Read Online The McClane Apocalypse: Book One by Kate Morris - Free Book Online

and John think it’s actually getting worse. The militia groups are moving into the more suburban areas. He said they could even come as far as the rural farms, like here,” she explains, even though she knows she’s told her family this before. Maybe saying it aloud will make something sound different this time, more encouraging.
    “That’s why your grandfather has been fortifying this old dinosaur for years, girls. He never told you girls anything about it because he didn’t want you to think he was getting senile. But he and Derek made quite a few plans in the last couple of years,” Grams chirps in. The girls already know this, but always indulge Grams anyways.
    Reagan rolls her eyes at Sue and Sue smiles at her, which isn’t returned. Her smiles don’t come as easy anymore. She has only seen her sister smile once in the last three months since she’s been home and it had been at something Sue’s son Justin had said to her
    “I’m just so worried about them. Johnny, too, he’s like my brother,” Sue tells Reagan.
    “I know, Sue. But he’s a trained soldier. He’ll make it. I made it and hell, I don’t know shit for survival skills,” Reagan states as she steals another tomato chunk.
    “Young lady!” Grams explodes and thunks Reagan to the backside of her skull, sending her tomato flying out of her mouth and across the wide counter top. “Language! You will not speak thusly in this house, Miss Reagan McClane. In this house, we serve the Lord. Now, Susan, you stop your worrying. You hear?”
    Her commands are met with reticent, “Yes, ma’am’s.” Both women glare as Hannah chuckles quietly in the corner while chopping potatoes. She’s moved on quickly from bread and is now chopping potatoes. How does she do it, Sue wonders to herself? The girl could’ve been a mess-haul cook in the military. She is fast, organized and efficient. And though, not a particularly tall, domineering type person, if you stood around too long in her kitchen she’d give you some chore, which is how Sue has come to be dicing tomatoes. Derek had only been around her a few times, being always deployed elsewhere in the world, but he’d commented on Hannah’s military precision in the kitchen.
    “Geesh, Grams! I’m still recovering, you know,” Reagan whines petulantly about her head slap.
    “My eye, you’re still recovering. I saw you out riding this morning. And what did Grandpa say about riding?” Their grandmother is wiping her wet hands on a dishtowel that always seems permanently attached to the front her housedress with a clothesline clip. She flips her long gray braid behind her shoulder.
    “Hm, let me think. I know this one,” Reagan sarcastically answers, earning her a warning glare. Grams’s raised eyebrow look is maybe worse than the thunk. Even Derek had cowered from her when he’d made the grave mistake of cursing at the dinner table once.
    “I was just doing a perimeter check. We can’t be too careful. Some creeps could sneak onto the property somewhere during the night and take a cow or two and we wouldn’t even know,” she answers. She shoves back an errant curl and wipes her hand across the back of her mouth, smearing it with dirt. She doesn’t seem to notice... or maybe care.
    “Sweetie, nobody even knows we’re back here. We sit over a mile back from the nearest road, and the entrance is so concealed now that I don’t even know if I could find our house,” Hannah adds in. She wipes at her forehead delicately. With no air conditioning in the mansion, the June heat is sometimes a bit stifling. Luckily old oak trees stand close to the house and provide a ton of shade from the sun.
    “Duh, Hannie. Like you could find it anyways,” Reagan insults. “This isn’t a joke. Look, we can never let our guards down. Never!” Reagan hisses with deadly calm and slides off of her stool.
    Sue watches with great sadness as her once youthful, fun sister marches like a drill sergeant from the room.