Gun (Gun Apocalypse Series Book 1)

by Lee Hayton

  The virgin hand towel from the bathroom was about to have its cherry popped in the worst way. She pushed it into the water until it was soaked through then gently stroked it up the inside of Blain’s thigh.

  If anyone had told her the first time she touched a man intimately would be to attempt to save his life, Rebekah would have cackled with glee. The reality was less amusing.

  Without needing to be asked, Frankie removed the light from the mirror and shone it at Blain’s leg. Rebekah continued to wash him until she could see the clear lips of the wound emerge from the excreta of blood and pus.

  When she poured out the used water in the basin, pink swirls circled down the drain. After refilling it, she held the tweezers out under a stream of hot water—not great, but it was something.

  “We should just wait,” Frankie said as Rebekah knelt beside the bed. “Annie will know more about this stuff. Or Robert.”

  “Not unless they’ve lived a stranger life than they’ve let on so far.”

  She gestured Frankie to hold the light closer, and her friend sank to her knees beside her, their shoulders touching.

  “It’ll be okay,” Rebekah said, inserting the tip of the tweezers into Blain’s wound. The words were meant for Frankie but helped herself more. “It’ll be just fine.”

  She held her breath as she pushed the metal deeper than the light could penetrate. Nausea rose in her throat, but she swallowed the bile back down. If she concentrated, Rebekah could read the passage of the tweezers, vibrations in the metal sending her a report.

  Blain was conscious again. His hands bunched the covers beneath him. Rebekah forced herself to stay focused, not to turn and look him in the face.

  The tip of her tongue pressed up against her incisors as Rebekah edged the tweezers in deeper. The light twitched as Frankie shifted her grip.

  There!

  The tweezers clipped the tip of something harder than Blain’s thigh. Rebekah slid her middle fingertip into the gap between the metal to force the ends farther apart. Then she guided the metal forward, each prong sliding along either side of the obstruction.

  She squeezed and pulled.

  The bed jerked as Blain convulsed away from her ministrations. The change in position made the tweezers shift. The ends snapped together, slipping past the bullet.

  Frankie moved to Rebekah’s other side. Still shining the light at Blain’s wound with one hand, she pressed her other arm across his shoulders.

  “Just stay still one minute more,” Rebekah whispered, closing her eyes. She pushed the tweezers further apart and maneuvered them back into position. This time, when she gripped the bullet, it was as though Blain’s body was ejecting it toward her. Just by gripping the tweezers, in one smooth motion, it tugged free.

  While Blain sobbed with pain and relief, Rebekah twisted and held the tweezers aloft. The slug was smeared with blood. She dropped it into the jug and watched as the gray pellet clanked to the base, lazy ribbons of red curling through the water above it.

  As the adrenaline surged through her shaking body, Rebekah sat back on her heels and pressed her hands up to her face.

  Frankie

  Frankie stood outside. The horse was trotting around the paddock in the afternoon sun, chestnut coat gleaming with good health. An acid burp burned up her throat, and she leaned forward to spit it out into the garden.

  Apart from gas, there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

  Between Becca’s operation and the crimson lake swimming across the kitchen floor, it would be a long time before she added anything to it, either.

  “He’s sleeping again,” Becca whispered, putting a hand on Frankie’s shoulder. For a moment, Frankie felt the closeness of her oldest friend. She leaned her cheek toward Becca’s fingers, then shook her off and turned away.

  I’m not a child needing comfort. Just a woman with a weak stomach.

  Her memory dealt out a haunting echo of the sharp metal tweezers digging into soft flesh. It stopped short of handing her the matching relief of the compacted bullet splashing into the cleansing water jug.

  “There’s some dry food in the cupboards. I’m going to get something to eat.” Becca hesitated, and when Frankie didn’t answer, she added, “You want some?”

  Frankie’s gaze fixed on the horse. Wild and beautiful freedom, running just because it felt so great. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Some crackers would settle your stomach.”

  Frankie tensed her stomach as it gurgled and churned in warning of another attack. Erasing the last half hour would settle her stomach. Crackers? Not so much.

  “I said I’m good.”

  Becca stood behind her a moment longer. Frankie imagined her laser glare burning into the back of her neck. Then she was gone.

  The call of food was too great.

  Frankie put a hand on the wooden rail. White paint was peeling off it in long strips. Too many coats under too much baking sun. She wished the current sunshine held more heat, and shivered. Her body was frozen through.

  Because you’re an ice queen.

  The weight of the phone in her pocket would’ve been welcome right about now. Frankie wondered what the screen would say. “FF we miss you.” “Frankie come home.”

  Or, zero percent battery remaining. No messages.

  The yawning gulf between today and yesterday morning was incredible. Already it was hard for Frankie to see back across to the other side. Soon, the day could be swallowed up with yet another new horror. The rules had shifted so far, everything she thought she could count on was up for grabs.

  Frankie once howled for two days when her parents had moved and forced her to change elementary schools. At recess, a swinging-handed circle of girls would skip and hop around her, punishing her for the crime of having a boy’s name. Being lost in that sea of strange and hateful faces had been the worst horror she could imagine.

  But that just showed how little imagination she'd had.

  Another three circuits of the paddock and Becca wandered out to join her again. “Annie and Robert are still fast asleep. Blain’s color is much better.”

  Before she could stop it, Frankie heard her mouth sing a falsetto taunt, “Oh, his color is better.”

  Becca glared at her. There was a crumb sticking to her top lip, and Frankie reached out a snide finger to touch it.

  “Missed a bit.”

  Becca flinched away from her. “I did a good thing today. So did you. It’d be nice if you’d act like it.”

  “What good thing was that, Rebekah? Stripping a man naked to poke things into him.”

  Frankie swung around to look out at the horse again, standing now in the shade of the tree-lined fence. “Maybe one day you’ll learn that men are meant to poke things into you.”

  The muscles in Frankie’s arm locked into position. First her fingers on the rail, then her wrists, her elbows. In a way, she welcomed the sensation. Surely, it was a sign of morality that she’d freeze in horror at what her mouth insisted on saying?

  Her knees stiffened, and her thighs tightened into rock.

  “Your jokes aren’t funny today, Frankie.” Becca kicked at the fence post. The rail shook and moaned. “What say you leave them alone for a bit?”

  The large muscle at the base of Frankie’s neck seized up. A cramp dug cruel fingers into her flesh, twisting deep.

  “What say you leave me alone for a bit?”

  Becca pushed away from the railing, then hesitated and turned back.

  “We did a great thing,” she said, her throat moist with tears. “Because of us, Blain will get better.”

  “Or he’ll die,” Frankie said, watching Becca jerk away like she’d spat in her face.

  Eyelids narrowing, Becca blew out her cheeks, letting out a puff of air. She leaned forward and stuck her finger into Frankie’s chest. So close, Frankie’s lips could feel the caress of her hot breath.

  “Why are you so mean? You’re supposed to be my friend. Why are you acting like a . .
. Like a . . .”

  “Like a grown-up? Like a realist?”

  “Like a fucking bitch!”

  Becca pushed her and Frankie’s foot slipped on the slick dry wood. She grabbed hold of the rail to keep from falling, a splinter digging into the soft meat of her palm.

  “I’ve watched people being shot, same as you.” Becca poked her finger, hard, into Frankie’s shoulder. “I’ve seen my mother—”

  Her voice broke, and she choked to a stop. Becca raised her wrist to her forehead and drew in a hitching breath.

  “I’ve seen my mother’s dead body on the lawn.” Her voice rose with every word. “I’m not treating you like you’re a piece of shit I stepped on. I’m not picking up on every little thing and twisting it. I’m not acting like I’m a grade-A”—poke—“fucking”—poke—“cunt.”

  Becca’s voice cracked on the last word, her throat raw. Frankie saw the tremble in her hands, could only imagine the courage it took weak Becca, fat Becca, Becca who only had one friend, to face her down for an answer.

  When Becca’s expression twisted into sobs, Frankie stretched out a hand to comfort her, but she slapped it away like it was a hissing snake.

  “Don’t touch me. I don’t want to be touched by someone so . . . so . . . mean.”

  The word came packed tight with every jibe, every overheard whisper, every nasty nickname Becca had ever had to put a brave face on.

  Fear crept up the back of Frankie’s throat. It swamped her brain, shutting down her nervous system. Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell.

  But Becca wasn’t the only brave one.

  “I hate you because I was going to let you die,” Frankie cried.

  The words formed a chasm between them, too wide and deep to cross, too late to turn back. Tears streamed a waterfall down her face, and Frankie swiped at them. Furious. With Becca. With herself.

  “I would’ve followed the group into the ceiling.” Frankie pulled in a breath full of tears. Coughed it out and gulped in another. “I knew you wouldn’t fit, but I was just going to leave you down there.”

  A fresh cascade of tears tried to stop her, but Frankie forced them away to tell her friend the ultimate shameful truth.

  “I heard the gunman coming, and I decided to leave you down there to die.”

  Blain

  Blain woke to the sound of raised voices. People were screaming. He put hands up to block the sound piercing his tender ears.

  What time was it? He was hungry.

  He rolled onto his back, unsure if he was dreaming. He appeared to be lying in the guest bedroom of his parents’ farm.

  With cautious fingers, Blain felt down over his chest, his stomach, his legs. At some point, he’d got undressed except for his underwear. There was a fresh white bandage secured around his thigh.

  Blain sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed. Anticipating failure, he leaned forward to stand, using the side table to balance. Where before his thigh had been in agony, now it was limber and supported his weight.

  For a moment, Blain poked at the bandage gently. Vague memories of Becca and Frankie hovering over him replayed in his head.

  Even amid his previous agony, a feeling of overall well-being had suffused him. As Blain tightened and loosened his injured thigh muscle, he realized that inner joy had melted away.

  His leg was healing.

  A chill crept up his back as Blain realized he could feel the tissues knitting together as they mended. Progress ten times—a hundred times—quicker than any injuries he’d suffered before.

  Fresh clothing had been laid out for him on the side chair. Blain picked up a pair of jeans and sat on the edge of the bed to pull them up his legs. He smiled at the faded Nike tick on the T-shirt. These clothes were from the attic where his mom kept a box of his things stored “just in case.”

  His mom.

  Vague tidbits of their arrival at the farm came back to him: Robert driving the car into the dark garage and warning Becca not to follow him into the house.

  If his mom were alive, she’d have been in here. Blain sniffed, his nostrils searching for her fragrance in the air.

  Nothing. The air was stale except for the sharp tang of his own sweat.

  A sense of loss enveloped him in cold arms. His skin pimpled into gooseflesh.

  The voices outside rose even higher, followed by the front door slamming. Blain winced and rubbed his temples.

  He was getting a headache.

  Chapter Nine

  Robert

  The next morning when Frankie volunteered to accompany him while he surveyed the property, Robert hid his astonishment by nodding vigorously and clapping her on the shoulder.

  Then Annie caught his eye and tipped her head toward Becca. That was when Robert first noticed the two girls weren’t looking at each other. Thinking back, a few acerbic comments stood out in his memory, but he’d just thought that was their way. Now it appeared the girls were in the midst of a fight.

  “Check the bolt’s in,” he called over to Frankie. They were at either end of a wooden gate, one of the entrances onto the many rough track roads that bordered the property.

  Frankie gave the catch a few bangs and nodded. The farm opened into wide parcels of land all around. With so much open space, the place would be hard to defend. If someone drove up, it gave them the benefit of a warning. Anybody on foot could follow the windbreaks, traveling from tree to tree, and be upon them before they realized.

  For a second Robert dreamed of his gated community, with a six-foot-high wall surrounding it and a gate barring entry until security deemed you a fit occupant. A dream property a child could defend.

  Perfection. Until the other occupants started to smell.

  Robert’s interactions with his neighbors had been infrequent. His work had consumed his time . . . Right up until pretending to work had occupied his time. The socializing he had done had been nodding toward a tight group of citizens one rung up on the paranoia ladder. If a gunman hadn’t gotten them, their own fears would. Robert could bet the couple from the farmhouse weren’t the only ones across the country deciding tomorrow wasn’t for them.

  He lifted his end of the gate to check that the hinges held firm then dropped it. At a yard high, broken hinges weren’t a requirement to gain entry. A determined toddler could probably manage the climb.

  Still, they’d discovered a second well out near the back boundary. Thin and shallow, it looked like an original feature, long since upgraded by a spot closer to the house. Dry, Robert guessed. If they stayed here, they might not need to burn the bodies after all. Dump some topsoil down after them, and the deep drop would do for a casket.

  “Can you teach me how to shoot?”

  The question startled Robert. Surely she was too young. He tipped his head to one side and looked Frankie up and down. Was this a teenage joke?

  “If we need to keep a guard out for intruders, then at least two of us are unequipped for the role,” Frankie said. “No offense, but you and Annie won’t last a week taking turns.”

  Weird how reassured he felt that someone else was thinking along the same lines as him.

  “Okay. Come over here, and I’ll take you through the basics.” He pulled the Remington out of his pocket and examined it for a few seconds, puzzling it out. He ejected the magazine and checked the slide. There was a bullet in the chamber, too, so he worked it out before handing the gun to Frankie.

  “I’d prefer it was loaded.”

  “And I’d prefer you learn to point and aim before you’re let loose with ammunition. I win.”

  She smiled at that, though she ducked her head to hide it. Once, Robert had wanted children—a rambunctious boy to follow in his footsteps and look up to him. A tomboy would do if it came down to it.

  “Hold your arms straight at first, then relax your elbows. It doesn’t matter so much at this size, but if you get a gun with a kick, it’ll break your joints if you keep them stiff.”

  After seeking permis
sion, he put his arms around Frankie and molded her into position.

  “Close one eye. Gets rid of your depth perception so you can line up better.”

  Frankie made little corrections to her aim. When she stilled, he said, “Pull back the hammer all the way, then check your target again.”

  “Why don’t I just pull it back first?”

  Because you don’t know if you want to kill them yet, Robert thought. But that was less true today. “You can. Line it up again and put your finger on the trigger. Near your thumb, there’s a little switch. Feel it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the safety for this model. Lots of guns won’t have them, so always check first. You don’t want to be the dead guy in the B-movie, okay?”

  She chuckled, and the gun wobbled then corrected to target. Whatever else was going on, Frankie was a natural at this. If they needed to hunt, Frankie was going on his team.

  “Then I squeeze the trigger?”

  “Then you squeeze the trigger,” he agreed.

  “Pow.” Pulling her arms back down, Frankie cocked an eyebrow. “Now with ammunition?”

  “Afraid not. We can check for ammo together once we get back to the farm.” Unless it were in the barn, in which case, he’d check for it alone. “I’m sure we can find more—then it’s a deal.”

  They walked along in silence, Frankie kicking at the freshly planted rows of barley on one side of the fence then jumping over the wall and using a short stick to whip off the heads of the high daffodils infiltrating the side of the farm road.

  “Do you know any show tunes?” Robert asked.

  She looked at him sideways until he burst into a hearty version of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.” In response to that, she burst into laughter.

  Funny how it all carries on, he thought, life going about its business, no matter what.

  Above the sound of his joyful singing, neither Frankie nor Robert heard the approaching truck, slowed to a crawl. A sniper stood poised with unnerving stillness in the back, intent on tracking his target.