by David Rogers
“Wait.” Roper hissed as Crawford finished checking the kitchen, then reached for one of the handles.
“What?”
“If the power’s been out long enough, it could be pretty rank in there.” Roper said.
“Brace yourselves.” she answered and toggled the latch. Peter pulled his undershirt up to cover the lower half of his face as the door swung open to release a wash of foul air.
“Just great. They had to go with fresh from the butcher.” Roper muttered through the hand he had clamped over his nose. “Couldn’t have gone with the sealed packages.”
The refrigerator or freezer or whatever it was had large sides of meat hanging from lines of hooks suspended from the ceiling. Peter had done a little hunting on occasion, but he had no idea what kind of meat it was beyond guessing maybe some of the really large pieces might be beef rather than pork. Once an animal was butchered he needed a label to figure it out.
“Swanson, make yourself useful and give me a boost up.” Crawford said, safing and slinging her rifle.
“How can you stand that?” Swanson said, clearly disgusted by the odor.
“I’m used to you.”
“Fuck you, I bathe.”
“Trust me, not often enough.” she grinned. “Come on, be a manly-man and give a tough girl a boost up.”
“Fucking show off.” Swanson muttered, but he slung his rifle and followed her into the storage area before linking his hands together. Crawford stepped up with a boot in his hands and unhooked one of the slabs with a grunt of effort.
Dropping down with the hook in hand, she jerked her head toward the front of the restaurant. “Cover me, let’s go find some zombies.”
The fresh air outside was a relief. Peter looked around and pointed at the far side of the strip mall parking lot. “There, looks like a couple that are trying to head over here.”
“Okay then.” Crawford grinned. “Swanson, think you can hold on to this from inside the hummer while I drive us over there?”
“What, drag it?”
“I’m not putting it in the back.” she told him. “One rotten body is enough.”
“Hah fucking hah. Whatever tough girl, give me the hook.”
Swanson took the hook, dragged the slab over to the Humvee, and got in; jamming the door open with his leg while he kept hold of the hook with his hands. Peter gestured to Whitley, who was watching curiously, and she nodded. When everyone was back in a vehicle, Crawford drove across the parking lot toward the zombies.
“This is good.” Peter said when they were thirty or so feet from the zombies. “Drop it.”
“Gladly.” Swanson said. His door closed, and Crawford curved away and drove halfway back across the lot before hanging another U-turn and stopping.
“What’s the deal with the meat?” Whitley asked as she pulled up next to the lead Humvee.
“Possible bait.” Peter answered, keeping his eyes on the zombies.
“Whatever.” she said with an audible shrug.
They waited in silence, listening to the engines tick over at idle, as the zombies staggered toward the slab of never-to-be barbecue. Both collapsed to their knees and grabbed for it, leaning down and biting.
“Alright!” Crawford slammed her hand on the dashboard in triumph. “We’ve got bait.”
“Okay, so here’s what I want to do.” Peter grinned.
* * * * *
Jessica
Jessica suppressed the urge to sigh in relief as she reached the bottom of the stairs. No power meant no elevators. Her knee had improved considerably over the past couple of days, but she still didn’t trust it fully. Especially not on stairs. She pushed the door open and limped out onto the ground floor of the building. She heard voices ahead in the lobby, but she was still alert as she emerged from the corridor.
She knew what the schedule was, and based on how many people she knew were out collecting gas and other supplies, this had to be everyone else who wasn’t up on the roof keeping watch. Austin stood talking to a woman who had a tanned and wrinkled face and a rather stubborn set to her jaw. Jessica hadn’t yet properly met Lori Reese, but she’d had a chance to take a sort of measure of the woman in passing. Jessica wouldn’t go so far as to call Lori a bitch, but she was definitely self-sufficient and short tempered.
Austin spotted Jessica emerging into the lobby and said something to Lori, then wove through the small group of people in Eagle jumpsuits to greet her. “Is Dennis still sulking?” he asked as he got close enough to talk in a normal tone.
“Yes.” Jessica shrugged and raised her cane up briefly. “He said if I end up with my knee the size of a grapefruit again, tomorrow he’s going to tie me to the bed for a week.”
“Mom can take him.” Candice said.
Jessica and Austin looked down at the girl in amused shock. Candice stared up at them uncomprehendingly for a moment. “I mean, you can, can’t you?”
“Your daughter is just like you.” Austin grinned.
“Two peas in a pod, that’s us.” Jessica said, squeezing Candice’s shoulder. “Let’s make sure we don’t tell Dr. Morris that, okay Candy Bear?”
“Okay.” Candice nodded.
“Well I’m glad you’re feeling up to it.” Austin said, still chuckling a little.
“I feel okay, and I’m while I’m not trying to argue with my doctor, this is important. The way things are going with the scavenging, it might be weeks before another break comes. I can’t go that long on simply book knowledge.”
“I completely agree.” Austin nodded. “In fact, I got you something.” His hand dipped into one of his pockets and came out with a holstered pistol.
Jessica stared at it curiously. “What do I need that for?”
“You might like it more than the Taurus.” he said, gesturing at the shiny silver pistol riding in the holster on her belt. “And a backup never hurts.”
Jessica considered the weapon a moment, then took it from him. The holster was black leather, smooth to the touch, and matched the pistol within. It was a little smaller, and definitely lighter, than Brett’s pistol. “Two guns?”
“I carry three.” he said without a trace of irony. “Four if you count the MP5.”
She ran her eye over the gear on the harness he wore over his jumpsuit. “I only see two.”
“That’s all you’re supposed to see.” he confirmed. “I really think you should keep that Shield.”
“The what?”
He indicated the pistol in her hand. “That’s what it’s called; a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield, nine millimeter.”
“Bre—“ she stopped herself from calling it Brett’s gun just in time. “My Taurus is a forty-five isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you worried about me getting confused between the two kinds of bullets?”
“No, because we’re going to teach you how to handle both.”
“I’m not John Woo.” she said a little indignantly.
He grinned. “No, not at the same time. Look, let’s just try it out on the range, okay? It’s only a couple more pounds to carry around, and trust me; if the time comes you’ll be glad you’ve got a backup weapon.”
Jessica hesitated, but her mind went back to the manual for the Taurus. It hadn’t survived the swim across the Chattahoochee intact, but she’d read it thoroughly and remembered it all. At the time she’d gone through it, she’d been highly motivated to retain the information. Now she thought of the section that covered jams and other weapon malfunctions. “You’re right.” she admitted. It wasn’t something she would have thought of on her own, but now that he was pointing it out, she thought he was right.
“Good. So let’s head out and get you some training. We’re just going to sort of wing it out on the range, but the important thing is you and everyone else who isn’t experienced are going to get to send a hundred or so rounds down range. It’ll you a chance to get used to the guns, and practice your aim a little, but mostly we’re just trying to acclima
te you a bit. Not make you experts.”
“Familiarization.”
“Exactly.” he agreed. “So let’s go get familiar.”
Jessica gave him a look of tolerant amusement as he winked, quickly so Candice couldn’t see and wonder what the joke was. The others in the lobby were already filtering outside, so Jessica followed with Candice and Austin beside her.
She was still limping, but not as badly. Her knee was better, but she was faster mostly because she was getting better at swinging the cane along with her to replace what she normally did with her left leg when walking. Even though Dennis still wanted her to stay off her feet, she was making sure to lean on the cane and not her leg.
It felt a little strange to be outside, but the air was fresher out in the sunlight. The normalcy of the scene unsettled her a little too; but she wasn’t prepared to really complain about it. There weren’t any zombies around at the moment, though she knew nearly a dozen had showed up along the fence in the last twenty-four hours. Each had been shot, and the bodies shifted back into the trees to lay rotting.
Assuming the zombies rotted. No one knew, yet.
Even though it didn’t look like the group was heading toward one of the further ranges, she was still glad to be done walking when she finally joined the others at the area they were gathered at. Lori had apparently been waiting for the three of them, and nodded to Austin.
“Okay my little newbies, here are the rules. Break them and I’ll break you over my knee. Then I’ll turn you over to Mr. Carter here, and he’ll explain the value of doing what you’re told when you regain consciousness.” Lori said loudly in her gravelly voice. “These rules are for our protection as much as yours, so believe me when I say anyone who doesn’t follow them is going to be in pain when the dust settles.”
Any urge Jessica might have had to roll her eyes was killed off by the absolute command in Lori’s tone. The older woman’s confidence and matter-of-fact attitude were almost oppressive. Lori gestured at the line of simple wooden tables, each about waist high and about the side of a bar tabletop. A couple of boxes of bullets were on each one.
“This is the firing line. At no time are any of you to move past it, or be away from it with a weapon in your hands.” She turned and pointed at the targets positioned about thirty feet away, which were large pieces of white paper on tall posts that put them at head height; each facing a table.
“Those are your targets. Those are what you’re shooting at. At no time will you aim at anything else. Anytime a weapon is in your hands or on the table in front of you, it is to be pointed at the targets. Do not wave it around, do not point with it, do not direct it down or to the sides. Weapons point at the targets. Are we clear?”
“Yes.” Jessica answered with most of the others.
Lori seemed to consider the response for a few seconds, then nodded briskly. “I am in charge. Mr. Carter is also in charge. You listen and obey. If we say the range is cold, that means weapons are not in your hand. You cease firing and put it down immediately. They are to be in your holster or on the table. If I say the range is hot, that is permission for you to aim and fire your weapon. Are we clear on what hot and cold mean?”
“Yes.” the chorus of voices answered her.
“Now, we’re going to give you each some training with the MP5 and the Beretta, because those are the weapons you’ve been issued. You will not be experts when we are done, but you will be more familiar with them; and hopefully not quite as pathetic as you are now. The goal is for all of you to know more than you do now, so there’s a chance you’ll be slightly less useless if you have to shoot for real.
“Let’s start with the MP5.”
Jessica listened as Lori gave a brisk explanation of the stubby guns everyone except her carried, covering controls, using the sights to aim, and reload and malfunction procedures. Then she did the same with the Beretta, which were the pistols everyone was carrying. Jessica paid particular attention to the instructions about aiming, which were just a verbal and more elaborate recitation of what she remembered from the Taurus manual. The part about dealing with jams was also useful, especially when Lori demonstrated with her own pistol.
Finally Lori, reluctantly, told them to pick a table and wait for further instructions.
“Here’s two boxes of rounds for your Taurus.” Austin said, producing them from one of his pockets and laying them on the table. “And the extra magazine for your Shield. They load just like you’ve already learned. Let me have the Shield for a moment.”
Jessica gave it to him, then watched as he showed her where the pistol’s controls were, then laid it down on the table and handed her the holster. “Put the holster on your belt where it feels comfortable. I’d suggest the small of your back, but you can try it on your left side with the butt of the gun facing forward for a cross draw if you like. Load all the magazines and wait for instructions.” He put the magazine that had been in the Shield on the table.
“Okay.”
Austin nodded and moved off down the line to talk to the others. Lori was doing the same from the opposite side. They seemed to be demonstrating how to hold the MP5s properly. Jessica turned to her daughter. “Candice, I want you standing over there. Don’t wander around and don’t come any closer.” She pointed at a spot about fifteen feet back from the firing line.
“I want to watch.”
“You can watch. From over there.”
Candice bobbed her head obediently and moved to the spot her mother had indicated. Jessica considered the girl for a moment with a heavy dose of ‘Mom Eye’, then nodded. She leaned her cane against the table and opened one of the boxes marked nine millimeter.
By the time she finished getting bullets into the new magazines, Austin and Lori had finished talking and demonstrating to everyone else one-on-one. Lori moved to the far side of the firing line and raised her voice in a shout. “You may load and unsafe your weapons. Keep them pointed down range. You are aiming for the top left target in front of you. That’s top left, in front of you.” She waited while a series of metallic clicks and scrapes sounded along the firing line.
“Range is hot. Fire when ready.”
Jessica drew the Taurus and raised it in front of her in the two-handed grip the manual had described after jerking the slide back to load the first bullet. She found the safety with her thumb, then laid her finger lightly on the trigger as she aimed the weapon. The little dots of the sights wavered as she lined them up; putting the one at the end of the barrel between the two at the back. She flinched when gunshots went off next to her, but she got the gun aimed properly and tried to ignore the noise.
She jumped when the gun went off. As before, when it fired it startled her, even though she was the one pulling the trigger. She brought the pistol back down and aimed and fired again. She knew the MP5s the others were shooting had thirty round magazines, but it seemed to take her just as long to fire off the eight in her pistol. It was a shock each time it fired. The recoil kicked against her hands and wrists and forearms, and the gun rose in her hands each time it went off.
She didn’t notice when the slide locked back on the empty magazine until she squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. Rotating the gun a little to the right so she had a bit of a profile view, she saw the slide was back just as the manual had said it was supposed to be when it was empty. Hitting the magazine release, she almost dropped the magazine as it fell out, but she managed to hang on and put it on the table.
She looked at her target as she pulled another magazine out of her back pocket. There were four circular bull’s-eyes on it, and she was supposed to be shooting at the one in the upper left. She thought she saw two spots where she’d hit sort of close, but she wasn’t sure. “That’s what practice is for.” she told herself as she got the new magazine in. She fumbled for the slide release and flinched when it triggered and let the slide snap forward. Supposedly that meant it had just loaded the first bullet in the magazine.
Raising it again,
she resumed shooting, still trying to get used to the heavy pushback when it went off. She’d fired five more rounds when she heard Lori shouting. “Cease fire. Range is cold. Cease fire. Range is cold.”
Jessica put the safety on and laid the gun down on the table quickly before looking at Lori. The instructor was glaring daggers at everyone on the firing line as they slowly complied with her order. Some of them were a little slow in getting their MP5s unlooped from where they hung on the slings so they could put them down, but eventually everyone was standing waiting.
“Range is cold.” Lori repeated, still shouting. “Mr. Carter and myself are going to go examine your targets so we can discuss how to improve with each of you. Do not touch a weapon while we are down range. If you do, you’d better hope you kill me, because you’re going to wish you had when I get done with you.”
Jessica looked behind her, but Candice was right where she was supposed to be. Jessica nodded at her daughter approvingly, then faced front and opened the box of forty-five caliber bullets. She loaded the empty magazine and replaced it in her pocket, then stood waiting while Lori and Austin checked the targets. They were doing something with markers that left little circles on the paper. It didn’t take the two of them very long to examine the targets, then they came back to the firing line.
“Okay, you hit three out of twelve.” Austin said when he rejoined her. “Which isn’t bad for a first timer. I think you’re flinching in anticipation of the gun going off. I’ll help you with it before we’re done. Just try to take your time aiming. You want to breathe in, then out, then squeeze the trigger back slowly. Don’t hold your breath, but fire before you breathe in again. The idea is to hold the weapon steady while you aim and fire. If you’re moving it around, you’re probably going to miss.”
Jessica nodded, and he patted her lightly on the shoulder. “Alright.”
