by John Ringo
“It means there’s a lot of ammo out there the M16 can shoot.”
“No. It means that there was a lot of rounds that were manufactured that the M16 can shoot. Which meant our scavenger crews were able to find it more often than some other rounds. Right now we have about four thousand rounds that work with this M16.”
“Which is a hell of a lot.”
“It’s really not. More to the point, it’s not enough to train you on the rifle.”
“It doesn’t take much training to point a rifle at a runner.”
“No. It takes training to hit one. And once those rounds are gone, they’re gone. We don’t have the capability to make more here. So you don’t get a rifle. Or a shotgun, for which we have even fewer rounds.”
“This is a ‘macho former Marine’ thing, isn’t it?”
“No. This is a ‘give the weapon to the person who has training on it’ thing.”
“So what do you want me to do if a runner makes for the wall?”
“I want you to do what you did before. I want you to call it out.”
“And then you’ll shoot it.”
“If it makes sense to shoot it, yes. Otherwise, we have other options.”
“I still think this is a macho bullshit thing.”
“Fine. Here. Take the rifle.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“I want you to hold it.”
“…Okay. I’m holding it.”
“Aaaand you just shot off your foot.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you took the rifle, you put your finger on the trigger and you pointed it at your left foot. You just shot off your foot.”
“Except that I didn’t. See? Left foot intact.”
“That’s because I’m not stupid enough to hand you a rifle with live ammunition in it with the selector switch in any position other than ‘safe.’”
“I didn’t shoot my foot off before when I was on watch.”
“Was the selector switch in the ‘safe position?”
“…Possibly.”
“‘Possibly.’ Meaning that you didn’t have the first clue as to whether you could fire your rifle at all.”
“I think you’re being unfair.”
“I’ll give you five seconds to find the selector switch on that rifle.”
“And then what?”
“Then I punch you in the shoulder and take back the rifle.”
“What if I find it?”
“Then I take the rifle back before you can shoot yourself in the foot because you still have your fucking finger on the trigger.”
“Look, just take it back.”
“Thank you.”
“I still want a weapon.”
“We can start you on the bow.”
“How are you on a bow?”
“Terrible.”
“That makes me feel a little better.”
“That’s nice. Now shut up and look for runners.”
* * *
“Do you ever wonder which famous people made it?”
“Made it?”
“Made it, Jim. Survived.”
“Oh. No.”
“Never once?”
“I’ve been kind of busy.”
“We’ve all been kind of busy. Doesn’t mean you don’t think about these things.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, think about it now. Which famous people do you think survived?”
“…I can’t think of any famous people right off the top of my head.”
“Do you live in a cave?”
“No, I live in an improvised fortress in the suburbs of Detroit, surrounded by goddamn zombies and a general apocalypse.”
“If you don’t have hobbies in a situation like that, you’re gonna go a little crazy.”
“Thinking about former celebrities is not a useful hobby.”
“Hobbies aren’t supposed to be useful. That’s why they’re hobbies. And why do you say ‘former’?”
“It’s the zombie apocalypse, in case you haven’t noticed. No one’s going to the movies anymore. No one’s listening to Top 40 radio. No one’s watching Entertainment Tonight.”
“I don’t think Entertainment Tonight still exists.”
“Nothing still exists, entertainment-wise. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Indulge me, here. We have six hours to go in the watch. There’s nothing moving out there. I’m a little bored.”
“The alternative is worse.”
“If you mean things moving out there, then yes. Otherwise we disagree.”
“Fine. Name a celebrity and I’ll tell you if I think they made it.”
“Justin Bieber.”
“Jesus Christ, man. You can’t just lead with Justin Bieber. You have to work up to that kind of shit.”
“Deep end of the pool, Jim. Come on. You think Justin Bieber’s survived?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you sure? Fact: He had bodyguards. Fact: He had money to escape to an isolated area. Fact: He’s owned a monkey.”
“What the hell does a monkey have to do with anything?”
“Irrational crap-flinging primate. I suggest that’s decent training for dealing with runners.”
“One, no it’s not. Two, he abandoned his monkey in Germany.”
“The fact you know that and yet say you don’t follow celebrities is something we need to revisit at a later time.”
“Three, if you think those bodyguards stuck with him after everything started to fall apart, you’re delusional. Four, money stopped doing anyone any good really fast. No. He’s dead. Dead and probably eaten.”
“Concur. George Clooney.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He had that villa. Maybe it was defensible.”
“Jay-Z and Beyonce.”
“I have to think they made it to an island somewhere.”
“Any of the Kardashians.”
“Eaten. All of them. Every single one.”
“Harrison Ford.”
“He’s a pilot. He may have gotten out.”
“He crashed on that golf course, though.”
“He walked away from it.”
“The members of Metallica.”
“You know what? Once I would have pegged them to survive. But then I saw that Some Kind of Monster documentary. I think the runners were feasting on Lars Ulrich’s sweetmeats on, like, day two.”
“Ted Nugent.”
“Eaten.”
“Come on. This is Ted Nugent we’re talking about, here.”
“Look. I don’t want to say he didn’t talk a good survivalist game. He did. But I think he’s a prime candidate for being overconfident. I bet he thought he could just bowhunt the crap out of the runners, and they probably trapped him in a ravine or something.”
“This is how I find out you’re a liberal.”
“This isn’t a political position. I’m just saying overconfidence is a killer.”
“Lady Gaga.”
“You’re talking about someone who once dressed herself in meat.”
“So that’s a ‘no.’”
“I’m laying long odds. Who else?”
“Look who is actually enjoying himself.”
“I’m both surprising and disgusting myself with how much I seem to know about all these people.”
“Do you want to do any politicians?”
“Oh, let’s not. We got dangerously close to politics with Ted Nugent.”
“Fine. Writers?”
“Lunch meat. All of them.”
“Wow. That’s dark.”
“They write fine. But it’s sedentary work. I went to a couple of conventions in my time. I know what I saw.”
“Back to real celebrities, then. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.”
“Brad, dead. Angelina survives.”
“You would think that zombie film would have given him some training.”
“No. He was Hollywood tough, not actual tough.
But think of everything Angelina’s been through. Double mastectomy. Turbulent early years. Billy Bob Thornton. That’s one tough woman. I wouldn’t bet against her.”
“Batman.”
“What?”
“Batman.”
“Batman’s not a celebrity.”
“Batman’s not famous? Batman’s not known worldwide? Batman’s not instantly recognizable?”
“Batman is all these things, yes.”
“Then he’s a celebrity. So: Batman.”
“However, Batman is fictional.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so’? So, you can’t go mixing up fictional and non-fictional celebrities.”
“Why not?”
“It’s against the rules.”
“There are rules to this?”
“Yes, there are rules. I’m making the rules right now. Rule number one: No mixing the fictional and non-fictional.”
“Fine. The rule takes effect after you answer the question. Batman.”
“Of course Batman survives. He’s Batman.”
“Then George Clooney did survive. Because he was Batman.”
“No. Not that Batman. Any Batman with nipples on his Batsuit was eaten first.”
“First?”
“Yes. Even before Lars Ulrich.”
“Hmmm. Tough but fair. I’ll allow it.”
“You better.”
“I wonder if celebrities play this same game. If they’re off on their islands going ‘Huh, I wonder if George Clooney made it.’”
“No. They’re all dead.”
“But you were just saying which ones made it out alive.”
“I was humoring you.”
“…I don’t think I want to play this game with you anymore.”
“Then I win. Now keep looking.”
* * *
“There.”
“Where?”
“In the trees. By the road.”
“There are a lot of trees by the road, Keith. Be more specific.”
“In the trees, by the road, about a hundred yards out.”
“Which side of the road.”
“To our left.”
“…I don’t see anything.”
“There was movement there. I heard it and I saw it.”
“You see that chest?”
“Yeah.”
“Open it and take out the night vision binoculars.”
“We’ve had night vision goggles this whole time?”
“Yes. We don’t use them unless we have to because they don’t exactly make batteries for them anymore, do they.”
“The next zombie apocalypse I attend, I want it to keep a manufacturing base.”
“Cute. Take a look where you heard the sound. Tell me what you see.”
“I don’t know how to turn on these binoculars.”
“And you were wondering why I wouldn’t let you use the rifle.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It’s kind of the same thing. Give them here.”
“I don’t appreciate being made to feel incompetent.”
“It’s not a feeling. You actually are incompetent.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s not meant to be an insult. There are lots of things I’m not competent in.”
“Do any of those things have to do with surviving a post-collapse hellscape?”
“Not so far.”
“This doesn’t help me feel better, then.”
“Sorry.”
“Do you see anything?”
“No…yes.”
“What?”
“Two deer.”
“What are they doing?”
“They doing what deer do. They’re standing around looking surprised that they exist in the world.”
“I don’t think it was just deer.”
“I’m seeing deer.”
“You were the one who said you were worried about runners.”
“I am worried about runners. I’m not seeing any. I’m seeing deer.”
“It’s possible you made me a little paranoid by mentioning the runners earlier.”
“It’s not paranoia. It’s a healthy reaction to the fact that runners exist.”
“I remember the first time I saw one.”
“Everyone does. What’s your story?”
“A pack of them coming down my street.”
“What did you do?”
“I hid in my kid’s treehouse for two days.”
“…You had a kid.”
“Yeah. Might still have. She was with her mom when this all went down. In Arizona. We’d been divorced for about a year and a half. She got custody. I get visits.”
“Sorry.”
“About the divorce and custody thing?”
“No, but that too.”
“Don’t be. It got bad at the end. She had family out west, she moved back there, and I didn’t want to make a scene. She was living with her dentist finance the last I heard.”
“Still rough.”
“Yeah. Anyway, by that time the phones and Internet were already gone. I don’t know how they’re doing.”
“I’m sure they made it.”
“I’d like to think so. Well, except for the dentist. I hope that fucker got eaten.”
“Huh.”
“I know. Not very nice of me.”
“No. I see something else.”
“What?”
“Shhhhhh.”
“Why do people always tell you ‘shhhh’ when they trying to look at something?”
“Quiet!”
“Mmmmph.”
“Well, shit.”
“What is it?”
“Definitely not deer this time.”
“You’re killing me over here, Jim.”
“It’s human-shaped.”
“You could be more specific.”
“Too far away to be more specific.”
“What’s it doing?”
“At the moment it’s standing there.”
“It could be an actual person.”
“Scavenging crews aren’t seeing too many actual people anymore.”
“A scurrier, then.”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
“What are you doing?”
“Remember when I told you that there were options other than shooting runners?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to show you one of the options. Here, put these back in the chest and get me out the garage door opener.”
“You’re going to open a garage door?”
“No, you idiot. I’m going to use the garage door opener to activate something else.”
“What?”
“You’ll see. There’s another pair of binoculars in the chest, too. A regular pair this time. Get those out.”
“Here’s a garage door opener. You want the binoculars, too?”
“No, you hold on to them.”
“What do you want me to do with them?”
“I want you to watch and tell me what happens.”
“What happens when?”
“When I press this garage door opener button.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a runner trap. We put it out there a couple of weeks ago. If one of them comes to close, we set it off. Activate it, the strobes go off and the music comes up. If it’s a scurrier, it gets the hell out. If it’s a runner, it attacks.”
“…What is that music?”
“Metallica. ‘Creeping Death.’”
“I thought you were down on Metallica.”
“The music is awesome. Individually they’re a little soft. Tell me what you’re seeing.”
“It’s definitely not running away. It’s charging toward the trap.”
“Tell me when the trap gets sprung.”
“How will I know?”
“You’ll know.”
“…Whoa.”
“Disa
ppeared?”
“Yeah. Like it fell into a hole.”
“A moat.”
“Is it going to be able to climb out?”
“Ten feet deep. Filled with spikes.”
“So that’s a no.”
“That’s an ‘I’d be impressed.’ Let me turn off the trap.”
“…Well, those screams are pleasant.”
“Must not have punctured a lung.”
“You were expecting a punctured lung.”
“I wasn’t expecting anything. This is the first time we’ve gotten to use it.”
“But you were hoping for a punctured lung.”
“Well, yeah. Or a severed windpipe. The screaming could become a problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means maybe you should go back into the chest and bring out the night vision binoculars again.”
“I’m not one hundred percent happy with the turn events have just taken here, Jim.”
“It’ll probably be fine.”
“Which is why I’m getting out the night vision binoculars again.”
“The screaming seems to be winding down. That’s good.”
“Here.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t think that qualifies as ‘winding down,’ by the way.”
“Quiet.”
“We’re back to that again.”
“Keith.”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to do a couple of things for me.”
“All right.”
“The first is to quietly go and tell The Boss it looks like we’ve got eight runners less than a hundred yards from our doorstep.”
“…Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“This is on you with the ‘Creeping Death’ stunt.”
“They were there already. The one in the pit was just ahead of the rest of the pack.”
“I’m still blaming you.”
“Fine. The second thing I need you to do is go over there to the weapons shack.”
“This is where I get a gun?”
“No.”
“What the hell?”
“I want you to get out the shovel.”
“What the shit good is a shovel going to do?”
“When they start climbing up the wall, you can bash them in the head with it.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m totally serious.”
“When I go talk to The Boss I’m going to ask for a shotgun.”
“She’s going to tell you ‘no.’”
“I’m going to ask anyway.”
“Whatever. Just go and tell her. And then get back here. Believe it or not, I need you back on this wall.”
* * *
“That’s a nice shovel.”
“Shut up, Jim.”