The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (24 page)

“She’s waking up,” Hannah calls over her
shoulder.

Reagan tries to
speak,
but her voice
cracks
and her
mouth feels dry. Her body aches but not as badly as it had the last
time she’d awakened. She coughs weakly. Her sister’s different
colored eyes are filled with unshed tears and raw emotion. Hannah
blows out a long sigh and then shakes her head as if
relieved.

Someone on her other side holds a cup to her
mouth so that she can take a sip. It’s Grandpa.

“Now you just hold still, honey, and let me
take your vitals again,” he says gently.

His voice sounds strange, full of worry and
concern.

“Again?” she croaks out. “When did you take
them before?”

His eyes refuse to meet hers. He’s
also wearing the protective mask over his mouth and nose, but his
eyes are giving away his distress. The corners
pinch,
the lines between his
gray brows deepen.

“Just lie still and rest, Reagan,” he tells
her.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Just take it easy, sweetie,” Grandpa says
patiently.

“What…” Reagan begins to
say
but succumbs
to a fit of coughing. Her chest hurts, and her body feels
cool
, cold
almost.

“It’s ok, Reagan,” Hannie says on her other
side.

Grandpa listens through his stethoscope to her
chest, takes her pulse and checks her for fever with a
thermometer.

“I’ll be back,” he says before
leaving.

“What’s going on, Hannie?” she asks her
sister.

“You’ve been very sick, sis,” she answers
patiently.

Hannah rubs her thumb over Reagan’s hand
through a rubber glove. As she wakes and becomes more alert, she
realizes that Hannah is also wearing a protective gown.

“I don’t remember,” Reagan says weakly and
tries to sit up.

“No, no,” Hannah says. “Don’t get
up.”

Her sister presses her shoulder more firmly
down again. Reagan frowns and sniffs hard. Her sinuses are burning
and feel stuffy.

“What’s wrong with me? What do I
have? How the hell long was I out?” The questions just start
pouring out of her mouth. “Where is everyone? Where am
I
?”

“It’s ok. Calm down,” Hannah says gently.
“You’re in the shed. See?”

Her sister indicates with a wave of
her graceful,
gloved-hand
around the room. Reagan frowns.

“You’ve been out for a while,” Hannah
provides.

“What’s ‘a while’?” she asks with
trepidation.

“Four days. Well, four and a half days since
today is almost over,” Hannah explains.

“Holy shit,” Reagan murmurs and gets a scowl
from her delicate sister. She rolls slightly to her side and
realizes from the pinch in her arm that an IV drip is hooked up to
her. “What the hell? An IV, too?”

“It was necessary,” Hannah says. “You were
dehydrating.”

Reagan
sighs
and swallows hard around her
sore throat.

“Do you remember what happened?” Hannie
asks.

She
thinks
for a moment, trying to recall
anything about four days ago. “I was in the barn. And… Simon and I
were taping a gelding’s leg. Is he ok?”

“Simon?”

“No, the horse,” Reagan clarifies.

“Oh,” Hannah says with a smile
behind her mask. “Yes, silly, he’s
fine
. He’s back out in the pasture. But
that was the least of our problems, Reagan Harrison! You passed
out! John about lost his mind.”

Reagan winces. She doesn’t like to think of
John being distressed. She looks around again.

“Passed out? I don’t remember that part. Where
is John?”

“Oh, he’s inside with Jacob,” Hannah
says.

Reagan nods. It’s difficult to focus. Her mind
feels fuzzy.

“Grandpa sent him in about an hour ago when I
came out,” her sister explains.

“How is he?” Reagan asks of her husband,
worried about his state of mind.

“Not great. He’s been sleeping for
the past four days in this very chair,” Hannah says honestly. “None
of us have been doing too hot, Reagan. You were
…
you were
really bad
.”

“What did Grandpa say it is?”

“That first night when you had fevers over
one-o-four, he went to town with Kelly. He said there were some
patients that you both took care of at the clinic who had the same
symptoms,” she says.

“And?”

Grandpa’s voice interrupts
them as he comes into the shed, “I wanted to know how they were
doing, if they were better.
Two of
them
died,
honey. They had influenza. You have it, too. That’s why I had
to quarantine you. This isn’t just a seasonal thing. This is
full-blown flu A, but not like I’ve seen, not in my
lifetime.”

“Shit,” Reagan whispers. She sure as hell
doesn’t want to get anyone in her family sick. Her little boy has
never been exposed to anything this bad. It could kill
him.

“Your fevers were spiking so high
that I couldn’t get them down,” Grandpa says as he pulls
down
his mask. “As
you well know, there are no anti-viral drugs to give anymore. This
is more like the Spanish flu or H1N1 or H2N3.”

He looks weary and ragged. His face
is unshaven, and a growth of four days’ worth of gray whiskers is
present on his cheeks. His eyes are hooded and
tired
behind his
glasses.

“How did you treat it?” Reagan asks.

Grandpa smiles and presses his hand to her
cheek and then her forehead.

“Doctors always make the worst
patients, Miss Hannah,” he says
with
a smirk, glancing at
Hannah.

“In her defense, Grandpa, she was mostly out,”
Hannah jokes lightly. “She missed all the exciting
stuff.”

Her sister air quotes to which Reagan
scowls.

“Take a few sips, Reagan,” Grandpa
orders.

He presses a mug filled with warm liquid to her
mouth. Reagan takes a small drink and grimaces. Grandpa just smiles
at her.

“Great, now I’m going to be treated
with yours and Simon’s hippy-dippy teas and shit?” she asks with
sarcasm and then coughs. Her congestions
does
sound pretty damn bad. “What’s
next? Gonna do a dance around the fire-pit and go
streaking?”

Grandpa chuckles and pushes the hair
back from her forehead. It
feels
damp and matted there. That
probably looks attractive.

“You’re cool. Finally,” he says. “Temperature
is back down to ninety-nine.”

“I feel cold actually. Yeah, I think
I remember having a fever. I kind of remember waking up a couple
times. I thought I was just having some kind of trippy,
hallucinogenic dream. Thought I must’ve
drunk
some of your hippy tea,” she
teases again. Her grandfather grins.

“We’ll get you a warm blanket in a
moment. I told John that
you’re
finally awake,” he says as he
pauses to take her pulse, “when I went to get your tea- that
you
will
drink,
young lady. He’ll be out shortly. Jacob’s giving him some trouble
going to bed. Your son’s been worried about you. I think we had a
harder time keeping him out of here than your husband. We gave up
on John. He wouldn’t leave at all.”

“Yeah, I miss my guys,” Reagan says.
She’d like to get up, go
into
the house and shower away her germs
and the general grimy feeling she has from sweating through fevers.
Her body doesn’t seem to want to respond to that idea, though. She
just feels weak, like she’s been run over by a stampeding herd of
cattle and boat anchors have been attached to her limbs.

“I’m hooking up another bag,” Grandpa
says.

She knows he means a saline drip as
she watches
quietly
while he works. How the hell had she become sick?
She never gets sick.

“Is anyone else presenting symptoms?” she asks
the inevitable.

“No, no, sweetie. Just you,” he
says
with
a
wink. “You’re the lucky one.”

“We were so worried,” Hannah says on a
soft cry.

Grandpa swiftly rounds the bed and puts an arm
around her sister. Reagan squeezes Hannah’s hand
reassuringly.

“She’s
fine
now, Hannah dear,” Grandpa
says.

Hannah nods and wipes at her eyes with a
handkerchief. It already looks very used.

“Wait a minute,” Reagan halts them. “How the
hell sick was I?”

Grandpa’s eyes meet hers. He shakes his head
slowly. Well shit. She hadn’t known she was even sick. She’d
written it off as a cold.

“Sorry, Grandpa,” she explains. “I thought it
was just seasonal or a cold or something. I had no idea that I was
getting that sick.”

“You may have just had something mild, but when
you were exposed to the flu it took hold hard on you since your
immune system was already compromised.”

Reagan nods and feels depressed.

“This is quickly becoming pandemic,” he
explains further.

She furrows her brow, and he
continues.

“We went into town again yesterday, Kelly and
Derek and I. There are over thirty families down with this. Even
Zach Johnson’s daughter has it. Three others have died, as well as
the two we treated at the clinic.”

“Shit,” Reagan swears as her eyelids begin to
droop again. “Hey, don’t put any sedatives in my IV. I don’t want
to get too tired to stay awake again.”

Grandpa just chuffs softly through his
nose.

“Told you doctors make the worst
patients,” he says to
Hannah,
which makes her
smile.

“We need to go and re-sanitize the clinic and
our…” she starts but is cut off.

Grandpa states, “We already did, Reagan. We
also sanitized the house, the laundry, the bedding and the
vehicles. We’ve got it under control, Dr. McClane. The only problem
I could foresee is the family who had contact with you, physical
contact with you, within a few days to a week before you started
fevering.”

Reagan frowns hard. “Yeah, that’s not good.
What about Jacob? I mean, I hold him and kiss him. And John! Shit,
they could both get it.”

Grandpa’s eyes
tighten,
and he says, “I know.
But we’re taking preventative measures. They are both drinking
my
teas
.”

Reagan laughs, actually laughs out loud and
rolls her eyes at him. Grandpa chuckles. It makes them both feel a
little better, but she knows that they also both understand the
danger her family could be in. A moment later, Kelly pokes his head
into the building.

“Hey, baby,” he says softly to Hannah. “Brought
another load of firewood, Doc.”

“Thank you, Kelly,” Grandpa says as he rises to
greet her brother-in-law.

“Baby, I told you that you could come out for a
few minutes,” Kelly cautiously says to Hannah. “It’s been almost an
hour.”

“Kelly Alexander!” Hannah scolds
harshly.

Wow, Hannah never talks so meanly to anyone,
especially not to her husband. Reagan watches the interaction with
curiosity.

“She’s my sister,” Hannah states emphatically.
“I’ll leave when I’m good and ready!”

Kelly sets the armload of firewood next to the
small, compact wood-burning stove and backs away toward the door.
He places his hands on his hips through his thick parka.

“Five more minutes, woman,
and
I’m
coming out here to carry you back to the house if I have to,”
he threatens and then quickly retreats.

Reagan chuckles. She wasn’t sure how
much of Hannah’s sass Kelly was going to tolerate. Apparently not
too much. Grandpa chuckles once, too, as he finishes adjusting her
IV drip. She still wants to know
exactly
what he’s been pumping through
it.

“I’ll leave you girls for a minute,” he states.
“Going to get John for you and some more of my hippy-dippy
herbs.”

He smiles, winks at her and leaves.

“This sucks,” Reagan complains. Her voice
sounds scratchy, even more so than normal. Hannah just squeezes her
hand.

“Grandpa says we’ll need to watch for a
relapse,” her sister says.

“Hm, I’m sure I’ll be
fine
,” Reagan
says, trying to reassure her lovely sister.

“You were so very ill, Reagan,” Hannah says
again and then lays her head against Reagan’s hand on the bed. “I
can’t lose you. We’ve already lost Em and Grams. I can’t lose you,
too.”