The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (74 page)

Grandpa frowns and says,
“Possibly, Samantha. But we don’t really know for
certain
what’s
happened. Perhaps there was a coup, and the old President was
overthrown. Perhaps this man is running the military or what’s left
of it and has turned them against the administration. We just don’t
know.”

“Right, and if they want to take the
men from the farm to go out on more peace-keeping fool’s errands
then that’s total bullshit,” Reagan states with venom.

John tries to comfort her, but she
still scowls and pulls back.

“It’ll be ok, babe,” he says. “Either
way, we’ll figure it out.”

“No, John, we won’t! I
don’t want you to leave the farm. If they want military
men,
then they’re
going to want to take Simon and Cory, too. Well, just Simon now,
but make no mistake that they’ll want anyone with military
experience to rebuild an army,” Reagan argues.

Sam can tell by her eyes that Reagan
is frightened. Paige mirrors the same look as soon as her brother’s
name is mentioned. The idea of Simon having to leave the farm makes
Sam feel downright nauseous. She bites her thumbnail.

“What did he mean in 2033? What was
that about?” Simon asks, changing the topic slightly.

“I heard that part before I came out,”
Sam offers up. Everyone turns to stare at her. “He was saying that
there was a deadly virus that attacked the country. I guess it
spread worldwide, too. It wiped out millions more. I don’t remember
what he called it. Sorry.”

“That’s fine, Samantha,” Grandpa says
gently.

Reagan asks, “Think it was the
pneumonic plague?”

Grandpa shakes his head once, “I don’t
know. Could be. Could be something else.”

Sam adds, “No, it wasn’t that. It was
some other thing.”

“That would’ve been two years into
it,” Kelly says.

“Right, but there have been so many
diseases that have spread. Remember a few years ago when we thought
we were seeing a derivative of cholera at the clinic?” Simon
asks.

“Right, Simon,” Grandpa praises. “We
just don’t know unless this plays again.”

“Maybe it’ll play again like once a
day or something,” Sue suggests.

“Perhaps,” Grandpa says. “Why don’t we
just go about our work, everyone? I’ll stay in here and fiddle with
this a while longer.”

“Yes, sir,” Derek and John echo one
another.

“Simon, take Sam and maybe Paige with
you to the woods to finish for me,” Grandpa orders.

“Yes, sir,” Simon mimics the other
men.

“We’ll get back to our canning,” Sue
says, taking Hannah by the arm.

Everyone disperses, leaving Grandpa to
his peace and quiet and tinkering. Sam hopes they never get the
radio broadcast to come in again. She also doesn’t like what was
being suggested by the new sitting President. Simon leads her and
Paige to the area in the forest where he and Grandpa had left
off.

They are less than a mile from home,
but it feels completely desolate because of the tranquil noises of
the forest. Birds chirp and flutter their tiny wings and screech to
one another. The wind kicks around leaves on the trees, passing
secretive whispers through their proud branches. The sound of the
nearby creek gurgling lends the woods a romantic and calm
atmosphere. She’d rather be riding through the forest than walking,
though. His sister seems to have no problem with the exhausting
hike. Paige is very athletic and has a great stamina. She even told
Sam that she used to go to an indoor rock climbing facility in her
college town. Sam, on the other hand, likes sitting and sketching
nature, not hiking it.

“Here, Sam,” Simon says as he offers
her his hand.

He’s acting as if she needs his help
just to get down a small hill. Simon has been behaving unusually
overly protective lately for some reason. Sam has reasoned it out
that it is likely stemming from the attack on the farm.

“Thanks,” she returns as
she accepts his offer of help. “For being the middle of September,
it’s
awfully
hot.”

His hand wraps around hers
and then is at her elbow. Simon has
long
lean fingers and a very sure
grip.
Her skin looks so pale
against his.
For redheads, he and his
sister are very tan. Of course, the
tan
that Paige sports
is
probably
why she has splatters of
freckles on her cheeks, her chest and shoulders. She’s moved up
ahead of them quite a distance.

“No kidding. Be careful. That’s poison
ivy,” he points to a vine on a fallen log.

Sam just smiles at him. “I know,
silly.”

Simon readjusts his khaki messenger
bag on his shoulder. By the end of their afternoon of foraging,
he’ll have filled that bag with so many different herbs, roots,
plants and flowers that it will be bulging. On his other shoulder
is a hunting rifle. Sam didn’t feel the need for a gun today, but
Simon had insisted on strapping a gun belt onto her waist and
placing a .38 revolver in it. Paige is also wearing a pistol on her
hip.

He squats and turns the leaf of a
plant over, examining its underside. Then he rises again and
declares, “Not ready yet.”

“Did you guys come up with any new
leads the other night?” Sam asks, then hands him a twig of wild
thyme that she’s located.

He shakes his head, “No,
and I’m starting to think we aren’t going to find these guys. They
could be
laying
low somewhere. They could’ve left the state for all we know.
The trail’s run cold.”

“Maybe it just wasn’t meant
to be then,” she offers, trying to put a more positive spin on it.
She doesn’t really mind if they kill those remaining men who’d
gotten away that night, but she
minds
every time the men leave the farm
in the middle of the
night
to track them down. She holds up a plant she’s
picked, “What about this?”

“No, that’s just a weed,
Sam,” he says
with
a frown. “And it may not be ‘meant to be’ like you
said, but a lot of things in this life aren’t meant to be and they
still sure as heck happen.”

“I know,” she agrees.

“See here, honey?” he asks and pulls
her closer by tugging at her hand. “This is wild
oregano.”

Sam squats beside him and
plunks down onto her knees, oblivious
of
the dirt and ferns staining her bare
knees. Her much smaller sack lands on the ground beside her. The
white t-shirt she wears has a logo for the soft drink brand
Mountain Dew on the front of it. It’s at least one size too small,
but she’s behind on doing her laundry. There is also a dirt smudge
on the hem. It doesn’t take long each day for all of them to get
filthy. It also doesn’t take long for her feelings for Simon to
bubble to the surface every day.

She’s barely paying any
attention to what he’s saying about this herb. She could really
care less anyway. He’ll probably use it to compound some wretched
tasting tea or something equally bad tasting. Sam looks at the long
line of his smoothly shaven jaw bone. The thick arch of his brow
gets studied next, followed by his
wide
, chiseled mouth. She runs her
finger along his jaw line, startling him and causing Simon to stop
talking about herbs.

“What… did I have a bug there?” he
asks her.

Sam smiles widely and replies with a
simple, “No.”

“Why… why did you do that?” he
asks.

She also notices that he’d like to get
away from her. He looks ready to sprint, balancing on his haunches
that way.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to,” Sam
admits honestly. Simon’s eyes dart around as if he’s not sure how
to respond to her.

“Um… well… don’t do that, Sam,” he
finally says.

“Why not?” Sam asks, and
before he can answer she hits him with another idea. “I’d like to
sketch you. You have
great
bone structure, Simon.”

“Oh, um… ok, thanks,” he replies
nervously.

“I think I’m going to,” she tells him
pluckily and opens her sack, pulling out the small sketch pad she
has tucked away in there along with her small tin of art
pencils.

“Hey, we’re supposed to be out here
getting medicinal herbs,” he scolds.

There isn’t really
any
true
anger or discipline in his voice. His eyes dance playfully,
the blue color mimicking the water of the ocean depths.

“You pick. I’ll draw,” she
demands saucily. She gets a full-blown smile this time, his
white
teeth
bright against his skin. “It takes longer for you to tell me
that I’ve picked more weeds than for you to just pick the right
stuff in the first place.”

“Sam, come on. Draw something
worthwhile at least. Not me,” he pleads as he goes back to picking.
“Draw some herbs or some of our finds so that we can document
them.”

“Quit irritating me,” she quips and
gets a smug look in return.

Ignoring him completely,
Sam sits cross-legged right there on the forest floor and begins
her drawing. In no time at all she has Simon’s face sketched out
and shaded in. The vantage point is from an upward side angle,
focusing on his strong jawline. In the back of her
mind,
she is
vaguely aware that Paige comes over from time to time to inquire
after an herb or berry that she’s picked. Sam uses her fingertip to
blend in a particular area. This isn’t her first sketch of Simon.
It’s just the first one he knows about.

She startles when he takes a knee
beside her. Sam looks around with confusion, “Where’s
Paige?”

“She went over that hill over there to
keep looking for hawthorn root for me. I sent her on a
mission.”

Sam smiles at him and says, “That’s a
hard one to find, Simon. You should’ve sent her to look for
something easier.”

“She was driving me crazy,”
he says
with
a conspiratorial grin. “Every ten seconds she brings over
goldenrod or ferns or stuff I don’t actually need right
now.”

Sam laughs, “That’s not very nice,
Simon.”

He grins and replies, “I know. Ready
to go to another area?”

“Sure,” she says.

He stands and holds out a
hand to her which she takes. Simon tugs her easily to her feet
where she dusts off the backs of her legs and bottom, trying to
remove sticks,
leaves
and mostly dirt. For some weird reason, Simon
averts his eyes and blushes.

“Finish your picture?” he asks. “What
did you end up drawing?”

He’s fastening his bag and then picks
up his rifle from where it had been resting against a tree. Sam is
standing on a slight grade that makes her almost as tall as
him.

“Wanna’ see?” she asks and turns her
drawing pad toward him.

He frowns hard. His mouth forms a
tight, disappointed line as he scratches at the stubble on his
chin. That wasn’t the response she thought she’d get from
him.

“Do…do you hate it?” she asks
nervously.

He shakes his head slightly and tries
to turn away from her, but Sam grabs his arm.

“Simon?”

“No, I don’t hate it, Sam,” he says,
looking down at her hand on his arm. “But I don’t think you’ve
drawn me in an accurate way.”

“What do you mean?” Sam inquires. “I
drew you exactly the way you look, Simon.”

She feels a bit affronted by his
criticism. Art is hard enough to share with others without being
criticized and judged harshly.

“No, you didn’t, Sam,” he
argues softly, his usual tone. “You drew me with some kind
of
Greek
god or superhero face. This isn’t what I look like at
all.”

Sam snatches her drawing back
angrily.

“That’s not true!” she spits with
accusation at him. She also removes her hand from his sinewy
forearm.

“You should just stick to
drawing angels and horses or something,” he insults with a swipe of
his hand through his auburn hair, which
needs to be trimmed
again
already.

Sam isn’t about to tell him that he
just smudged his forehead with dirt.

“I don’t need you to tell me what to
draw, Simon,” she says with fire. Then she levels him with a glare.
“You should stick to herbs and plants and…and ignoring me all the
time like you do nowadays!”

“What? I don’t…”

She wags her finger in front of his
face. “Yes, you do! Don’t even try to deny that one, mister. You
ignore me. You avoid me. You never want to hang out with me
anymore.”

“We’re not kids anymore, Sam,” Simon
says lamely. “I can’t hang out with you all day and sleep in the
barn or run around here with you. I’m an adult now. I have
responsibilities….”