by Nathan Jones
Matt wrapped his arms tighter around his wife, staring at the curtain in front of him. Her complaints weren't exactly fair, but they weren't exactly unfair either. They were giving a lot to the town for very little in return, that was true. But only because the town had nothing to give, which was why it so desperately needed help from anyone who was willing to give it.
He preferred to be proud of giving that help rather than resent it, and frankly he was surprised to hear Sam talk like that given her generous nature. This had all been harder on her than he'd thought, harder than he had any right to ask of her, especially when they had a baby on the way to worry about.
And now he wanted to leave her when she needed him most.
“You won't be alone when I leave,” he said quietly, kissing the top of her head. “My family is here for you, and so is everyone else in the shelter. Lewis and Jane are going to be staying too, and they'll look out for you and the baby while I'm gone.”
She shook her head, but her resolve seemed to be wavering. “It's not the same and you know it.”
“I know. But I've already promised to go.” Matt hesitated. “Although if things start looking really bad I'll come back.” He lifted her chin up to meet her eyes, shining with tears, and felt a stab of anguish at the anguish and fear in them. “Please, tell me this is okay.”
Sam met his gaze for a long time, as if searching for something, and then abruptly pulled away and began fussing over his things. “You'll probably want to take all your ammo,” she said. “Is the town going to give you a truck to carry things? If so we won't have to worry about weight and you can take more.”
It wasn't quite what he'd hoped for, but he supposed it would have to be enough. With a sigh Matt stood and joined her. “We'll have one of the raider trucks, and Williams gave us a bit of extra fuel.”
That wasn't all the town was giving them. Each person who went would have the best of the gear they'd captured from the raiders, weapons and body armor. They'd also be taking one of the missile launchers, half the remaining missiles, half the grenades and remaining molotovs, and one of the heavy machine guns with half of the .50 BMG ammunition.
That would leave the volunteers incredibly well equipped, while the town would still have the means to defend itself. And maybe it would be some consolation for Sam, to know that the town had done everything it could to make sure that he returned home to her.
* * * * *
With one person shy of two dozen volunteers they decided to split into two squads. Trev was a bit surprised when Matt approached him to lead the smaller squad of 11.
“What made you choose me?” he asked.
His friend looked a bit sheepish. “Honestly? Until we know better what the military needs from us I'm setting up the first squad so all the seasoned defenders are in it, assuming it'll be the one seeing the most action. Your squad has all of our older volunteers, less experienced defenders, and the regular townspeople. I plan to keep you on the bench wherever possible.”
“Well it's an honor to be picked for that,” Trev said wryly.
His friend chuckled. “That didn't sound all that complimentary, did it? I picked you because you did a pretty good job of getting the roadblocks into shape back when you first came down from the mountains, and everyone likes you.” He hesitated. “Also you and Lewis both have a bit of a reputation. Nobody has any complaints about taking orders from the guy who outran a machine gun.”
That again. Trev wondered if the full story was getting out. It wasn't exactly his proudest moment, the one he wanted to get a reputation about. With a sigh he looked down at the list Matt held out for him. Tom Harding would be along with him, which was a relief. Matt had probably shoved him into Trev's squad due to age, not lack of ability.
He also recognized some names from the roadblock, Rob Jonas and Hans Miller. Good men, but they hadn't struck him as very soldierly. Fred and Susan Donnell looked like a couple, or maybe brother and sister. Either way he didn't recognize them, which meant they were probably Ben's people.
He looked up again. “When are we leaving?”
“A week. Williams didn't seem to think there was any need to rush, although he did say the sooner we sent people the more help we could be with preparing defenses. We'd also have more opportunities to receive some quality training from skilled soldiers.”
“A week, huh?” Trev said. He looked back down at his list. “Well, no time like the present to get started. If you need me I'll be at our shooting range, hopefully with as many of the people on this list as I can round up.”
Matt clapped him on the shoulder, looking relieved. “Good luck, and thanks.”
As many people as he could round up turned out to be everyone. It took a while for Trev to go around finding them all, especially since he didn't know where half of them lived. But when he did find his new squad mates most seemed relieved to hear he wanted to start training immediately, and quickly agreed to meet him at the shooting range in a few hours.
Trev directed everyone to find Scott at the town storehouse and get the weapons they'd be using, and even went with one of the townspeople volunteers to help him pick up his rifle and sidearm and familiarize him with basic handling and safety until he could be more properly trained. The man seemed hesitant with even the basics, but determined to learn. That was a good sign, Trev hoped.
He could understand that for the less experienced people the idea of going off to fight a war was terrifying, and his offer to train them promised some hope that they wouldn't just be tossed into anything they weren't prepared for. As he pedaled home to get things ready he only hoped he was up to the challenge of preparing them.
The shooting range was a hundred or so yards west of the shelter, facing northwest towards the targets in a little hollow with a bit of a rise to either side and a low hill in front. It had been carefully picked out as a place where the risk of stray shots escaping to hit anyone was extremely low. Lewis had set it up while the shelter was still under construction, and had used it frequently. At his cousin's invitation Trev had used it a few times too, but not nearly as often.
While he waited for his new squad to show up he patched up the targets, then got out the bundle of colored flags that would warn people away, to put up along the hill and two rises. The thin wire stakes were easy to drive into the ground, if slightly flimsy, but it made it easier to put them up and take them down for each shooting session. Lewis didn't want them up all the time drawing attention to the area near the shelter, and Trev fully agreed.
Tom Harding came by early, since he had the shortest distance to go, and they chatted as they waited for everyone else. As the volunteers he'd be leading trickled in Trev noticed other people had tagged along, friends and family members. Maybe in a show of support, or maybe because they were on the fence about volunteering themselves and wanted to be convinced. He noticed Alice Thornton was one of the spectators, which struck him as a bit odd because she didn't really know anyone in his squad; her friends among the volunteers were all in Matt's squad.
Trev didn't mind the onlookers as long as they weren't a distraction, and even offered to let them train, with the reasoning that knowing how to handle a gun was always a useful skill, and even more so these days. A few hesitantly agreed, but most seemed content to just watch. Hopefully they'd learn something useful even so.
After he'd gone around to all the volunteers, shaken their hands, and introduced them to each other he had them line up in front of him. “As you can probably guess, we don't have much ammo to spare for training,” he began. “Which means we need to get the most training value out of every shot. Any guesses what we'll be doing the rest of the time?”
“Dry fire practice?” Tom asked wryly.
Trev grinned at the older man. “Right.”
“Wait a second,” Alice said from among the spectators. “Are you even going to do any shooting today?”
He turned to look at her, again wondering what she was doing here. “That depends on how well e
veryone does with the basics.” She seemed to accept that, or at least had nothing else to add, so he turned back to his squad. “Now, I see the town has made good on their promise to give each of you the best equipment they have. That means we'll all be using standardized M16s and 1911s. For today let's focus on pistols.”
Turning away from everyone at an oblique angle so they could still see his hands and weapon, he drew his new 1911 and unloaded it, making his movements slow and obvious so everyone could see what he was doing and how he was doing it. That meant removing the magazine, ejecting the round in the chamber (and catching it as it flew away), then doing a mag and chamber check. Then, to be absolutely sure the gun was unloaded, he did another mag and chamber check.
Once he was satisfied he holstered it again. “My weapon is now unloaded and ready for dry fire practice. Notice I say it out loud, to cement it in my mind. When I'm finished with dry fire practice and load and cock my weapon so it's ready for use, I'll tell myself it's now loaded out loud. Just to be certain I don't decide on a whim to do just one more round of dry fire practice and end up shooting anything by accident.”
He drew his weapon again, holding it at the ready position pointed downrange. “My weapon is now unloaded, with no chance I can shoot anything with it. What don't I point it at?”
“Anything you don't want to shoot,” Tom once again answered for the group, sounding a bit impatient.
Trev nodded. “Rule one of firearm safety. Loaded, unloaded, safety on, safety off, you never point the gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. That's the best way to guarantee that even the most careless person will never have a tragic accident. Rule number two is similar: keep your finger off the trigger unless you're ready to shoot. Rule three, keep your firearm unloaded until you're ready to use it.”
He hesitated, looking around the group to make sure his warnings were sinking in. This was literally a matter of life and death. “If you're in a situation where you need to keep your gun loaded so you can be ready to use it quickly, which will probably be the case a lot of the time once we leave here, the rule is to keep your firearm holstered unless you're ready to shoot something or you need to inspect or maintain the weapon. Similarly, for those guns that have a safety always keep it on until you're ready to shoot, and put it back on as soon as you finish shooting. Any questions?”
Trev waited, but no one spoke. Most looked as impatient as Tom. “All right then. Everyone unload your weapons. Let me know if you need help. I'll be coming around to watch you all do a mag and chamber check to be sure there were no mistakes. Once we're all ready I'll walk you through the dry fire drill, which includes drawing, holstering, the various positions of readiness up to firing position, clearing malfunctions, and the actual dry fire itself.”
“Question,” Mason Priscott, a man in his 30s who'd lived in Aspen Hill for over a decade, said as he raised one hand. Trev nodded to him. “If we already know all this stuff do we still need to do it?”
“Short answer, yes,” Trev said with a slight smile. “Long answer, yeeeeeesssssssss. Aside from live fire practice this is the best training you can do, and you can never get too much training. You don't just want to learn this, you want it deeply ingrained in your muscle memory. That way when you're out there with bullets flying all around you, and an enemy pops up and everything's going wrong, you don't need to think about what you're going to do because you've already done it thousands of times.”
For the next few hours he ran everyone through dry fire drills and made sure they were all using the proper grip and finger placement on the trigger. Once he was sure they were doing things reasonably well he had everyone fire one full magazine, stopping them after each controlled pair of shots to correct any signs of the usual problems that threw off a person's aim and tended to get worse over time if not corrected.
Eight shots felt woefully inadequate to help accustom the volunteers to recoil and make sure they were acquiring a proper sight picture, but they really didn't have the ammo to spare. Hopefully they could make up for that with consistent dry fire practice, since they didn't have many alternatives. Last of all he taught them how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble their 1911s.
Trev sent everyone home after getting them to agree to meet back tomorrow at the same time. The plan for the next training session was to take them through a few full sets of dry fire drills on the pistol to keep them fresh in their minds, then move over to the rifle and work on that. A few of the volunteers wanted to ask questions or just chat with him as everyone else left, and as he talked with them he saw Alice waiting for him.
Most of the spectators had left after a half hour or so, when they realized they were just going to be watching everyone do the same thing over and over with empty guns. The few spectators that had remained to the end had already left with the friends or family they'd been waiting for, leaving the young woman one of the last people left at the shooting range. He saw now that she'd brought Chauncey's familiar rifle case with her, probably carrying his shotgun, and she had it slung over her shoulder.
He excused himself from the other recruits, encouraging them to make sure they were packed and ready to leave even though the departure date wasn't for a week, then made his way over to her. “Hey Alice. Did you need something?”
“Yeah. I want to join your squad.”
Trev blinked. She'd said it so casually it took half a second for the words to sink in. “I, uh, wasn't expecting that. Have you talked to Matt?”
The young woman flushed slightly. “Matt's squad is full, so I came to you. You've still got a spot open, right?” Trev hesitated, and her expression darkened. “Is it because of my age? I turned seventeen last December. I'm older than Pete, and Matt's letting him go.”
“You still need to talk to Matt,” Trev insisted. Then he hesitated, feeling a bit bad for dumping an awkward conversation on his friend. He decided to be blunt. “And he'll probably say no. Pete might be a bit younger, but he's been through a lot more fighting and proven he can handle himself. Also he pretty much threatened to go off on his own if we didn't bring him along.”
He'd been half afraid she'd explode in fury, but instead Alice assumed a determined expression. “And you think I won't? I don't know if Matt told you, but I joined the last fight against Turner's raiders. I could barely hold a gun but I had the guts to point it at the enemy and pull the trigger, even when they were shooting back. I'm ready to do that again.”
Well this was unexpected. Matt hadn't told him Alice had been part of the last fight, although she was one of many who had and his friend hadn't taken the time to name them all. Still, he hadn't seen this spark in the blond young woman the last time he'd seen her, back when they'd made molotov cocktails together the day Ferris and Turner's raiders first showed up.
“Why?” he asked quietly.
Her determination abruptly exploded into anger, but not necessarily at him. “Because I lost everything! Razor's thugs killed my dad and nearly raped me. My mom died of starvation. My best friend's dad was blown apart by raiders, and the man who took me in and has been almost a second father lost his leg and became a cripple. The world's become nothing but one person after another coming to take what little we have, and I'm not going to let them take anything else from me.”
Trev looked at her in a new light. He'd heard of some of what she'd been through, and had been there to see how she handled her mother's death, but even so hadn't really appreciated the depth of her feelings. But even knowing all that, could he really justify letting her volunteer? On the other hand, if she was this determined could he justify refusing her?
As if sensing he was wavering the young woman straightened to attention, shifting her rifle case on her back. “I don't know if America's got a chance, but every time we make the blockheads pay for killing American citizens and stealing their homes that chance gets better. When I come back to Aspen Hill I want to do it knowing that nobody else is going to be coming for us ever again. So, can I join you?”
&
nbsp; “Maybe. Just one thing.” Trev nodded at her shotgun. “You said you could barely hold a gun, but I assume you've practiced since then. Show me.”
Alice's fierceness vanished into an eager grin, and she quickly stepped up to the firing stand and unslung her case, removed the shotgun, then quickly assumed a firing stance and pumped a shell into the chamber. Trev let her fire off a couple shots, watching to see how she handled the recoil. The answer was not great, considering her small frame. But she properly couched the butt against her shoulder and was obviously used to how it kicked, so she recovered quickly.
Trev had her unload the weapon and put it away, then nodded to her. “Go find Matt and let him know you want to volunteer and I've agreed to let you join my squad.” He quickly continued as her grin widened. “I've got to warn you that if he says no I'll follow his lead, but I'm guessing he'll agree.”
“Thanks!” she said, turning and starting to run off down the road towards town.
“After you talk to Matt you'll need to head to the town storehouse and get your rifle and pistol!” he called after her. “And since you didn't take part in today's training you'll need to have someone work through the basics with you. If you need I c-”
“I'll ask Rick or Pete to give me a hand!” she called over her shoulder, barely slowing. Maybe she was afraid he'd change his mind if she stuck around.
Trev watched her go, wondering if he'd made a mistake.
Chapter Twelve
Joining Up
At Matt's urging the two dozen Aspen Hill volunteers set out early in the morning, cramming into one of the captured raider trucks with as many supplies packed around them as the town could spare, particularly their precious weapons and ammunition. As well as the body armor, night vision goggles, and the other gear that had made the raiders such dangerous enemies and would hopefully keep them alive in the coming fight.
