Outcast (18 page)

First day of training was nervewracking. I’d picked up Father Peter in town, and when we arrived Gabe was already at his place talking to the Alexander brothers. Triplets. They looked pretty much the same as when they’d been in school with me, tall lean, hair super short. They’d been two years ahead of me. I had had no idea they were related to Etta Mae. Had no idea much about any of them. They’d always kept to themselves. I remember the big thing when Coach had tried to get them to try out for football. But they weren’t interested, none of them, and things had gotten pretty nasty when it’d been implied that if they didn’t do football then they’d probably never make it to college. Well, Coach had been proven wrong. Now they were all attending the University of New Orleans on academic scholarships—not sports ones. All three. That was pretty cool. In fact, I’d always kind of thought of them as brainiacs and had been a bit surprised when Gabe had said they were interested in shooting.

“You’re Riley?” asked Curtis shaking my hand.

“Yeah. You wouldn’t remember me, but I remember you guys.”

“’Course you do. We were front page news.”

“How’s school?” I asked.

“Awesome. Just finished end-of-term exams.”

“Cool.”

“I’m Curtis. This is John and Daniel,” he said, even though I remembered. Well, okay, they were identical, so it was helpful that he’d said who was who.

“Hey,” I said.

And in unison they responded: “Hey.”

“Thanks, guys, for helping out,” I said as I got my mother’s shotgun out of its carrying case from inside the trunk and followed them around the back of Gabe’s place to the yard and the bayou.

“Well, we’ve been wanting to do something about all this for a good long time,” said Daniel.

“How’d you come up with this plan anyway?” asked John.

“Once everyone’s here, we’ll explain it all. It’s…kind of a big story.”

“I’m good with that,” said John.

We joined Gabe at the back porch. He’d done some decent work on it, and there was now a frame up. There still weren’t any planks across, but we could sit and lean against the supports.

Gabe was sitting on the far end of the frame staring out at the bayou, one leg dangling and one foot up on a cross beam. He was in a tank top and jeans and looked very comfortable in his own skin. I envied him so much. I was terrified about all of this even though it was all my idea. Maybe, actually, because it was my idea. But there he was, looking as cool as ever, like this was just any other day.

“Hey,” I said approaching him. I left the brothers to chat with Father Peter who was standing at the water’s edge.

He turned and looked at me as if he was surprised to see me. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” Gabe hopped down off the frame. “Everyone here?”

“Still waiting for Lacy and Wild Frank.”

“Makes for a very interesting army.”

“If by interesting you mean ridiculous, then yeah.”

“So the brothers brought a rifle each, and you’ve got your shotgun,” he said nodding toward me. I wondered if he was thinking about the time I shot him in the face with it.

“Yeah, was tricky getting it out of the house,” I said. “Father Peter also has a rifle, and I’m sure Wild Frank is going to bring lots of options.”

“And Lacy…”

“If Lacy comes at all, I’ll be surprised. But I don’t know if she’ll be able to bring anything with her.”

“We’re pretty well-stocked if she doesn’t.” Gabe jammed his hands in his pockets and looked at me. He didn’t say anything, and that made me feel a bit awkward.

“So…” I said.

“So.”

I lowered my voice. “We’re going to have to tell them everything.”

“I know.”

“You ready for it?”

“Have to be.”

There was the squeal of tires from the road and we turned to see a plume of dust rise up from behind the house.

“I think Wild Frank’s here…” I said.

Sure enough: “Where’s this army? I’m ready to kick some serious angel ass!”

Wild Frank turned the corner, his long greasy hair shoved messily into a camouflage trucker cap. He was wearing a fishing vest—you know, the kind with hundreds of pockets that you put tackle and lures in—but he had the pockets filled with other stuff. I think he thought he was dressed like an army commando or something. ’Course he wasn’t wearing a shirt under the fishing vest.

“Frank,” said Father Peter approaching him. I think Father Peter felt responsible for him. He was, after all, his suggestion.

“Father Priest!” said Wild Frank taking his hand and pulling him into a manly hug, complete with three hard smacks on Father Peter’s back.

“Glad you could help us out,” replied Father Peter, wincing from the pain.

“Do you think he’ll be able to keep his mouth shut about you?” I asked Gabe in a whisper.

“Don’t think it would matter if he didn’t. No one would take that guy seriously.”

“Now that’s what I like to see!” called out Wild Frank. “A hot blonde with a shotgun.”

He must have meant me. I was the only blonde in sight. So I raised a hand and waved slightly reluctantly. He grinned back, then held up his hand. “Be back in a sec!”

“Oh god, this was a terrible idea,” I said, turning toward Gabe.

He laughed. “It’ll be okay.”

“Check it!” called Wild Frank returning.

Gabe glanced over his shoulder. “Or maybe not.”

Wild Frank was brandishing two sawed-off shotguns, holding one in each hand. At his hip was his usual sidearm. “I’m ready! Just tell me where to aim.”

“That’s…great…Frank…” I said approaching him. “But first we have to talk about the plan and everything. And wait for Lacy Green.”

“Shit, you’re kidding me? Two hot blondes with shotguns? Sweet Jesus.” He glanced over at Father Peter. “No offense, Father Priest.”

Father Peter just shook his head.

Unbelievably, the other hot blonde showed up fifteen minutes later. She was, as ever, dressed in her cheerleading outfit, which was, of course, deeply impractical, but I supposed no more so than wearing a fishing vest with no shirt. She made a big show of the fact that she was doing us a great favor by sighing hard upon stepping out of her car and taking in the scenery with a shake of her head.

“Nice,” she said in a way that implied the total opposite. She joined our group and gave us a once over. “Seriously?”

Seriously.

“Hey, Lacy. Glad you could join us,” I said as warmly as I could.

“This is your army?”

“Yup.” Pretending like it was a sincere question, I moved on to the introductions. “So you probably remember the Alexander brothers.” She looked at them blankly. “And of course you know Father Peter and Gabe…” Wild Frank cleared his throat loudly, and I sighed. “And Frank Tinsley.”

“Y’all can’t be serious.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.

“Less is more,” I said not quite believing it. “We can’t have too many folks, otherwise we’d draw suspicion.”

“Oh, can it, Riley. It has nothing to do with that. This was all you could find.”

“Fine, yes, maybe you’re right. But I still think we can do this,” I said, my voice getting higher in pitch. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I knew it was Gabe trying to calm me down.

“Lacy, you don’t have to help,” said Gabe. “But let us just tell you the story and then you can make up your mind.”

Gabe seemed to cool her down a little, and she shrugged, I guess in agreement. Our little team gathered around the dock, which Gabe had reinforced and didn’t look like it was going to collapse under our weight anymore.

Then it was time to tell the story, or at least the story as Gabe knew it. I left out all the same stuff, that Gabe had been a slave and so on. It felt a bit too private. And not necessary to convince them of my plan. I was glad Father Peter already knew the story and that I had Gabe to help me. He was amazing at making anything seem plausible and at easing people’s reactions. Which was really useful when I explained everything. ’Course it helped that we were a town that had been dealing with these angels for six years now. It made almost anything fantastical totally possible: Gabe was from the 50s? Well, with the help of those old yearbooks and just the way Gabe was and talked every day…Sure, why not? Used to be an angel, now just a guy? Makes sense. Our angels aren’t really angels after all? I knew it! We’d like to use these “angels” as target practice…“Hell yeah!” Well…at least we had Wild Frank on our side.

’Course it wasn’t that simple, really. You could tell they were all a bit overwhelmed with everything we were telling them, but they recovered from the shock pretty darn quickly. All things considered.

“You really think if we shoot them down, we can save them?” asked Curtis after the long quiet that followed the story.

“I do,” I replied. “It’s what happened with Gabe at least, like killing them frees them to be human again or something. I think that there must be something special about the time and day they come. Maybe they only have a brief window of opportunity to come into our world, which is why they don’t show up more often. So they look like these angel things, and then you kill them, and since they’re dead or whatever they don’t have power or magic anymore. Then when that window closes, they turn back into humans. I mean, that seems to be what happened to Gabe.”

“What do you mean by window?” asked John.

“I dunno, like a crack between our world and theirs…”

Everyone sat and thought about that quietly for a while.

“I could be wrong…” I said when no one said anything.

“Makes sense,” said Gabe finally. “Makes a lot of sense.”

“Damn good sense,” said Wild Frank enthusiastically.

“How exactly are we going to shoot these angels?” asked Lacy. It was an annoying question, only because that was probably our biggest challenge.

“We train,” replied Gabe.

“We’ve got almost four months. That gives us a lot of time,” I added.

“We should maybe figure out what everyone’s level is,” said John, “before creating a plan.”

“Good idea,” I said. I liked how everyone seemed pretty keen to get going.

Even Lacy seemed like she was interested, asking questions in a sarcastic tone that you knew she actually meant sincerely: “So, how’re we going to do that, then?”

“I guess we pick a target and shoot,” said Father Peter.

It was a practical suggestion. Gabe wandered over to where he’d been sitting on the porch and opened up a plastic bag. He took out a stack of paper plates.

“Figure we could tack them on to a tree, test aim and accuracy,” he said. “Let’s use the rifles for that.” We agreed, and he and Curtis set about finding a good tree in the brush with some distance to it and attaching the plate.

Lacy wandered over to me as they were doing all this. Any time she paid any attention to me, I automatically felt nervous. And defensive.

“I can’t shoot,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“I can’t shoot.”

“I thought you said you went hunting with your dad?” I turned to look at her and was surprised to see a look of serious concern in her eyes.

“I’ve been with him. Twice. Was never allowed to touch the gun. Not something a lady does.”

“Why’d you—”

“I lied, okay? I lied. I…didn’t know, when you asked, why you were asking. Then, when you told me, I…wanted to help.” She seemed deeply ashamed to admit that last part.

I sighed. “Lacy. I’ve only shot a gun myself half a dozen times. Not sure if Gabe has ever. That’s why we’re giving ourselves this much time. Look, you’re head cheerleader, you have amazing coordination, and you’re really disciplined. You’ll be fine.” Lacy nodded, but I could tell she was feeling unsure. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll go first, and you can see that I really don’t have that much experience, okay?”

Lacy finally made eye contact with me again and gave me the world’s tiniest smile. Then she turned and marched off to join the other two Alexander brothers, who seemed very happy to see her.

“Okay, we’re all set up,” said Curtis, as he and Gabe returned. “Who’s first?”

There was a sudden loud blast from the barrel of a gun, and everyone ducked for cover.

“Frank!” yelled Daniel.

“Damn, missed!” said Wild Frank aiming the shotgun again.

“Stop!” said John rushing over and pushing the gun to one side. “’Course you missed, firing that thing.”

“You can’t just shoot,” added Daniel his hand on his head. “We gotta take turns.”

Wild Frank looked at John for a moment, then nodded and lowered his weapon.

“Well…” said Gabe, “who’s second?”

I glanced over at Lacy. “Me,” I said standing up. I walked over to where Gabe and Curtis were waiting, and Curtis handed me his rifle.

“I’ve loaded it for you,” he said

“Thanks,” I replied, taking it. “So what do I do?” I asked.

“Disengage the safety,” said Curtis showing me.

“Then aim and shoot,” said Gabe.

“Aim and shoot.” I lifted the rifle just as Chris had shown me way back when. It felt different from a shotgun. Having a scope was definitely handy. I looked down it and the white plate tacked to the tree around 50 feet away through the thick brush came into focus.

I thought of Chris, standing behind me, calmly showing me what to do. It reminded me why I was doing any of this in the first place.

I aimed.

I shot.

It felt different, pulling the rifle’s trigger. And the sound still shocked me. But I knew I was already getting used to shooting when the recoil really didn’t get to me at all this time.

“I think she hit it!” said Daniel, as I lowered the rifle.

I laughed. “Thanks for the support. You don’t have to say that, though.”

“No, I think you did,” he replied.

I shook my head. I was glad Gabe had asked the Alexander brothers to help out. They were awfully sweet.

Wild Frank took off and crashed through the brush toward the plate to check it out, running like his life depended on it. We all watched him. He was pretty entertaining to have around when he wasn’t holding a loaded weapon.

He arrived at the plate and stood still for a moment. Then: “Holy shit!”