Shaun didn’t answer and squeezed the trigger ever so lightly. The suppression and silencer that Clary had designed had never lost any of its impressiveness. The bullet raced across the field. One of the Turned was neck deep into the intestines of one of the cows that a farmer at one time must have had as a prize cow from the size of it. The bullet missed his head but tore across his spine. It looked like a zipper had been undone across his back. Shaun scanned what was left to look at, trying to see what was coming, pulling the bolt-action back, not worrying about his brass for the moment.
Clary loved when someone was proficient with their weapon. He always felt like a proud papa when one of his students excelled. Clary surveyed the area with a spotting scope but wasn’t going to tell someone their business when they weren’t doing anything wrong. Shaun checked three times before clicking his safety back on. Earl said, “You’re pretty good with that thing. You know I could tweak that for you, maybe make a few adjustments on it. You give ol’ Earl an hour or so and we could get you…”
“You touch that gun, Earl, and I will make sure you don’t have any hands left to mess with other people’s things.”
“I mean if you want to keep messing with something that isn’t a hundred percent that’s fine with me. But it doesn’t make too much sense, I mean since I thought that you guys liked each other. I mean…”
Clary felt like his head was going to explode. He knew if he didn’t do something to either shut him up or get to the point that he was going to lose his mind. Clary had supreme confidence, but didn’t really know Earl which he was fine with but also didn’t know any real details. Clary asked confidently, “So how do you fix something that isn’t broken, Earl?”
To which Earl replied, “Well isn’t that a little cocky? I mean, the Model T was pretty good, but if they didn’t keep movin’ forward you wouldn’t have the 1969 Boss 429 Ford mother fucking Mustang. Can you imagine trying to outrun these things if we were still rolling around in one of those?”
“Yes, that would be difficult, but I don’t understand how that has anything to do with Shaun’s precision modified rifle there.”
“Doesn’t seem you’re listening then,” Earl bent down and took the gun from Shaun. He didn’t have to study it; he'd already been thinking of mods to it from the second he laid eyes on it. He knew this kid could drill holes in the Turned all damn day long but continued, “See here, Clary, there’s these holes you put down here diagonally, well them there gases shooting outta here they have a job to do, see here, if you wanted all the gases to unleash then you’d get rid of all the kick, and probably crank out fewer decibels. With a decrease in kick you might be able to give the kid another fifty to a hundred yards.”
Clary snatched the gun out of his hands looking at the configuration on the silencer suppressor. He hadn’t had the time he wanted when he was making them. Then to boot, Shaun had decided it was a good time to leave and not answer anyone’s messages or outcries to come back. During that time, he had thought of a few things to make it better and had worried about Shaun every damn day that he was gone. Earl was waiting for a response when Clary unsnapped his pistol, not second guessing his thoughts at all. He handed it over to Earl and said, “There’s one in the chamber, Earl. Here is a bag of mags. If you run out, then you probably shouldn’t have been shooting in the first place. If you need to fire off a few rounds on our walk today, then you give me some notes on that suppressor on it.”
Earl, a long time Will Ferrell fan said, “Did we just become best friends?”
“No, but I handed you the gun instead of pointing it at you, so at the least we are taking a step in the right direction.”
They walked up to the outskirts of the property looking around. They couldn’t lie when the realization that the cow was the last one on the property made them want to shoot the zombie a second time. Scott said, “If there was a second cow here, I would have been on board for sure to make a return trip. An entire cow wouldn’t feed a base for too long, but man, we could have at least a few really good nights of stew or something.”
Greg said, “I know how important food is and all, but do we want to go see if anyone’s alive in that house? Or we could see if there are still any running vehicles or tractors or something.”
“Why don’t you boys go check out the house, and we can hit the barn,” Clary said.
Greg couldn’t help himself as he walked away saying, “Oh sure, everyone that hangs out with Shaun always comes out so well. Thanks Clary, I’ll remember to haunt you when a zombie tears my head off.”
Shaun nudged him with his elbow. He said, “Hey, it isn’t my fault that I don’t get taken out by those things. Sometimes I think that it’d be a helluva lot easier.”
“What, to be eaten?”
“To not have to deal with all of this shit anymore. You said what no one else does, no one ever agrees with me, they never see how I see it. It isn’t like I try to be that way on purpose. It isn’t like I …”
“Dude, relax, I was kidding. You’re a survivor, you can’t help that, I am too. It doesn’t matter how
