Life Sentence

by Kim Paffenroth

  Learning to play the piano had some other collateral benefits for me. The other kids started calling me "Piano Girl," which may not sound like much of a nickname, but I was so relieved to get it after spending my first years being called "Zombie Girl." I don't think a five-year-old girl ever got in as many fights as I did.

  I was always kind of tall and gawky, and my black hair and pale skin didn't help, but worst of all I was adopted, and the identity of my biological parents was a matter of dark, morbid, sinister speculation. After I would have a fight with other kids, Mom and Dad would talk to the other kids' parents, of course, but it didn't make any difference. They might take a day off, but then they'd be back at it, saying my real mom was a zombie and my real dad was crazy, and I'd start punching kids till they beat me down, then I'd come home and say I'd fallen and refuse to identify who did it.

  Given what I've heard and read since, it looks like some things didn't change so much between the old world and the new, but unfortunately, it seemed to be some of the ugly parts that stayed the same. So by teaching me piano, my mom indirectly helped me to get picked on less, and Dad helped more directly by teaching me how to fight, no matter how often he protested in front of my mom that I was supposed to "just walk away." When I was ten, I got taller and bigger than most of the other kids my age, especially the boys, so Piano Girl was getting along a lot better and more peacefully than Zombie Girl had.

  Teaching me to fight led naturally into training me for my first vows to the community. I remember one day shortly before my vows—which were scheduled, as was tradition, to take place on the summer solstice. Dad and I went out to the big field to practice. It was an oddly beautiful place for the kind of practicing we had been doing there since I was little, and which we'd increased now with my vows approaching. It was an idyllic place, with butterflies flitting about and the steady drone of grasshoppers. It was much like the field where I thought I remembered being attacked, though it wasn't the same one. The grass was only just above my knees now. This one had no woods nearby, at least not big ones, but just scraggly little trees scattered in clumps. One big hickory tree stood in the middle of the field; in the fall, we would gather its nuts, and among the smaller trees there were lots of blackberry bushes that we'd pick later in the summer. Neither of the field's offerings was in season that day, however, and it was not a day for such peaceful pursuits.

  We found our spot with the grass still matted down and brass casings all over the ground. It was about thirty yards from the big hickory, from which my dad had hung an old, cast iron frying pan years ago. We faced the big tree as we got our stuff out. There was a light breeze and it wouldn't be too hot today, though it had warmed up enough for me to take off the coarse woolen jacket made by my mom. About thirty yards to our right was an old wooden fence, and my dad and I had set four coffee cans on top of it as we'd walked into the field. The same distance to our left was the rusted hulk of a tractor. My dad took four more coffee cans and handed them to me. I walked over to the tractor and set those cans on top of it.

  Dad was checking our weapons as I walked up to him. He looked at me and smiled. "You know why I like to use the frying pan and coffee cans for the targets?"

  "Because they're about the size of someone's head." I rolled my eyes at him. "You know you tell me that every couple days, Dad. And it's not even a nice way to talk. Mom says it's not."

  "Sorry, princess, your old dad doesn't know too many jokes. Well, of course, that's not actually a joke, technically speaking. The pan and the coffee cans are about the right size for what we have in mind. Even if it's not nice, it's what we're training to do, so we might as well come out and say it." He winked. "And I really like the sound the pan makes when you hit it."

  He'd laid everything out on a blanket on the grass. There was a.38 S&W Model 10. That was the handgun I practiced with the most, both because it was the easiest to service, and also because it was a little smaller and easier for me to handle. Next to it was a.40 Beretta 96. I had only just started shooting that one this season. The size, weight, and recoil made it hard for me, but I had gotten decent with it. Next to them were two rifles—a Ruger Mini-14 with a scope, and an M16. We used the former sometimes for hunting, and the latter was another new addition to my training. My dad had put some jury-rigged deflectors on both the rifles, to keep the ejected casings from hitting me in the face, since I'm left-handed.

  My dad set himself down on the grass behind the blanket, pulling his knees up and resting his forearms on them. He reached up and scratched me between the shoulder blades. "You like shooting, princess?"

  "Yeah. I'm good at it. I have to be." I scanned all the nasty, oily black metal at my feet. I could hate the idea of the weapons, and I could even hate the look of them—dully glistening there like shards of the body armor from some gigantic, evil insects—but I knew I'd had them in my hand so many times that they felt as natural as anything could. They were a part of me.

  "I know you are. I tell you so every day." He scratched harder and made me laugh. "Sorry you have to be, honey. I don't tell you that enough."

  "There's nothing to be sorry for, Dad."

  "No?" He shrugged off his own jacket, then reached in the one pocket to pull out his boonie hat. "I know you've been talking to Milton and Jonah way too much to give such a practical answer," he said as he put on the hat. "We don't want you sounding like your old dad."

  I smiled at him. "I don't think they ever want us to feel sorry for anything, Dad. They just always talk about how complicated and confusing things are. I like that."

  He reached into his other jacket pocket and got out a small pair of binoculars. He cleaned the lenses on the sleeve of his jacket. "You like things to be confusing? I don't."

  I had to roll my eyes again. "You know what I mean. I like it when people tell me what's what. And if something is all confused, I like for them to tell me that and not dress it all up for me."

  He grunted as he put his elbows up on his knees. "Yeah, well, that's why they got me handling the uncomplicated things with you. I just give you the tools and skills to put big holes in things at a distance." He put the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. "Like we've been doing it. Show your dad how you make dead things deader, sweetie."

  I knelt down and put on the protective ear muffs I used when shooting. I loaded the.38 from a box of ammo next to it, working quickly to slip the six rounds into place. I swung the cylinder back into place as I stood up. I raised the gun smoothly, holding it with both hands, my left forefinger on the trigger. My breathing was steady. My palms didn't sweat like they used to, either. The frying pan was plenty heavy enough that the breeze didn't move it at all; even the shots wouldn't set it swinging enough to throw off my aim, unless I hit near the edge and started it spinning. I knew that wouldn't happen. I squeezed off the six rounds, quickly and methodically, but not hurriedly. There were six low, satisfying clangs.

  I knelt again and set down the.38. I took up the Beretta, which was also unloaded. The night before I had loaded a bunch of magazines with five rounds each, but my hands still weren't strong enough to load a full magazine of ten, so my dad had put the last five rounds in each one for me. I picked up one of the magazines and slid it into its place in the handle. I moved the safety to the fire position and racked the slide to chamber the first round. I stood, turned to my right, and brought the gun up with both hands. The weight was definitely still cumbersome, but I had gotten used to it, and had also gotten over the intimidation of such a big gun.

  It took me seven of the rounds to hit the four cans on the fence. I turned to the tractor. With the three remaining rounds I knocked down two more cans. The field was in a slight depression, with the ground sloping up around us, so my dad could usually call my misses by watching through the binoculars for where they hit behind the target.

  We went through this with the handguns several times, with me setting the cans back up in between rounds. Then my dad took up the Mini-14 and the M16, I took up t
he bag with their spare magazines—which my dad had loaded the night before when I was loading those for the Beretta—and we walked farther from the tree, to another spot with matted-down grass and brass casings on the ground. My dad got back in his position with the binoculars, while I set the selector on the M16 to the "BURST" position and practiced firing three-round bursts at the frying pan. I almost always hit with the first round of each burst, then the recoil pulled the barrel too high.

  "That's normal," my dad said. "Just keep working at holding the gun steady throughout the burst, okay?"

  We picked up the rifles and ammo and went even farther from the tree, about a hundred yards, and I practiced firing single shots from the Mini-14. I was nearly as good with that as I was with the.38, even at this range, since we'd been hunting with it before.

  When we were done shooting, we packed everything up and ate lunch in the shade of the big hickory. Mom had packed hunks of salty, gritty ham; it had been put up last fall. The hard-boiled eggs, on the other hand, had still been inside a hen two days before. There was a loaf of bread Mom had made from a combination of acorn and corn flour. It always came out crumbly, but as with so many things, I had nothing to compare it to. After walking and shooting all morning, I thought it tasted perfect. A little brook cut across the field, and we got cold water from that to complete our meal. It was a small enough stream and we were close enough to its source that we didn't bother with boiling it first.

  After that break, we got up and took the two staffs that we had left leaning against the big tree the day before and practiced fighting with those. I knew Dad held back, but I also had enough bruises to know he was making me work for every time I'd catch him with the big, heavy stick. After a long bout with the staffs, we had some more water from the stream and lay down under the tree to rest before the long walk home.

  I loved looking up at the leaves, how they danced and melded into all different patterns against the sky. "You tired?" my dad asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Good. You gonna take a nap?"

  "No, I'm fine."

  "Even better, 'cause then I can." He folded his hands on his chest and closed his eyes. This whole area had been cleared of the dead years ago, but it was still way outside of the central fence and wall network, so dad never let us be completely off guard here.

  I watched the leaves. "Why do we practice with the staffs, Dad? It's not like the dead can use things like that against us."

  He kept his eyes closed as he answered, holding up two fingers. "Two reasons. The first one is tactical." He folded his middle finger back. "One—it's not as much fun for anybody if you just whack me with a big stick all afternoon."

  I swatted his arm down. "I don't know. That sounds pretty fun."

  "Hmm-mmm. Just like your mother." He extended both fingers again. "The second one is strategic."

  "Strategic?" I'd heard the word before, I just didn't see how it fit here. "How so?"

  "It means the big picture, not just what's going on at the moment."

  "Okay. What's the strategic reason?"

  "You take a vow to protect the living. The dead aren't the only threat. So you don't learn to fight just the dead."

  I turned my head to look at him. I'd always suspected the answer, but it still made me feel cold inside. The wisecracks about the frying pan and coffee cans being head-sized didn't seem so funny in light of that answer. I first tried to find some factual inconsistency to object to. "But why do you always tell me to go for a headshot? That wouldn't matter if the person were alive."

  He folded his hands back across his chest. "If someone is bad enough for you to kill them, then they're bad enough that you want them to stay dead. I don't think their behavior's going to improve much if you leave them dead and walking around with a hole in their chest."

  Now I tried to assail the logical inconsistency of it. "You kill the living to protect the living?"

  "I didn't make the rules. I just teach you to play by them."

  I paused. "You ever kill anyone? I mean, someone who wasn't already dead?"

  He shook his head a little, still without opening his eyes. "No. I was lucky that way. You might ask your uncle Jonah, and he can tell you about it. I hear it's very complicated, because when you're actually doing it, sometimes you get to liking it a little too much. And then when it's done, you don't like it at all and you feel sick. That's how he's explained it to me, and I think he's probably right." He opened his eyes and looked at me. His eyes were a bright, lively hazel, unlike my dull, dark brown ones. I always wished my eyes were pretty like his. "But I do know how you think about it before you do it, how you have to think about it every minute of your life."

  "How?" I whispered and looked back up at the leaves for some guidance.

  "You see anyone trying to hurt you or anyone you know, then it doesn't matter if they have a pulse or not. All you think of is how you can put them down for good, as quickly as possible. Bullet, blade, stick, run over them with a car, set them on fire—hell, it doesn't make the tiniest bit of difference. You do it without thinking or hesitating or considering any other option. That's as much a part of your vows as anything else. That's as much a part of who you are and who you have to be now." He reached over and squeezed my bicep. "You talk to Jonah and Milton about dealing with the complications, but you believe that part through and through, without question. Okay, little girl?"

  I nodded and bit my lower lip.

  "Hey, I got something for you." We both sat up and he reached in one of the bags we'd been carrying. He got out a small handgun in what looked like a homemade leather holster and handed it to me. "I stitched the holster myself, so sorry it looks rough. I know your mother sews better, but you know she doesn't like… you know, guns and even stuff related to guns."

  I carefully slid the small gun out. It was a dull blue-black, curved and perfectly formed, though still graceless and brutal. But it fit in my small hand like it had been sculpted just for me. And when I squeezed the grip, the hammer cocked; I released it, and it uncocked. "Snazzy, Dad. Thanks!"

  "Heckler and Koch P7M8. 9mm, eight-round magazine. Pricey gun, back when it cost money to have a gun. Small, but decent stopping power. It fits your hand well? I know you still have trouble with the Beretta."

  I nodded. "Perfect." I racked the slide. The best thing was that it was a completely ambidextrous gun. "And it's better for a lefty."

  "Yeah, I was lucky to find it. You like it? I don't mean like, I guess. I mean, is it a good gun for you to carry around and have as your own? You need that now."

  "Yes, Dad."

  "Good." He reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Don't tell your mom, okay? But it's yours now."

  "Okay, Dad."

  "Can you sit there a couple minutes while I catch a few?"

  "Sure."

  He lay back down on the grass. "Thanks, sweetie."

  I studied the 9mm for a few minutes, then slipped it back in its rough little holster and put it in my jacket pocket. I spent the rest of the time watching the butterflies and listening to my dad's steady, reliable breathing, till he awoke and we walked home.

  Chapter 4

  Milton came inside the fence with us and shooed the other people away from the little building near the gate. That building was different from the others. It had windows and a sign over the door that read "OFFICE." With the other people at a safe distance, Will came inside the fenced area as well. He broke the glass on the door and went into the office. He came out with keys and, staying behind Milton, he unlocked all the other doors. Then he and Milton left and locked the gate again.

  It's funny, but now that the doors were unlocked, I felt embarrassed to open them, especially in front of the two men who could talk. It was like I was doing a trick or passing some kind of test they had set up. But I didn't see how to make them go away and give me some privacy, so I slid one door up.

  Inside the dark compartment were bicycles and furniture and boxes piled to the ceiling. Some of t
he other people with me went into the compartment and started pulling stuff out, and I wanted to stop them, because they didn't seem to appreciate or respect the things; they just tossed them all around. But I knew they had as much right to these things as I did. The stuff didn't belong to any of us, we were just taking it, and if that's how they enjoyed the objects, then I had to let them. If I wanted to rearrange the things or use something myself, I could just wait till they lost interest and wandered off, which all of them did after a few minutes of going through the things in the compartment.

  Inside the compartment was a sofa, and I sat on it and examined some of the things that had fallen out of boxes. There were all sorts of little things. Some I could identify, some looked vaguely familiar, and some were a mystery. But I liked all of them and was glad to have them. It wouldn't be so bad here, if I had some objects to look at, some things to learn about and study. My heart leaped as I thought there might be books in some of the boxes; I had been able to read the signs outside, so I thought I could probably read more complicated things, and even if it was hard, getting more practice and learning to read better would give me something to do.

  It still made me a little sad to be locked in here, but as I sat there looking at an album full of pictures and running my hand over an old quilt, I had to admit that even if the gate were open, I wouldn't know where to go. I had no idea what was out there. There could be things that were dangerous-wild animals or violent people or even fire. I shivered when I remembered that Will and Milton had built a fire at night when we were walking here. It had scared me almost as much as being near Milton. I looked at all the boxes, and I thought that for a while, maybe a long while, this would be a really nice and safe place to stay and learn about the world. Maybe later I could go out and see other things, once I'd learned what was safe and how to get around better, and if they'd let me.

  I looked sideways at Milton and Will, trying not to let them notice that I was looking at them, letting them think I was focused on the things in the compartment. They, on the other hand, made no attempt to conceal how fascinated they were by watching my every move.