Day 6
Annie, Get Your Gun!
By R. J. Keith
Blam!
The can exploded in a spray of red
beans and slime.
"Nice shot, Annie," her
father said, trying hard to keep pride out of his voice.
Annie rolled her eyes and pulled
the slide back, loading another round into the chamber. "Daddy, I'm tired
of shooting cans. They don't move. Can't I shoot something that moves? Mrs.
Larson down the lane says she's got a terrible prairie dog problem."
Her father's face, stern at the
best of times, clouded. "What have I told you, Annie?"
"Don't shoot the living, only
the dead. But daddy-"
"Don't but me, little girl.
Focus on your cans."
But they don't move, she thought in
a whine. Zombies moved. How was she gonna kill zombies if all she ever
practiced on was cruddy old cans? Then again, maybe her daddy was crazy, just
like everyone said.
Zombies aren't real. Everyone said
so. Everyone said that her daddy was just a crazy old man that spent too much time
listening to the radio and not enough time attending to his daughter's serious
lack in education. Besides, zombies were just war stories told by addle-brained
soldiers with nothing better to do. Or worse, they were Northern rumors. And
good Southern folk couldn't be bothered by rumors.
But there were stories coming out
of the battlefield.
Why, just yesterday the would-be
Mrs. Applecott came crying to the salon, telling anyone who would listen that
her fiancé had finally seen enough battle to make his mind leave him for good.
Annie was only there because her daddy told her it was good to have women
company. Never mind that she wanted to be out on her pony, gun on her shoulder,
shooting cards in half. Womenfolk were supposed to be good for the soul. Them
and their delicate ways of doing things.
Annie remembered how the would-be
Mrs. Applecott blew her too-large nose into an equally large hankie, her eyes a
black mess of heavy make-up and tears.
"He's done and lost it!"
the woman cried. "Oh my poor Henry!"
She wouldn't let anyone look at the
letter, kept it crumpled in one hand while she boo-hooed and made the other
girls pity her.
But Annie had looked.
People said her daddy was crazy.
Maybe Henry Applecott was crazy then, too, because he talked about how an
entire regiment was slaughtered and eaten by things that looked exactly like
the regiment they had mowed down earlier that very day. It was a miracle that
Mr. Henry Applecott even got out alive. And maybe he wouldn't be alive for very
much longer because he had been bitten. And no one knew what a bite would do.
And there had been the late night
meetings over the radio. Her daddy hunched over it by the still-running boiler,
talking in low tones to someone she couldn't hear, about something she didn't
understand.
Maybe her daddy was crazy.
But if he was crazy, why would he
teach her how to shoot? Sure it had been for fun to start off with, something he
did because Momma hadn't given him a son, before Momma died of the fever. But
he got over that pretty quick. Annie was good with a gun. She could shoot a
card in half. It was easy.
Sure in later years someone would
accuse her of cheating because of her telescopic eye, but that wouldn't be
true. Annie didn't cheat. She took her eye out before she shot.
So maybe her daddy was crazy. Maybe
Henry Applecott was crazy. Everyone said so. But Annie trusted her daddy. He
was the sheriff of the town. He had gotten them out of scraps before, like when
that mean old Mr. Talbert came down from Oklahoma City rantin' and ravin' about
Jericho Copperplate stealing all of his business.
Never mind that Jericho Copperplate
was the best welder in all of the great State of Oklahoma and that Mr. Talbert
was selling cheap copper imitation off as the real thing. Daddy got that sorted
out right quick.
Blam!
Daddy nodded. "Good girl.
That's enough for today. Head inside."
"I'll get supper cooked,"
she said, handing her daddy the gun.
"I'll be in soon."
She knew he wanted to take a few
shots himself, but not with the rifle he let her use. He wanted to make sure
his left arm was still as good as it used to be. That business with Mr. Talbert
had seen her daddy lose an arm to a well-placed bullet and the gangrene. In its
place was one of Jericho Copperplate's finest pieces of work. A fully moveable
mechanical arm. It shone brilliantly in the fading sunlight. Her daddy kept it
well oiled. The little pistons in the fingers, wrist, and elbow needed to be
slick at all times. To keep it working, he said. She left her daddy standing by
the fence, Colt balanced on the arm with the skin around it, staring at the
remaining cans, eyes narrowed. She watched him.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three.
Slow and easy. Squeeze the trigger,
little girl, don't pull it.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three.
Blam!
The can went flying. She cheered
her daddy silently. He was the best shot ever. In the whole state, even. Catching a whiff of something, she sniffed
then turned to the house. Had her daddy left the stove on? She always cooked
the meals and sometimes he liked to give the boiler hidden underneath their pot
belly stove time to heat up. Their steam cooker, one of those newfangled things
out of the North that was supposed to make life better for them, kept going on
the fritz. They used their little pot belly, thank you very much, and were
happy with it.
Blam!
Another can went flying. The smell got
stronger, sharper, with an ashy undertone. Her daddy's head jerked up, nose
flaring.
"Annie," he said.
"Yes, daddy."
"Get your gun and come with
me."
Smoke. A fire. That's what that
smell was. Her daddy ran, gun in hand. Annie followed him, picking up the rifle
he left lying on the grass. A sharp wind kicked up as they ran down the lane
toward Mrs. Larson's--with the terrible prairie dog problem--cottage with the
white picket fence and the red, red, red barn now bleeding flames and smoke.
Screams pierced Annie's ears. She stopped, suddenly very afraid. Horses
streamed from the open doors, running right into the hungry mouths of dead
people.
Zombies.
Her daddy wasn't crazy after all.
The rifle jumped to her shoulder. Her finger hovered over the trigger. She
shuddered, terrified.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three.
Blam!
One of the dead things fell down,
arms outstretched toward her daddy. He looked back once, held up his own gun.
Annie nodded, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. Her daddy
disappeared into the cottage, looking for survivors. In the distance Annie
heard the wail of the fire brigade. The thought of flagging them down came to
her mind. She dismissed it with a jerk of her head. Her daddy needed her here
to keep the path clear. From the sounds of the screams at least one of the
Larson daughters was alive.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three.
Blam!
"Wahoo!" she cried out as
she pulled the slide back. "Nailed two with one shot!" She needed to
keep her head. Shouting seemed the best way to do things. The empty casings
fell out of the gun with a clink. Excited now, she held the gun to her shoulder
and returned to shooting. Both eyes open.
The sirens got closer.
Her daddy ran from the house toward
her, a bundle in his arms. It was Mrs. Larson's oldest daughter Sara, sniveling
and crying and clinging to Annie’s daddy like some silly damsel in distress
from those stupid fairy tales her daddy tried to read her when she was little.
He lowered the girl beside Annie.
"Don't let her out of your
sight, little girl," he told Annie. "I'll be back with the
others."
There's
more? Annie wondered wildly. She'd been able to keep her own hysteria at
bay by shooting. If she didn’t get back to it soon, she wasn’t sure what would happen
to her. Sara Larson turned her clinging hold onto Annie, gripping Annie’s
shoulder with white knuckles. Daddy ran back down the hill.
"Get off of me!" Annie
yelled, shrugging off the mewling Sara.
"No!" Sarah cried. "Don't
leave me!"
"I ain't gonna leave you,
stupid."
Annie shouldered her gun again,
took aim.
Blam!
Sara looked up at her with wild
eyes.
Blam!
The fire brigade swung into view.
Men ran around, carrying buckets and a machine that was supposed to create a
foam to snuff out the fire quick.
"Wait!" Annie yelled as
they ran.
Blam!
Blam!
Sara looked toward the sound, eyes
dry. "Annie?"
Blam!
Click.
Oh no. Annie swallowed hard.
Click.
She shouldered her gun, but there
were no more zombies to shoot. None she could see.
Click.
Click.
"Annie," Sara said.
"You got another gun?"
THE END
****
*****
Don't forget to follow the link on the top right side of the blog to contribute to the Smile Train organization.
Help low income kids get the smile they deserve!
*****
You can find her irregularly updated blog at: http://rjkeith.wordpress.com
No comments:
Post a Comment