Just another prepper
By: Jan Tailor
Copyright 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9880807-1-3
***
Tony did not know why he was making this call. He knew his fiancé would not approve but he loved her and she should know. He pressed the send button. Debby answered her phone, “Hey honey, how are things at home?”
“You know I love you?”
“You’re too predictable Tony, what is wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s good news. I’ve got a buyer for the guns at a great price. The election’s got all these guys worried they won’t be able to get assault rifles anymore.”
Debby’s sigh was audible over the line, “You know I don’t want you selling guns – especially those.”
“You don’t want them around the house. You don’t want me to sell them. What should I do with them? I bought them to sell at a huge profit after the ban is passed. Now, I have a chance to do just that before the bill is passed and you don’t want me to sell them.”
“It seems wrong. I grew up hunting and I’m used to hunting rifle and shot gun but those are for killing people. Who needs to do that?”
Tony pulled out his stock argument, “1. It is legal for me to sell firearms I have a licence. 2. Even after the law passes I would still be able to legally sell them because I owned them before the bill was passed.”
Debby mocked him, “3. You could kill a whole bunch more people with a bolt action 30 06 than M6A2s you are selling. Yeah, great logic. Really who buys those things?”
“Regular folk who like guns, like me, we buy those things. Listen baby, I’m getting enough money from selling the three of them to pay our mortgage for two months. You know we need that. We’re going to be short this month if we don’t sell something. How about your car? It will get a couple months of freedom.”
“Ok, I don’t get it. Sell them if you must. That’s it, no more selling guns.”
“Yes dear.”
Even more seriously Debby said, “You’re not binging your Glock with you?”
“Of course I am. Baby you’re Canadian. You don’t get the culture. If I don’t show up packing it will queer the deal. They will be like ‘who the fuck sells a gun without having a gun, only ATF and scammers.’ I’d be in more danger.”
“I just want you to be safe? Make sure to meet in town. And send me where you will be and when to call the police if you’re late.”
“It’s out of town but I’m going to have my army buddies Doug, Frank and Sam waiting close by to cover me if shit happens.”
Debby’s voice was cracking, “Fuck I don’t like it. Don’t go make this into an A-Team episode.”
“I’ve been looking into the background of the buyer, checked out court house documents and the internet and he’s barely on the radar. Nothing violent, not even a traffic ticket. No crazy manifestos on the internet either. Don’t worry, he is just another prepper.”
“This is the last time you do anything like this; I will not have it when we are married.”
“Baby, I promise and those are the last guns I want to sell.”
***
‘Fuck this place is out of the way,’ Tony thought as he pulled down the Mile long dirt driveway lined with scrub pine to the buyer’s house. It was up a hill and Tony’s soldiering instinct told him this was purposeful so the house at the top could look down and fight downhill. A chain link fence topped with concertina wire was around a house, and a large Quonset hut. Tony assumed the man standing outside the house must be the buyer, George. He stopped yards away and got out, “Hi, you George?”
George was short with yellow shooting glasses on and a holstered automatic. He walked up hand outstretched ready to shake Tony’s and said, “You must be Tony. Can I help you with anything? I would like to go in the hangar or as we like to call it the Doom Room and check out the merchandise.”
“Thanks for the offer, you can take one side of the bag.” They lugged the hockey bag into Quonset hut and up the stairs to mezzanine level that looked over the ground level. Many guns were on a rack by the wall. Tony looked over the ground floor of the hut, “Damn, I have not seen anything like that since I was in training to go to Iraq.” The ground floor was a maze of walls, rooms with human silhouette targets and paint from paint ball guns splattered on all the walls. Something about the room was off, it looked too real to Tony like a model, not a generic representation.
“Yes, our Doom Room. When the end comes there will be a lot of room to room fighting,” almost as an afterthought George added, “When scavenging for supplies.” He stopped and changed the subject, “Let’s see them.”
Tony unzipped the big bag and took out one of three plastic cases. He laid it on the table and opened it, “M6A2 the weapon made for SOCOM (US Special Forces command) in 6.8mm. The round is deadly it will go through any body armor and tumbles when it impacts flesh giving.
it great stopping power. I was in Iraq and some DETA force boys showed me the flack vest of an Iraqi hit with this round, right through at 100m. It’s got all the attachment rail you need for scopes and laser pointers. Three different barrels if you ever need more of rifle than a carbine. This is the shit.”
A buzz from an intercom box interrupted them. “Sorry, that’s John outside. Do you mind if he comes up? We both want to try them.”
“Sure.”
John came up the stairs and they talked guns for a few minutes before going downstairs to the Doom Room. They walked to one side of the room and John went into the room and pulled walls aside to make a range the length of the hut. George said, “Here take this ear protection. When the range is hot –when the guns are loaded – all guns point down range and this light is on.” George and John loaded their guns, “Range hot!” The light was turned on and they quickly shot off thirty rounds each. “Clear! Let’s see how we did.” The three walked to the end of the range where the target silhouette had life sized photos of people – normal people.
The photos gave Tony a chill. He remembered being told using realistic targets help people lose their inhibition to shooting people. He enquired, “Those folk on your hit list or something?”
John was red faced. George spoke, “It’s cheaper to print them out on the computer than buy new targets.” George pointed at the grouping, “Good one, eh? I like the weapons and I’m not going to haggle. It’s a stupid towel head tradition anyhow.” They walked back upstairs to finish the business.
George followed Tony outside, “It was good doing business with you Tony.” And shook his hand.
“You too, George... just one question, when the end comes will you let me and my girl in?”
“What... oh, sure.”
Tony hopped in his truck. The Doom Room with its faces of real people on the target troubled him and so did the lack of prepper talk. Normally, preppers want to show you every hidden cache and bunker, so long as you don’t tell, but not George and John. The money took those thoughts away.
***
After hearing the reports of a shooting in town on the radio Tony rushed to turn his TV on. He thought, ‘thank God Debby is still out of town’. Three men had stormed a Federal Government office shooting everyone in their path. The number of dead and wounded was not known but pictures of screaming blood soaked people running chaotically filled the screen. Worse the gunmen were still holed up in a building with police out gunned doing their best to keep the gunmen in one place.
Tony felt uncomfortable. The shooting was only on the other side of town so he got his holster and Glock to give him some comfort. Then continued to watch the TV.
One channel had blurry pictures from a security camera across from the shooting. Tony felt sick as the outline of the gun used by the gunman in the fuzzy picture was simila
r to the M6A2 he sold weeks ago. He told himself, ‘it is a popular gun. Thousands of them are out there.’
Tony was now immovable from the TV. Even Debby’s call did nothing to take him from the news.
Early the next morning the major news channel aired an exclusive report. It had a virtual tour of the shooters’ path through the government office. Tony recognized the path and the office; it was the shooters’ path in the Doom Room. The thought that he had armed these mad men was now all consuming. Still, he had hoped this was coincidence. That was shattered with the first pictures of the victims, their faces were the same as those on the photos taped to the targets.
What was Tony to say to the police who would surely find out he sold the guns. He thought, ‘Yes, officer I did find the layout of the Doom Room odd. The photos of real people on the targets got me thinking too. No they weren’t like other prepper. So why didn’t I call you? Money, two months mortgage.’ And what to tell Debby.
Tony’s hope was rekindled when the TV anchor said they would have pictures of the gunmen after the next break. For two minutes butterflies flew in his stomach with the hope it was not George and John.
It was George and John.
Tony pulled out his Glock, cocked it and put it in his mouth. He pulled the trigger.