The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (57 page)

“Reagan!” Paige calls out to her from
her rickety work area.

The men set up her
work space
on a
picnic table, some of which has rotted through from sitting
outdoors for years and not having been treated with any type of
weatherproofing sealant. They had commented on how sensible and
practical her schematics of the exterior perimeter wall were drawn
up. She’s a good planner,
engineer
and architect. Her drawings and
use of the materials they’d
been
able to salvage had put everything
to its best use. John said he was impressed that, even though she’s
so young, Paige knew about the strength and functionality of each
material like different metals and woods.

She joins Paige at the picnic table,
“What’s up?” she asks the other woman. There’s a smudge of dirt on
her freckled right cheek. Her pale blue eyes dance excitedly. She
points to the diagram in front of her.

“I think if we use those
big barn doors- you know, the ones that the guys said they
could
get from
that
huge
abandoned dairy farm up off of route 41- that they would
work
perfectly
. We could use those as the main gates. See here?” she says as
she points with her pencil. “We can attach them to those two big
telephone poles we got. We wouldn’t have to cut them shorter,
either. That’s good. Tall is good.”

“Sounds right to me,”
Reagan observes as she gazes down at the schematic drawing. Paige’s
handwriting is neat and concise, nothing like her own. Her
drawings
also look
like they were done by a computer and not by hand. Reagan adds with
a grin, “Fortress style.”

Paige smiles brightly at
her and nods. “Yes, that’s what I was going for. Fortress. That’s
the most
effective
way of keeping people out. And we could use that
fencing around the top of the sheet metal if we use these steel
pipes.”

She picks up a gray steel pipe about
four feet long. The men found much bigger, longer sections of this
piping material in a factory near Clarksville and had brought it
back a few years ago. They’d figured that it would get used
somewhere for something. That’s the way they operate. They are
always looking into the future, which is difficult for Reagan to
conceptualize. They were right, though.

“And these clips here?” Paige asks and
indicates toward some metal hooks. “Mr. Jones said we could use
these.”

Reagan knows that Mr. Jones
used to own a
fairly
large home building construction company closer to
Clarksville. Now he lives in their small town. He’s already donated
sheet metal and roofing supplies.

Reagan says, “That was generous of
him.”

Paige shrugs and chews the end of her
pencil, “It’s in his best interest. He lives in the perimeter
precinct. If he wants the protection of the walls, then he needs to
donate everything he can so that the men can get the walls built
and finished before winter comes again.”

Paige is definitely blunt when she
wants to be. Reagan just grins.

“How many townspeople are helping on
the build now?” Reagan asks.

“Thirty-three. One of the
families here in sector two have relatives coming from Nashville, I
guess. They said that they
have
three sons who will also be able to
help. The dad of the family said that if they want to live here,
then they need to come prepared to help. He’s
pretty cool
. I think if we
stay steady at it every day, we’ll get it done before the end of
fall. At least the immediate perimeter should get done or close to
it and the areas farther out will be pushed into
spring.”

“Thank God,” Reagan says.
“We’re safe out at the farm but not when we come to town. And the
people here need a better sense of security. It’ll help them to
trust one another again and
help
to set up trade with outsiders in a
more organized fashion.”

“Exactly, this is a good
thing we’re doing,” Paige says
distractedly
as she works out a
particular piece of the drawing in front of her and then erases an
area. “Here we can use the treated lumber that Kelly and Derek
brought home the other day.”

“All you need now is a castle moat,”
Reagan suggests lightly.

“Ha, yes, that would be helpful,
wouldn’t it?” she returns.

Simon joins them a moment
later. Then Sam, who is never far from him at any time, trots over
with her youthful energy, bright blue eyes and swinging, black
ponytail. Paige ignores them and continues sketching. This has
given her something valid and
important
to work on. Reagan knows the
sense of purpose she’d needed. She had felt like Paige seemed out
of place at the farm, like she didn’t quite feel like she fit in
with them. She’s usually pretty easy to read. After the attack
three weeks ago on the farm, she seems like she has bonded closer
to the family. And even though Reagan wishes that it had never
happened, she’s glad that Simon’s sister is cleaving to them. She
was
worried for
a while there that Paige would
wish
to leave the farm and that she’d
take her brother with her. That would’ve devastated the family.
Simon is like their blood, and they’ve all lost too many family
members already. To
Reagan,
he is like her nerdy younger brother.

“Your grandpa just arrived,
Reagan,” he announces. “He’s with Mr. Oberholtz at the clinic. They
are going over the bullet points that they want to cover during the
meeting today so that it doesn’t get too congested with
conversation instead of planning. You know how these
meetings
sometimes
go
!”

“You’re the only person I know that
would use the words ‘bullet points’ after the end of the world,
Simon,” Paige jokes.

Reagan even chuckles at this one.
Simon just blushes as Sam gives a grin.

“Whatever,” he complains at his
sister. “Sam and I finished cleaning the clinic and prepared it for
next week’s visit.”

“Did you mark off your
tasks on a bullet point
check
list
?” Reagan teases. This gets a laugh
from both of the other women.

“Yeah, yeah, you women,” he spits
hostilely. “I’m gonna go help the men. At least they make more
sense and don’t waste time with this sort of silliness!”

He stalks off to the
laughter of the three of
them,
his
wide
shoulders drawn up in a tense
posture.

“Aw, Simon, come back!” Paige calls
out between guffaws.

He just waves his hand behind his back
at them in irritation but doesn’t turn around. He straightens his
blue ball cap and keeps right on going. The women chuckle at him
again.

“Now I feel bad,” Sam says, trying to
muffle her laugh.

“What?” Reagan asks. “Nah,
don’t feel
bad
. We can’t let these men around here get bigger heads than
they already have. It’s good to knock them down a rung from time to
time.”

“Right, we don’t want them getting
cocky on us,” Paige agrees on a smirk of arrogance. “Besides, he’s
easy to tease. Simon’s always been that way. He’s also always been
way too serious.”

Reagan glimpses a hint of
the sassiness that Paige likely used to have. Her red hair is
partially concealed by the blue bandana she has wrapped around her
head and forehead. She sports either a blue or a red one most of
the time. The sun catches some of her loose red strands causing
them to shimmer like molten gold and liquid lava. The jeans she
wears are at least three inches too short for her as they were
borrowed from Hannah, and Paige is so much taller than all of the
McClane women. If they could go on a run, Reagan’s fairly sure they
could find some women’s sizes in tiny and tall somewhere in retail
stores. Paige has
unusually long
legs for a girl
. She walks around most of
the time in flood pants. She’d probably be more comfortable in
clothing that actually fit her tall, slim figure better.

Sam says, “I’m not
so sure.
It feels mean.”

“Would you care if we were razzing
Derek or John or is it just Simon getting flamed that bothers you?”
Reagan probes with a grin.

“What?” Sam says and blushes pink. “Of
course I would care if we were teasing the other men. Why wouldn’t
I?”

“Hm,” Reagan murmurs.

“I’m… I’m going to help Grandpa,” Sam
stammers and rushes off.

If she’s going to help Grandpa, Reagan
would like to point out that she’s going the wrong way. She just
grins instead.

“What was that all about?” Paige
asks.

Reagan’s not a hundred percent sure
she should share her observations with Simon’s sister. She’s not
sure how she’ll take it.

Paige looks up from her drawing and
cocks an eyebrow.

“Sam’s in love with Simon,” she
blurts. Damn, that wasn’t exactly smooth. Leave it to her to
blurt.

“Really?” Paige asks and
looks around as if something or someone is going to confirm this
for her. She repeats it as if she truly can’t comprehend it,
“
Really
? Are you
sure?

“Uh, yeah,” Reagan says. “I
probably shouldn’t have said that. I’m not good
at
being secretive. I’m a
textbook blurter. So is Sue, in case you ever need to know
that.”

“Did she tell you that she
has
those kind
of feelings for my brother?” Paige asks with a deep crease
between her light reddish brown eyebrows.

“No, she’d never tell me
something like that. I’ve just noticed. So has Sue and Hannie. If
I’m being totally
honest,
I guess I should admit that it was really Sue who
noticed first and then Hannie. They told me. I don’t pick up on
that kind of stuff very well most of the time.”

“Wait, how would Hannah know something
like that?”

Reagan laughs aloud, “You don’t know
Hannie very well yet, do you?”

Paige smiles and nods. “Yeah, I’m
starting to figure that one out. Are you sure she’s not just faking
being blind?”

“I know,” Reagan
agrees
with
a smile. “She’s like a damn Bassett hound when she wants to
know something. She’ll sniff it out if she has to.”

“That’s very true,” Paige
says
with
a
nod. “She definitely gets information from me when she wants
it.”

A goat bleats near them in
Mrs. Engle’s front yard. It is quickly joined by two of its
comrades in arms. It touches Reagan’s funny bone that her once
perfectly manicured
yard
with the white picket fence now contains six goats
that she milks and trades for goods that she needs. Her daughter
and grandchildren had moved in with her a few years ago from
Missouri. Her daughter’s husband had died of
influenza,
and she’d
made
the journey
with her three kids. Since Mrs. Engle is in her sixties, it’s a
good thing that she has the extra help.

Reagan smirks.
“
No
shit.
You gotta watch Hannie. She’ll fleece you for
information,
and you won’t
even see it coming.”

Paige’s blue eyes twinkle
with merriment. She doesn’t seem like
a particularly happy person
most of the
time. This is a rare exchange for them. She’s talked a few times
with Reagan about her family and the friends she used to have, but
those memories are always met with tears that quickly get shut down
before she whisks herself away to take care of some chore or
imaginary errand or to take care of Maddie.

“That’s how she got Kelly,” Reagan
confesses. “She knocked him off his feet and he didn’t even know
what happened. Poor guy.”

“You really think Sam is
interested in my brother? I’ve never picked up on anything like
that. He’s very stoic around her, sometimes distant and kind of
hard
with
her like he can’t wait to get away from her. And Sam seems
kind of shy around me. I don’t think she’d confess something like
that to me.”

“No, she’s not just interested in him,
Paige. She’s in love with him. Big difference. We don’t live in a
hook-up society anymore. Her feelings are real. Does that bother
you that she has feelings for him?”

“I’m not sure how I feel
about it,” she admits. “The thing is, I’m just getting to know
Simon again, you know? We were separated from each other during the
most significant, life-changing event in history. And he’s changed.
And so have I. Good God, I don’t even know who I am anymore.
And he’s so different, too.
He’s a man now. When I saw him last, he was a
dorky
fourteen-year-old
kid who liked video games and studying and geek
shit.”