Omega Days (Volume 1) - By John L. Campbell Page 0,47
been clumsy, and wanted to be able to do it with their speed and confidence.
Skye had learned so much today, and aching more than her muscles was her head, trying to remember and process the day’s many lessons. Sergeant Postman was a good teacher, direct and patient, but also quick to correct with a stern voice or firm grip when ignorant hands did something wrong. Very different from the weary, soft and even bitter teachers in high school. The sergeant knew his job well, and insisted that you learn, without excuses.
He started with the assault rifle, the M4, explaining the basic structure. She learned how to load a magazine, how to load the magazine into the rifle (“It is not a gun, lady.”) and how to arm it with the charging handle. Each magazine held thirty rounds, and the rifle had an effective range of five-hundred meters. She was shown where the spent brass was ejected, how to “safe” the weapon and eject an empty magazine, and how to switch from single shot semi-auto to a three round automatic burst. He told her full-auto was a waste of ammo, and told her if he ever caught her switched to “rock and roll” she would do pushups until her arms turned to Jell-O. She spent an hour “snapping in” with the unloaded rifle, as Postman showed her how to hold it, how to fit it into the hollow of her shoulder and where to rest her cheek. He taught her about safety, Lord how he went on about safety.
“Tell me about the scope.”
He shook his head in disgust. “That is a sight, an ACOG sight to be precise. It’s a combat sight designed for quick use.”
She looked through it. A pair of radiant green chevrons seemed to float in the air, points used to mark the target, and not unlike a video game. “Does it see in the dark?” He said it did not.
The M4 didn’t kick as much as she expected, and after the first magazine she barely noticed it at all. Postman put her right to work on targets in the street below, and she spent over two hours killing zombies. It was a total rush. She also learned that a head shot was not an easy thing to make, and Skye sent more than her share of bullets whining off pavement and brick buildings, or thunking harmlessly into chests and arms and legs, which didn’t bother the Tangos one bit.
“The human head is only about five-point-nine inches wide to begin with,” the sergeant explained. “The farther away from it you are, the smaller it gets.”
She missed a lot. She hit a lot of dead flesh to no effect. The kills, however, those were the real rush. Seeing one of the walking dead stiffen and collapse as one of her bullets found its mark, that puff of pink mist and grey matter that popped when her shot went where it was supposed to, that was worth every ache and pain.
“Understand that hitting a target from a stationary position is much different than from a vehicle-”
“Which is almost impossible,” Taylor added.
“-or while walking.”
She nodded at the sergeant. “I want to learn that, too.”
The soldiers looked at each other and laughed. “Well, Miss Dennison, I was kind of hoping we’d link up with our troops and get you someplace safe before we had to teach you the advanced stuff.”
Skye blushed. She didn’t want to be shipped off like some refugee. She wanted an M4 in her hands all the time, to be a hunter, not a victim.
Postman had worked with young soldiers for many years, not only at home but in both Afghanistan and Iraq. They were boys who had seen friends killed, whose childhood was quickly stripped away by the brutality of war. He saw something in the girl’s eyes he knew well, something he appreciated as a professional soldier, but also found a little sad. “Back to work.”
The late summer sun took its time going down, and they had enough light to use the assault rifle until around nine. Then the sergeant introduced her to the M24. “The fancy name for this is the M24E-XM2010. Got all that?”
“Not a bit of it.”
“Wise ass. Doesn’t matter, it’s just an improved variation of the basic M24 sniper rifle, very different from the M4.” And he was right. Everything about it was different; longer, heavier, harder to handle and with a completely different balance. It had a snap out bipod to keep