The McClane Apocalypse Book Five by Kate Morris Read Free Book Online

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turn from cool to irritated. He’s hiding it well, but she can
recognize it. This guy is a fool if he thinks that his small
community, some of which are women and children, will make it
through the winter without their aid. She’s also not sure if the
voting system in their community was fair. Jay Hernandez is a very
loud and boisterous man. He could’ve intimidated people into this.
None of the people from his area who are present say anything. They
don’t appear to be cowed, but she’s not sure since she doesn’t know
most of them all that well.
    “We will get to expanding the wall in the
spring, Jay,” Grandpa adds. “You are over a mile outside of the
city limits. It’s just going to take some time.”
    “No thanks, McClane,” he answers rudely.
    Reagan doesn’t think his disrespect for
her grandfather, which is clearly increasing, is going to go over well with the men. John’s
thigh muscle tenses under her palm. Grandpa is certainly not the
leader of their town. The sheriff is the acting authority. And in
the spring they’ve talked about adding a new city council staff and
a mayor, which will likely be whoever wants to volunteer. But most
everyone in town looks up to her grandfather. He’d been their town
doctor for over thirty years. He was considered a pillar of their
small community. Jay Hernandez does not share this esteem of
him obviously .
    “We’re on our own. We don’t want anything to
do with the town,” Jay repeats.
    Condo Paul says, “Why not? We didn’t
have a wall, either. We had to build our own. We’re too far out to
be a part of the town’s wall, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t
want to do business with the town or be a part of it anymore.”
    Jay keeps going, pissing off Reagan and the
rest of the people, “We’re busy working on building our own wall.
It’ll go up faster if we don’t have to come over here and work on
town stuff and harvest with the farmers.”
    Paul shakes his head and looks at John who
mirrors his action. This makes no sense. Helping each other is the
only way to survive.
    “Wait a minute,” Mr. Henderson breaks in.
    Reagan knows that he owns one of the
last chicken and hog farms in the county. Many of the big business grocery store chain farms
had squeezed out people like Mr. Henderson. She thanks God that he never gave up. Those big farms
are gone, abandoned by the employees who’d been poorly paid to work
them. Mr. Henderson’s meat chickens and pork feed nearly half of
the community. She also knows that Jay’s group is supposed to be
helping him harvest his grain later this month. Without the grain,
his livestock won’t survive the winter. And if the coming winter
proves to be like the last one, they are in for a long, hard season
of cold and snow.
    Mr. Henderson continues, “You mean to tell me
that your group isn’t going to help me bring in my crop?”
    “No, we’re not,” Jay answers with a confident
attitude.
    “But I’ve been giving your people, Jay, food
for the last two years. What do you think you’re going to do for
food all winter?”
    Jay says, “We’ll be fine . We have some new people living in our
community now, and they’ve assured us that we won’t
starve.”
    John jumps in on this one, “Hold on! Who are
these new people?”
    “They’re some men I trust, who our community
trusts to help us make it through the winter and get our wall
built.”
    “Who are they?” John presses. “We don’t just
allow people into the community, Jay. You know that. They have to
be agreed upon.”
    “I’m one of ‘em,” a man says and stands.
    He’d been sitting a few rows back from Jay,
quietly taking in the discussion until now. The man is of average
size and build and wears his hair in a short buzz cut.
    “And you are?” Condo Paul asks.
    “Greg, my name’s Greg,” he answers.
    Some of the people who live in their
town are not actually from their town , but transplants from other areas or extended
family