by Kate Morris
“Come on, kid,” G says to her baby. “I’ve got some things to teach you. I mean, since you are my niece and all.”
“Like what? How to light a cigarette?” Reagan razzes and gets an impudent shrug from her little sister before she walks onto the front porch with the baby.
Reagan sits in the only chair left while John stands behind her. He takes a second to bend over and kiss her cheek and stroke her hair. This sort of thing would’ve embarrassed her just a short time ago, but now it is simply comforting. Just knowing he’s still alive is also somewhat of a comfort after a night like last night.
“The enemy had mortar rounds,” Cory starts in with.
“What are those?” Paige asks.
“A weapon that takes a crew to handle,” Kelly answers, taking Hannah’s hand in his and looking at his wife, who is distressed by all of this talk of violence. “It’s bad. They can do a lot of damage without getting too close to the scene of the battle. They did last night. There was some heavy damage to a few of the condos and buildings in their community.”
“There were RPG’s, too,” John explains. “Those aren’t what we’d consider heavy artillery so much as just dangerous. But they can also do some serious damage.”
“Rocket Propelled Grenade,” Kelly jumps in to help explain since not everyone is on the same page. “The insurgents used a lot of them against our forces in the Middle East. Sometimes they even blew themselves up first. That was always funny.”
He snorts with an ornery grin and gets a disapproving look from his wife, for which he immediately apologizes. Then he looks at Reagan and winks and nods and mouths, ‘it was funny.’ Reagan smiles. Hannah elbows him, and Kelly looks very well put in his place.
Cory says to Paige, who is sitting across the room from him, “I’ll show you and everyone else what heavy artillery looks like later. I have a book.”
“I have no doubt,” Paige jokes, getting a grin from Cory.
“Anyway,” Derek states impatiently, “We didn’t know they had that kind of firepower. The ones who attacked Dave’s compound weren’t using anything that heavy duty. This is new. It’s good to know now. Let’s us know who we’re up against. I just wonder where they got that kind of weaponry.”
“Probably an old base,” John guesses. “They might’ve found ‘em at Knox, maybe Campbell. I talked to their leader, Melora. She said there wasn’t anything left when they got there. She and Hardy searched the base extensively for anything like that but came up short of any weapons at all.”
“Yeah,” Kelly agrees, “We never found anything left like that on a base, either. Heck, our own base was overrun and raided as we were leaving it. It was either shoot a bunch of civilians or leave.”
“We made the right call,” John says.
Cory jumps in again to add, “Some of them also had night-vision gear like the ones who attacked the cabin when Paige and I were staying there waiting for Sam and the Professor.”
“Yeah, I saw that, too,” Kelly says. “Some were wearing Kevlar again, too, just like before. Made taking them out a little harder.”
“But we managed,” Cory brags and bumps his brother’s fist from his standing position behind the sofa. This also earns a scowl from Hannah, which makes the brothers instantly stop their shenanigans. “Sorry, Hannie. It had to be done. There were so dang many of them that they could’ve overtaken the town or here if they made it that far.”
“Do you have a final tally?” Grandpa asks.
“Seventy-two,” John answers.
“Whoa,” Reagan says with a gasp of shock. “I thought it was like forty or fifty.”
“No, and we’re sure that a few got away. There’s never a way to prevent it. We tried our best. Derek setting up men on the road with the blockades was perfect. We think when it first started at the beginning of the night they realized pretty quickly that they were in trouble and sent a runner for more men.”
“Still, it’s staggering,” Reagan says, reeling.
Derek nods and says, “I think, all things considered, that it could’ve gone a lot worse.”
“I agree with that assessment,” John says and nods to his brother.
“We have to do more. This can’t go on like this. They’ll continue to attack our allies and neighbors and friends until they eventually establish a foot in the door and take over one of the communities, possibly even here,” Derek says and perches his weight on the corner of Grandpa’s desk.
“We spoke with Robert,” Grandpa starts and comes around from behind his desk, too. “He agrees to lend us troops and whatever firepower we need to defeat this group.”
“But we’d owe him,” Reagan immediately says, knowing her father so well.
“I didn’t get the impression that he would want the favor returned. I think he just wants to keep us and all of our allies as his own allies, as well,” Derek explains. “I got a feeling that he was being genuine about it, too.”
Reagan rolls her eyes in disbelief.
Sue looks at her and admonishes with a simple, “Reagan.”
Derek says, “I’ll be honest here, guys. I don’t know if we could do this without him. I think we are going to need his help. We can discuss it further, but I really think we’re going to need more men and maybe even our own heavy artillery on this.”
“We should implement our ambush plans, too,” John says. “We tried questioning some of the men we captured, but none of them has agreed to talk yet.”
“Where are they now?” Grandpa asks.
“We have them detained in the jail in town. The sheriff’s keeping an eye on them for us,” Kelly answers. “We’ll go again tomorrow and interview them. There’s three. We’ll see how it goes.”
“I’m sure at least one of them will talk,” John says.
“We need to go back to town tonight to treat our patients,” Reagan says.
“No way, boss,” her husband says. “You need to rest. Do you remember that you had a baby a few days ago? You’re staying home tonight.”
“Besides,” Paige breaks in to says, “Simon called home a while ago to let us know that the patients are doing well and that he and Sam and her uncle have it under control.”
“Bet that’s going to be a fun night,” Sue says.
“What do you mean?” Reagan asks.
“Henry went to town, too,” her sister explains.
“Oh, boy,” John says.
Kelly jokes, “Glad I’m here. You should be too, bro’.”
Cory looks at his brother with confusion.
“The Professor already whipped your ass once for you,” Kelly says and gets a solid thump to his head from his wife. “Sorry, baby. But it’s true. The Professor doesn’t seem to have a lot of patience lately, and with Henry in town, it could get real interesting.”
Everyone jokes for a while and even razz Cory a little more, but Reagan excuses herself to check on the baby. She’s fast asleep in G’s arms in the music room now, and the other children have gone to bed.
When she retires to her own bedroom with John, their small son is already there.
“We’re gonna need a bigger bed,” he whispers with a bright smile.
“You could always sleep in the closet,” Reagan suggests.
“Or I could drag the twin bed back up here and sleep in the corner like a dog like you used to make me,” he exaggerates as he climbs in on his side.
“You managed to work your way into my bed easily enough, Harrison,” she teases with a smile, getting a bigger one in return from her studly husband.
Reagan lies Charlotte in the bassinette Kelly and Cory built her. John leans over Jacob and kisses her. They hold hands across Jacob’s middle, and she watches her husband fall asleep. It doesn’t come so easy for her, so Reagan rises a while later and works on medical research at her desk. She studies bullet wound surgery and deep tissue lacerations. The nightmare from earlier has resurfaced into her brain. She doesn’t want to lose anyone else in her life. She just hopes it is o
nly a bad dream fueled by lack of sleep and exhaustion and not some foreboding warning from the beyond.
Chapter Twenty-five
Sam
She awakens confused by her surroundings. Sam sits up and rubs her eyes. She’s in a strange bedroom, one that looks like it used to be inhabited by a teenage boy. She swings her legs over and remembers. She and her uncle are staying in one of the empty homes a few doors down from Grandpa’s practice. Simon chose to sleep at the clinic in Grandpa’s office to keep a closer watch on the three men who are resting there.
Having not slept for over twenty-four hours, she still feels tired after finally crashing last night. There are people who need to be checked on and cared for, so there’s no time for a pity party over missing some sleep. She hauls herself from the bed and pulls on fresh clothing, jeans, and a black, v-neck tee. The clock on the nightstand is stuck at 2:20, the batteries having long ago ceasing to work. She consults her watch instead. It’s still early, just past dawn.
She sneaks from the room and quietly down the stairs so as not to awaken her uncle just across from her in the master suite. People in the community brought them food and water yesterday, and she has a piece of bread, some dried berries and nuts, and a glass of water before getting ready to leave. Everyone in town always takes care of them when they are away from their own homes like this in order to watch over patients who can’t be moved.
Henry and one of his friends also stayed the night in the house with them, but she doesn’t see them on the sofas in the living room where they’d decided to sleep. She plucks a ball cap from the hook near the door and slaps it against her thigh to remove some of the dust. She doesn’t know who this used to belong to in this home, but Sam needs it because it is drizzly and rainy today. It’s a good thing. They have been worried about a drought because it has been too dry all summer. At both farms, they are watering gardens daily just to keep the dirt from resembling the Mohave Desert. She decides to leave her gear upstairs and exits through the front door.
The town is starting to awaken, some people out and about at their chores, a few working in the distance on the wall from what it sounds like.
“Hey, Sam,” Henry says, startling her as he comes up behind her.
“Hi,” she replies. “Get any sleep?”
“Sure, enough. You?”
“Yeah, I think I went into a coma.”
“That’s good. You needed some rest,” he says with concern.
“So do you,” she reminds him. “Are you guys leaving today?”
“Nah, don’t think so unless you release the men from our group.”
“I don’t know. It’ll be up to Simon and Uncle Scott, not me. But two of them still seem like they shouldn’t be moved.”
He nods with a frown. It isn’t because he wants to rush home to his farm but because he is worried about his friends. Both required blood transfusions and are very weak. One man, a personal friend of Henry’s, suffered severe head trauma and required over thirty stitches. He was lucky, though. Others have died; two on Grandpa and Reagan’s watch and one yesterday afternoon while in her uncle’s care. Simon believed the woman had internal bleeding from being shot in the stomach. She’d taken it upon herself to join the fight at the condo community and didn’t have the experience to do so. She also didn’t have the permission of Paul or K-Dog. They were both devastated when they found out that she’d succumbed to her wounds.
“Hi, Samantha!” Melora greets as she comes upon them.
“Oh, hey, Melora, what’s going on? Enjoying the weather?” Sam jokes as their new ally from Fort Campbell joins them on their walk.
“Is your uncle up yet?” she asks.
“No, sorry. Is it a medical emergency?” Sam asks. “Simon’s at the clinic.”
“Oh, it’s a pediatrics thing. I just wanted to talk to him about a few things with our kids. I’m surely not a doctor, so a lot of what we’ve been doing with the kids is guesswork.”
“He should be up soon. He’s not usually a late sleeper.”
“With what you guys have been through the last few days, I don’t blame him for sleeping in.”
Sam offers a grin. She seems nice to Sam. Just the fact that she and Hardy were willing to take in a bunch of orphans, victims of the apocalypse, and look after them, feed them and clothe them speaks a lot to her character.
“Uncle Scott’s your man then. He was a former pediatrician.”
“I know. I heard. I mean, I wasn’t asking around about him or anything. I just…I’ll catch him later.”
Melora’s cheeks redden, and she quickly walks away. For a woman who is so sure of herself most of the time, she got embarrassed awfully quick.
“Sounds like someone’s got a crush on your uncle,” Henry says as they reach the clinic.
Sam chuckles and says, “Yeah, maybe. That was weird.”
“It’s in your blood, Sam.”
“What? What is?”
“People are just drawn to you, and obviously your uncle, too. Although, my interests in your family are just in you. Just to set the record straight.”
Sam laughs and says, “I would hope so!”
“No batting for the other side, rest assured,” he clarifies and grasps her hand as she steps up onto the first step of the front porch. “Will I see you later?”
“I don’t know where else I’d go,” she says, trying to seem nonchalant. He does not let go of her but presses a kiss to the back of her hand. Suddenly his eyes darken and dart past her. Sam turns around to see Simon standing inside the open door of the clinic, casually observing them while leaning against the door jamb and drinking something steaming from a mug. He’s dressed in khakis, a white tee, and a white doctor’s jacket. His stethoscope is hanging around his neck, and there are patient files tucked under his arm.
“I’ll have my radio with me. If you need me, don’t hesitate to call,” Henry says, gaining her attention again.
“Ok, thanks, Henry,” she says, trying to slip her hand free inconspicuously.
“She won’t,” Simon says bluntly, and a little too loudly.
Henry looks as if he’d like to say something but doesn’t. He reluctantly releases her hand and walks away.
“That was rude,” she says to Simon and squeezes past him to the reception area. He doesn’t follow her but continues to stare at Henry’s back. It makes her so mad that he doesn’t follow her or acknowledge her at all, so Sam stomps back over to him and says in a much more authoritative tone, “You don’t speak for me, Simon.”
Simon simply turns his head to look down at her. He stares at her for a long time. His eyes trail down her face, then her body and back up. They rest for a long time on her mouth, so long that she thinks she must have a crumb or something there. Sam swipes her fingertips over them to make sure she doesn’t look like a fool but doesn’t discover anything. Then he slowly takes a sip of his tea and turns his attention back out the open door as if she hadn’t just said anything. Sam grits her teeth, shakes her head and frowns. She throws her hands in the air with frustration, snatches the files from him, and leaves.
Sam heads straight for Grandpa’s office and sits behind his desk, opens a file and begins reviewing the case. The cot in the corner is made up neatly, which she is quite sure is how Simon left it. He’s about as meticulous as one man can get. The room still smells like him, as if he has branded it with his scent from sleeping in it just one night. He strolls in a few minutes later, walks behind the desk and rests one palm flat on it beside her. He is apparently going to read over her shoulder.
“Do you mind?” she asks in a snippy tone.
“No, do you?” he asks as if he hadn’t thought the notion of him reading over her shoulder would be offensive at all.
She harrumphs and says, “No, I guess not.”
“Mr. Markel across the street at the medical house has a fever,” he says, pointing to where he notated it on the man’s chart. “I’m watching him closely. It could be a sign of infection.”
/>
“Right,” Sam says, not liking how his warm breath is tickling the side of her face. “That would be bad.”
“If that’s the case, we’ll need antibiotics from the farm,” he says. “I’m waiting for Herb to call in for his morning report, and then I’ll tell him what’s going on, see what his opinion is.”
They discuss two more cases and their patients’ care before Sam asks, “Did you get any sleep last night? It sounds like you were up again all night.”
“No, I went to bed around two.”
“Oh, well then, no wonder you’re so full of vigor this morning!” she jokes and looks up at him. Simon smiles at her, but there is something in his eyes this morning that is different. His guard is down for some reason.
“Maybe it’s just the tea.”
“Ew, yeah right. That wouldn’t make anyone chipper.”
He smiles wider, and again his eyes focus on her mouth until Sam looks back down at another file on the desk.
“I didn’t ask you how it went… you know, during the…thing,” she questions, not wanting to say war or battle or even skirmish. It all sounds so horrible.
“Uh..fine. It went just fine.”
This drives him away and he takes a seat off to her left a few feet. He naturally doesn’t wish to discuss it, but Sam does. She wasn’t there and wants to know.
“What happened?”
“The usual,” he says in a clipped tone and sets his tea on the desk in front of him.
“Talk to me. I wasn’t allowed to go. I want to know what happened.”
He squirms, leans back in his chair, and interlinks his fingers behind his head. She wheels her chair closer.
“You don’t need to know, Sam. It was the usual violence and mayhem.”
“How many were there? Were women fighting, too?”
“No, no women, not that I saw.”
“How many?”
“Over seventy.”
Sam is floored. This is crazy news. “Wow, how did you guys take out that many?”
“It wasn’t too hard,” he lies and looks at his knees instead of making eye contact.
