The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (68 page)

“It didn’t take the family long to piece
together what was going on in the group and get me and Simon and
the twins out of there. They saved us.”

“They seem to be good at saving people,
huh?”

Sam says with a smile, “Right, the whole
family is like an army of guardian angels.”

Paige nods and smiles, but it disappears at
Sam’s next comment.

“Simon stabbed your cousin. Did you know
that? Bobby attacked Reagan. He hated her. If Simon hadn’t been
more concerned about getting Reagan away from him, I think Simon
would’ve done the same thing to Bobby that I did to that man today.
I don’t think he would’ve stopped with stabbing him one time in the
back.”

Paige lets out a shaky sigh at the disturbing
image of her brother stabbing their cousin to death in a
rage-filled bloodbath.

“I just feel
sorry
he got cheated that revenge,” Sam admits
before drifting off to sleep, her breathing becoming slower and
deeper.

Paige slips away a few minutes later
and starts heating water for her own bath.
As
she soaks in the warm water washing her hair and skin with the bar
of beeswax soap from the farm and with her rifle and pistol within
arm’s reach, Paige thinks about her sweet-tempered, gentle-hearted,
nerdy little brother with the auburn hair and freckles and reflects
on how much he’s changed since she knew him when they were both
naïve young kids who liked to play Marco Polo in the family
pool.
She also reflects on what Sam told her about
traveling with those people. Paige wishes she could’ve been there
for him.
If she had stayed in Arizona and been
going to college there when the country fell apart, she wonders if
they would’ve left with Aunt Amber’s group together or if they
would’ve stuck it out in their home.
This also forces
her to remember her mother, which is more painful than anything
else. Paige could’ve discouraged her from going to work. She
could’ve persuaded her to leave with them or to
hole
up and stay in their home together with Simon.
Paige knows that most of these thoughts are naïve on her part, but
remembering her mother and fantasizing about what could’ve been is
all she has left of her. She misses her so desperately sometimes
that it physically hurts.

She also misses the McClane farm tonight. It
feels like her home now, or probably the only one she’ll ever have.
She misses the family, especially the children. Hell, she even
misses Cory’s mangy dog that follows her everywhere. A wash of
homesickness comes over her hard and fast. And then she starts
panicking about her brother and his safety.

He’s been through so much. Paige is thankful
he’s changed and evolved as the world turned so malignant. His
ability to shut down his emotions and fight for what he believes
in, for what is right like defending Sam is such a stark contrast
to the young boy he was when she left for college. Her brother has
become a stone cold killer, and she couldn’t be more pleased.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Simon

“Do you see that asshole, Cor?” Simon asks
his friend, who should be moving in for a closer look.

They’ve made it back to Vanderbilt University
and are scouting the area for those Kappa creeps. It hadn’t taken
long to find them.

“If you would be so kind, Professor, smoke
‘em for me,” Cory replies.

The man is armed, acting as a sentry,
but yanking cruelly at the thin arm of a woman who
clearly
does not want to go anywhere
with him.

“Roger,” Simon replies and pulls the
trigger.

They’ve been watching this group for
about a half an hour since finding them. There is no doubt in his
mind that they were also supplying women to the bastards down on
the river. They found a room full of women and young girls, a
locked room at that, on the first floor of the campus in one of the
classrooms. They’d killed the two guards and told the women to head
toward the Parthenon where Cory will have Dave’s group come back
for them. With all the work they have ahead of them still this
night, Dave may not be able to send anyone for them until morning,
but at least someone will and they should be safe there until they
do. The windows of the classroom had been boarded up, the doors
locked from the outside. They’d quietly questioned them and found
out that they didn’t know
of
any
other women being kept anywhere on the campus. Then they had freed
them and had continued searching for the ones who’d done this
heinous deed. It had been difficult to leave them. Simon had just
glanced at some of them but knew that they could use medical
attention. He’s hoping that he and Doc and maybe even Reagan can
travel to Hendersonville in the next few days to check on all of
these poor women and young girls. At the very least, most of them
should be given a dose of antibiotics. He’s thankful that Doc has
been working on natural antibiotics with him. They will need a lot
of it, and they’ll need to make much more to get through the
winter.

So far, he and Cory disabled four of the
dirty bastards who’ve done this. Simon believes there are more
lurking somewhere on the campus grounds. It’s a big, spread out
school, so it will be difficult to search it with just the two of
them. He’d volunteered to go high and scout out through his night
scope down on as much of the property as he could. Now he’s going
to join back up with his friend and begin a door to door kick-in if
they must.

He climbs down the fire-escape ladder,
landing softly on his feet. Jogging a block east, he makes his way
toward Cory where they will meet at the hospital entrance. There is
a good chance they will also find supplies that they could stash in
their packs while looking for jerks who sell women and kids for
supplies like food that they are too lazy to grow for themselves.
He knows that Cory and his sister have already hit this hospital,
but his friend was sure that there was more to loot.

Simon’s mind has been deeply troubled
all day. He knows it’s because of Sam. He is worried about her,
sick he let that happen to her, that she was almost raped again or
possibly killed. His sister was right when she told him that
mistakes happen. When he’d seen Sam on top of the dead man stabbing
away, he’d wanted to go over and shoot him in the skull. If Paige
and Cory hadn’t been with him, he probably would have done so. He
knew the man was already dead, but the blind rage he’d felt at the
mistake, her kidnapping and her
obvious
attempted assault had sent him over the edge of sane
reasoning. He’s just not used to mistakes like that happening on
his watch, and certainly not when he’s also with Cory. They don’t
make stupid errors like that. It was an immature lapse in judgement
to allow the girls to go to the bathroom by themselves, no matter
how much they’d insisted. Simon has no plan on ever repeating such
a mistake. He also doesn’t want Sam leaving the farm again,
preferably ever. His sister can park her butt there and stay, as
well. He’s pretty sure that this mandate isn’t going to go over
well, but, then again, his sister was pretty shaken up by the event
with Sam.

“Ready?” Cory asks him when they have joined
up near the front doors, both of which have been vandalized and the
glass broken.

Simon offers his friend a firm nod, and
they enter through the shattered glass panes of the sliding doors.
Their night-vision gear will help considerably as the desolate
hospital is black as pitch. Simon switches from his sniper rifle to
his short-barreled shotgun and follows his friend through the main
lobby. For being such a big man, Cory is quiet and stealthy when he
wants to be. Most of the time, he doesn’t give a shit if he’s being
quiet. But tonight, however, he must feel the need for creeping
silently through the malevolent hallways of the hospital.
They
make
a fast search of the
first floor, don’t find much worth salvaging other than a few
bottles of pills and some bandaging which all gets stashed inside
Simon’s pack. They move on toward the building where those creeps
had set a trap that almost killed Simon’s sister. He still can’t
believe that happened, either. And on Cory’s watch it seems even
more ridiculous.

They find the spot where Paige fell
through the floor, but the men who’d set the trap aren’t anywhere
around. Staring down into that dark abyss makes Simon feel a
renewed sense of purpose and an untapped, violent rage. She
could’ve been killed. Cory even grimaces hard, swallows and turns
away from it. Apparently the terrifying, near-death incident is
still
weighing
down his friend’s
thoughts.

They search two more buildings but find them
abandoned. Pressing on is the only answer. These men must be found
and stopped.

“Let’s head around back,” Cory suggests in a
clipped tone. “There’s a gymnasium back there. I wonder if that’s
where they’ve set up.”

“Sounds good,” Simon agrees as they leave the
room of bad memories.

It doesn’t take them long to make it to
the gym, which lies beyond the stadium. They pause in the long
hallway near the locker rooms so they can spy on the entrance,
noting that no sentries wait there. If they are within the
building, then they aren’t too worried about guarding the place.
These thugs apparently concluded that the few guards they had
posted elsewhere were going to do the trick or else they are so
foolishly confident in their ability to fight off attackers that
they didn’t feel the need for more
sentries
. Not too smart either way in Simon’s
opinion.

The door to the gymnasium swings open
and a man stumbles toward the locker rooms carrying a bottle of
what Simon can only speculate the contents by the manner in which
he staggers about. Cory and Simon back up, slinking into the dark
corners of the men’s locker room. The inebriated man comes in
carrying a lantern in his other hand and proceeds to relieve
himself in one of the urinals. Simon wrinkles his nose. No wonder
the smell is so bad in here. The plumbing no longer works, but they
are apparently still using the facilities and have caused massive
back-ups of the sewer lines. Cory nudges him in the shoulder, and
Simon knows what his intentions are going to be toward this man.
His friend sneaks up behind the other man and wraps his arm quickly
around his throat, catching him in a choke hold. The man tries to
struggle but the dagger Cory is
pressing
against his neck deters further fighting.
Simon walks up to them and starts the interrogation before the
man’s friends discover his absence.

“How many are in there?” Simon asks
impatiently.

The man spits at him, forcing Simon to punch
him in the stomach. He doesn’t like being this way, but if it means
saving innocent people from being harmed, abused or killed by this
man or his friends then he’s willing to become a monster if just
for tonight. The man has doubled over in pain, but Cory pulls him
back upright and keeps the dagger trained on his carotid. His
friend was right about these guys. This man seems well dressed and
clean.

“How many?” he asks again.

The man is hesitant, so Cory nudges him to
get him to speak. They get nothing again, so Simon punches him in
the mouth. He has to spit blood this time.

“There’s fifteen of us,” the man says. “But
we’ve got guards. You two are fucked.”

“You mean the guards we killed?” Cory
taunts.

The man swallows hard, his eyes full of
genuine fear.

“Are they all armed, the men you’re with?”
Simon asks.

He shrugs, gets another encouraging choking
from Cory and finally says, “Yeah, most of us.”

Simon inquires, “What about the hole in the
floor over there in one of the student buildings? What’s that
about? Did you guys do that?”

The yuppy thug shrugs, which is all Simon
needs to know.

Cory asks, “Are there women or kids in that
gym with you?”

“What? No, man. Just us. We don’t want none
of those whiners in there with us. It’s just for us men.”

Simon would like to remind this nefarious
scumbag that men don’t violate innocent women and young girls.

“Where’s the rest of your group?” Simon
asks.

“What do you mean? It’s just us. We’re all in
there. Except for our guards. We take turns on guard duty.”

“How many of those rooms full of women do you
have around here on this campus?” Simon questions.

The man’s dark gaze falls to the floor with
defeat. He knows that he and his group have been outmatched.

“Just the one,” he states. “I didn’t want any
part of that. It was their ideas. I’m just one of their
friends.”

“So you weren’t participating in the group
rapes that went on in that room the women told us about?” Simon
asks, although he doesn’t really need to. This man is as evil as
the rest of his sick friends.

“No way. Not me. I’m not like that,” he
pleads pathetically.

“We done, Professor?” Cory asks.

Simon nods and turns away. By the sound
of gurgling, he knows that his friend has slit the man’s throat. It
is no less than what he deserves for what he has done. His father
was an attorney before he became a politician. There aren’t prisons
anymore for men like this. There is no due process. He was never
the kind of person before the apocalypse to believe in vigilantism,
but his opinion has modified
considerably
since.

“I’ve got an idea,” Cory says after he has
dragged the dead body away, back toward the showers. The long trail
of blood could still give them away.