Radical

by E. M. Kokie

  A lot of groans, and then someone says, “Come on,” but I’m impressed. This isn’t just about safety, but actual proficiency.

  “Let’s break into three groups,” Randy says. He motions to indicate some of the older guys in back. “You guys are with me,” he says. “The rest of you split into two groups. One with Carl at firing point five and the other with Karen at firing point eight.”

  Four or five older guys filter through the group from the back and follow Randy, all looking a little resentful to be here. “I know, I know,” Randy says, waving off their grumbling. “We’ll do a quick run-through and then get you guys shooting.” He leads them toward firing point two.

  I’m right near Carl, so I join his group. He has his handgun holstered, but he places a rifle on the table, muzzle toward the targets. Then he just sort of looks at me.

  “Bex,” Mark says.

  “What?”

  Mark, Daniel, some mouth-breathing skinhead-wannabe loser, and the other three guys in my group are all glaring at me. And then I look over at the other group, which is clustered tight around Karen. Karen’s with the girls. The guys are here with Carl.

  Mark jerks his head toward Karen’s group.

  Apron Brigade for sure. Well, screw that. I turn so I’m facing Carl and wait.

  Carl stares for a few beats and then says, “Okay,” and he turns to place his handgun on the bench.

  He runs through the basic safety fast. Everyone here is experienced, but he still goes over the first-day-at-the-range basics, like how to always point the gun toward the targets or down, never leave a loaded gun on the table, finger off the trigger until you are actually in position, all guns unloaded until ready to shoot, et cetera.

  “What about open carry?” one of the guys asks. “I mean, we can carry out there, but we can’t carry here?”

  Carl takes a deep breath and looks over at Randy, but Randy is in the middle of explaining something to his group. “If you’re eighteen or older, and the firearm you’re carrying was legally purchased and is registered in your name, it’s fine to carry it on the land. But we’re encouraging everyone to exhibit some basic courtesy by the ranges. That means keeping handguns holstered and unloaded, and keeping long guns unloaded and open unless you are actively shooting.”

  “Bullshit, man,” the guy standing next to Mark says. “If I can carry out there, chambered and ready, I’m not disarming myself here.”

  “Well, you can take that up with Mr. Severnsen, who’s in charge of the ranges, or Mr. Riggs.”

  “Talk to Riggs about carrying?” one of the others says. “Yeah, right.”

  “Anyway,” Carl says, directing us back to the range rules.

  Then he makes each of us step forward and run through safety checks using his rifle and pistol. After each guy goes, Carl pulls him aside to make corrections or offer advice without tipping off the rest of us who have yet to be tested. The guy before me is a little too casual about it, and, from the looks of it, he gets more of a chewing-out than simple corrections.

  “Bex,” Carl says. I step forward. The doofus left the handgun pointing sideways on the bench with the magazine in and the action closed. Pretty much a what-not-to-do if you’re trying to show you know how to safely handle it. I pick up the pistol, point it downrange, remove the magazine, and put it on the table. I pull the slide back and hold it open, look in the chamber, and then hold it so Carl can also see that the chamber is empty. He nods his approval, so I let the slide slam forward on the empty chamber. I pick up the magazine, show him it’s empty, and slap it back in. I check that the safety is disengaged, sight on a target, and dry fire. I lock the slide back, remove the mag and put it down, and then set the pistol on the table with the muzzle pointed downrange and the action open. Carl smiles. I run through the checks on the rifle, then shoulder it, sight, and dry fire toward the target. Then recheck and lay it down.

  “Good.” Carl doesn’t correct anything, and seems surprised not to have to. “Under eighteen? The rule for all the under-eighteens is that you can participate in dry-fire drills and live long gun drills with your parent’s consent. But you do not touch a loaded handgun without a parent present. Understood?”

  “Yeah.” I was hoping they’d be more lax on that. If Dad consents, what do they care?

  “I know,” he says, “but it’s the law. And we will be following all laws and regulations.” Carl looks over toward Randy and then leans closer. “At least for now,” he adds. “Once we get more organized, get to know everyone a little better, we’ll be talking about squad work and how to best accommodate the training schedules.”

  Meaning maybe they’re just being sticklers until they know if there’s a plant around who will run to the closest law enforcement to report any infractions or violations.

  I glance around the group as I step back. I don’t know any of these guys, but I can’t imagine any of them are federal agents or informants.

  “We going to shoot anytime today?” Karen asks from her table.

  “Yeah,” Carl says, but he turns and waits for Randy to finish.

  “You ready?” Randy finally asks. “First shooters up. The rest of you, fall back to give the shooters some space. Eyes and ears, everyone.”

  I get my eye protection and earmuffs from my range bag and put on my vest.

  Mark, Daniel, and the other guys in our group all step to the right so they can see the skinhead-wannabe loser getting ready to shoot. I hang to the left so I don’t have to deal with them. Mark, mostly.

  Even before he can fire the first shot, Carl is stepping in to give the wannabe some direction.

  The short girl is up first over at table eight. Karen is working with her. She’s using a range gun and is still pretty timid. She’s probably a beginner. Cammie is watching, one step back, like she’s the one in charge.

  All three are readying to shoot, so I put my muffs over my ears.

  Trinny, the girl with the pigtails, has on a unicorn shirt. It sparkles. So does the stretchy band to keep her hair out of her face. Her earmuffs are pink and covered in star stickers that I bet glow in the dark. I hope she has a different pair for maneuvers.

  If we’re still here by the time they’re doing maneuvers. When Dad figures out that they’re in to more than shooting ranges, he’ll probably bail. Or our guest passes will expire, and they’ll want money, which we don’t have, not for this.

  One of the older guys starts shooting. He’s using a Sig Sauer with night sights. From the way the older guys looked to him, I figured he was the alpha of that group. Maybe of the whole group. Seeing him shoot, and his choice of weapon, gives me hope. He’s serious but not a show-off, no tactical gear or drama. He has a solid firearm, and he handles it well.

  The rest of the older guys are still grumbling or talking. Not even bothering to look at the guys in my group, let alone the girls. As far as they’re concerned, they’re already their own group. Men, not boys.

  In my group, Wannabe is getting frustrated. Probably because he was strutting around before, but he’s shooting like a beginner. He even clips the empty target holder in front of firing point four.

  Delia’s up in Karen’s group. She’s using a range rifle, too, but she’s pretty good.

  Mark and the two guys who were going on about open carrying are joking around, mostly about Wannabe. But I think some of it’s about me, or maybe the other girls. Maybe Delia. Something jerky.

  Daniel is standing apart from them, acting like he’s watching Wannabe but really watching the older guys. He wants to be over there, not with Mark and these clowns. He probably should be, and if Mark and the others weren’t here, he probably would be. Wonder if he’s realized that recruiting these guys seems to have worked against him.

  After Delia, Trinny shoots. Her rifle has a pink tiger-print grip. It would be pathetic if it wasn’t so clear she didn’t care what people think. Or if she didn’t handle it so well.

  Daniel does fine. When he’s done, he looks over to see if any of
the men noticed. They didn’t.

  Mark does well enough, and after him, the less mouthy of the open-carry guys does okay, too. Better than the sulking Wannabe. Then Mr. Open-Carry-You’re-Not-Disarming-Me goes. For all his talk, he’s only about at Mark’s level. Nothing special.

  I wait for my turn, watching Mr. Open Carry reload.

  When he’s done shooting, I step up. Cammie is getting ready to shoot at her table, but I force myself to focus front. I unpack my rifle and ammunition. I run through my checks, load up, and then pull a stool over to get in position.

  After Carl signals me, I let everything else fade away. It’s just me and the rifle. I ignore the steel targets placed at handgun distance and focus on the paper targets on the fifty-yard target boards. After the first five shots, I put the rifle down with the bolt open and pick up my binoculars to check my shots. I have a good group, maybe an inch and a half to two inches, about two inches below the bull’s-eye. I don’t want to adjust my sights, so I’ll just aim higher for the next five shots. Carl taps my shoulder and holds out his hand for the binoculars, so I hand them over. He checks my target and hands them back with a smile and a thumbs-up. I half hear him and half read his lips as he says, “Good shooting.”

  I load the next magazine and shoot again, holding a little higher this time. When I check again, the group is about the same, but now centered nicely in the ten ring. While Carl checks my shots, I lean back to see where the others are at. Cammie and the guy in Randy’s group are both ready to go with their other guns. Rather than reload, I clear the rifle and hold. I’m a guest, and figure it’s better to leave Carl impressed by my corrections.

  Cammie is still shooting. Looks like a Glock, newer than mine. Her form is perfect. She takes out the metal targets in order, slow but deliberate and in rhythm, and then focuses on the humanoid target. Nice clusters. In the target zones of head and chest.

  She’s good. And she knows it, by the way she ejects the magazine and checks clear.

  Once the range is called cold, Karen runs down and gets Cammie’s target. She studies the clusters and then hands it to Cammie. Karen high-fives her and then slaps her butt. Cammie smiles, then sees me watching and stops.

  Carl hands me my target. I get another, more pronounced, “Good shooting.” When I look up, Cammie and Karen are inspecting my target. Karen nods her respect. Cammie checks out my rifle on the table.

  “Hey, Carl,” Karen says. “Do you need to spot my turn?”

  Carl gives her a don’t be stupid look and shakes his head.

  Karen grabs her own range bag while Cammie resets her targets.

  Ready and focused, Karen looks fierce. Hard-edged and serious and not to be messed with. She lifts her pistol and focuses downrange. Cammie moved the targets back some, and Karen still efficiently knocks over all of the metal freestanding targets, and then readies for the paper target. She glances over her right shoulder at Cammie, and the right side of her mouth turns up. I move over to get a better look, just as Karen nods and Cammie starts calling the shots. Heart. Right temple. Neck. Nipple. Kidney. Pinpoint shots, including one last one down low, near the edge of the target, and it’s not hard to guess where she was aiming.

  “Excellent,” Carl says, bumping fists with Karen when she’s done and clear.

  Maybe not just an Apron Brigade.

  Laughter and a squeal off to my right. One of the older guys is lifting Stacy off the ground.

  “Cut it out, Trip,” someone says, but Stacy’s only playing at being upset.

  Karen and Cammie roll their eyes. Not impressed.

  But I am. Not with Stacy or that crap. But with the ranges. The trainers. Tactical training. Finally, other people who get it. This is exactly what we need.

  “How was it?” Mom asks as soon as Mark is through the screen door and into the kitchen.

  “Awesome,” Mark says, heading straight to the fridge — to drink something from the carton, I’m sure.

  She’s at the table, the bills and her notebook of financial info in front of her. Serious stuff, usually. But she’s always got time for her precious boy.

  “The range is so cool,” Mark says. “So much better than the indoor range. And the trainers said we’re going to be working up to”— he catches Dad’s warning look —“uh, longer distances. Today was mostly about safety and skills checks.” He takes a huge glug of juice. “Next week we’re going to do more actual shooting. And then —”

  “Mark, get a glass,” Dad says, more to shut him up than anything else.

  Mom looks from Mark to Dad, and then to me. “And how about you?” Mom asks me. “Did you have fun at the range with your dad?”

  “It was okay. Like Mark said, they’ve got a good setup.”

  “You went to this club, too?” Mom stares at Dad.

  “I wanted to check things out before I just left Mark there,” Dad says, like that should earn him points. “Steven Trace was there, introduced me to some of the organizing committee. They showed me around, while Bex joined the other kids at the range. Looked nice,” Dad says, looking to me to confirm. I nod. We’re on the same side, for now.

  “Can I borrow your car?” Mark asks Mom. “Just for a few hours?”

  “What for?”

  “I told the guys I’d come back out and meet up with them.”

  Mom puts down her pencil. “I thought you were just going for a visit.” She looks at Dad. “We can’t afford for you to join this club, Mark.”

  “It won’t cost anything,” Mark says.

  “How does it stay in business if there are no membership dues or other fees?” Dad and Mark don’t answer. “Who’s paying for whatever this ends up costing?”

  “I said I’d try harder to find a job,” Mark says. “I’ve been looking. There’s nothing!” He waits for Dad to back him up. “It’s important,” Mark says. Mom sucks in her lips. “I’ll only be gone a few hours. Promise.”

  I can see Mom wavering. She looks at Dad. “I haven’t gone to the grocery store yet,” she says, meaning either Dad gives Mark his truck or he drives her to the store.

  Mom and Dad have one of those silent conversations, and then Dad picks up his keys off the counter. “I’ll take him back.”

  “Really?” Mom asks.

  “Yeah. I was going to go out there tomorrow anyway,” he says. “Riggs, the head guy, mentioned there may be some work for me, since they’re just getting things off the ground and still building the facilities. I was hoping to have a chance to talk to him one-on-one. I’m sure he’ll still be there.”

  “Can I come?” I ask.

  “You have schoolwork to do,” Mom says.

  “I can do it later.” It’s distance learning. I can do it anytime.

  Dad hesitates. “School first,” he says, looking at Mom like that will win him more points. “Next time.” And they’re out the door.

  “Nice to see him excited, making new friends,” Mom says, like Mark’s happiness is all that matters. She scowls at me. My face must be showing just how much Mark’s happiness does not matter to me.

  “I don’t need a lecture right now. I’ve got to clean my gun and put it away. And then I’ll do one of the lessons,” I add as an afterthought.

  I get the rifle and my cleaning supplies from the workshop and set up on the porch.

  Once all my supplies are laid out, I pull the bolt back and double-check that the magazine is empty. Then I activate the bolt release and pull it to the rear and off the rifle. It would be better at the kitchen table or the workbench in the workshop, but there’s no breeze in the workshop, and I’m not going back in the house, where Mom will nag me about school.

  She’s inside at the table, crunching numbers and paying bills, but mostly she’s making stacks of the bills we can’t pay and recording figures in her grand-plan notebook, always calculating how long it will take us to be in our own place again. Today she’s muttering too much. If Dad gives any money to Mark for the club, she’s going to lose her shit.

 
; I clean the bolt face with hand sanitizer and a toothbrush. One of the preppers on YouTube did a video on off-the-grid field hacks, and hand sanitizer was one of his tricks. It works so much better than the expensive stuff, and you can find it everywhere for cheap. If we were on the run, we might have nothing better than soap and water. Lubricant might have to be oil or transmission fluid pilfered from an abandoned car, or a bit of industrial grease scrounged along the way.

  I put the bolt face on the towel next to me and grab a rod and patch to clean the bore.

  “Dammit,” I hear Mom say in the kitchen.

  I wait for more, for the sound of erasing or any indication if that was a “dammit” because the math got the best of her, or if the magic line she’s racing toward is creeping away again. I hear Mom’s deep sigh and more shuffling paper. A not-enough-money “dammit.”

  I put the rifle and all my supplies on the edge of the porch and brace myself before going inside.

  She’s shuffling the bills. Moving things from one pile to another, until three bills remain. She puts two into what are obviously wait-for-next-paycheck, or maybe the paycheck after, stacks. She rubs her eyes like they’re full of sand. One last bill sits on the table in front of her.

  We canceled everything we could before giving in and moving out here. They should just cancel Mark’s truck insurance, since his truck is always busted. Other than that, there’s not much left to cancel.

  She’s looking at our cell phone bill. We wouldn’t have phones at all, but when Mom said they had to be canceled, I agreed to pay half. But it looks like half is still pushing it. I can’t lose my phone. It’s my most reliable Internet. The only one that’s really private.

  I go upstairs and close the door to the room I’m using as quietly as I can. The starched and ironed curtains have flowers in faded pinks and yellows and blues embroidered around the edges, faded nearly white in the folds that get more sun. Aunt Gracie made them. She made the quilt on the bed, too. The room still sort of smells like her. She’s been dead for years, but, even though Uncle Skip hasn’t slept in here since she died, I think he only cleaned out her stuff so I could have this room. It’s like him to hang on to things, to the bits of people who are gone. Grammy’s sewing machine is in the barn, too.