by mike Evans
He held the rifle, not quite ready to leave it with them while he walked down the long hill. He took out his knife, carving into the bark, leaving what looked like a green circle, and drew an X across the tree.
He looked at the three, thinking they were going to need some clothes that might blend in with the buildings that they’d be around, eventually. They had an array of different colors, and all of them screamed that they’d like to be dressed as loud as they could. He looked down at his own attire and realized that, if they were somewhere else, maybe it wouldn’t be dumb to pick up something new to wear. The clothes that he had on screamed he’d been somewhere with weapons, and he knew that made him a target.
Shaun got to the top of the hill, motioning for Brady’s bright green hoody, when he looked at him strangely. He tilted his head, as if maybe he was asking a question that didn’t need to be answered. Brady relinquished his hoody, tossing it gently to Shaun, who threw the rifle over his shoulder and rolled up the hoody, combining it with his own jacket and rearranging it until he had a ball of material shaped just right.
“Uh, what are you doing, Shaun? I thought you were going to show us how to use these things?” Jay asked.
“Yeah, I am. But you needed something to shoot at. I needed you to have a target.”
“Because?” Jay continued.
“Because, Jay, I won’t know if you suck or if you have a chance in hell of hitting a target if you don’t have one to shoot at. Since you like shooting so much... albeit in cars—why don’t you go first? You keep the gun pointed downhill. When you think you are ready to fire, I want you to let this button go down. It is the safety, and it’ll let you fire. Point the crosshairs at the middle of the X and squeeze it ever so gently. Don’t pull, just squeeze. Oh, and try not to be breathing too heavily when you do, or you might pull the gun to the side. You go anywhere off target, and that is missing, you understand? We only have so much ammunition, and you guys have about one can to figure shit out between the three of you. After each shot, I want you to drop the magazine and replace a round. It’ll be good practice for when you need to do it in a hurry without thinking.”
Jay took the gun, looking like he was scared to break it after the time that they’d had. He looked at the different buttons as well as the scope rings on it, looking like he was going to touch it.
“You touch the one button and the release only. Is that too hard to understand, Jay? You don’t touch the charging handle, you don’t fuck with the magazine release, you sure as shit don’t touch my perfectly dialed in scope’s knobs,” Shaun told him. “You touch that, it will throw off the trajectory of the rifle. You touch the safety, and that isn’t until you are ready to shoot. If you don’t want to learn how to shoot, let me know. I'm sure we can get Brady and Ben up to speed quicker than you could imagine. You want to learn or not?”
“I do… it's just that I'm not sure about this whole thing. I think I made myself a little gun shy earlier,” he confessed.
“Being scared of guns and respecting them isn’t a bad thing. But when it comes down to it, Jay, we might need to count on you to save our lives. I’ve had seconds to shoot or I would have lost someone before. I’ve had the same problem where people were after me and I had to count on someone else. It isn’t ideal, but there’s little that is nowadays.”
Jay didn’t say anything. He looked over the gun one more time, pointing to the safety and getting Shaun’s approval. He knelt on the ground, stretching out and bending one leg, letting the gun rest on the makeshift rest Shaun had made. He steadied the gun until he had a clear shot of the X. Shaun recited, “Slow and easy. Take a breath. Use one bullet. Do it right, do it well, do it once. Then do it again.”
Jay took another minute looking through the scope before Brady finally grew impatient and kicked him in the leg. “Hurry up, I want to try it, Jay.”
“Shut up, he said to take it slow,” Jay replied.
He tucked back beneath his rifle, taking a long, deep breath, and squeezed off one shot. Tree bark exploded off of the target.
Shaun looked through a pair of binoculars. “Good, Jay. Now, do that again. This time really focus on your breathing. You see where that bark exploded from?”
“Yeah, I killed the shit out of that tree.”
“That was a great shot, but you need to try again. Look where that X is and look where you hit; you are about a foot low. I think you pulled or tried to hesitate when you fired off the rifle. Just give it another shot, see how it goes. Try to do it a little quicker this time.”
Jay did as told, only taking a few seconds to aim this time. He squeezed the trigger gently, and the gun echoed across the valley. Shaun checked again, seeing he’d moved up to just under by an inch. “You do that again, and we are going to have a good start. That would have been one dead Turned if you’d have aimed it towards one. Just don’t forget take your time. But not too much; its precious, and if things don’t work out, you don’t want to find yourself in a bad place, unable to get out of there.”
“Wait, I thought you said some bullshit about how they’d have to beat you to death with your empty gun,” Ben asked.
“If there’s a reason to run, you do it. You do anything you can to get away from them. Don't run somewhere that will leave you trapped. You have to think a few steps ahead, and you won’t understand until it’s too late sometimes. It's going to come down to training and being able to think on your feet. We won’t know that you can do that until you are put into a situation. Ben, you take that gun and see what you can do.”
Ben shrugged, taking it from Jay. He looked at it and wanted to touch every button that there was on the gun and dial. He remembered exactly what Shaun had told Jay and didn’t want to be that guy.
Jay got up, looking at Ben, who cringed. “What? What is it?” he asked.
“You look like one of them. You got blood all over your face and shirt. The only thing you are missing is a bite mark on your arm. You need some fresh clothes and water for your nose at some point. I’m not even kidding when I say someone is going to mistake you for one of them, and they are going to blow your head off your shoulders.”
“Lucky for me, I just have the three of you guys, and you all know that I am not one of them. Now, see if you can do half as good as me. We don’t want that Fox guy thinking that we aren’t worth a shit. The further we get away, the less patient he’s going to be if we don’t figure out what he wants us to learn.”
“Well, get out of my way then, and I’ll be happy to. You stand to the side and I’ll show ya how it’s done, Jay.”
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” Jay replied stepping back out of the way.
Ben got down on the ground, trying to mimic what Jay had looked like. He got comfortable behind the rifle and flicked off the safety. He squeezed one round. Shaun watched through the binoculars. He knelt down, tapping Ben on the shoulder. He removed some ear protection and looked up, squinting to see him in the sun.
“You do realize you are supposed to aim at the X, right? I mean, you know how to do that, don’t you?” Shaun asked.
“I can do it, don’t crowd me, man.”
Shaun stepped back again, watching intently with the binoculars. Ben fired, and a single piece of bark exploded from the bottom of the trunk about two feet lower than the X. Shaun said, “You, uh… trying to shoot them in the balls? I don’t know if that’ll slow them down or not. My guess is not, but if you want to find a new way to piss them off, there’s a good chance that is going to be the perfect thing to do it.”
Ben took four more shots; low, high, and then nothing on the sides. He left the gun where it was, looking at his friends and feeling disappointment in himself. “I’m sorry guys, I’m sure that I can learn, but I don’t think that scopes are going to be for me. It’s too hard.”
Shaun said, “I want you to try again. You need to hit your target though. Without a scope isn’t going to be easier.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think that this is the gun f
or me,” Ben tried to say.
“You need to be able to use every gun, damn it. You don’t get that privilege. You shoot what you can, when you can, and as accurately as you can. Get back down there and try it again.”
“I know that I’m wastin’ bullets. I don’t want to. Just let someone else try.”
Brady said, “It’s cool, I don’t mind trying it.”
“Now, pretend that if you don’t do as you are told, we aren’t going to take you with us. Pretend that you are going to be left out here, no guns, no supplies, and you will need to find all the things you need. You think you can last five minutes? Ten, thirty? You are going to find out if you don’t put some effort into it. Now, get back down there and try it again. No one ever learned anything by quitting, so give it just one more shot,” Shaun said.
“What are you going to do, leave me, Shaun?” Ben asked.
“I can, but I’d prefer that you learn and come with us. We are having a hell of a start to our foursome here.”
Ben didn’t say anything. He got back behind the rifle, keeping it steady, adjusting until nothing was moving. He squeezed slowly, and the bullet raced across the grass-covered hill. Shaun watched as the X in the middle of the tree exploded, sending bark flying. Ben almost melted to the ground, doing a quick sign of the cross.
“Do it again,” Shaun ordered.
Ben did as told and sent down a second round. The second shot went through and hit the center again. He fired off four more shots, one second apart, and smiled, looking up.
Shaun knelt down, patting him on the shoulder. “I think we’re going to have to keep you around, I guess. That is exactly what I want going forward, though. You keep doing that, and we just might make a killer out of you yet.”
“Just don’t tease about leaving me again, would you?” Ben said.
Shaun motioned for Brady to take the spot. “I guess we won't ever know. Brady, don’t give me a reason to use that threat on you, you hear me?”
“Yes sir, General Fox.”
“Just shoot, would you? See if we are three for three here, or if one of you is going to be a dud.”
“Who taught you to shoot, Fox?” Brady asked as he got comfortable. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“We had a guy—well, a couple of guys—show us how these types of guns work. My dad gave me a crash course in them on day one, but it was all semi-automatic. A guy that owned a gun store hooked us up when he’d heard and seen the shit had hit the fan. On day two of all this, the government sent in a special team of Navy Seals. They were supposed to find the cure and then report back.”
“The cure was where you were from? What odds are those? So, did they find it? Is there something being made?”
“No, there is no cure. The government already said that there’s no way to fix them. There will be no cure from them. All that we can do is kill or maim them so we don't have to worry about the dead anymore.”
“Why was the cure in your town? Didn't you say that you are from here? From Iowa, I mean,” Brady asked.
“I don’t want to get into it guys. There’s no cure, that’s what matters the most. We either hide, kill, or try to figure out a way to trap them all, which—unless we stick them in a football stadium in every town—I don’t think there’ll be too good a chance of that.”
Brady nestled into a prone position on the ground, firing off the first of five shots with no issues. He came up with the rifle, pointing it up in the air, hand away from the trigger, after putting the safety back on. “Here you go. That isn’t too bad at all. Everyone always says that those things kick like a horse.”
“You get behind something bigger, Brady, and they do, I assure you. Let's get back on the road. We still need to figure out what we are going to do with you guys. We only have one silenced rifle, and one machine gun that we can’t break because I don’t know how to fix it. The guy that made them is back in Des Moines and I’m not going back... at least until I feel like I have done some good, or have a reason to.”
“So, we need to get more guns, huh?” Brady said.
“Exactly, and I know you did pretty good with the scoped gun, but remember: there’s times when the scope isn’t an option. You can’t sit there breathing steady. You might need to be running and shooting.”
“I don’t know if we can do that…” Ben said.
“Well, lucky for you that you have someone with you who knows what they are doing. You’re, like, the exact same age as us, but I swear you look like you are five years older,” Brady said.
Shaun, who didn’t have even the makings of a five o'clock shadow, shrugged. “It wasn’t an easy year. Scars and bruises happen. You two had your dad looking out for you. I know you didn’t Jay, but it is what it is sometimes. When you get thrown into the shit, you get to deal with things at a younger age than other people. I don’t have much proof other than me and a handful of others, but it seems like that is how it works sometimes.”
They climbed into the truck, watching the countryside. Ben had the map and was helping with navigating. They snacked on a few of the supplies, all quickly coming to the same point of view that in the next town, they needed food, and to see if there was any type of sporting goods store where they might find a few things that could come in handy, now that Shaun had gone from one to four.
“There’s a town that looks like it’s about fifteen or twenty minutes from here,” Ben pointed out.
Shaun drove one handed, running a finger down the road, seeing that, yes, they were headed towards a town. A sign started announcing that they were 20, then 15, then 5, and finally 1 mile out. Shaun stopped, much like he did at the edge of the first town. He looked through his binoculars, scanning the outskirts for signs of danger. “Well, it looks like this one isn’t going to be cleared out.”
“But I thought we needed practice? Isn’t that what you said?” Brady asked.
Shaun handed the field glasses over to Brady, who looked through the two front seats at a sea of the dead. “Holy shit! There’s gotta be, like, thousands of them. Where’d they all come from?”
Shaun looked with a monocular at the cars, seeing Go Lions written on all the windows in town. He said, “I can’t say for sure, but there’s a really good chance these people were in central Iowa when the shit hit the fan. When this came to my town, there was a school bus and it flipped. When the fireman tried to help them get out of it, they went ape shit; at least, that’s what my friends told me. They leapt out of the bus after eating the guy and were everywhere. By the time we showed up, my dad had saved some of my friends and a few strangers—none that are around now, or at least with us—and we got out of town. We’d seen car after car with writing on their windows. I honestly prayed most of them turned and crashed in central Iowa. It at least made me consider the fact that if they did all crash here, that it might not be such a panic spread everywhere. But I don’t think that is the case. The shit went worldwide.”
“So, are we going to skip the town?”
Shaun looked at his gas gauge teetering on E and he knew they only had one can. The food supplies were pathetic and a refill of water wouldn’t break his heart. “I don’t think we can afford to. We need to get the dead to come out here, then we can hit up the town.”
“Oh sure, so we just trick a few hundred of the dead to come out of town, stay out of town, and we can roll through cherry picking all the good shit out of there? I mean, that’s all right?” Jay said sarcastically.
“Well, we could have you be the distraction with an air horn if you want, Jay? Let them run all the way out here for you, and then we can go check out what is going on. How does that sound, pretty good?” Shaun asked.
“Whatever, you wouldn’t do that. Seriously though, what are we going to do, Shaun?” Jay asked.
Shaun looked under the seat, finding a bullhorn, and saw that it very well did have a siren on it. He set it back down, thinking longer. Shaun was watching the sun; it was pleasant and starting to lower. “We don’t do
anything tonight. I don’t think we have time.”
“Where are we going to sleep? Where are we going to stay?” Brady asked.
“I don’t know, looks like we are going to sleep in the truck. We can drive back out three or four miles though. I’d like to have enough time between them roaming and making it to us by accident, groggy and sleeping, to escape.”
Shaun did as he’d said and they found a hill, parking at the top of it with a good vantage point to see anything coming, at least during the daylight. He shut the Humvee off, looking at the gas gauge. He checked the oil and pressure in the tires, liking that at least something on the truck wasn’t getting ready to run on empty. He took the last gas can and poured all but a few cups into it. The four had decided that they were content sleeping outside, so long as they had a fire and wouldn’t be close to where the dead were. None of them liked it, but at the moment, understood that there was no place safer to sleep. The prospect of food and weapons in town were enough to give the boys something to hope for.