Surviving The End (Book 2): Fallen World

by Hamilton, Grace

  “Careful, kid,” Mike said. “It’s not going to bite you. Never drop a gun. That’s pretty important.”

  “Got it,” Owen replied, tightening his grip on the Glock. It felt cold, coarse, and heavy in his hand.

  “Get used to the feel of it,” Mike said.

  Owen tried swinging the gun around, pointing at imaginary targets as if fending off enemies coming from all sides. Shaking his head, Mike grabbed his wrist and pushed the Glock down.

  “No, no, calm down,” he said. “Rule number one of concealed carry class is, ‘Be careful where you point that thing.’”

  Embarrassed, Owen aimed the gun at the ground, but Mike laughed and clapped him on the back.

  “Okay, let’s skip directly to the live fire test,” he said. “Raise the gun and point it at the center target.”

  Raising the gun, Owen aimed at the paper target in the middle, but Mike quickly adjusted his grip, moving his hands around then tipping the barrel of the gun an inch or two lower. He pointed out the sights on the gun, though he didn’t really explain how to use them.

  “Take your best shot, kid. Remember, squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.”

  Owen pulled the trigger. He anticipated the noise, but he wasn’t quite ready for the kick. Though he was athletic and had strong arms, the gun still jerked in his hand.

  “Did I hit anything?” he asked.

  It took a second to find the bullet hole. He’d hit the sandbag about three inches down and to the left of the paper target.

  “Not bad. Hold it a little tighter next time,” Mike said, “and squeeze the trigger this time. There’s a difference.”

  “Squeeze, don’t pull. Okay, I got it.”

  Owen took a few more shots, working on his grip and aim, and while he managed to hit the target, he was nowhere near the bullseye. Eventually, he heard the back door slide open, and he glanced over to see Corbin stepping outside. Owen tried not to let his irritation show. This strange kid hadn’t actually done anything to deserve being hated, but Owen just couldn’t warm up to him. How had he weaseled his way into the family so thoroughly?

  “Not terrible,” Corbin said, “but your grip’s no good. Let me show you.”

  “Hey, now, that’s the grip we learned in class,” Mike said. “Surely you’re not suggesting retired police officer Andrew Mohler taught us bad form.”

  “His thumbs are crossed,” Corbin said. “That’s a big no-no. Are you sure you took a concealed carry class?”

  Mike gave him a wounded look. “Hey, I paid forty bucks for the class and seventy-five for the license.”

  “Did you teach Owen the four rules of gun safety?” Corbin asked. “Did you cover the fundamentals of marksmanship? Why is his grip so wrong? Why is he standing like that?”

  “We were going to get to all of that stuff,” Mike said. “You want to take over for me?”

  “Maybe I should.”

  Corbin proceeded to correct Owen’s hand position. Then he corrected the position of his arms, back, and shoulders. Owen bit back a complaint. This kid was at least a year younger than him. Why did he have to act like he knew everything?

  “Now take the shot,” Corbin said. “You’ll feel the difference.”

  Trying to ignore his irritation, Owen aimed for the center target and pulled the trigger. The paper jumped as the bullet pierced the outer ring.

  “There you go,” Corbin said. “That was a lot better.”

  Over the course of the next hour, Corbin took control of Mike’s “live fire test,” showing both of them some techniques to improve their aim and handling of the gun. As they each took turns firing at the targets, they eventually fell into small talk. Mike probed Corbin with questions, and Corbin gradually, bit by bit, shared his personal story.

  “How’d you get to be such a good shot?” Mike asked. “It’s almost like you had some kind of military training.”

  “No, nothing formal like that,” Corbin replied. “Just my dad. He thought it was important for everyone to know how to handle and use guns safely.”

  Between bursts of gunfire, Owen gradually heard the sad tale of Corbin’s devoted but weary father, his drunk and neglectful mother, and the angry teenager who took a neighbor’s classic car for a joyride and crashed it into a hardware store. Corbin even talked about his brief stay at Fulton County Juvenile Boot Camp and the way his mother had broken him out of the camp before dying by the side of the road.

  “That’s how I met Shane, actually,” he explained. “My crazy mom held him at gunpoint and forced him to break me out of the camp. She got shot in the process.”

  “And after that, Shane just decided to bring you here?” Mike said. “Seems rather generous on his part.”

  “Yeah, he took pity on me, I guess,” Corbin said.

  In the end, Owen understood the boy a lot better, and he found his attitude changing. How could he resent someone who had been through so much and had so little left in the world? Owen began to think maybe it would be good to have someone around his age to talk to.

  “I pity anyone dumb enough to try to break into our house,” Corbin said, reloading the magazine. Owen noted that he called it our house. “We’re becoming a force to be reckoned with. What do you guys think?”

  “I think I like the idea of that,” Mike replied. “Come at us, creeps. We’re ready for the worst.”

  As he took the warm Glock from Corbin’s hands, Owen hoped his uncle was right.

  18

  At first, the crack of the Glock firing in the backyard almost made Beth leap out of her skin. She was tending to Jodi when she heard the sound coming through the bedroom window. Heart racing, she hurried out of the room and down the hall, going for the shotgun in the coat closet, but then she heard laughter and cheering. She recognized the voices of Owen and Mike, and she stopped.

  Cursing under her breath, she returned to the guest room and finished tending to Jodi, filling a water glass on the nightstand, checking the bedpan (which hadn’t been used), fluffing up her pillows, tucking in her blankets. Jodi had slept on and off all morning, and at the moment she was curled up in a fetal position. Beth could see the little girl she had been many years ago, and she leaned over the bed to stroke her hair.

  She sat beside her daughter for a while, hearing the steady stream of gunshots like a strange drumbeat.

  Well, maybe it’s for the best, she thought. A well-armed and well-trained family will be a safe and secure family.

  Finally, with nothing else to tend to, she went out back to join Owen and Mike. When she got there, she found Corbin giving them instructions. They’d been going at it for about an hour, and the paper targets they’d set up along the fence were shredded.

  “We’ve probably wasted enough ammo,” Mike said as Beth approached. He had an open ammo box in his hand. “Thanks for all the tips, Corbin, but let’s call it a day. I think we’re ready for anything now.”

  Corbin and Owen gave each other a high five. It was the most direct interaction Beth had seen them have since they’d met. They’d seemed wary of each other, but apparently they had bonded over target practice.

  “Good job, boys,” she said, “but what will you do if there’s trouble and you don’t have a gun with you?”

  Owen and Corbin glanced at each other, clearly confused by the question. Mike, who was busy reloading the magazine for the Glock, gestured at Owen with a nod of his head.

  “Then your grandson over there will give the bad guy his famous haymaker,” he said, “and send him flying.”

  “I don’t actually know how to fight,” Owen said. “I just got a lucky punch on this one guy who tried to steal my bike, and Uncle Mike keeps bringing it up.”

  Beth beckoned Owen and went into a fighting stance. Owen and Corbin glanced at each other again. She could tell they were fighting an urge to laugh.

  “Grandma, have you had some kind of martial arts training?” Owen asked.

  “Well, I took a six-week self-defense course at the community
center,” she replied.

  “Six weeks?” Corbin said, and left it at that.

  “Okay, it didn’t do me any good with the Eddies boys,” Beth conceded, “but I was afraid to go up against them. I had Kaylee and Bauer to worry about, after all. Plus, I was outnumbered. Still, if it had been one-on-one…you never know. My instructor taught me a few good things. It’s all about hitting them where it hurts and trying to get them off-balance.”

  She beckoned Owen again, and he somewhat reluctantly approached. The hint of a smile on his face made her want to prove herself.

  I’m not as helpless as I seem to be, she thought, but she knew she was encouraging herself as much as him. She’d been helpless in the presence of the Eddies boys and needed rescuing, but she wanted to believe she could have saved herself if the situation had been just a little different.

  “Always be aware of your surroundings,” she said, grabbing his wrist. “Don’t let an attacker get the drop on you. Don’t hold back. Hit fast, hit hard, and try to get them on the ground. That’s what they taught us.”

  “Don’t hit me, Grandma,” Owen said.

  “Don’t worry,” she replied, gently putting him in a hold, twisting one of his arms behind his back and planting a foot against his. “I’ll go easy on you. Now, from this position, even with my smaller size, I could pretty easily put you on the ground.”

  “Show me.”

  “This’ll be the last time you underestimate your grandmother,” Mike said, sliding the magazine back into the grip of the Glock and pocketing the rest of the ammo.

  She was so caught up in the moment, so determined to show her grandson what she was capable of, that she didn’t notice the big eyes peering at her over the fence right away. When she did, it startled her, and she let go of Owen and backed away. Owen, apparently thinking he’d done something to hurt her, held up his hands.

  “What?” he asked. “What did I do?”

  Beth saw a big poof of gray hair above a high forehead, big brown eyes rimmed in too much mascara. She recognized the face immediately, but what in the world was she doing? Nora, her neighbor from across the street, was a tiny thing. To peer over the fence like that she had to be standing on something. Corbin was the first to realize Beth was looking at someone, and he turned to follow her gaze, snapping his fingers and pointing at Nora.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Nora said. “I heard all sorts of commotion. Guns going off and shouting and screaming. What is that boy doing to you, Beth? Is he hurting you?”

  “We’re just practicing,” Beth said, brushing past Owen and Corbin to approach the fence. She gestured at the boys to stay back. “I’m teaching them a few tricks I learned in my self-defense course.”

  Nora’s gaze went from Beth to the makeshift shooting range and back to Beth, eyes getting wider. Then she looked at the garden, and her expression changed, eyes narrowing as if she were figuring something out.

  “Wait a minute,” Nora said. “Are you one of those…one of those, what do they call ’em, preppers? I’ve read about people like you, stockpiling weapons, batteries, buckets of food, getting ready for the apocalypse. Yeah, Maury Povich did a show about it. There were people who had twenty years of food hidden in storage rooms underground. Are you…?”

  “The media exaggerates these things,” Beth said. “I keep a little extra food on hand, but that’s just because of the garden. I can all my vegetables, but it’s not as much as you might imagine. Plus, I do like my coupons. I got a lot of good deals before the power went out, but it’s nothing more than that. I’m certainly not a prepper.” The lie came easy in this instance. Beth wouldn’t lie for selfish gain, but she had no trouble saying whatever she had to say to protect her family.

  “Well, it sounds like you’re training a small army back here,” Nora said. “I heard you firing off about a thousand rounds. Sounded like maybe a war had started.”

  “That was just my grandson learning gun safety,” Beth said.

  She could tell by the look on Nora’s face—a narrow-eyed scowl—that she didn’t believe a word Beth said. Nora was clearly convinced she’d stumbled upon some great and secret stash of food, and, to be fair, she had.

  “Well, it’s good to be prepared,” Nora said. “You can’t hardly get into the grocery stores. The ones that are open have armed guards from all the fights breaking out.”

  “Do you still have some of the food I gave you the other day?” Beth said. “Surely you haven’t gone through it already.”

  “No, I’ve got a few things left,” Nora said, “but it won’t last much longer. I’m starting to get nervous thinking about venturing into town again. It doesn’t feel safe.”

  Nora wasn’t just satisfying her curiosity. Clearly, she wanted something, and while Beth liked to help people, she knew it was dangerous to create dependency. Beth glanced over her shoulder and saw Mike, Owen, and Corbin watching her from the back porch. Kaylee and Bauer were in the dining room—she saw them running around the table.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Beth said. “I’ll give you some seeds, and you can plant your own garden. I’ll even teach you how to can the vegetables when they ripen. You’ll feel better having a few shelves of canned food, believe me.”

  “Oh, goodness, no,” Nora replied, rolling her eyes dramatically. “I have such a black thumb! You have no idea how bad I am at gardening. A few years ago, I tried to grow a single tomato plant, just a single tomato plant, in a big planter on the back porch, and, don’t you know it, I couldn’t keep that thing alive! It withered up and withered up and never produced an edible tomato. No, I would starve if I had to depend on my own gardening skills. That’s for sure.”

  Beth was reaching her wit’s end. A single act of kindness to a neighbor had turned into an endless source of ongoing frustration. After all she’d been through in the last week, Beth found it harder than ever to keep her temper or be polite. Before her daughter’s wreck, she might have acquiesced to Nora’s request, but today, she just didn’t feel like it.

  “Look,” Beth said, trying to moderate her tone of voice, “you’re going to have to learn how to keep your plants alive. We all are. This is the world we live in. This is how it’s going to be from now on. Everyone needs to supplement their food supply with their own garden.”

  “The world’s not going to be like this forever,” Nora said. “The government didn’t dissolve. Heck, the president said they’re already working on a solution right now. They’re going to fix this mess. They might have the power back in a few days…maybe a few hours. You never know.”

  Fighting an angry retort, Beth bit her lower lip. She still had a scab there, and it stung so much it made the anger bubble over.

  “Okay, Nora, if that’s what you want to believe, go right ahead,” she said. “Now, I’m going to give you some seeds anyway, just in case you decide to give gardening another try.”

  “No point,” Nora replied. “I wouldn’t waste the seeds trying to get them to grow. I’ll just have to rely on more immediate kinds of food, if you know what I mean.”

  Beth was considering a blunt exit strategy when she heard Kaylee’s voice. Looking toward the back door, she saw that Owen, Mike, and Corbin had gone inside, taking the gun and ammo with them. Corbin appeared to be carrying a handful of discharged bullet shells. Kaylee stood in the open door, bouncing up and down and waving at Beth.

  “Come in, Grammy,” she said. “Come in. I need help. I need help right now. Daddy said you could do it.”

  Nora had already resumed talking, but Beth cut her off. “I’m sorry, Nora. That’s my granddaughter. I’d better go see what she needs. If you change your mind about the seeds, let me know. Otherwise, good luck.”

  Without waiting for a response, Beth gave Nora a wave goodbye and headed to the house. She had a last glimpse of those narrowed eyes glaring out from under that big poof of gray hair, but then she turned away and crossed the back porch. She stepped inside and slid the door shut.

  “What was that a
ll about?” Mike asked from the living room.

  “A needy neighbor who wouldn’t accept the right kind of help,” Beth said, as Kaylee rushed up and hugged her. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Kaylee grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen, as Bauer paced after them, panting. As it turned out, Kaylee had been trying to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She had set out a couple slices of white bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a can of homemade apple jelly.

  “Daddy didn’t want me to use the knife,” Kaylee said. “Not even the butter knife. I told him I could do it, but he said I need help.”

  She hopped up on a stool near the end of the counter.

  “That’s okay,” Beth said, opening the silverware drawer. “I’ll make it for you. Do you need something to drink?”

  “No, I’m not thirsty.”

  Beth grabbed a knife and proceeded to make the sandwich, going heavier on the jelly than the peanut butter since the peanut butter would keep longer on the shelf. When she was done, she put the sandwich on a paper towel and slid it in front of Kaylee. Just then, she heard footsteps as someone entered the kitchen, and she turned to find Sheriff Cooley approaching. Beth had a strange moment of déjà vu. James was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants that had belonged to her husband, and for a fraction of a second she thought she was seeing him—Mitch—stepping out of the past, probably to scold her for not more forcefully chasing away their nosy neighbor.

  But this wasn’t Mitch. This gentleman had a big handlebar mustache, a craggy but not unpleasant face, thinning hair carefully parted on one side and combed in place. He’d removed the bandage, revealing a jagged scab that cut across his temple, surrounded by a big purple bruise.

  “I heard your little discussion with the lady from next door,” he said, opening the pantry and rooting around on the shelves. “Begging for a handout, was she?”

  “People have to start thinking long-term,” Beth said, screwing the lid on the peanut butter. “The best thing anyone can do is to plant a garden. It’ll fill in the gaps when prepackaged food becomes scarce. I offered my neighbor seeds to start her own garden, but she wouldn’t take them.”