Last Girls

11

"Christ," Denny yelped dropping onto one of the stones Angel had dragged around the fire pit.

Angel growled, and Alan tipped his beer into his mouth. "Another ten Ccs," Alan said. He swallowed, groaning. "Wish we had something stronger- or that you didn't have the constitution of a freaking grizzly."

"A werewolf and an undead gunslinger," Betsy said. "Did we stumble into some psycho Disneyland? Some kind of a slasher nature preserve?"

"A nightmare," Kelly said.

"Purgatory," Denny said.

"God, don't get all Catholic on us,"Alan said.

"I'm not," he pouted. "But like Lost. Like we died in that car wreck and we're being tried here."

"Orlike you hit your head and all of your sanity drained out of you," Lark said.

"Quitit," Angel said through a snarl. "Shouldn't turn on each other.Everything's too fucked up already. And we need to regroup. That wolfisn't gone."

"Shit,"Alan said.

"Right,"Betsy said, knelt down, and peeled the cowboy's fingers off his gun.She hefted it, and nearly dropped it. "Heavier than it looks,"she said.

"Kicks like a bull moose, too," Angel said. "Mi abuelo, we watched caballero peliculas- uh, cowboy movies. Grandfather. Sorry. Dolor has me screwed enough I'm lapsing into Espanol."

"Who else knows how to shoot?" Betsy asked, taking the other revolver off Angel's lap.

"You do?" Lark asked.

"Angel taught me." The other woman glared, and Betsy glared back. "First off, not remotely the time. Second, no, I didn't know he was bringing it, and third, really not the time."

"You'reright," Lark said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "This whole thing has just been too much."

"I sort of know," Denny said. "My dad tried to take me hunting,once."

"Tried?"Alan asked.

"I couldn't do it. Couldn't even carry the gun. I thought I'd be able to handle it; he made me watch the part of Bambi where his mom dies to prepare me. And I was fine, until I got in the car, with his old 22 rimfire across my lap. It weighed too much. And I realized about halfway there that I was shaking like a chihuahua on the Fourth of July. I tried, though. When we got there, I shouldered the rifle, and started to march. But it fell right through my fingers. Dad told me to pick it up but the moment I bent over for it, everything we had for breakfast came up. He left me there, crying. For hours. Came back once he got his buck. He didn't talk to me the whole ride back. Or for a couple weeks after, actually. I think that was the day he stopped pretending I was ever going to be like him. But before that, like in anticipation, he walked me through the safety basics."

"Anybody want to raise that ante?" Betsy asked.

"Ican- can still shoot straight," Angel said, reaching for the revolver.

"Youcan't even sit up straight," she replied. "Going once- I'll take watched any Van Damme or Segal movie more than once- going twice."She offered the revolver handled first to Denny.

"It's the confidence you've displayed in me that will carry me through,"he said.

"So I'm going to ask what is probably both an obvious and a stupid question at the same time, but do they need to be silver bullets?"

"I think the time for that question would have been when the dead cowboy was picking out his ammunition," Betsy said.

"Or the action movie answer," Lark said with a smile, "I guess we'll find out."