by Eric Vall
“I think we should worry about that later,” I interrupted. “We need to make sure you’re all ready in case someone comes to hurt us. Even if the bikers lose interest in the area, others will come trying to pick on the weak. We can’t be weak.”
“You’re right,” Paige agreed. “Sorry, we have way more important things to worry about right now.”
“No need to apologize,” I reassured her, “but I feel like we are being rude to Rolly.”
“Ahh, kids,” Rolly laughed. “All your talk reminds me of when I was a lad. I’m not offended. I appreciate the five of you. You’ve done more for this old heart than you know.”
“Ahhh, thanks Rolly!” Bailey said as she hugged the old man.
“Now, let’s go test out these new guns,” Rolly said as he gave me a nod.
“Someone go grab them,” I said, and the four girls moved to obey my order.
The gun range had gotten an upgrade in the few days I had been gone. Rolly had built the covered lanes section for us to shoot in complete with benches, individual lanes, and a shelf to hold guns and ammo.
“Very nice,” I said as I set down the rifle case. “You got this up quicker than I would have expected.”
“The girls helped out a lot,” Rolly said. “Seems you taught them well.”
“It’s still pretty impressive,” I said. “Nice job all of you.”
“You are a pretty good teacher,” Bailey said. “
“Glad you think so,” I said. “Because today you have some more learning to do.”
“We already know how to shoot,” Tara said.
“Yes, but now you need to know how to clean and maintain your weapons,” I said.
“This isn’t going to be as fun as shooting is it?” Anna asked.
“No, but if we don’t maintain our weapons they will fail us, and this is not something we can have happen,” I explained.
“Probably a good thing too,” Rolly said. “This stuff you took from that drug guy looks pretty beat up.”
“All the rust is superficial,” I said. “I wouldn’t have bothered bringing them back if I didn’t think they would work.”
I broke out the gun cleaning kit stuck in the rifle case. The kit was tailored for the AR-15, but there were enough rods and brushes to take care of all the guns we currently had. There was enough solvent and cleaner here to last us at least a couple weeks. Though I would certainly want to keep an eye out for more in my searches.
“What did I miss?” Paige asked as she came running up with the rest of our guns.
“We get to learn how to clean guns,” Tara groaned.
“Oh, sweet,” the brunette said.
“You would think that was fun,” Tara replied as she rolled her eyes.
Paige shrugged, sat down, and began to pull out all of the guns. She laid them out on the bench and looked over at me expectantly.
“Alright, looks like we are good to go,” I said as I pulled out the fancy rifle. “First, we need to go over how to break down our weapons. Each one is going to be a little different, but once you know what to look for you can strip, disassemble, and clean any gun.”
The girls went about unloading and clearing each of their pistols as I spoke. When they were done, I sat down beside them and pulled out my own pistol. Then I unloaded it and started to go through the process of pulling it apart. I went over the parts of the gun as I took the slide off, pulled out the spring, and pulled out the firing pin.
We disassembled each of our weapons and then cleaned the mechanisms and barrels. Once we were done with our pistols, we moved to the long rifles. We took a little extra time with the gear we pulled from the meth house. A little solvent and gun oil later the weapons were polished and looking as good as new.
By the time we were done each of the girls had smudges of black grease on their face and hands.
“You know, this wasn’t so bad,” Tara said as she ran a cloth with gun oil over her pretty glock pistol. “I mean, I don’t want to do it every day but it was kind of empowering.”
“Yeah, I like the smell of all the oil and grease,” Bailey said.
“I could see this being a sort of zen thing to do,” Paige said as she put the charging handle back in place on the AR.
“I mean, this is cool and all, but can we get back to shooting now?” Anna asked.
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “You all did good, now let's put some rounds down range.”
The girls were up in a moment, clearly eager to shoot. They each of them took up a spot in their own lane and waited patiently while Rolly and I set up a couple dozen empty tin cans down range.
We started with basic target practice. All of them were getting better, but Tara still struggled more than the rest. After a half hour of basic target practice I switched to basic combat drills.
“First, we are going to work on reloading,” I said as I paced behind them. “In a fire fight knowing how to reload quickly and without thinking is a huge asset.”
I pulled out my pistol, shot two rounds down range, ejected the magazine, and slammed in a fresh one all in one fluid motion.
“Whoa,” Paige said as she raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, that was slick,” Rolly said.
“Well, I want you all to work on doing the same thing,” I said. “You are going to fire two rounds, eject the magazine, and load a new one in.”
“What do we do after that?” Bailey asked.
“You do it again,” I said. “Practice getting faster with each go, but don’t move so fast as to put yourself or those around you at risk of a misfire accident.”
“How accurate are we supposed to be?” Anna asked.
“Don’t worry about accuracy,” I said. “For now just work on the act of reloading.”
We spent thirty minutes going over the reloading drill before we switched over to moving targets. We setup a simple target pulled along by a rope. It was not exactly fast, but it allowed the girls to work on something less static.
We practiced until the sky started to grow orange around us, and for a moment we enjoyed ourselves and forgot about the reason we were training in the first place.
“Alright, let’s get cleaned up and make some dinner,” I said as I set down my smoking pistol.
“Do we have to stop?” Bailey asked. “I was thinking we could do a few more reload drills.”
“We have to ration our ammo,” I said. “We might have picked up a lot more but if we practice too much, we won’t have what we need in case of a fight.”
“I’m getting hungry anyway,” Rolly said. “I’ll get the fire started.”
“Thanks, Rolly,” Anna said as she tucked her gun into her pants. “I could actually really go for some hot food.”
“Well then I will do my best to not disappoint,” the old man said with a chuckle. He waved and headed off.
The girls and I started to clean up the range and pack up the guns.
“I’m glad to have you back,” Paige said to me as she put the SKS back into the duffle bag.
“Oh I bet you are,” Tara said with a grin. “It’s been a few days, you probably need a night with our man.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Paige groaned as she turned red and looked away.
“Well, it’s totally what I meant,” Tara giggled as she winked at me.
Anna and Bailey both chuckled and shook their heads as they picked spent shell casings up off the ground.
“Don’t worry ladies, if you need anything tonight you know where I’ll be,” I said.
“Might just have to come say hello,” Paige muttered.
“You know I’ll welcome you anytime,” I said.
“Noted,” the brunette said with a smile.
We finished cleaning the gun range and dropped off all of the weapons and gear in the dorm before we met Rolly at the fire pit.
The air was already filled with the smell of cooking meat, and the old man hummed happily as we approached.
“What’s for din
ner?” Bailey asked.
“Some deer and beans,” Rolly said. “Nothing fancy.”
“Smells delicious though,” Anna said as she took a seat.
“Agreed,” I said. “Not as nice as the filet mignon and lobster Anna and I were eating at the lodge, though.”
“No fucking way!” Tara exclaimed.
“There is no justice in the world,” Paige pouted.
“Alright, alright, I was just teasing to get a reaction out of you,” I chuckled.
“Yeah, there was no lobster,” Anna chuckled, “but we did eat all the filet mignon.”
“Oh, stop, bitch,” Tara groaned at the redhead.
“Assholes,” Bailey laughed.
“That was a low blow,” Paige giggled.
“Missed you all,” Anna said as she blew kisses at the other three women.
The area around the firepit had been cleaned up since we left. Most of the glass had been removed and replaced with some large stone gravel that Rolly must have found. It looked nice and gave the place a more permanent feel.
“Anna let’s drink this.” I pulled a bottle of wine out of my pack and popped the cork as Rolly started to make up a plate for each of us.
“Oooohh,” Paige cooed. “I have so missed wine. Hand it here.”
I chuckled and passed it over to our bookish companion.
“I want it next,” Tara said. “I like my booze, but I have been known to enjoy a good vintage.”
“Well, we can’t promise it’s that,” Anna said. “I sorta just grabbed the bottle at random.”
“I’d drink Boones Farm at this point,” Tara replied.
“It’s good though,” Paige said as she wiped her mouth and passed the bottle. “Thanks guys.”
“Of course,” I said. “We gotta look out for each other. Sometimes that means bringing home a bunch of alcohol.”
“Food’s ready,” Rolly said as he passed around the meal.
We all ate and drank for a while just enjoying each other’s company. Despite how nice the lodge had been it was nice to be back in our new home. I smiled as I watched the girls laugh and joke as they passed around the wine and was reminded of all we had here that was worth fighting for. I let out a sigh and finished the food on my plate.
“Paige, have you been working on that biker map I found a couple weeks back?” I asked
“Yes,” she said as she looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “How come?”
“Well, have you managed to find out where the bikers came from using it?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she said.
“Wait a minute, you aren’t thinking of doing something stupid are you?” Anna asked.
“No,” I said as I shook my head. “I am thinking about doing something necessary. Right now we know very little about the bikers, and that gives them a major advantage. They can just show up here at any time and raise hell. I want to be able to return the favor if we have to.”
“So what, we take the fight to them?” Bailey asked.
“Not we, just me,” I said.
“I’m with Anna here, that sounds like it is pretty stupid,” Tara said.
“It might be if it was anything other than a scouting mission,” I said. “All I want to do is see what we are up against.”
“And you’re sure that is a good idea?” Anna asked. “I mean a million different things could go wrong.”
“Maybe, but this needs to happen,” I said. “We don’t have any idea how many of them there are, what sort of weapons they have, or what sort of base, if any, they have established.”
“Don’t worry, I am sure Tav did plenty of these types of scouting missions while he was in the military,” Rolly said.
“I did a few,” I said with a nod. “I’m trained specifically to operate behind enemy lines in hostile territory.”
“But what if something goes wrong?” Bailey asked.
“Yeah, if you get in too deep, what will you do?” Paige added.
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
“So then what exactly is your plan?” Anna asked.
“I’ll take the map that Paige has and head out early tomorrow morning. Then I’ll infiltrate the biker camp, get an estimate of their strength and numbers, and then head back to you.”
“That seems pretty simple,” Tara said with a shrug.
“It is,” I said as I turned to look at Anna. “If things go south, and I run into trouble, I’ll make enough noise to scare them off.”
“You better,” the redhead growled. “If you don’t come back alive, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Noted,” I said with a grin.
“You just can’t help but throw yourself into danger on our behalf can you?” Paige teased as she handed me the bottle of wine.
“People do strange things for beautiful women.” I grinned and then I took a large drink. I figured I would try to enjoy myself a little bit, because tomorrow was gonna be a long day.
Chapter 13
The next morning was cold and a little damp. Paige was nowhere to be seen despite having come to bed with me the night before, but she often slipped out super early in the mornings.
I got out of bed and got dressed in a pair of camo cargo pants and an olive green T-shirt. I went with more natural tones so that I could better hide among the forest foliage for my scouting mission today.
After getting dressed, I moved on to my bag. It needed to be packed carefully so that I could fit in everything that would be needed for the trip. I was bringing the new H&K rifle fitted with the 4x sight, front grip, bipod, and all of the spare magazines, so I attached the single point sling to the stock and slipped it around my shoulder. I also prepared my freshly cleaned Springfield XD. Out of all the pistols I had found so far this one was my favorite. It had high capacity magazines, had proved to be accurate, and felt good to hold. My knife completed the weapons section of my loadout. If I was forced to use a weapon on this trip, I hoped it was the knife rather than any of the other weapons I brought along with me so I could maintain stealth.
Once all of my weapons were packed, I stuffed my backpack with some water, jerky, and first aid supplies. I put the spotting scope in the top of my backpack wrapped in the nicest, softest, towel I could find around the campus. Taking it along meant that I wouldn’t need to get as close and thus reduce risk on this mission.
The sun was starting to peek through the boards in my window as I finished packing my bag and pulling on my vest. It seemed the girls had been nice enough to give it a scrub while I was away, and it was now only partially stained with mountain lion blood.
I quietly slipped into the hallway, since I didn’t want to wake any of the sleeping girls, but when I got to the common room, I found them all up and waiting for me.
“Well, this is a surprise,” I said.
“What, you think we can’t get up early?” Anna asked with a smirk.
“That’s not what I meant, but what are you guys doing up?”
“We don’t think this is a good idea,” Paige said bluntly.
“Yeah, we are afraid you are going to get hurt,” Bailey said.
“Yep, and then what the fuck would we do without you?” Tara whined.
“At least let one of us go with you,” Anna exclaimed.
“That’s a really bad idea,” I said. “It is more dangerous to bring someone along. None of you are trained to do this like I am. I am very proud of all you girls have learned so far, but you are still not ready for a scouting mission like this one.”
“But you said we aren’t supposed to go anywhere alone,” Tara said with a frown.
“I know,” I sighed. “But as I said last night, I will be alright. I am just going to slip in, get the info, and get out. It will be just like my first trip to Lanceton.”
“Only with a lot more bikers,” Paige said.
“Yeah, but we have all ran into those goons before,” I added. “We know that they are not the brightest group of people.”
“T
hat’s true,” Anna muttered.
“Alright, fine, we’ll let you leave,” Tara said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You just have to come back.”
“Oh I plan on it,” I said with a smirk. “Anna already said she would kill me if I didn't.”
“I still mean it,” the redhead said with a laugh.
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “It’s also cute how you girls think you could stop me from leaving if you didn’t agree with me.”
“Hey, we are scrappy,” Bailey joked.
“I suppose you are,” I smiled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to get going. The sooner I get there, the sooner I can make it back. Paige, you have that map?”
The brunette nodded, adjusted her thick black glasses, and pulled the paper from her pocket. Then she opened it up and pointed to a spot clearly marked in red ink. “That is where I think they came from.”
“Is it anywhere important?” I asked
“Not really,” she said. “It’s just another small town.”
“Well, maybe I’ll find out what it was that drove them to choose that place as their home.”
“Be careful,” Tara said as I was given the map. “We all know you are a badass but, like, we really want you to come back safe.”
“I know, I won’t take unnecessary risks,” I said before I looked over the map again and tucked it into my vest pocket. “Take care while I’m gone.”
“We will,” Anna assured me. “Now go be a hero.”
The girls all gathered around and wrapped me in a large warm group hug.
I chuckled but shook my head. I wasn’t a hero, but if that’s what they needed to think to feel better about me leaving then so be it. I gave them a wave and headed out to the courtyard.
I went out to the parking lot and pulled the black tarp off the old Triumph motorcycle we had taken from one of the bikers I had killed back when I first arrived. I filled it up with gas, strapped an extra can to the side, and started up the engine. I pulled on my helmet and was about to head out when Paige and Bailey came running up.
“Wait!” Paige yelled. She waved a piece of paper over her head as she approached.
“Whats up?” I asked as I turned off the engine. “I hope you aren't here to try to stop me again.”