'Illegal? Roger? I didn't know he had it in him.'
'Well, maybe illegal. There are laws that restrict this kind of gun from having a large clip, to try and limit the amount of destruction a civilian can have access to. Usually it is ten rounds, bullets, but that does not stop people from making other….' Mike stopped, and whistled as a small slip of paper fell out of the manual.
'What?' Dora asked.
Mike held up the piece of paper, 'Two thousand dollars, just for the gun, the drum, it's says it is a thirty round drum, was another ninety bucks. Plus he has, five, no six, boxes of ammo for it. Dang he spent a lot of money on this thing.'
'Two grand? For a gun? We could have had the hot tub in for that much! Geezus!' said Dora, she then shrugged her shoulders, 'Oh well, this will work better now than a hot tub would, right? Can you make it work?'
By way of answer Mike handed her the gun, Dora almost dropped it, it had to weigh six or seven pounds, 'I showed you how to use the other rifles, you should be able to get this one to work, so show me.'
Hefting the rifle, Dora looked along the length, Mike handed her a magazine and she inserted it into the gun. Dora set the safety to 'semi' instead of on 'safe' and then looked at Mike, 'That is it, right?'
'Pretty much. The magazine wasn't loaded, so you will want to do load it, but it is simple enough, like all the others. This one is a carbine, not a rifle. See how it…well the barrel anyway, is shorter than the ones on the rifles?' Mike pointed to the other guns, which were leaning up against the wall in the bedroom.
'Yeah, it is shorter, like for a girl, right?'
Mike just looked at her, then shook his head, 'No. Not 'for a girl', it looks almost like an M4 carbine, which is what our guys in the military used to use. It might be an updated version or something.' Still shaking his head he repeated, 'Not for a girl.'
'So do we keep it or give it to 'The Bastard' when he shows up?' asked Paige.
'Hmmm, I suppose we should give it to him. I wouldn't mind keeping it; it would serve him right to have to go out there without any weapons.'
Dora's phone started ringing. She handed the carbine to Mike and went and picked it up off of the dresser. Glancing at the caller id she said 'Hello Roger.'
'Are you almost here? What is taking so long?'
'Well two things really, first we had to find the gun. It is real nice too Roger, really nice, you don't mind if we use it do you?'
'I am not stupid. It's in a locked box. I have the keys.'
'You left a spare in the manila envelope in your dresser, next to all those photos of you with women who are not me. Yep, we found those. Got your gun out, loaded and everything. So our marriage was just a sham wasn't it, I was someone you could drag to your office functions while you slept around on me with whomever would spread their legs for you? And that brings me to reason two we haven't driven up there; we are not leaving the fucking house. You want the gun, then grow some goddamn balls and come get it yourself!' Dora hung up the phone and sat down on the bed, Mike and Paige looked at her with a mix of pity and support. Paige put her hand on the other woman's shoulder and Dora shook it off angrily, 'Don't Paige, just don't right now. Let's get some weapons up on the roof. Roger will be showing up soon.'
Dora's phone rang again; she pressed a button to send it to voice mail, then powered her phone off. The three of them each loaded a gun and then put some extra bullets along with a few other odds and ends into a small, canvas purse that resembled a backpack. Mike chose to take Roger's rifle and Dora waved her assent when he asked her about it.
The three climbed slowly out onto the roof from the sky light opening, they were just below the center of the roof line on the back side of the house. The pitch of the roof was not so great that if they lost their balance or dropped something that it would slide all the way to the edge and drop off. Still, they found themselves treading with caution when they leaned over the top of the roof to view the front of the house. There were still dozens of zombies milling about on the ground out in front.
Following Mike's lead the women chose to prop their weapons against the apex of the roof, which steadied their guns and also decreased their visibility to anyone in the front. The drawback to where they had chosen to lay down was that the garage roof obscured part of their view of the street and almost all of the view of Dora's driveway, they could not even see Paige's car from where they were at.
Mike edged towards the side of the house, to get a better view of the drive and what was beyond it, then they all settled down to wait. Below them, in the bedroom, the house phone began to ring.
Chapter 17
The phone stopped ringing. No one said anything and the cool morning air which had been a welcome change from the air conditioned interior was now causing them to shiver in the light clothing they had been wearing while sleeping.
'How long do you think, before he decides to drive down here himself?' asked Paige.
'Any time now I bet.' said Dora.
'We didn't unlock the doors or anything.' Mike said.
'Oops. Silly of me to forget.'
They heard a car in the distance and saw the glow of some headlights approaching. It sounded like Roger was revving the engine, still going slow, but revving up the engine as he approached.
'He is a dumb ass. Why didn't I see it before? Was it the money?' ask Dora.
'Probably, you strike me as that kind of woman; petty and gold digging.' said Paige.
'I'd almost be offended dear if I didn't agree with you. Now look where we all are. Roger was right about one thing, this situation changes everything. He was wrong about so many other things…' her voice trailed off.
'Dora?' asked Mike, 'What are we going to do with him?'
'I really don't know yet.' she tucked her head behind the low powered scope of her rifle and took a bead on something in the street below.
The car came creeping down the block soon after, the three of them saw Roger and another woman, Marge, sitting in his white Volvo. They approached the house and Roger started pressing the top of his car near the visor.
Dora laughed, 'He is trying to open the garage door! Hah! And he brought his whore, Marge, my former best friend. This day just keeps getting better and better.'
The car stopped just shy of the property line, not quite in front of the house, there were too many zombies left to proceed without hitting them. The scattering of dispersed zombies started to congregate around the car.
'What should we do Dora?' asked Mike.
Dora sighed, she was looking through the rifle scope at the man she had spent the last few years of her life with. Did she want him dead? It was just a trigger pull away. If the bullet didn't kill him the zombies would pull him out and finish the job. And get that bitch Marge too.
When it came right down to it she could not do it. It was not just because she had mixed feeling towards him; she was also concerned that when this whole mess blew over she might be held accountable for killing him… if there were witnesses. Dora didn't fancy killing Mike and Paige just to cover her murder, so, for now, Roger got to live.
'Clear some zombies out, in front of the car so they can drive away. I don't want them to pull into the driveway, so leave any zombies there. I know Roger; he won't hit any of them with his precious Volvo.'
Mike's first shot with the unfired rifle rang out and hit a zombie in front of the car in the neck, it was not dead again, but it do fall over and lay on the ground, twitching. Dora and Paige each started firing at other zombies in the mob, all of their shots were timed and aimed as Mike had stressed to them, but even taking those
