“But how am I going to help you out in a gunfight if I can only shoot a few times before I get tired?”
She looked dejected.
“Number one, if I have my way we won’t get into any gunfights.
“Number two, we’ll work on your arm strength. Have you been doing those pushups every morning when you wake up?”
“Yes. This morning I did three.”
“You keep that up. Do as many as you can each morning. When you can do ten I’ll bet you’ll be able to score all ten of your shots.”
“Really? You think so?”
“Yes, ma’am. I think so.
“Now then, do you remember how to clear the weapon?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Clear it for me and we’ll call it a day and get some rest.”
She removed the magazine and cleared the gun, then handed it back to Dave.
He in turn reloaded it and placed it back in his holster.
At that moment a rabbit appeared in the wash eighty yards to their right.
Dave whispered, “Don’t move, little one.”
He slowly unslung the rifle from his back and took aim.
Beth stuck her fingers in her ears and closed her eyes as her father fired a shot.
Then she followed him to where the animal fell.
Now, Dave was a very good shot.
Good enough to win the Marine Corps Distinguished Marksman badges for both the rifle and pistol.
But no marksman scores a bulls-eye every time.
Dave aimed at the rabbit’s chest because only fools and Rambo wannabes take aim at a rabbit’s head at eighty yards.
Normally his shot would have killed the animal instantly.
Except the rabbit twitched at the exact instant Dave pulled the trigger, spooked by something only he could see or hear.
Instead of going clean through the rabbit’s heart it missed by half an inch and pierced his lung instead.
It was still a mortal shot.
The rabbit was still dying.
But when Dave and Beth closed the gap between them they found the rabbit looking up at them, unable to do anything but blink his eyes.
Dave thought it was a good opportunity for Beth’s first kill, and to teach her one of the first lessons his father had taught him thirty years before.
“He’s suffering, honey. We have to put him out of his misery.”
Dave assumed this child, who said she was ready to have his back in a gun battle, was ready to kill her first animal.
He drew his pistol and handed it to her.
“Aim for his chest, honey. Just visualize the target over his chest and aim for the bull’s eye.
“You can do it, honey. I know you can.”
Beth planted both feet, just as Dave had showed her.
She held the pistol in front of her in a shooter’s stance, just as Dave had showed her, her finger off the trigger.
She took a deep breath and let part of it out.
Just as she’d learned.
She placed the pad of her shooting finger on the trigger.
Then she started to shake.
Her eyes started to tear up.
She started to say something but couldn’t get it out.
She took her finger off the trigger.
She couldn’t take a life.
Dave placed a hand on her tiny shoulder to let her know it was okay.
He took the pistol from her little hands and fired a shot into the rabbit’s chest.
The animal fell limp.
Beth turned toward her father and began to sob.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
He holstered his weapon and went to both knees, then wrapped both arms around her.
“It’s okay, honey.”
He got the sense she was too distraught to discuss what had just happened.
And that was okay. There’d be plenty of time to talk later.
“Why don’t we take this fella back to camp and cook him up? Old Sal is probably missing us by now and wondering if we were eaten by dinosaurs or something.”
That put a smile on Beth’s face.
Which, of course, was his intention.
“Oh, Dad, there aren’t any dinosaurs around. They died out a long time ago.”
“Oh, yeah? Because that sure looks like a big tyrannosaurus rex right behind you.”
“Yeah, right. I’m not stupid enough to fall for that old gag. Especially when there’s a pterodactyl behind you.”
Dave jumped just a bit, pretended to be frightened, and turned to look behind him.
“Oh, my goodness! Where? Where?”
She giggled.
“Oh, Dad. You’re such a gullible sucker.”
The drama was over.
His baby girl was back to normal again.
Chapter 11
An hour later they were picking meat from the rabbit’s bones.
Beth had been quieter than normal during their meal of rabbit and ramen noodles.
But that was okay.
It could have been worse.
Dave half expected her to pass on the rabbit’s meat. He thought watching the suffering creature might have turned her stomach and made her lose her appetite.
That wasn’t the case, but Dave could tell she was burdened by the ordeal.
He leaned over to her and whispered, “Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”
She managed a smile and said, “I will.”
As it turned out, the talk wouldn’t come anytime soon.
The ordeal with the rabbit wore her out and she crawled up on the mattress on the back of the rig and was fast asleep within minutes.
Dave and Sal rolled out their bedrolls, one on either side of the rig, as was their usual habit.
Dave tossed and turned a bit, which wasn’t unusual, but fell asleep himself before long.
With Sal it took a bit longer, for Sal was an old man with aching joints and a bad back.
Sal lay there for over an hour, watching the clouds roll by between the trees and thinking of his beloved Nellie.
Two weeks before he was convinced he was days away from dying and going to join her.
Then he finally confessed to Dave that he’d been out of his medications for several weeks and would eventually die without them.
Sal dying wasn’t an option for Dave.
Although before they got to know one another Dave could imagine strangling Beth’s captors with his bare hands, that was no longer the case.
The pair was bonding, more and more by the day.
They were now good friends.
Good enough for Dave to willingly take a detour from their journey to find Sal’s lifesaving medications.
Now Sal fully expected to be around for awhile.
And that was good, for he wanted to live long enough to meet Beth’s mother.
He owed her an explanation and an apology.
The day moved forward, the sun continued its never-ending march across the sky.
As it dropped toward the western horizon the temperature cooled and Beth shivered in her sleep.
She stirred, then awoke to see it was almost dark.
It wasn’t the first time the three of them had overslept.
In fact, it usually happened whenever they’d endured a rough night’s travel or something happened that morning to cause them stress.
Beth propped herself up on an elbow and peered over the side of the truck bed.
Sal was softly snoring, dead to the world.
She rolled over on the other side and peeked at her dad, who was lying on his bedroll, looking at the rapidly darkening sky.
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and looked directly at Beth.
“Hi Peanut.”
“Hi Daddy. What are you doing?”
“Trying to decide whether to get up or just roll over and sleep for another hour.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“You mean about the rabbit?”
“I didn’t think it would be that hard… I mean, I’ve squashed bugs and spiders and stuff. I thought it would be kinda like that.
“But it was a lot harder. I didn’t want to do it.”
“I know, honey. Killing a creature… any creature… isn’t something that comes naturally.
“Why do we do it then, Daddy?”
“Well, that’s the way nature works.
“Man has to eat to survive.
“We need protein as fuel to make our bodies move.”
“Fuel, like gas in a car?”
“Yes. Without food to eat we would eventually run out of energy and eventually we’d stop. Just like a car that stops when it runs out of gas.”
“Couldn’t we just eat plants?”
“Well, we could. Some people do.
“But sometimes you’re not in a position to grow plants to eat.
“Like for example, during the wintertime. Or during a drought, when there’s not enough water to keep your plants alive.
“And even if you can grow plants sometimes there just isn’t enough to go around.
“Sometimes we eat meat because it’s more available than plants and gives us more protein.
“Honey, humans have always eaten meat. All the way back to the caveman days.
“If humans didn’t eat meat we would have died out as a species a long time ago.”
“I know that Daddy. It’s just that… the rabbit was there one second, and then the next second he was… he just wasn’t there anymore.
“It’s not fair that he has to die just so we can live.”
“It’s the way of the world, honey. That’s just the way things are.”
She went silent.
He knew she was struggling, not just trying to find the words to say, but also trying to sort out all the things she was feeling.
He didn’t want to rush her, but wanted to calm her at the same time.
He did so by pointing out the obvious.
“Beth, I know you want to help out with security. You want to cover my back if we have a gun battle. But you understand that shooting a man is much harder than shooting a dying rabbit. You know that, right?”
She looked down before answering, in a very low voice, “I know.”
She’d lost her bravado.
And with it her desire to shoot anybody or anything.
“I’ll tell you what, sweetheart. We’ll continue your shooting practice. It’s something you need to learn. Everyone should know how to handle a gun in this mean new world.
“But I won’t ask you to kill anything else until you come to me and tell me you’re ready. Deal?”
That seemed to take a large weight from her tiny shoulders.
She smiled.
“Deal.”
Chapter 12
Karen didn’t like the idea of Lindsey and Kara escaping the bunker.
It wasn’t that she feared the wrath of John Parker or his men.
They likely wouldn’t be happy about it, but she had confidence that Parker could control the men and keep them from beating Karen and Sarah to death in retaliation.
No, she was mostly concerned for her niece’s well being.
Life in the bunker, under Parker’s thumb, was certainly no picnic.
But it was a known situation.
Karen knew that when Lindsey woke up each morning she was safe and secure and would live to lay her head down again that night.
Out there the world had changed.
Out there all bets were off; there were no more guarantees of anything.
She tried to explain to Lindsey her old farmhouse might not be vacant anymore.
It could be reoccupied by men like Swain. Men who’d taken it over before, who’d killed Tommy and the other men, who’d run roughshod over the women.
Lindsey had countered her argument with one of her own.
“Aunt Karen, we’ll leave at night. Under a full moon it’ll be easy to find our way through the woods to your farm.
“Once we’re there we’ll watch the house from a distance.
“If it’s occupied they will have found the generator. The lights will be on. There will be guards walking about.”
“And if you see such a thing?”
“Then we’ll bypass your farm and walk into Ely instead.”
“Lindsey, I don’t know what Ely is like.”
“Dad said there was a little old man in the sheriff’s office who gave him a sniper rifle, remember? The one he used to assault Swain’s men.
“We know there is at least one decent person in Ely.
“If the farm is occupied, we’ll find that little man and ask him where it’s safe to go.”
“Honey, promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I will.”
“Promise me that if you can’t find a safe place to be you’ll come back here.”
Lindsey swallowed hard. It went against her nature to decline a request from a grown-up.
Even though she was on the verge of being an adult herself.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Karen. That I cannot promise.”
Karen didn’t argue. She understood.
She shoved a folded piece of paper into Lindsey’s hand.
“Hide this in your bra so they can’t find it.”
“What is it?”
“Hide it in your bra. It’ll help.”
The pair heard men’s voices in the corridor and split up.
Lindsey went into her cubicle and crawled into her bunk.
Her back turned toward the door, she tucked the piece of paper away and pretended to be asleep.
Karen met Vega and Samuels in the corridor.
Samuels was usually fairly easy to get along with.
But he could be a bear when he didn’t get a full night’s sleep.
Even more so when he was hungry.
He growled, “Shouldn’t you be in the galley, cooking our damn breakfast?”
Karen took it in stride.
She knew she was a far better person than any of these men.
Yes, they had all the power, because they were bigger and stronger and had the weapons.
But the day would come when they’d get their comeuppance. She was sure of that.
“I’m headed that way now. A little bit of patience wouldn’t hurt you none, you know that?”
“Just hurry it up.”
Lindsey lay on her bunk for another twenty minutes before getting up and peeking out the doorway to make sure no one was around.
Then she reached inside her bra and took out the folded piece of paper Karen had given her.
It was filled with cryptic instructions on where to find provisions she and Tommy had stashed around the farm.
Things she and Kara would need to defend themselves and to survive.
And pointers they might not have thought of.
She read down the list and noticed Karen and Tommy used some of the techniques her father had in the months leading up to the blackout.
That made sense, since they were all preppers and had a habit of sharing their knowledge and ideas with one another.
Some of the tips were things Lindsey never would have thought of, like spray painting all the windows black from the inside to darken the house at night.
And never to use the fireplace during the daytime, since the smoke could be seen from a great distance.
She’d always had a special bond with her Aunt Karen.
They’d lived closer when Lindsey was young.
Close enough to see each other every weekend. Karen helped raise her. She was Sarah’s go-to sitter when she and Dave went out or both had to work.
It pained Lindsey to leave her favorite aunt.
But she had no choice.
Staying here in the bunker, knowing what she knew about what her mother was doing, was no longer tenable.
She had to get out and the sooner the better.
She heard someone coming down the
corridor and tucked the note away again.
It was Kara.
“Hi Kiddo.”
“Hi Kara. Where’s Misty?”
“In her crib. Out like a light.”
Kara stood in the doorway. She looked in both directions, up and down the corridor, to make sure nobody was within earshot.
She whispered, “You packed and ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been watching the phases of the moon. Unless I miss my guess, we’re due for a full moon tonight. Be ready to go when the thugs all go to bed.”
Chapter 13
The day seemed to take forever.
Lindsey took great care to avoid her mother. They weren’t exactly on speaking terms.
Sarah would notice instantly Lind’s demeanor had changed. She’d know immediately that something was in the wind.
She’d ask her daughter what was going on, and she wouldn’t accept “nothing” as an answer.
If Lindsey was honest and said she and Kara were breaking out, Sarah would try her best to talk her out of it.
If Lindsey went one step further and told her mom why she was leaving; that she couldn’t bear to spend another day with her in the bunker, it could lead to a major argument.
Words would be thrown around like daggers.
There was a good chance Sarah would reveal Lindsey’s escape plans and Parker would put a stop to them.
No, it was better to avoid all that and to just stay out of her mother’s path.
After she and Kara were gone Karen would explain to Sarah where they went and why.
Perhaps it would wake Sarah up to what she was doing to her family and to her marriage.
Sarah was already having deep regrets, but Lindsey didn’t know that.
Sarah was doing a lot of self-examination these days, and crying herself to sleep each night.
But Lindsey didn’t know that either.
Sarah had already resolved to tell John Parker she made a dreadful mistake. That she didn’t know why, in a moment of weakness, she gave herself to him.
She’d already resolved to tell him it had to end, immediately and for good.
Lindsey didn’t know any of that.
And honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway.
In Lindsey’s mind the damage was already done.
Sarah had already betrayed her husband and damaged her relationship with her oldest daughter.
In Lindsey’s mind it was damage that could never be undone.
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