The McClane Apocalypse Book Three (48 page)

Reagan is still yelling, and she's wrestled
herself free from Simon and is running toward him. When she gets to
John, she flings herself at him, making him stumble backward and
hop twice to regain his balance on his one good leg. She's clinging
to his neck, and somehow he doesn't fall down but manages to hold
her and himself upright until she calms down and stops shaking.

"Are you ok, boss?" John asks hoarsely as
his gun-free hand sinks into her hair. She nods, and John notices
that she has a cut on her lip and blood and dirt on her forehead.
"Were you thrown?"

"No that little fucker yanked me off when
your horse reared. I didn't even see him. But I saw that other one.
That's why I yelled your name, but it was too late."

Her legs wobble under her, and John does his
best to hold her up. "Are you hurt, Reagan?" he repeats.

"No, I'm fine. But, John, you're hurt. That
was bad. That was a really, really bad fall you took. We need to
get back so I can take a look at you," she says quickly.

"I'm ok. I've been through worse," he
pacifies her and strokes her cheek.

She dislodges herself from him as Simon
comes out of the woods. He looks sheepishly at John before jumping
into an unnecessary explanation of his actions.

"I'm sorry I grabbed her, sir. I just
panicked. I just wasn't sure if Bobby would go down or come at us
or get her again, and I'm sorry if I hurt you Dr. McClane. I know I
was rough, but I'm sorry about that and…"

"You did good, Simon. Don't worry about it,"
John says. "She's safe and you helped me by getting her out of the
way of my shot. I owe you, man."

The kid just looks at his feet. John lays a
hand on Simon's skinny shoulder before they walk back down the
hill. Cory is on the radio with his brother. His pistol is
holstered again.

"Shit's happening back at the farm, too,
John," Cory calls out.

John manages with Simon's help to hobble
back down the hill. Sam is standing next to him holding the reins
of Reagan's horse and theirs, and she looks scared out of her mind.
Cory is holding her small hand in his in a protective manner. She
is normally reserved and withdrawn around Cory, but perhaps she has
seen some redeeming qualities in him this afternoon.

"Let's move," John says after he scans the
area for other danger. He turns to Cory, "Make sure that pistol's
safety is back on, man."

"I set it before I re-holstered it, John,"
he says simply.

"Good. Did you guys see anyone else?" John
asks of their surroundings. Other men could be farther along on
this path in their enchanting, serene, dangerous forest.

"No, it was just them. They already tried to
get at us. That's why Sam's riding with me. She got thrown from her
horse, and it took off. Come on, Sam," Cory orders.

He and Sam remount John's mare. John's nutty
gelding is long gone like Sam's horse, so he gets on Reagan's. She
swings up behind him. He winces as he has to bend his leg to get
his right boot into the stirrup.

"We already ran into them up on that other
ridge, so we took off," Simon tells them as he remounts his black
gelding with the one white ankle. "We were coming back to the farm
to tell you guys, but we were trying to find Sam's mare, too. Cory
didn't want them to find it and take off with it 'cuz then they'd
have a horse to get away through the woods."

Simon's hands are shaking at the reins, but
John notices that Cory's do not. Cory's also more tactilely
intelligent than he'd given him credit for being if he had enough
forethought to not want the hadj to get their hands on any of the
horses.

"Yeah, somehow they got down into this
valley before we did," Cory says. "That's when we saw from up on
that hill back there what was going on, so we raced down here to
help 'cuz we knew you guys wouldn't be expecting them. I'm sorry,
John. I feel like this is my fault."

"What? No, man," John appeases him. "It's
nobody's fault. These dirtballs were planning this, and we were
stupid to let our guards down. Shoulda' shot these scumbags the
first day. Give me the radio, Cory." The teenager hands it to him
as they start the horses at a fast walk through the dry creek and
up a hill.

"Derek," he says into the radio. No sense in
pretenses now. There's too much at stake to be covert. "Come in,
bro."

"Got ya', John," his brother comes through
the static.

"Sit rep down there," he inquires after the
farm.

"Area secure, hadj rounded up," Derek says.
"Your status?"

"Ambush, two hadj down. We're three clicks
out. Be back lickety and we're cleanin' house," John tells him, and
he knows that his brother will understand exactly what all of this
means.

"Roger that, out," Derek responds
calmly.

When they come to the open fields again,
they all take off at a canter. Every footstep of Reagan's horse
jars John's hip, and it's agonizing but not as bad as some of the
other injuries he's had in his life from battles.

As the horses pick their way at a slower
pace along a stretch of the path that is too beat up for running,
Reagan addresses the girl directly, "Sam, did these people kill
your family?"

Of course the response comes as silence as
Sam looks the other way, hiding her face behind Cory's back. John
can tell that Reagan gets instantly pissed.

"Yes, ma'am," Simon replies for her as he
pulls his horse up beside Reagan and John's.

Reagan whips her head the other way behind
John, mimicking his own movement.

"Yes? They did, Simon?" she asks this again
just to be sure.

"Yes, Dr. McClane, they did kill her family.
I believe they took them out to her horse barn and shot them. I'm
not sure exactly. They tied me up in the RV because I tried to help
her family," Simon tells them.

"Where was Great-uncle Peter?" Reagan asks
the teen directly.

John's not sure he wants to know the answer.
The answer could be devastating to Grams and the rest of the
family.

"He was in the other RV driving from house
to house with Jasmine and Miss Jennifer and Rick and Buzz. They
aren't too bad of guys. It was me, Willy and those two you just
killed and that Frank jerk. Oh and my Aunt Amber. She knew what was
going on," Simon explains. "But those other ones were somewhere
else in the neighborhood when we raided Sam's house. They always
sent us kids in first—probably in case someone started shooting. I
went in with Huntley and his brother Garrett. I found Sam in the
house as her family pulled in behind the RV Frank parked out in
their driveway. I sent the twins back out to tell the group that
nobody was inside. Her family must have gone somewhere in the
neighborhood. Probably were scavenging for food or something. I
told her to hide because I knew what Frank and the others would do
to her family and her. I ran out and tried to stop it, but I
couldn't do much. It was five of them against just me. They beat me
up pretty bad that time. Huntley and Garrett were in the motorhome
with me. That's where they tied me up so I couldn't stop them. The
twins are too young and were too scared to do anything, especially
against their dad. All I could do was sit there listening to the
gunshots. And when they were done… with them in the barn, they went
in the house and found her."

Simon shivers with bad memories as he
explains and the barns come into view. John is sure this day is
about to get worse.

"What about my patient, Jennifer
Miller-Durant? Was she a captive of my uncle's? Or was she with him
of her own free will? The only times she was awake enough in the
shed to speak, she wouldn't talk to me about any of them," Reagan
clarifies.

Her hands still shake as they clutch onto
John's waist.

"I'm not sure, ma'am," Simon says quietly.
"I think maybe she got with your uncle's group before my aunt
joined up with them. I can't say for sure if they took her against
her will or not. I'd guess that they did because of the way she
acted. And she didn't do drugs and drink like them. She cried a
lot, especially about her husband. Maybe she went with them on her
own, but I don't know for sure. Your uncle wasn't nice to her, but
he didn't hit her or anything, ma'am. He just… used her."

"Come on," John says and kicks Harry into a
near gallop. Time to take out the trash.

As they come into the barnyard, Kelly and
Derek meet them and explain briefly about an attack on Hannah and
that Kelly has already killed the insane man named Willy. His
friend has blood splattered on the front of his white t-shirt shirt
and on his left cheek. There's even some on his hands. He's
obviously killed Willy with his dagger.

He and the teens place the horses in stalls
with their tack still on so that they can come back to them later
to set them loose. There's simply no time to deal with the
horses.

"Simon, please take Sam and go inside, son,"
John says, but Sam comes up to him and can barely meet his
eyes.

"John?" she says in her tiny voice.

"Yeah, Sam? What is it?" he asks and lays a
hand gently on her shoulder.

"I didn't go with my parents that day
because I was staying behind to take care of the horses and the
chores. My mom was sick, so I volunteered to take care of
everything while they went to look for food and medicine in town.
We never thought it wouldn't be safe. Our neighborhood wasn't that
bad yet."

"I'm sorry, Sam," John tells her. The girls
nods sadly, her huge blue eyes refusing to meet his.

"They took her, Mr. Harrison. She told me,
Miss Jennifer did. She didn't want to be with them at all. They
found her outside of an abandoned FEMA camp. She must've been going
there looking for help since she knew she was pregnant. They just
pulled up on the road and grabbed her. Peter did it," Sam says.

A tear falls that she swipes angrily
away.

"Simon, take her and keep the family away
from the windows, preferably to the basement," John tells the boy
with the splattering of freckles and the red hair.

Simon glances at the crowd of visitors and
then back at John nervously as if contemplating something
difficult.

"What is it?" John prompts him.

"Sir, it's just that… I don't know how to
tell you," Simon stammers.

Kelly steps closer and lays a massive hand
on the kid's skinny shoulder. "It's cool, man. Just spit it out. It
can't be any worse than what we already know."

"They sabotaged the RV," Simon declares
reluctantly and looks away and then at his leather loafers.

"What do you mean?" Reagan asks before
pushing back a clump of dirty curls from her forehead.

"Well… they did some stuff to that one so
that it wouldn't work," Simon tells them. "I overheard them the
other day and they caught me. They threatened me not to tell you
guys or they'd hurt…"

His eyes trail over to Sam and nobody has to
guess with whom they had threatened Simon.

"Interesting," Kelly says with stoic
calmness.

"I think they poured water in the gas tank
and cut some of the wiring somewhere under the hood. I'm sorry I
didn't tell you sooner. It's just that I didn't want anything more
to happen…" he doesn't finish again.

They all know what he means. He has
protectiveness over Sam and Huntley that is so obvious to see.
Heck, everyone probably feels the same about Sam. She's just so
frail and innocent and waif-like.

"Thanks for telling us the truth, Simon,"
Reagan says.

Her eyes jump to John's with even more
hatred firing out of them than before.

"I guess they thought you'd let them stay if
their vehicle wasn't running," Simon adds.

"Take Sam and go now, son," Kelly tells
him.

Simon nods and goes directly to the waif. He
leads Sam away, taking her hand in his while glancing nervously at
the visitors' camp as if he's afraid they will suddenly charge at
him.

John limps toward Reagan and levels her with
an intense gaze. "Reagan, you'd better go in, too."

"I want to go with you, John," she says
quietly.

He's so angry and most of it is at himself.
Her beautiful face is smeared with dirt, and the cut on her lip
still bleeding slightly. There's bruising on her cheekbone and her
lower lip is also starting to swell like that dick hit her there.
Leaves and twigs stick out of her hair which John wishes he had
time to pick out. How could he have been so stupid? How can they
have so underestimated these creeps?

"You're hurt. You need to go in to your
grandpa and let him look at you," he says and uses his shirt sleeve
to wipe at her mouth.

"I'm fine," she says.

She brushes his hand away and looks
nervously at the other men of the group. She doesn't want them to
think she's as fragile as she really is. She also probably doesn't
want them to see them together as a couple in any way, either.

"This is going to be worse than the city,
boss. You aren't going to want to see this. Reagan, you
really
aren't going to want to be up there," John tells her
and watches as her eyes widen slightly.

"I can handle it. I want to be there.
Someone
from the family should be there," she says.

John nods, although he'd like to tell her to
get her butt in the house. She's probably right about a McClane
being present for this. And he can see the vicious fury in her
green eyes.

"You might go in, too, Cory," Kelly tells
his brother.

"He's ok, Kel. He's good to go," John tells
his friend in an austere tone.

The kid is more than ok, he'll shoot whoever
he's told to shoot and do it without remorse. And the 'good to go'
comment tips Kelly to this fact. It's what he and Kelly have always
referred to fellow soldiers whom they'd trusted to watch their
backs, the ones who were battle-tested and ready like them, the
natural killers. John's seen the killer in this kid's eyes, and he
recognizes it because it's the same look he's seen in Kelly's. His
friend gives John a perplexed look, but then he nods as
understanding dawns. Cory's good to go.