Life Sentence (4 page)

Dad was checking our weapons as I walked up to him.
He looked at me and smiled. “You know why I like to use the frying
pan and coffee cans for the targets?”

“Because they’re about the size of someone’s head.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You know you tell me that every couple
days, Dad. And it’s not even a nice way to talk. Mom says it’s
not.”

“Sorry, princess, your old dad doesn’t know too many
jokes. Well, of course, that’s not actually a joke, technically
speaking. The pan and the coffee cans are about the right size for
what we have in mind. Even if it’s not nice, it’s what we’re
training to do, so we might as well come out and say it.” He
winked. “And I really like the sound the pan makes when you hit
it.”

He’d laid everything out on a blanket on the grass.
There was a .38 S&W Model 10. That was the handgun I practiced
with the most, both because it was the easiest to service, and also
because it was a little smaller and easier for me to handle. Next
to it was a .40 Beretta 96. I had only just started shooting that
one this season. The size, weight, and recoil made it hard for me,
but I had gotten decent with it. Next to them were two rifles—a
Ruger Mini-14 with a scope, and an M16. We used the former
sometimes for hunting, and the latter was another new addition to
my training. My dad had put some jury-rigged deflectors on both the
rifles, to keep the ejected casings from hitting me in the face,
since I’m left-handed.

My dad set himself down on the grass behind the
blanket, pulling his knees up and resting his forearms on them. He
reached up and scratched me between the shoulder blades. “You like
shooting, princess?”

“Yeah. I’m good at it. I have to be.” I scanned all
the nasty, oily black metal at my feet. I could hate the idea of
the weapons, and I could even hate the look of them—dully
glistening there like shards of the body armor from some gigantic,
evil insects—but I knew I’d had them in my hand so many times that
they felt as natural as anything could. They were a part of me.

“I know you are. I tell you so every day.” He
scratched harder and made me laugh. “Sorry you have to be, honey. I
don’t tell you that enough.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Dad.”

“No?” He shrugged off his own jacket, then reached
in the one pocket to pull out his boonie hat. “I know you’ve been
talking to Milton and Jonah way too much to give such a practical
answer,” he said as he put on the hat. “We don’t want you sounding
like your old dad.”

I smiled at him. “I don’t think they ever want us to
feel sorry for anything, Dad. They just always talk about how
complicated and confusing things are. I like that.”

He reached into his other jacket pocket and got out
a small pair of binoculars. He cleaned the lenses on the sleeve of
his jacket. “You like things to be confusing? I don’t.”

I had to roll my eyes again. “You know what I mean.
I like it when people tell me what’s what. And if something is all
confused, I like for them to tell me that and not dress it all up
for me.”

He grunted as he put his elbows up on his knees.
“Yeah, well, that’s why they got me handling the uncomplicated
things with you. I just give you the tools and skills to put big
holes in things at a distance.” He put the binoculars to his eyes
and adjusted the focus. “Like we’ve been doing it. Show your dad
how you make dead things deader, sweetie.”

I knelt down and put on the protective ear muffs I
used when shooting. I loaded the .38 from a box of ammo next to it,
working quickly to slip the six rounds into place. I swung the
cylinder back into place as I stood up. I raised the gun smoothly,
holding it with both hands, my left forefinger on the trigger. My
breathing was steady. My palms didn’t sweat like they used to,
either. The frying pan was plenty heavy enough that the breeze
didn’t move it at all; even the shots wouldn’t set it swinging
enough to throw off my aim, unless I hit near the edge and started
it spinning. I knew that wouldn’t happen. I squeezed off the six
rounds, quickly and methodically, but not hurriedly. There were six
low, satisfying clangs.

I knelt again and set down the .38. I took up the
Beretta, which was also unloaded. The night before I had loaded a
bunch of magazines with five rounds each, but my hands still
weren’t strong enough to load a full magazine of ten, so my dad had
put the last five rounds in each one for me. I picked up one of the
magazines and slid it into its place in the handle. I moved the
safety to the fire position and racked the slide to chamber the
first round. I stood, turned to my right, and brought the gun up
with both hands. The weight was definitely still cumbersome, but I
had gotten used to it, and had also gotten over the intimidation of
such a big gun.

It took me seven of the rounds to hit the four cans
on the fence. I turned to the tractor. With the three remaining
rounds I knocked down two more cans. The field was in a slight
depression, with the ground sloping up around us, so my dad could
usually call my misses by watching through the binoculars for where
they hit behind the target.

We went through this with the handguns several
times, with me setting the cans back up in between rounds. Then my
dad took up the Mini-14 and the M16, I took up the bag with their
spare magazines—which my dad had loaded the night before when I was
loading those for the Beretta—and we walked farther from the tree,
to another spot with matted-down grass and brass casings on the
ground. My dad got back in his position with the binoculars, while
I set the selector on the M16 to the “BURST” position and practiced
firing three-round bursts at the frying pan. I almost always hit
with the first round of each burst, then the recoil pulled the
barrel too high.

“That’s normal,” my dad said. “Just keep working at
holding the gun steady throughout the burst, okay?”

We picked up the rifles and ammo and went even
farther from the tree, about a hundred yards, and I practiced
firing single shots from the Mini-14. I was nearly as good with
that as I was with the .38, even at this range, since we’d been
hunting with it before.

When we were done shooting, we packed everything up
and ate lunch in the shade of the big hickory. Mom had packed hunks
of salty, gritty ham; it had been put up last fall. The hard-boiled
eggs, on the other hand, had still been inside a hen two days
before. There was a loaf of bread Mom had made from a combination
of acorn and corn flour. It always came out crumbly, but as with so
many things, I had nothing to compare it to. After walking and
shooting all morning, I thought it tasted perfect. A little brook
cut across the field, and we got cold water from that to complete
our meal. It was a small enough stream and we were close enough to
its source that we didn’t bother with boiling it first.

After that break, we got up and took the two staffs
that we had left leaning against the big tree the day before and
practiced fighting with those. I knew Dad held back, but I also had
enough bruises to know he was making me work for every time I’d
catch him with the big, heavy stick. After a long bout with the
staffs, we had some more water from the stream and lay down under
the tree to rest before the long walk home.

I loved looking up at the leaves, how they danced
and melded into all different patterns against the sky. “You
tired?” my dad asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. You gonna take a nap?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Even better, ’cause then I can.” He folded his
hands on his chest and closed his eyes. This whole area had been
cleared of the dead years ago, but it was still way outside of the
central fence and wall network, so dad never let us be completely
off guard here.

I watched the leaves. “Why do we practice with the
staffs, Dad? It’s not like the dead can use things like that
against us.”

He kept his eyes closed as he answered, holding up
two fingers. “Two reasons. The first one is tactical.” He folded
his middle finger back. “One—it’s not as much fun for anybody if
you just whack me with a big stick all afternoon.”

I swatted his arm down. “I don’t know. That sounds
pretty fun.”

“Hmm-mmm. Just like your mother.” He extended both
fingers again. “The second one is strategic.”

“Strategic?” I’d heard the word before, I just
didn’t see how it fit here. “How so?”

“It means the big picture, not just what’s going on
at the moment.”

“Okay. What’s the strategic reason?”

“You take a vow to protect the living. The dead
aren’t the only threat. So you don’t learn to fight just the
dead.”

I turned my head to look at him. I’d always
suspected the answer, but it still made me feel cold inside. The
wisecracks about the frying pan and coffee cans being head-sized
didn’t seem so funny in light of that answer. I first tried to find
some factual inconsistency to object to. “But why do you always
tell me to go for a headshot? That wouldn’t matter if the person
were alive.”

He folded his hands back across his chest. “If
someone is bad enough for you to kill them, then they’re bad enough
that you want them to stay dead. I don’t think their behavior’s
going to improve much if you leave them dead and walking around
with a hole in their chest.”

Now I tried to assail the logical inconsistency of
it. “You kill the living to protect the living?”

“I didn’t make the rules. I just teach you to play
by them.”

I paused. “You ever kill anyone? I mean, someone who
wasn’t already dead?”

He shook his head a little, still without opening
his eyes. “No. I was lucky that way. You might ask your uncle
Jonah, and he can tell you about it. I hear it’s very complicated,
because when you’re actually doing it, sometimes you get to liking
it a little too much. And then when it’s done, you don’t like it at
all and you feel sick. That’s how he’s explained it to me, and I
think he’s probably right.” He opened his eyes and looked at me.
His eyes were a bright, lively hazel, unlike my dull, dark brown
ones. I always wished my eyes were pretty like his. “But I do know
how you think about it before you do it, how you have to think
about it every minute of your life.”

“How?” I whispered and looked back up at the leaves
for some guidance.

“You see anyone trying to hurt you or anyone you
know, then it doesn’t matter if they have a pulse or not. All you
think of is how you can put them down for good, as quickly as
possible. Bullet, blade, stick, run over them with a car, set them
on fire—hell, it doesn’t make the tiniest bit of difference. You do
it without thinking or hesitating or considering any other option.
That’s as much a part of your vows as anything else. That’s as much
a part of who you are and who you have to be now.” He reached over
and squeezed my bicep. “You talk to Jonah and Milton about dealing
with the complications, but you believe that part through and
through, without question. Okay, little girl?”

I nodded and bit my lower lip.

“Hey, I got something for you.” We both sat up and
he reached in one of the bags we’d been carrying. He got out a
small handgun in what looked like a homemade leather holster and
handed it to me. “I stitched the holster myself, so sorry it looks
rough. I know your mother sews better, but you know she doesn’t
like… you know, guns and even stuff related to guns.”

I carefully slid the small gun out. It was a dull
blue-black, curved and perfectly formed, though still graceless and
brutal. But it fit in my small hand like it had been sculpted just
for me. And when I squeezed the grip, the hammer cocked; I released
it, and it uncocked. “Snazzy, Dad. Thanks!”

“Heckler and Koch P7M8. 9mm, eight-round magazine.
Pricey gun, back when it cost money to have a gun. Small, but
decent stopping power. It fits your hand well? I know you still
have trouble with the Beretta.”

I nodded. “Perfect.” I racked the slide. The best
thing was that it was a completely ambidextrous gun. “And it’s
better for a lefty.”

“Yeah, I was lucky to find it. You like it? I don’t
mean like, I guess. I mean, is it a good gun for you to carry
around and have as your own? You need that now.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Good.” He reached over and gave my shoulder a
squeeze. “Don’t tell your mom, okay? But it’s yours now.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Can you sit there a couple minutes while I catch a
few?”

“Sure.”

He lay back down on the grass. “Thanks,
sweetie.”

I studied the 9mm for a few minutes, then slipped it
back in its rough little holster and put it in my jacket pocket. I
spent the rest of the time watching the butterflies and listening
to my dad’s steady, reliable breathing, till he awoke and we walked
home.

Milton came inside the fence with us and shooed the
other people away from the little building near the gate. That
building was different from the others. It had windows and a sign
over the door that read “OFFICE.” With the other people at a safe
distance, Will came inside the fenced area as well. He broke the
glass on the door and went into the office. He came out with keys
and, staying behind Milton, he unlocked all the other doors. Then
he and Milton left and locked the gate again.

It’s funny, but now that the doors were unlocked, I
felt embarrassed to open them, especially in front of the two men
who could talk. It was like I was doing a trick or passing some
kind of test they had set up. But I didn’t see how to make them go
away and give me some privacy, so I slid one door up.

Inside the dark compartment were bicycles and
furniture and boxes piled to the ceiling. Some of the other people
with me went into the compartment and started pulling stuff out,
and I wanted to stop them, because they didn’t seem to appreciate
or respect the things; they just tossed them all around. But I knew
they had as much right to these things as I did. The stuff didn’t
belong to any of us, we were just taking it, and if that’s how they
enjoyed the objects, then I had to let them. If I wanted to
rearrange the things or use something myself, I could just wait
till they lost interest and wandered off, which all of them did
after a few minutes of going through the things in the
compartment.