Read Online Harmonic: Resonance by Nico Laeser - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nico Laeser
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register. “And you can rest assured that for whichever of God’s laws we break over the next few months or years, we will be held accountable, in this life or the next.”
15 | This is my rifle ...
With two working vehicles, the daily supply runs ventured into neighboring towns and beyond. We increased our stockpile and extended our food rations far into the unforeseeable future. The barn and all available corners of each room in the house were now stacked to the ceiling with crates and flats of non-perishable foods, bottled water, boxes of batteries, and anything else that had seemed of use or value.
Gary had categorized the weapons, filled each magazine with the appropriate caliber round, and wrapped each magazine and corresponding weapon with its own color ring of electrical tape. He had also added a stripe of electrical tape to the ammunition boxes for idiot-proof refilling of magazines. He said, when the time came, it would be one less thing to panic over.
Gary had instructed all of us to familiarize ourselves with the various firearms and to practice shooting with the Savage Mark II. According to Gary, the Savage was a .22 caliber, bolt-action rifle, with little to no kick, and even the girls could shoot it . He said that with the attached suppressor, no one would hear more than the click of the gun’s action beyond the property line, and there was enough .22 ammo to make marksmen of us all. Holding the .22, it felt no different from my brother’s old air rifle, although this one had the power to kill.
***
On the day of Sam’s fifteenth birthday, our dad took us out to the back of the house where three wooden sawhorses, each with cans and bottles spaced evenly across the top, stood sideways in the dirt and grass with each one slightly farther away than the last. A wry smile crept over Sam’s face as Dad wished him a happy birthday and produced his gift. It was an air rifle. We wasted the daylight shooting cans and exploding bottles, resetting the targets, and loosely keeping track of our score. Sam was a natural, and by the end of the weekend, he was shooting the base out of bottles arranged so that only the bottle-mouth was facing toward us.
Sam was always good at everything he did. He was always disciplined and waiting for orders. He always needed something to do, a way to be useful. Of the two of us, he had always been the smart one, although his grades had failed to show it for a long time after Mom died, according to my dad. He never went through a teenage rebellious phase or hung around with the wrong crowd. He came home straight after school each day and helped Dad with the task of raising me.
He worked his way through weekend work to a part-time evening job in the hardware store warehouse, working five nights a week to help pay the bills. It was almost an hour-long bike ride there and even longer on the uphill journey back after a five-hour shift, but Sam never complained. The boy who had teased me had grown into a responsible, respectful young man. When he left school, he asked for a full-time position at the hardware store, but all the positions were filled, and had been for years. It was a small town—jobs became available when someone else quit, retired, or died. This was the reason most kids from our town grew up and moved away to college or to the nearest city to find work.
Years later, after seeing a commercial on TV for the Army, boasting education, training, and a stable career, Sam called the number on the screen and got them to send out a package. When the package came, he explained what it was to our father and made his case for signing up, saying he wouldn’t need money and he could send it all back home to help out with the bills. Dad said money wasn’t important, and he would rather have Sam stay home and keep a part-time job if he was only doing it to send money back, but Sam continued, using the one thing he had as leverage—the opportunity and
15 | This is my rifle ...
With two working vehicles, the daily supply runs ventured into neighboring towns and beyond. We increased our stockpile and extended our food rations far into the unforeseeable future. The barn and all available corners of each room in the house were now stacked to the ceiling with crates and flats of non-perishable foods, bottled water, boxes of batteries, and anything else that had seemed of use or value.
Gary had categorized the weapons, filled each magazine with the appropriate caliber round, and wrapped each magazine and corresponding weapon with its own color ring of electrical tape. He had also added a stripe of electrical tape to the ammunition boxes for idiot-proof refilling of magazines. He said, when the time came, it would be one less thing to panic over.
Gary had instructed all of us to familiarize ourselves with the various firearms and to practice shooting with the Savage Mark II. According to Gary, the Savage was a .22 caliber, bolt-action rifle, with little to no kick, and even the girls could shoot it . He said that with the attached suppressor, no one would hear more than the click of the gun’s action beyond the property line, and there was enough .22 ammo to make marksmen of us all. Holding the .22, it felt no different from my brother’s old air rifle, although this one had the power to kill.
***
On the day of Sam’s fifteenth birthday, our dad took us out to the back of the house where three wooden sawhorses, each with cans and bottles spaced evenly across the top, stood sideways in the dirt and grass with each one slightly farther away than the last. A wry smile crept over Sam’s face as Dad wished him a happy birthday and produced his gift. It was an air rifle. We wasted the daylight shooting cans and exploding bottles, resetting the targets, and loosely keeping track of our score. Sam was a natural, and by the end of the weekend, he was shooting the base out of bottles arranged so that only the bottle-mouth was facing toward us.
Sam was always good at everything he did. He was always disciplined and waiting for orders. He always needed something to do, a way to be useful. Of the two of us, he had always been the smart one, although his grades had failed to show it for a long time after Mom died, according to my dad. He never went through a teenage rebellious phase or hung around with the wrong crowd. He came home straight after school each day and helped Dad with the task of raising me.
He worked his way through weekend work to a part-time evening job in the hardware store warehouse, working five nights a week to help pay the bills. It was almost an hour-long bike ride there and even longer on the uphill journey back after a five-hour shift, but Sam never complained. The boy who had teased me had grown into a responsible, respectful young man. When he left school, he asked for a full-time position at the hardware store, but all the positions were filled, and had been for years. It was a small town—jobs became available when someone else quit, retired, or died. This was the reason most kids from our town grew up and moved away to college or to the nearest city to find work.
Years later, after seeing a commercial on TV for the Army, boasting education, training, and a stable career, Sam called the number on the screen and got them to send out a package. When the package came, he explained what it was to our father and made his case for signing up, saying he wouldn’t need money and he could send it all back home to help out with the bills. Dad said money wasn’t important, and he would rather have Sam stay home and keep a part-time job if he was only doing it to send money back, but Sam continued, using the one thing he had as leverage—the opportunity and
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