It was decided they would stay at the iron shop twenty-four hours before leaving. During that time, John set up a watch along with a training schedule for the women. John pulled out the rifle he’d scavenged for himself, checked that it was unloaded, and handed it to Stephani, wishing he’d grabbed two. Next, he armed Claire with a Glock 17 he’d taken from one of the dead campers up in the hills.
Jared hovered nearby, watching John set up the training for the women. John had the women place the weapons on a table, then showed them both how each firearm was disassembled and then reassembled. John showed the ladies the parts on both the rifle and the pistol that required the most attention when cleaning them. John sounded a lot like a more refined version of Jared’s friend Bart when the older man had done the same thing with Jared not more than three months prior.
Jared’s training seemed like a lifetime ago as he watched John make the women tear the weapons apart and reassemble them over and over until they complained about hot spots on their hands. Not wanting the women’s hands to deteriorate, John transitioned to a more classroom-instruction style. He preached weapons safety and showed both women how to properly clear both weapons. At the end of four hours, both women could break down both the rifle and pistol, make both guns safe, and understood the importance of keeping the weapons clean and pointed in a safe direction.
John spent another hour teaching Stephani and Claire how to clean the guns, showing them the different tools he had in his pack for eradicating the malfunction-causing carbon buildup produced after the weapon was fired.
After Stephani and Claire were finished with the cleaning portion of their instruction, everyone took a break and ate some dinner. The sun was getting low, and light would soon be a factor in bringing the women’s training to an end.
John traded Devon a bag of freeze-dried eggs for some squirrel meat. The meat was a dark meat much like the dark meat taken from a turkey. After it was cooked, John dug in and found the meat tasty although a tad dry. He remedied this with copious amounts of water.
Chapter 24
By the time Jared and company finished dinner, there remained about half an hour of usable light, so John grabbed a Sharpie from the shop’s office along with a pad of paper. He returned to the table and began drawing a proper sight picture for the ladies. The three sat around the table, peering through the rifle’s and pistol’s iron sights, the women trying to correlate the picture John drew with the actual sights. Stephani was the first to have her aha moment. She gave the impression of being more comfortable around the weapons than the younger Claire did, but John wasn’t surprised since age bred self-confidence. John did not voice this observation for fear of weathering more of Stephani’s wrath were she to hear him refer to her age in any context.
After darkness enveloped the interior of the ironworks shop, John showed the women how to use the iron sights in low- to no-light conditions in order to emphasize how difficult it would be to shoot accurately without the aid of night vision or electronic sights. Neither woman understood fully what John was talking about since neither had seen or used night vision and had zero idea what an electronic sight was.
Once John finished with his nighttime tutorial on shooting without modern weapons sights, Jared assigned the night watches, pairing himself with Stephani, and John with Claire. Dwight and Barry were assigned the last watch, and Jared left Devon out of the mix. The kid was alright, but still seemed a little squirrely—like all teens, Jared mused, chuckling to himself at his own joke.
The night passed without much happening other than the hushed whispers between Jared and Stephani and, later, John and Claire. Jared found that Stephani was an attorney at a firm where she defended large corporations. She’d been raised by her mother and father, who were both attorneys, so it was a given she would attend law school after she finished her undergrad work.
Stephani had been at the Santa Clara Superior Court when the solar flare struck. She had finished with her day’s work and was doing research in the law library when all the lights went out. She ended up staying the night inside the library, returning to the courthouse the following morning. She lived in Pleasanton, so walking home seemed out of the question at the time. On day two Stephani heard a lot of gunfire when she’d ventured outside the building to see what, if anything, had changed. She quickly returned to the interior of the building after hearing the gunfire and no sirens. There were dozens of people in the courthouse, and soon all the vending machines had been sacked, along with the cafeteria.
On the fourth day, Stephani said she was so hungry she ventured out walking several blocks to a residential neighborhood. She knocked on several doors and was either nicely turned away or outright threatened with violence if she didn’t vacate the premises. One house she knocked on was empty, and she was able to gain access through the unlocked rear door. She was still wearing the same skirt, blouse and flats she’d been wearing when the power went out, and hadn’t showered in as long.
Once inside the house, she found a pantry full of food and a closet with women’s clothing, which were close enough to her size to do under the current circumstances. The shirt she was wearing along with the leggings were taken from the residence. Stephani said she remained undetected in the residence for nearly a month before the city began coming literally apart at the seams. Families
