by Lopez, Rob
A battle had taken place here. Josh assumed it was between looters and cops. Presumably the cops had attempted to stop the looters from taking all the guns. If so, they failed, because the store was gutted. Following his father inside, he saw the smashed display cabinets, the labels denoting what had been taken: Sig Sauer this and Smith and Wesson that. A dizzying array of pistols and rifles, and that was only what was on display. In the back room, whole shelves had been emptied.
“A whole lot more people out there with guns now,” murmured his father absently, like he was reassessing the tactical situation.
Unsurprisingly, there was no ammunition left to supplement what they had, but among the discarded cardboard boxes on the floor, Rick found something the looters hadn’t considered worth taking: a long, dusty box with a peeling label. He held it up with the look of a man who’d discovered gold.
“Uh, Dad. That’s an air rifle,” said Josh with a certain distaste. Considering he now carried a loaded revolver, a pellet gun wasn’t really a big deal.
His father disagreed. “This is one of the best things we can find, and it’s going to keep us alive.”
“How?”
“We’ve got no deer around here, or anything big to hunt. Do you seriously think we’re going to waste a bullet on something like a squirrel, or a pigeon? Even a .22? Everything we’re after in the suburbs is small. This gun is cheap, easy to maintain and quiet.” He held up a round can. “This here is five hundred pellets. Do know how much five hundred bullets weigh?” He tossed the can in the air and caught it again. “This is nothing, and there’s ten cans here. You do the math.”
The rifle came with a scope. Rick found a sling for it and presented it to Josh. “This is your rifle now. Get to know it well. You’re going to feed your family with it.”
It wasn’t quite what Josh had in mind as an ideal weapon. He would have preferred something like Mom’s hunting rifle.
“First thing we’re going to do,” said Rick, “is zero the scope.”
There was an indoor range in the store. Rick set up the paper target at thirty yards and propped the rifle on the bench using sandbags. “Sit down.”
Josh sat down, taking up position and peering down the scope. It was nothing fancy – just a simple crosshair.
Rick opened the can and placed it next to him. “Break the barrel open.”
Josh gripped the end of the barrel and tried to force it down to unlock the catch. He strained for a moment.
“Slap the barrel open with the palm of your hand and then pull it down until it clicks.”
Josh hit the barrel a couple of times until it snapped open, revealing the rifled bore. The lengthy muzzle brake offered enough leverage to pull the barrel down until the trigger engaged.
“Now keep your finger clear of the trigger, load a pellet in the bore, then snap the barrel shut.”
Josh did so, still feeling he was playing with a toy.
“Make yourself comfortable, keep the gun rested, aim for the center of the target and squeeze the trigger, pulling it cleanly backwards like I showed you.”
Josh aimed for the center of the target. Through the scope, it looked too large to miss. The trigger broke crisply and the spring loaded rifle flipped back into his shoulder. Looking up, he saw the pellet hole in the top right corner of the paper, well away from the center.
“Hold it tighter into your shoulder. A pellet don’t travel as fast as a bullet, so it’s still going to be in the barrel when you’re jerking it back. You’ve got to hold the gun rock steady until the pellet clears the bore.”
For the next few minutes, the empty range echoed to the clack of the air rifle until Josh was able to achieve a scattered grouping of holes. Unfortunately, they were all high and to the left of the center.
“That’s good. Now we adjust the scope until that grouping is over the center.”
Josh shot the rifle until his arms got tired, and his palm stung from slapping the barrel open for every shot. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t land a pellet dead center on the target.
Rick nodded with approval at a target paper that looked like it had been perforated from a shotgun blast at long range. “Okay. The positioning’s good. Congratulations, you’ve just sighted in your first rifle. Now all we have to do is get that grouping tighter, because you’re not going to hit a damn thing the way it is now.”
Josh looked up in annoyance and witnessed his father’s rare smile.
*
Lauren stalked through the arcade, looking for Packy. She found signs that he had been there – cigarette butts and smiley faces drawn in the dust – but of the man himself, there was nothing. Certain he was still inside, she’d lain in wait from a distance, watching the main entrance through the scope, but after he failed to emerge, she took a chance and entered.
An open door at the back of one of the cafes showed the route he might have taken out, slipping into the narrow alley and then smashing a window to enter an office next door.
Lauren couldn’t help thinking he was smarter than he looked.
“He said he wanted to go to the mall, then the mayor’s office,” stated April.
“So we go to the mayor’s office.”
“Do you get the feeling that maybe he wants us to follow him?”
“Yes and no. I don’t know. Let’s stay cautious.”
“I’ve been nothing but,” said April, looking up at the charred tower blocks. “This place gives me the creeps.”
They crept through the streets until they reached the triangular block of the Government Center. Lauren ducked down behind an abandoned taxi and scoped out the glass entrance. It had been smashed.
“Are we really going to go in there and look for him? He could be anywhere,” said April.
Lauren was about to answer when an explosion blew out one of the upper windows.
“I think we found him,” she said, staring.
Smoke curled out of the window, the remnants of vertical blinds wafting out as they burned.
“Great,” said April. “We’ve been following a guy who just wanted to commit suicide. Should have guessed from the way he was acting.”
“Come on,” said Lauren, “we’ve got to see if he’s hurt.”
“Are you kidding me? If that doesn’t hurt, I don’t know what does.”
Lauren dashed across and April followed. Inside, the lobby was pristine and quiet. They followed the departmental signs and began rushing up the stairs.
“What are we going to do if he ain’t dead?” puffed April. “Scrape him off the walls? Tell him we can stick his legs back on?”
“We’ll see when we get there,” said Lauren breathlessly.
They made it to the fourth floor when they met Packy coming down. He was covered in white dust and flash burns, and he had a bottle of bourbon in his hand.
“I didn’t think it would work,” he said, laughing like a maniac. “And look, the lady mayor liked to drink. Good job I was able to save it, right?”
“What the hell are you doing?” said Lauren.
Packy squeezed sideways between Lauren and April, bumping their hips with a lewd wink, then pranced down the steps like an imp. “I’m having fun, ladies. Like, what else is there?” He stopped and turned suddenly, arms outstretched. “Unless you’re offering?”
April rolled her eyes. “Not if you were the last guy on earth, honey.”
Lauren was still breathing hard from the climb. “Get out of here, Packy.”
“Rejection, huh?” said Packy, capering down a little farther. “Your loss, ladies. Your loss.”
“I can live with that,” said April, sitting down on a step.
“See ya,” said Packy, disappearing around the corner of a landing.
“At least the grenade’s gone,” murmured April.
“Yeah,” called Packy. “But I’ve got another.” he stuck his hand out, revealing the grenade.
“Hold it right there,” shouted Lauren, aiming her rifle.
Pac
ky disappeared, and Lauren dashed down after him, leaping the steps and careening into each corner. She got no closer, however, and when she reached the lobby, he was nowhere in sight, and she was beat.
April arrived seconds later. “Next time,” she said, doubled over as she caught her breath, “when I say shoot him, shoot him.”
9
“He’s just plain crazy. That’s all there is to it,” said April.
They sat in a circle for the evening meal in the living room, eating flatbread, pickles and pears.
“I’m not sure,” said Lauren. “A little unconventional, maybe.”
“A little? Girl, you’re too soft-hearted. He’s a fruit loop, and he’s damn dangerous. And where the hell does a guy like that get hold of grenades?”
“He could have got them from the National Guard base near the airport,” said Rick. “We checked it out today, and it’s been picked clean.”
Scott was sewing loops onto a long piece of fabric. “He needs to be persuaded to leave town.”
“Persuaded?”
“I vote we break his legs.”
“Seconded,” said April.
“Oh sure,” said Lauren. “Why don’t we give him the full mafia treatment and put a horse’s head in his bed?”
Scott paused his sewing, needle poised in the air. “I like that idea,” he said, nodding. “We could do with finding out where his bed actually is.”
“He’s probably sleeping in a different place every night,” said Rick.
“I don’t think so,” said Lauren. “He was clean, shaved and he didn’t look undernourished. He’s got food and water and he’s got some place to store it.”
“All the more reason to find where he sleeps,” said Scott.
“We don’t have time to go on a manhunt,” said Rick.
“Can we afford not to?”
“We’ve got about four day’s worth of food left, and that’s if we stretch it. Calorie intake is already too low to be sustainable. It’s a matter of priorities. We need to eat, not go chasing after some bogeyman.”
“Even if he’s got grenades?”
“Even if he’s got grenades. We maintain site security, keep a low profile and make sure nobody follows us back here.”
“Gonna be hard to stay hidden,” said Scott, “especially now we know this city ain’t as empty as we thought. Won’t be long before someone stumbles across us, and this isn’t going to be an easy place to defend. Too much cover close by, and too many firing positions in the other houses.”
“No, I don’t like this location much,” said Rick, “but until we find a better one, we’ll have to make do. First thing we can do is cover the windows. There’s plenty of chain-link around. We can nail it up to stop anyone throwing stuff in. We can also clear the flammable furniture from the first floor and fill pillow cases with dirt to make sandbags. Make a redoubt in the center of the house. I don’t want to get besieged here, though. Without adequate stores, it’s only going to end one way. I still say our priority’s finding food.”
“Was it a good idea to offer to feed those people you found at the hospital, then?” asked Lauren.
“I didn’t offer to feed them. I just said we’d help them out.”
“We need to stay away from these people,” said April. “And any others we find too. This is a SHTF situation. We can’t trust anyone. When people get hungry, it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. We look after our own and nobody else.”
“Seconded,” said Scott.
“Denied,” said Rick. He waited for a moment to let his dissent sink in. “We need people. No point just looking at how things are today. We have to think long-term. We’re fully stretched right now, trying to do everything ourselves, but we can’t. We have to forage, fetch water, hunt, chop, saw, keep someone here to guard the children then stand watch every night. It’s going to wear us out. Trust me, I’ve been on deep insertions and long range patrols, working in remote places with a small team. Scott, you know what it’s like. It’s relentless. After a few months, you’re wasted. Hate to break it to you, folks, but there’s no R&R at the end of this. No resupply. No recuperation period. Nothing. Just more, and more and more. The only way we’re going to get out of this alive is to build a community.”
“A community?” scoffed April.
“That’s right. We need people with a wide range of skills who can share the load, split the tasks.”
“More people is more mouths to feed and more chances to get let down and betrayed. I say it’s better if we keep it tight. I don’t want to keep having to watch my back.”
Rick looked at April. “We’re doing that already.”
April hesitated. “I didn’t want to step out of line …”
“You’re not out of line.”
“Just saying.”
“Noted.”
*
When they broke up to turn in, April hung around, feeling a little useless. She regretted opening her big mouth in the meeting and told herself she needed to spend more time observing and less time talking. She still didn’t really feel part of the group. Apart from the children, the others were older than her and seemed to have more real-world experience, especially the guys. Against that, she felt like a fraud – some bitch from the ghetto bigging herself up and making out she was something else. Truth was, she didn’t know jack, and if she hadn’t made it here with Lauren, she and Daniel would probably be dead by now.
That was a sobering thought, and didn’t do a lot for her self-esteem.
She watched Daniel, silently hoping he’d turn to her for his bedtime routine, but he was getting ready to follow Lizzy again.
April swallowed her pangs and was about to turn away when Scott appeared before her. He was holding the fabric he’d been sewing all evening.
“Try this on,” he said.
Unsure what to make of that, she just looked for a while, and Scott lifted it over her head and draped it over her shoulder, raising her arm so the bottom part dropped to her hip.
“Looks good,” he said. “It’s a bandoleer. Put your cartridges in these loops. Helps with fast loading. Tomorrow morning, I’ll cut the barrel of your shotgun to the length of the magazine. That’ll make it easier to handle.”
April didn’t know what to say. As Daniel passed close by, Scott held his hand up, and Daniel high-fived him.
April could only stare.
*
In the bedroom, Lauren folded up her clothes and discarded her underwear, throwing them into the corner. A pile of fresh underwear sat nearby, along with a variety of ACU camo pants and jackets Rick had brought from the National Guard center. Seeing as Rick had never been good with sizes, she imagined April and her would be strutting around in baggy fatigues. No matter, at least it was clean and utilitarian.
Blowing the candle out, she crawled into bed.
“So how was Josh, today?” she asked.
“Okay,” said Rick.
“Just okay?”
“Yeah. Needs a little work.”
“A little work?”
“Just that.”
“How was he … emotionally?”
“He was kind of spooked at the hospital. Did you know he was there the night of the storm?”
“No, he never said.”
“Tried to get help for your father. Still haunted by that, I think.”
Lauren moved closer, gripping his arm tight.
“Sorry,” said Rick. “Shouldn’t have mentioned that.”
Lauren’s voice was hollow in the dark. “It’s okay.”
They lay in silence for a moment.
“I don’t think it was a good idea to offer to help those people,” she said.
“I got that vibe,” he replied. “It was natural enough to want to do something, though. I mean … well, I said what I said.”
“Run it by us next time.”
“Comms were down,” said Rick flippantly. “Can’t keep second-guessing each other on these things. Got to have a l
ittle faith. I didn’t question your decisions upon meeting Mr. Pyro.”
“That was different.”
There was another long pause.
“Not so much,” said Rick. He slowly embraced his wife, caressing her breast.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Lauren.
“You mad at me or something?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I took my last birth control pill yesterday. We have to be more careful now.”
Rick sank back on the bed. “Oh.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to take the chance of becoming pregnant. Not with the way things are. The thought of bringing another child into this world … sorry, but we’ve got enough problems.”
“Couldn’t find anything in the drug stores, then?”
Lauren shrugged. “Got you a pair of shades, if you’re interested.”
“Oh yeah, because the future’s so bright.”
Lauren laid her head on his chest. “I’m scared,” she murmured. “At night, in the darkness, everything feels so much worse, like the dawn’s never going to come.”
Rick ran his hand through her hair. “That’s not the only thing that’s not going to come.”
Lauren took a moment to realize what he meant. She thumped his chest. “Don’t you dare lay that on me.”
Rick laughed. “I can’t help it. Getting to hold you every night, naked, makes me horny. Especially when you sound so vulnerable and all. Not used to it.”
Lauren snuggled closer. “And would you take advantage of that?” she said sultrily. “Being a beast and all?”
Rick nodded. “In a heartbeat.”
Lauren kissed him. “I’ll have to wear my jammies, then. That’ll kill your ardor.”
“Do you have any?”
“No.”
Rick kissed her back. “Then you leave me no choice but to get creative.”
10
“You might want to keep the noise down at night,” said Scott. “You gotta remember I’m on the floor above you.”