The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 Read Online Free PDF Page A

tripping and
falling or twisting an ankle on the debris scattered everywhere.
Paige doesn’t know where the occupants of this home have gone, but
apparently they left in a hurry because some of their belongings
have been dropped and discarded or forgotten.
    “Gavin back yet?” she asks of her
friend.
    “No, not yet, but he should be
soon.”
    Talia sets her own lamp
down on the granite counter-top in the expensive kitchen as Paige
places hers on the round, bird’s eye maple table with the intricate
wrought iron base. Their simple meal awaits them there, as well.
Tonight it’s canned tuna, some cooked squirrel meat from yesterday, some greens picked from the field
behind the house and a can of black beans all to be split equally
among them. For a special dessert tonight, Paige has been saving a
can of apple pie filling that she found a week ago in a desolate
corner of a burned-out grocery store. It had likely been
accidentally kicked and had skidded across the floor to that
forgotten corner.
    She’d fed Maddie about an hour
ago, and Paige had made her promise not to tell their secret about
the apple pie filling dessert while Talia was busy going through
the upstairs closet searching for some clean clothing to
pilfer. Maddie had eaten two helpings of the pie filling,
and Paige made sure to give her a big portion of the greens and
beans, too. She’s only four years old. She needs the nutrients and
proteins more than they do.
    Talia takes plates from the custom made maple
cupboards and silverware from the drawers, placing them on the
table that Paige had wiped clean of three years’ worth of dust
earlier today. The upstairs bedding they’d taken out to the back
yard and had shaken out dust and dirt. Luckily this home still has
bedding. It’s rare. They’ve already made plans to take some of it
with them when they leave. Last fall while camping in the forest in
their two tents, some of their supplies had been stolen while they
were fetching water and Gavin was hunting for
squirrels or rabbits. They’d immediately packed up what was left
and took off. They’ve had shoddy, threadbare blankets and one
sleeping bag since then. This home has apparently not been raided
for much because it’s still stock full of supplies, minus food, of
course.
    “Found some clothing upstairs. Think there’s
some stuff that you can use, too, Paige,” Talia offers.
    “Awesome,” she declares happily. “These
clothes could damn near stand up without me.”
    Talia laughs and agrees. “Yeah, mine, too! We
are some nasty, skanky chics , huh?”
    “Ya’ got that right,” Paige jokes. It’s rare
that they joke, laugh or smile about anything. Their days are
simply about staying alive, and there’s
usually no room for anything else. “Haven’t washed my hair in over
a week. Maybe I’ll do that tonight. Gonna suck
as usual.”
    “Yeah, that’s going to be one cold wash,
girl,” Talia concurs with a smile.
    They have no hot water. They almost never do.
Sometimes they’ll heat water on an open campfire so that Maddie
doesn’t have to wash with cold water, especially not now with
winter still hanging around. Paige pines for the warm weather of
Georgia where she’d been attending college
when the first tsunamis hit. Her home state’s weather was even
warmer, milder and super hot in the summer. She misses Arizona. But
as much as she misses her home, she misses her
family so much that the pain from it is hard to even
think clearly sometimes.
    “No kidding,” Paige says. “But I’m starting to
smell like a grizzly bear.”
    There is a soft tapping on the door that
connects the home to the attached garage. It’s Gavin. This is his signal that it’s him and not some creep
predator.
    Talia crosses quickly to the door, unlocks it
and ushers their companion inside. He has a dusting of snowflakes
clinging to the nylon material of his winter coat.
    “Snowing again, huh?” Paige asks. She hates
this snow shit.
    When she was seventeen,