you can hear this...”

“What? Did you guys hear that? Did they just say “shot”?” Sue looks from Grandpa to Reagan and back again. Neither of them will answer her and Reagan swallows hard. It sounded like male voices in the background, as well.

“Do you copy? ....coming home... it’s over... shot... gone to crap... bringing home...” the male voice relays before the signal goes dead completely.

“No! You stupid thing, don’t fail me now.” Sue is hitting the side of the device as if that will magically make it work again. “Was that Derek?”

“Maybe. I think so,” Reagan says quickly, too quickly.

“It could’ve been him,” Grandpa agrees. Sue knows that they are telling her what she wants to hear.

“He did sound like he said our name, so it must’ve been him, right?” Reagan states. The permanent rasp in her damaged vocal chords causes her voice to crack. Her eyes are also betraying her doubt.

“Yes, he did say McClane, Sue,” Grandpa chimes in. His pale blue eyes are more believable, less cynical. Sue can tell that he has real faith that they’ve just heard Derek. Her grandfather is an analytical man of science, and she knows that he is compounding all the information in his mind before he speaks.

“When do you think they could be here, if they are coming home?” Reagan asks of Grandpa, who runs a hand through his white hair.

“Honey, we don’t even know where they are. The last I spoke with Derek he said that he thought they were gonna send them south, maybe to Texas or Louisiana to help with the earthquake victims.” Grandpa removes his eyeglasses and sets them on his desk while he takes a seat in the leather chair behind it. He purses his lips. It’s Grandpa’s signature thinking pose.

“He didn’t tell me that,” Sue says quietly. Why wouldn’t he have told her that?

“He probably just didn’t want you to worry, Sue. You know how you get, and you are carrying his baby for God’s sake,” Reagan chides. Grandpa simply sets his mouth in a mock grimace for show at Reagan’s taking the Lord’s name in vain. If she doesn’t stop, Grams is gonna concuss her one of these days for sure. But Reagan had certainly gotten her love of profanity from the man she’d spent her younger years shadowing.

“It doesn’t matter, girls. He wasn’t sure they were going to send him there anyways. I know he was hoping to meet up with his brother... what’s his name?”

“John. His brother’s name is John, Grandpa,” Sue helps.

“Right, John. He was wanting to join up with John’s unit. And John was supposed to be coming back from the East Coast mess. So maybe he didn’t end up going south yet. Or maybe they went together. Hell, I don’t know. It’s all speculation at this point until he makes better radio contact with us.” He rubs his weary eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose and leans back in his chair. It doesn’t stop them, though. And they spend the next half hour debating where he could be and if he was coming to the farm or if he was off on a mission. And what the heck did he mean when he’d said, “it’s all gone to crap”?” Did he mean the warring is over, or did he mean it was futile to try and control it?

“I’m gonna wait here till he calls back,” Sue tells them.

“No, you most certainly are not,” Grandpa interrupts.

“Yes, yes I am,” she argues.

“You are gonna go to bed and me and Grandpa will stay here, you stupid ass,” Reagan admonishes indelicately. Grandpa grins again.