by Kate Morris
Apparently, they are not looking for him but someone else, probably one of the men he just killed.
“He owes everyone something,” the other snorts and laughs.
Cory shoots them quickly in the back, both of them, and doesn’t care that they are cheap shots.
“Threat neutralized,” he tells Paige. “Keep an eye out. I need to get rid of the bodies.”
Then he drags them and their friends who’d owed them cigarettes or perhaps pot into one of the theaters and pulls them into different aisles. It’ll be weeks or maybe never that they are discovered.
“Watch my six,” he tells her. “I gotta get the asshole I stored outside behind that car.”
“Cory, wait!” she says loudly into his ear. “There’s a car coming. Don’t go out yet.”
He pauses near the front entry and conceals himself behind more cardboard cutouts of the latest movie hits, latest being four years ago when Hollywood was still barely in business.
A white van, one that looks like so many others that were described to them, slowly drives by the theater but doesn’t stop. If they turn around and head in the other direction, forced to go around the cluster of parked, abandoned cars, they will see the man Cory choked out.
Flashing lights from the other end of the street from another vehicle draw the driver’s attention, and they speed off in that direction instead. It’s a lucky break. He exhales with relief at their departure and slips from the building again to retrieve the man. Instead of carrying him all the way back into the theater, Cory stashes him inside the abandoned mini-van beside his body. There is a blanket in the van, so he pulls it over the man and takes his weapon.
Then he jogs back to the theater and locks the front doors so that nobody can sneak in through there and up to where Paige is hiding. He hurries back to her. He lays all of their confiscated weapons on the roof by his pack.
“Are you ok? What happened?” she asks in a rush and hugs him as if she was truly worried.
“They’re dead,” he explains without revealing the details and kisses the top of her head. Then he encourages her to squat again behind the wall with him.
“Oh, but you’re ok?”
Cory nods, “I’m fine. Thanks for not coming down and getting in the way. That’s the best thing you can do, just stay out of my way and spot for me.”
“It was hard,” she admits. “I wanted to do more to help.”
“No, what you did…”
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Henry says in their earpieces. “That asshole is driving my truck!”
“Really?” Paige asks Cory.
“Roger that,” Cory says. “How do you know?”
“That’s my license plate,” Henry states angrily.
“You’ll get it back soon enough,” Cory jokes. “Any trouble over there?”
“Negative, I didn’t pursue, not with Sam with me,” he says back. “You?”
“A few. Thinning the herd,” Cory says with a smirk, getting a deep frown from Paige. He just shrugs.
“Hide the bodies?” Henry asks.
“Like a Presidential candidate,” he jokes.
“Roger,” Henry responds. “I’m sending two men out on maneuvers. Cover?”
“Got it,” Cory says and nods to Paige.
An hour later, Simon returns with Dave and Kelly, and they report that their mission was successful. They took out nearly a dozen highwaymen and also hid their cars and bodies. It will take their comrades a long time to figure out where they went and to find their bodies. It will fluster them, fluff their nest. Good. Cory’s glad they are gaining the upper hand on these assholes.
An hour before dawn, they retreat as Dave’s new shift of men come to relieve them. This time, Cory drives them home to the farm, stopping to check on Doc in town on the way. When he glances over his shoulder, he sees Paige asleep on Simon’s shoulder. His friend is looking out his window with an angry scowl on his face, leaving Cory to speculate that it is over Sam. He can definitely understand his frustration. Not being with the woman he wants is creating havoc in his life, too. Soon, he’ll make his move and reveal his secret plan he’s been working so hard on to her. Rejection will simply not be an option the next time he offers for her.
Chapter Nine
Sam
Two days after her intel mission with Henry when Cory killed some of those highwaymen, Sam goes on another trip with Henry, eight of his friends, and Cory and Paige, who meet up with them at an outlet mall in Springfield that had just opened less than a month before the world fell apart. Sam had gone there with her mother because they actually had an equestrian apparel store. Of course, her mother had shopped all day and bought things for her brother and the twins, as well. Sam was never much of a shopper but indulged her mom because she wanted to make a girls’ day of it. Thinking back on it makes her sad because she wishes so badly that she was shopping with her mother and having lunch and not looting with a pistol on her hip foraging for useful items for their village.
“Anything you can find,” Henry says to his men. “The town’s taking in so many people because of the highwaymen that we can use just about anything.”
“Yes, clothes, bedding, especially shoes,” Sam adds.
Paige nods and adjusts the blue bandana wrapped around her head. “Yeah, us, too. If you find anything for kids, grab it all. The Campbell Kids didn’t come with much.”
“The stores could be picked clean,” Cory reminds them.
Sam says, “Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll see. This outlet mall just opened a few weeks before it happened. When I came with my mom, they were still doing the landscaping. There wasn’t even grass yet.”
Thunder in the distance pushes them closer to the overhang of the mall entrance. Luckily, the stores are all indoors and connected and not one of those outlet malls where shoppers had to walk outside from store to store in the weather.
“Stay frosty,” Cory warns as they enter and split up into pairs of two.
Sam follows Henry and his friend Thad, who’d married Courtney a few months ago. She’s pregnant already, and Thad is over the moon despite his wife’s apprehension about bringing a baby into this world. He’s a sweet man and good with her friend, which is all that matters to Sam. He’s also a man she trusts, and that’s not an easy thing to gain with Sam. Thad takes off with another one of his friends that Sam can never remember his name.
Henry’s other friend, Jazz, stays in the truck to guard their vehicles in case anyone happens by and decides to make off with them, and the others move out at a fast pace.
Henry leads her down a hall of stores to their right. Other groups head straight for the stairs and up to the second floor, and Paige and Cory go left. They get right to work and start searching, Henry having already scoped out the place the other day with some of his other fellow soldiers to make sure nobody had made a home or compound of the place.
“Henry, over here,” she calls softly and bends down to right an overturned shopping cart.
“Let me,” he offers and easily flips it onto its wheels. “Little worse for the wear, but I think it’ll do the job. Ready to shop?”
“Yep,” she says and leads the way.
The outlet mall has clearly been looted but probably only by locals who knew of the location since it is off the main roads, not visible from the freeway, and set in a slightly more remote area than most malls. She remembers driving in with her mother and thinking that the ride was scenic and pretty, the long, winding entry to the mall picturesque with old trees on either side of the four-lane road.
She comes to a baby clothing store and goes in. There are some items left, so Sam grabs everything and hands it all to Henry, who puts the clothing in the cart. He is on guard and tenser than normal. She has grown used to this in him as they’ve gone on a few runs together. However, he is helpful as well as being her guard. There is one packaged crib quilt set left on a tall shelf, and Henry gets it down and puts it in the cart, too.
“Ever think of having
kids?” he asks and places a changing pad in the cart.
“I used to. I’m not so sure anymore. I like all my…” she says but pauses because she was going to say family’s kids, meaning the McClane kids, but those aren’t her family any longer. “I like kids. I just don’t think I want to have any.”
“Someone’s gotta continue this, repopulate the earth,” he remarks lightly.
“Not me,” she says firmly and gets a frown from Henry.
The next store must’ve had a broken pipe somewhere in the ceiling and flooded, destroying everything, so they move on. She comes to a clothing store aimed more at teenagers but goes in anyway. Again, not much is left, but she takes everything they could use and leaves items like costume jewelry that they can’t. Then she takes Henry across the hall to a store that is supposed to be selling sporting goods but is mostly just gym shoes, a few plastic kayaks, some rock-climbing paraphernalia, hiking boots and backpacks. Most of the shoes are gone, but she takes the few stragglers. He makes sure to snag the repelling rope and fasteners, as well as wool socks.
They go further down the hall and into a clothing store for women. It was a career women’s apparel store, but beggars can’t be choosers. Henry peeks in first and nods for her to go ahead of him. Sam isn’t casually shopping; she simply grabs and hands it over to Henry. All in all, she is able to find some pants, sweaters, a few jackets, and blouses, which would all look great and very professional in an office setting. But she is quite sure the women they’ve taken in at the compound and in their town will appreciate the items, nonetheless.
“This is pretty full,” Henry remarks as they leave another store where they’ve absconded with men’s clothing. “I’m gonna run this out to the trucks.”
“I’ll keep going,” she tells him.
“Wait, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” he says, peering down the hallway which gets further and further from the massive entry windows and doors and increasingly dark and shadowy.
“I’ll be fine,” she reassures him and pats her rifle.
He scowls and says, “I’ll hurry.”
Sam goes into a music and instrument shop, takes a few books of sheet music, and heads to the next store, which turns out to be mostly useless because it’s a gift shop. When she has reached the end of the aisle, a boom of thunder outside causes Sam to jump. She’s glad Henry isn’t here to witness it. Instead, she turns right and starts down another hall because the sign on the wall indicates that the food court is to the left, which will prove pointless.
As she peruses not just last year’s fashion, but four years’ ago fashion, she thinks about Henry. There is so much to like about him. He’s a good man and obviously very interested in her, but Sam has not and cannot surrender her heart to him. He tells her often that he is patient and will wait, but she feels that it is not fair to him and has told him so many times. He doesn’t seem to care. He still pursues her as if they will one day be a couple, which worries her that his heart could be broken. Sam can’t lie to him, either. She doesn’t feel the same way. She sometimes wishes that she did, but she just doesn’t. Courtney has told her that sometimes love isn’t something that just smacks you in the face but something that blooms over time and starts as a trusting friendship. Perhaps her friend is right. She probably is since she’s now married and going to have a baby and Sam is still single and miserable and most of the time lonely.
Henry’s reappearance causes her to jump just as badly as she had when the thunder cracked.
“Rainin’ cats and dogs,” he tells her and swipes a hand through his wet hair.
“That’s great,” she says with sarcasm. “Good thing we brought the truck with the cover.” She’s referring to the Army truck.
“Yeah, but your friends didn’t,” he says. “I ran into Cory out there and told him to stash their stuff in our truck and we’ll trade it off with them when we get back to Pleasant View.”
“We aren’t going to Pleasant View,” she says and hands him a fleece blanket, the only one that doesn’t seem to have moth holes.
“Yeah, I told Doc McClane that we’d stop by later and go over plans and switch out guards.”
“Oh,” she says with regret for coming with him. She doesn’t want to go to Pleasant View at all. It is painful and brings up too many memories.
“I can take you home first if you’re gonna be tired,” he says, misreading her reason for disappointment.
“No, it’s not that. It’s no big deal. Let’s just keep going.”
They hit three more stores, and Henry runs another load out as she goes up to the second floor. She has to step over a lot of debris in the stairwell and use her flashlight to see her way, but she makes it up to the top floor. Henry returns with the cart, and she fills it to the brim with clothing, shoes, and even articles from a huge makeup and perfume outlet. Mostly she takes hair brushes, combs, shampoos, and items of that nature. She does grab a few lip glosses and lip balms, though. Those help a lot when the weather gets cold and the winds whip through their compounds. She makes a mental note to give a few to Paige. She stuffs those in the front pocket of her jeans.
“I think we’re about ready to go,” he says. “Don’t want to stick around here too long just in case. Plus, we need to get to Pleasant View. Dave’s supposed to be meeting us at five o’clock.”
“He’s going there too?”
Henry nods, his brown eyes soft and smiling into hers with tenderness. “Yeah, for the meeting. Plus, we were hopin’ you’d talk to that kid again. This time I think they want you to offer to make a deal. Tell us more, and we’ll free him. Something like that.”
“I think that’s a good idea. Poor kid.”
He pats her shoulder and says, “I’m gonna run this last load out. Do you want to hit any other stores before we leave?”
“Um, yeah, I kinda’ do,” she says and continues at his urging. “There was this riding apparel store at the other end of this floor when I came here with my mom. I’ll meet you when I’m done. I’ll head down to the first floor and circle back toward where we first came in?”
“Sure. Just be careful. Give me five minutes to get this out to the guys.”
She nods. “I just want to grab some riding pants for the women. They can really save your jeans from getting ruined.”
He smiles but adds an uncomfortable nod.
“I’ll be fine. Your friends were already down on that end of the mall. It’s safe. I’ll meet you in ten minutes. That’s all I need.”
“I’ll meet you in five,” he says with a chuckle. “I’ll head in your direction and find you before you ever get to me.”
“Nervous Nelly,” she teases and gets a lopsided grin.
He hurries away with the shopping cart heaping about four feet above the rim with stolen goods. She’s glad they decided to make this run. They’ve been hitting hospitals, doctors’ offices, and urgent care centers lately. She’d suggested this because they had a need to fill. The women and children who have been taken in by Henry and Dave and the villages of Pleasant View and Hendersonville cannot simply use a car and go shopping for themselves. The highwaymen stole everything they owned and burned what was left. Many had fled for their lives on foot. They had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This is a good thing they’re doing. These people need to have personal belongings. They’ve lost everything. They need something to call their own, even if it is a warm jacket.
Speed walking to the end of the hall, Sam quickly finds the riding store. Across the hall from it is a fine jewelry store. She has no need for anything like that, but sometimes people will barter things, so Sam takes a quick walk through the already looted store. There isn’t much left, but she does reach carefully through the broken glass to pull out a few rings, a single earring with a sapphire in it, and a gold watch. In the other display, she finds more rings and takes them. Then she rushes to the riding apparel store where she finds many pairs of pants, a few dressage shirts, and even lots of pairs of riding b
oots. She’ll have to send one of the guys to collect all of it. She neatly stacks it all in the hall so that they know what to take. Then Sam hurries to the stairwell at the end of the hall and flies down the stairs. Unfortunately, in her excitement to share her finds with everyone, she trips over debris in the dark stairwell and falls. She goes end over end for a few steps and slides on her back for three. Then she falls even further, her hands slipping on something else. She even cries out because the pain in her leg is excruciating. Crap. She’s really glad nobody saw this. It’s worse than being jumpy at thunder.
Sam lies there for a moment in the dark wondering what the heck it was that had tripped her. Basically, her own stupidity got the best of her because she hadn’t entered the dark stairwell with a flashlight on. She wasn’t thinking clearly and had been careless and hasty. Now she is injured.
She shifts her weight and cries out in pain. Her thigh is searing with pain. Sam instinctually grabs at her leg and wonders if it is broken. She pulls back a hand with blood on it. She presses her throat mic, which has shifted more to the side of her neck.
“I need help,” she cries weakly.
A second later, Cory asks, “Where are you?”
“I fell down a stairwell near the back. I was headed to meet Henry in the entryway. I would’ve come out by the bath products store on the first floor.
“I know where you are,” Cory says.
Sam takes a shaky breath, “I think I’m pretty hurt. I can’t move my leg. I’m bleeding.”
“Hang on, little sister,” Cory says gently. “I’m on my way.”
It feels like forever as the seconds tick slowly by and she lies there in pain, but Cory reaches her very quickly.
“Hold open that door, Paige, so that I can see better.”
“Cory,” Sam calls weakly to him.
“I’m here, kiddo,” he says and drops to a knee beside her.
Now that she can see, Sam realizes that she’s made it to the bottom of the stairs, just not the way she’d thought she would. Her torso is still lying back against the first two stairs up from the bottom, and her lower half is on the concrete floor. There are litter and debris everywhere. No wonder she tripped.
