Anthony DeCosmo - Empire

Trevor considered for a moment, shook his head, and told her, “No. I’m good. Have a safe trip.”

Denise raised the pistol and took aim; the gun trembled in her grip. When she finally tugged the trigger, the barrel jumped, sending the bullet out to sea several feet above the tin can target on the banister.

“Urrg, I suck at this,” she grumbled.

Denise stood in front of Nina on a dock outside of Wrightsville Beach with old cans lined up on a railing. Both women had grown accustomed to the strong salty scent from the marshes as well as the constant sound of hungry seagulls cawing for food. No doubt the birds missed the pretzel pieces and lost French fries from the days when tourists roamed the seaside resort.

“So in the last five years no one ever taught you how to use a gun?”

“For the tenth time, no.”

Nina shook her head, amazed at such an oversight given the nature of the world.

“Okay then. Relax, that’s only your third shot. Try again but-” Nina quickly grabbed the gun as the young girl held the weapon in a haphazard manner. “Hey, watch where you’re pointing that thing.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, watch where you’re pointing that thing,” Nina said in a harsh, commander’s tone.

“Geez, relax, no biggy.”

“Stop. Stop right now,” Nina pulled the pistol away from Denise.

“What?”

“Look, you need to get your head on straight for this.”

“Awe, c’mon, relax.”

Nina popped the clip from the Glock automatic, opened the slide to empty the chambered round, and held the bullet between two fingers.

“Come here.”

“What?” Denise removed orange plugs from her ears.

“This is a bullet. Feel it.” Nina pressed it hard into Denise’s chest.

“Hey, ouch.”

“Now imagine this bullet moving over a thousand feet per second,” Nina said.

“Look, geez, I get it, okay? I’ll be careful.”

“No, you don’t get it. Do you know how a bullet kills people?”

Denise slapped her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes, but as Nina spoke, the young girls’ demeanor switched from annoyed to horrified.

“It isn’t pretty, understand? It doesn’t disappear and you fall over dead like in some dumb movie. It punctures through your skin and starts tearing shit up inside. Not some clean little hole,” Nina poked Denise in the stomach. “It pierces organs and rips up your guts and tears open arteries. Blood and worse starts pouring out. Your whole insides are like a zip-lock bag of water that just got a hole punched in it. Hell, with a lucky shot maybe your stomach acids start pouring all over your intestines. Maybe a lung gets punctured and you drown on your own blood from the inside.”

The little girl squirmed.

“Understand something, Denise, just because this piss-poor new world means you got to live with guns everyday, it doesn’t mean you can treat guns like an everyday thing. Understand?”

“Um…”

“Once that trigger is pulled, that bullet is going somewhere. If that barrel is pointing at me, or your foot or someone standing across the parking lot then they’re going to get hurt. Real bad. And guess what? You can’t take it back. You can’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ Once that shot is fired it’s going to do what it’s going to do and there are no second chances.”

Denise stood silent.

“Do you understand now?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Do you?”

Denise spoke clearly, “Yes.”

Nina threw an arm around the girl.

“I’m just saying, I don’t want anything to happen to you. That’s all.”

“I know,” she said.

“Now c’mon, let’s squeeze off a few more rounds there, Annie Oakley.”

Denise asked, “Who is Annie Oakley?”

Nina thought for a second, shrugged, and answered, “I don’t have a clue.”

Jim Brock’s voice took them by surprise with a sudden and not particularly friendly, “Hey!”

As he jogged toward them Nina said, “I thought you were taking the kids to scavenge up some winter clothes?”

He slowed to a walk and asked, “What’s…um…what’s going on?”

“Nina is showing me how to shoot,” Denise answered the question.

“Shoot? Nina, could I talk to you for a sec?”

“Sure, Jim,” Nina smiled politely although she easily saw the wary look in his eye.

Nina made sure the gun was completely empty and then returned it to Denise.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Practice your grip,” Nina instructed.

Denise considered then, in fact, practiced her grip by pointing the weapon down range, probably seeing Mutants and Deadheads instead of old soup cans.

Jim and Nina walked along the dock. He held his words until out of Denise’s earshot.

“Nina, I mean, I don’t know about this gun thing.”

“Yeah, I know. I take it today is the first time anyone let Denise hold a gun? Didn’t you guys have any all these years?”

“There were some folks here in Wrightsville Beach that used them, sure. Not me. Me and the kids, we got along by hiding. But, I mean, that’s not my point. Like, I understand that shooting things is, well, kind of necessary these days. Hey, you don’t have to explain to me, I know things are different.”

“But..?” Nina led.

“But she’s just eleven. She doesn’t even know how to drive yet.”

Nina nodded and told him, “I see your point. We’d better teach her to drive, too.”

“I’m serious, Nina.”

“So am I,” she countered as her brow furled. “You’re going to wait until she’s sixteen to teach her to drive? There aren’t any licenses anymore. Driving might just save her life someday. The gun even more so.”

“But at eleven?”

“Jim, if she’s strong enough to hold the gun then she should be taught how to use it. You know how nuts the world is. Odds are that someday she’ll have to use it.”

“I thought your Empire was making things safe again. I thought you were chasing away the monsters and we weren’t going to have to worry about that type of thing anymore.”

“Not going to have to worry? Hell, Jim, even before the invaders came our world had monsters in it. I was a cop, and the first thing I told people is learn to watch out for yourself because the police don’t usually get there in the nick of time. Nowadays? Are you kidding?”

He said, “I just want her to have as normal a life as possible. I want her to be a little girl.”

“In less than two years she’s going to be a teenage girl. This world we’re in, it’s still full of danger and not just from aliens. I’m just saying, she needs to know how to protect herself. Sometimes there’s no where to run, or hide.”

He scratched his head and retreated on the subject.

“Yeah, well, I mean, I just wish…I just wish-”

“You wish I had asked your permission first. Is that it?”

He did not respond.

“Maybe I should have,” she conceded.

He smiled, her answer apparently pleased him.

She went on, “Are you going to have a hard time giving these kids up?”

Brock answered with a question of his own, “That depends. I mean, what’s going to happen next?”

The two stopped and enjoyed a nice view of a long-dead marina. The condition of the small yachts and luxury fishing boats there ranged from half-sunk to pristine.

She explained, “Assessment teams due down here tomorrow. They’re going to come through, register everyone, and ask a bunch of questions.”

“Register?”

“That’s right. To track the people who have been found or freed from slave camps.”

“Why? What’s the purpose?”

“Lots of reasons. First would be for medical needs. There aren’t that many doctors around, so the first thing is to identify any health issues like if you’ve been exposed to any communicable diseases. Like, if the chicken pox went through Wrightsville last year or something then they’d have to try and keep you guys from places where people haven’t been exposed. I guess. That type of thing. That and establishing what type of skill sets you and your people have.”