When the Devil Dances

“I could just shoot ’em lightly,” Cally said plaintively. “With a .22. In a fleshy spot. No pain, no gain.”

Shari laughed out loud and shook her head. “Okay, it sounds like a plan. If you like ’em, and they seem to be okay, and they’re not asking for you to go to bed with them, shoot ’em lightly in a fleshy spot. If they never come back, you know they weren’t for you. But don’t get in a habit of shooting him every time you disagree, okay?”

“Just one question,” Wendy said with a mock serious expression. “Where are you going to get a .22? I mean, I’ve seen .308s and .30-06s, but .22s seem to be in short supply in this household.”

“It’s what I carry as my main weapon,” Cally said with a snort. “It’s not like I’m going to carry around a special ‘guy test’ gun just to shoot guys if I think I like ’em.”

“You carry a .22?” Wendy said with a laugh. “Wow, that must really scare the Posleen no end! You’re joking, right?”

Cally smiled thinly. “Let’s go down to the range. And see who laughs last.”

CHAPTER 19 Rabun Gap, GA, United States, Sol III 1325 EDT Friday September 25, 2009 ad

“So that’s a .22?” Wendy asked in disbelief. The weapon was odd looking, resembling nothing so much as an undersized “Tommy Gun” with the drum magazine placed on top. She could see the tiny aperture in the barrel, but she found the concept of this warrior-child carrying a .22, a round usually used by eight-year-old boys to shoot rats, ludicrous. The gun looked like a toy, which she knew was a dangerous mental attitude.

“Yep,” Cally said, walking around onto the range. “Range is cold, people, no locking, no aiming, no, no, no firing; safe your weapons.” She picked up a broken cinderblock off of a stack and, with remarkably little difficulty, carried it halfway to the first target and set it on a section of tree trunk that had apparently been set up for the purpose. “This is the standard demonstration for the American 180,” she continued, walking back to the firing line.

There were two ranges set up on the O’Neal property. The first, where they were preparing to fire, was a standard target range. There were a variety of pop-up targets, scoring circles and man- and Posleen-shaped silhouettes, ranging out to two or three hundred yards. The other range, which ran along the road to the entry, was a tactical firing line.

Cally looked at the group and frowned. “Papa O’Neal usually covers this, but I think I’m elected. How many of you have been on a range before?”

Most of the children had wandered over and she frowned when none of them raised their hands. “None of you have been on a range? Where do you do weapons training?”

“It’s illegal to let a person under sixteen handle a weapon in the Urb,” Wendy said with a frown.

“That’s… ridiculous,” Cally said.

Wendy shrugged. “You’re preaching to the choir; there were kids in the Hitler Youth that were younger than that. They tended to surrender pretty quick and they weren’t much good. But they fought in a real war.”

“I won’t even go there,” Cally said with a frown.

“Have you ever shot a Posleen?” Shari asked. “I only ask because… I don’t see somebody Billy’s age being…”

“Useful?” Cally said with a snort. “You see the bunker by the house? I killed my first Posleen when I was his age, covering Granpa with my rifle; he was manning the mini-gun. It was during the Fredericksburg landing cycle and a Posleen company landed at the head of the valley and ended up coming up the trail. None of them left the holler; we hit ’em with the band of claymores and then stacked the survivors. So, yeah, I think Billy could be pretty useful if you let him be.”

“It’s not my rule anyway,” Shari said with a shrug.

“Whatever,” Cally replied. “You gonna mind if he fires one here?”

“Will it be safe?” Shari asked, looking at the odd little rifle in trepidation.

“Of course it will,” Cally said. “The first thing to cover is range safety.”

She ran through an abbreviated range safety briefing covering hearing protection, ensuring that the weapons were safed and cleared if anyone was to be downrange, keeping fingers off the triggers and always assuming a weapon was loaded. “The most important thing is that; never, ever point a gun, even an ‘unloaded’ gun, at anything you don’t want destroyed. For the purposes of safety, every gun is loaded. Guns aren’t evil magic; they’re just tools for killing something at a distance. Treat them as useful, but dangerous tools, like a circular saw or a chainsaw, and you’ll be fine.”

She picked up the rifle and flicked on the laser sight; a tiny red dot settled on the cinderblock. “If not, this is what happens.” Holding the weapon by her side, the dot barely shivering on the block, she opened fire.

The weapon was quiet: a series of pops like a distant, poorly tuned outboard motor. An outboard motor going very fast.