The Undead Day Twenty Read Free

before he can walk. No matter. She dozes back off to sleep as Mo walks slowly towards Dave.
    ‘Sorry,’ Mo says after a few minutes of silence with shame creeping into his cheeks.
    Dave shrugs.
    ‘I’s don’t like people takin’ the piss like that…’
    Dave looks at him, staring without expression. ‘You are not what you were.’
    ‘What?’
    Dave doesn’t reply but simply looks at him. ‘This is training.’
    Mo nods and swallows the rush of emotions. The shame at being taken to anger so easily and the sting of being toyed with and beaten so easily. He’ll never match Dave. Nobody can ever match Dave. Mo feels too heavy, too slow and cumbersome. Like an elephant chasing a fly.
    Dave looks up at the sky then out to the horizon of the sea and the fort in the distance. ‘You are less than half my speed.’
    Mo nods again. Chastised and repentant of his failures.
    ‘You are twice faster than yesterday.’
    Meredith senses the change in dynamics. The way the pup suddenly looks up with wide eyes.
    ‘Ready?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Meredith’s tail swishes as the pup smiles youthful and full of play once again. She watches them fight and run back and forth as the wooden spatula is drawn and used. She dozes then comes awake when Mo starts dry firing his pistol at given opportunities and she flicks her ears at the sound of skin on skin when Dave delivers a strike. If the other pack members saw the pup being hit they would become angry. They don’t like their own pack being hurt but the teacher is doing the right thing. The pup has to learn the pressure of the bite and besides, she’s watching and as fearsome as the small man with the strange energy is, she’d still rag him down the street.
    Mo is taught left hand firing. To draw and dry fire with his weaker left instead of his dominant right hand. He takes to it quickly, learning the adjustments needed. He is passed Dave’s empty pistol and taught to hold both but never to fire at the same time. Always one after the other. Aim, fire, aim, fire. Every bullet should hit a target. Every aim is calculated. They are always several moves ahead of the enemy. They are different. They think faster. They move faster. Draw both. Aim, fire, aim, fire.
    ‘What about loading? I got’s both hands full?’
    ‘Put one away.’
    ‘Can’t you re-load both at the same time?’
    ‘It is possible but you will not learn this now.’
    ‘Show me.’
    ‘You will not learn this now.’
    ‘Can you do it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Can I see?’
    ‘You will not learn this now.’
    ‘Just once? Show me just once…’
    ‘I will show once…give me your pistols. My magazines are here on my belt. I know where they are. I lift the pistols to give height and space. I eject the magazines. They fall away. I release the pistols, grab the magazines, lift them up as I let go and catch the pistols to push them down into the magazines…’
    ‘That ain’t possible.’
    ‘It is possible.’
    ‘Ain’t.’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘Show me then.’
    ‘Watch.’
    Dave does it. A speed of motion that Mo tracks. His hands lift the pistols to head height then let go. The magazines are launched into the air with a movement that keeps them straight. His hands grab the pistols and slams the butts down onto the magazines. The downward motions continues as he rams the butts into his thighs. A flick, the pistols twirl so he can grab the top. Another flick forces the slides back, chambering the first rounds, another flick and the pistols are held ready.
    ‘It is possible.’
    ‘Fuck.’

One
     
    In the communal barracks of the lounge, Blowers comes awake at hearing Mo Mo rustling about. He sits up, yawning sleepily to see the lad drying himself with a towel.
    ‘You alright?’ he whispers, looking over at Mo.
    The lad gives a wide grin, ‘yeah…you?’
    ‘Fucking hot. Training okay?’
    ‘S’good,’ Mo whispers as Blowers leans closer.
    ‘Dave got you a few times then.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Your