Like a dog presented with a nice juicy steak, my senior—Cass—had never looked so excited with the thought of making one of her juniors come back to our place of origin rather than actually winning a bet. However, I couldn't hide the excitement myself because my old school was one of the places I thought of hunkering over the moment a single zombie popped up.
That piece of land that I was given? I actually commissioned to have someone build a regular house on top of it—and had one of my older colleagues live on it for free, as long as they kept it clean and had a room set aside for me on the chance I came to visit—but it wasn't apocalypse-worthy like the one Oscar and I built up from scratch.
In any case, I wanted to know more about the place I spent a few years of my life at, and we were now having a pleasant conversation on our way to the log cabin.
"W-Wait a second, everything's still the way it is? Even our decades-old walls that should've been—"
"I thought you'd be more surprised we have classes but the walls were obviously built up and have several guards patrolling 24/7."
I chuckled, "With the way a huge chunk of our land was smack dab in the road, that's a given."
She looked at me like I was an idiot, "Did you forget about everything else from the other side? You know that we only had 4-foot log posts with three wires separating us from the land we didn't own. Imagine the rush to build the same type of wall to keep the dead away."
"Oh! You mean from the Food Factory!"
She let out a cheeky smile, "How long has it been since your last visit? It's Factories now—plural."
"I guess that's one thing you and the General have in common, you two like plural shit…"
"Hmm?"
"Not important. Anyway—" I stopped as I looked around the log cabin, "I thought they'd be here. Helloooooo~"
I was just about to start knocking because everyone else was missing but it didn't take long before a huge shadow loomed over us and Cass almost broke her neck from looking up.
Yes, Quinn just came out the door looking bored as fuck.
Cass pointed up with dread, "W-What… W-What is that?!"
"THE FUCK AM I?! ARE YOU LOST, KID?! TODDLERS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE IN—"
"I'm in my 30s, excuse me! Y-You're s-so tall!"
"WHAT?! FUCK OUTTA HERE, JAILBAIT—" Quinn roared before she turned to me, "Hey, where did you pick this one up? Also, wanna have a quick one? I was really~ hoping for a hot soak but this trip has gone to shit and I really want some release— I know you need one too after that—"
Cass couldn't believe her ears as her face turned bright red, "W-Wait, you're having an a-affair with this… t-this one—"
"You fucking shrimp, I'm gonna let that slide one last time—"
"I thought you were a decent guy, but this?!"
Quinn never looked so confused, "The fuck are you crying about?! I'd even let you in after a couple more years but you're fucking weird, you know that?"
"N-No! He's married, right?!"
'Riiiiiight…'
Before I completely forgot, almost everyone else from that place had this holier-than-though view when it came to this kind of stuff and even though a good chunk of them still had this rebellious side, it wouldn't come as a surprise if having an open relationship—heck, even talking about sex out loud was a huge no-no for them.
Even I struggled to get it out of my system but it would be rare to find someone that broke out of that place's teachings if they were living inside—or in Cass' case, probably the same thing but let's just say that she's a frequent visitor.
On that note, I didn't think I'd explain to another poor soul about the complicated relationship I had with Kaley and company, and she just looked like it was the first time she read a book that contained smut or even ankle pictures. And yeah, she was fucking stunned for a good minute once again, but Quinn dragged her with us when we discovered that Kaley and the rest were in the shooting range.
'She's ripping it with the Reaper, that's the fucking sound of it…'
To my surprise, the shooting range definitely had a crowd surrounding my group and the people I'll be bringing with me but the biggest surprise was Major Perez holding his ground with Kaley using his beat-up AR-10 chambered in .308.
It was a rifle from PSA that only had a simple sling, a 20-inch barrel, no foregrips, no muzzle brakes, no nothing, but the thing that caught my eye was the scope he was using. His scope alone was worth more than everything else he had on his person and it was even one of the brands I was using.
'Better to have a legendary-rank scope and a rare-rank gun than a legendary-rank gun and a rare-rank scope…'
When we first met, I 100% assumed that he'd be a Shotgun Schmuck—like someone else we know—or even a Lever-action Larry, but he's actually one of my close brethren. Sure and AR-15 was still different from and AR-10 but it still sported the same platform so it was pretty close.
On that note, both of them were dinging the metal plate that was planted a good 400 yards away, and the small moment of silence right after the shot was fired and then the small ding that would follow would just make everyone else either shake their heads from disbelief or grimace from the sheer ridiculousness of what they were witnessing.
And yeah, it's not because they were hitting the target that far out—though they were—but it was more because of the rhythmic sounds they were producing from each shot. Even a DJ could work on it and start making a sick beat if the crowd weren't that loud with their reactions in the first place.
But it didn't take long before JP approached me, looking annoyed as fuck while holding a brand-new, 'tactical' AR-15 with all the bells and whistles you could put on it.
"This is ridiculous!"
I instantly rolled my eyes, "What about that's ridiculous?"
"Kaley— your wife offered us to help zero our guns but it just… t-turned into that shooting debacle! Wasting all that ammo…"
"You can't zero your gun yourself?"
JP looked like he'd smack the shit out of me but he knew full well that he'd gonna need more than Lopez's blood if he did so he just frowned and protested, "I can zero my gun, of course! But how can I do it if everyone's there trying to disturb us! I had the highest kill count on the board! This is just a new gun I borrowed for the trip! They should be doing the jobs I assigned to them! Even the officers are slacking off, dad will be hearing of this later—"
"Oh? Like you told on me for 'trying' to kill you?"
"I-I-I was upset, alright?! And for the record, I actually thought you would…"
I chuckled as I shrugged my shoulders, "Fair enough—"
The Quinn cut me off, "Wait a second, you're forgetting something you promised me you'd let me do!"
I quickly tried to wave her off, "Woah! Woah! Woah! Not here and I don't remember anything—"
"YOU FUCKING DUMBASS! I'M TALKING ABOUT FIRING THE .50 CAL— THE BARRETT OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU MAY CALL IT!"
The moment the word 'Barrett' was spread in the open air, everyone else suddenly turned in our direction with bloodshot eyes and even Major Perez missed, giving Kaley the victory, and I was swarmed with all these fucking gun nuts like I was the only one that brought paper for the test. However, Quinn managed to quickly disperse the crowd as she swung Cass around like a ragdoll.
'That's a relief, we only brought so much .50 BMGs and I'm not gonna waste it on target practice!'
"WAIT— WHY AM I HERE— BLEGRHH! STOP THROWING ME AROUND! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"You're pretty light— Well, of course, with that size it's pretty much a given…"
"PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN! SOMEBODY HELP!"
After that short bout of chaos, I fulfilled my promise to Quinn by letting her have her way with my Barrett M107A1—with a full magazine, to boot—and everyone else could only look with envy. However, seeing Quinn make it look like a regular-sized rifle in her hands was fucking shocking to me but the look on her face the moment she fired the first shot was fucking priceless.
Her whole body jolted the moment she pulled the trigger and how I wish I had a slow-motion camera on hand, but I'd stick with photographic memory to remember everything that… jiggled.
Quinn was smiling from ear to ear as she turned to me like she'd devour me whole, "WHEW! I like this gun, like shit… I really~ like this gun… Can I have—"
"Nope! Not in a million years!"
"OH, COME ON—"
I completely ignored her as I turned to my group, "We're burning precious daylight here, hurry it up!"
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