Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

Sometimes, I let the zombies win. Sometimes, I don’t. But when I off a zombie in one of my horror stories, it just kind of falls off the edge of a cliff or something and dies, which is not really how you get rid of a zombie. But how do you get rid of one for good?

The only other zombie expert in the Fixin’ Leaks n’ Leeks house is Nate, so I asked him.

“In the movies, it’s always with a single slug,” Nate said. “Right through the head.”

But when I try to write about a character offing a zombie in a spectacular turn of events, I’m not sure how to do it, mostly because I’ve never handled a gun. Nate, on the other hand, grew up knowing how to hunt. So when we watch movies together, he says the following things:

“That’s not how you hold a gun!” “A gun like that would never shoot that way.” “You can’t load a gun like that!” “Oh, come on! How are you supposed to shoot something with that type of gun from that distance?”

And my answer has always been, “But it’s a movie!”

However, when reading a story about zombies, people who know anything about guns would probably hate the following fictional passage, which I just made up without any knowledge of how guns work: “The Melvinator fumbled with the trigger part of the double barrel rifle but managed to load each bullet into the chamber. Then, they shot the zombie from 200 yards away—and saw it crumple and heard it moan ‘brains’ before disintegrating into an ooze of slime. In their triumph, The Melvinator did that thing where you pull both arms in and shout, ‘yes,’ before jamming the barrel back into their gun holster.”

So, if I was going to further my zombie writing career, which I hoped would take off like wild ghost horses, I figured I’d have to go to a shooting range at least once in my life. So I did.

And Nate was my guide.

When we walked into the building, we had to go through the “gift shop” first, which was an actual gun store, and Nate rattled off every name of every gun in the case, and I was impressed, but also pretty intimidated. Would there be a quiz? Was I supposed to study something before I got there?

But I needn’t have worried. When we went to the rental section for the shooting range, Nate picked out a .22 Ruger, and we got outfitted with ear and eye protection.

“Eye protection?” I asked.

“Yeah, the spent shells fly back sometimes—they don’t hurt,” Nate said. And that’s when I started to get nervous.

When we entered the shooting range, there were already two men with guns shooting, and I could see flashes of red sparks every once in a while—which also rocked my nerves. And, even with the ear protection, it was still incredibly loud. I devolved into a scaredy cat-like creature who wouldn’t move away from the wall. I would have crouched if I could have found a corner.

Nate calmly walked over to our station, and that’s when I decided I would chicken out. And I was okay with that. The zombies could totally win.

But that’s not why we were there. The magazine and bullets were already separated from the gun, and the safety was on. Nate then showed me how to load the bullets into the magazine—which actually hurts. Pushing bullets into a spring-loaded magazine takes special skill, and I didn’t really get the hang of it until the last part of the hour that we were there. Also, I don’t know how people do it in movies so quickly. Good thing zombies move slowly.

Then, I learned to press the magazine into the bottom of the gun, pull back the bolt, take the safety off, steady myself, and take aim at the paper target.

Luckily, there wasn’t much of a kickback, and the gun didn’t feel too heavy in my hands, but my aim is terrible. Doing my very best, I only would have taken out a zombie’s shoulder—multiple times.

Nate, on the other hand, is fire during a zombie apocalypse. I’ll probably just send him out in the middle of it on my behalf.

Would I go back to the shooting range? Would I invest in a gun for a new hobby? No and no.

But now I can write in vivid realistic detail about a hero who shoots a zombie in the shoulder, buying her enough time to run to the nearest abandoned five-star hotel (that’s not infested with zombies) to have a little something to soothe her nerves.

Your Turn: What’s something new that you’ve tried recently?