Zombie Training

In my first post of 2012 I mentioned that this is the year to get in my best shape yet - I used Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley as badass inspiration. Along with working on my figurative guns I also imagined this being the year I should learn how to shoot an actual gun.

Fast forward a couple months into the new year - it's a seemingly mild Saturday morning and my good friend James calls to tell me he wants to take me out to the country to teach me how to shoot zombies skeet.

As we're driving out deeper in to the country I keep imagining that scene from Kill Bill where Uma as Beatrice Kiddo gets shot in the chest with a shotgun shell filled with rock salt. Then she's buried alive and relies on her kung fu training to get her out of a tight situation. My mind starts going wild wondering if James is actually taking me out to the country to shoot me. And I don't know kung fu. How am I ever going to survive the post-apocalypse!?

Next thing I know I'm in the middle of a field with a dog named Pete running cirlces around me. I'm holding a shotgun and I'm shaking in my boots. Partially because the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up but also because I'm a little scared holding something so dangerous. It just doesn't feel natural. James hands me a pair of thin gloves - the ones he wears to go catfish noodling (yes, really) - and goes through an extensive safety lesson with me. Things like never, ever, ever, ever point the gun at anything you wouldn't want to shoot. And never, ever, ever, ever put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot. And don't forget to click the safety on right after shooting.







So James shoots off a few rounds and now it's my turn. He tells me to hold the gun in tight to my shoulder and plant my feet firmly into the ground. He loads up some skeet - I yell "pull" and line up the soaring clay disc in my sites. And BOOM.





The zombie skeet explodes in mid-air. I hit it - on my first shot. Even more fun than shooting is cocking the shotgun - it felt surreal to be doing something I've only seen in the movies. We took turns shooting until our fingers went numb from the cold. I didn't even notice that I felt like I had been kicked in the shoulder by a horse. But the bruise it left the next day definitely made me feel like a badass.



Die Zombies - an iPhone short. Coming soon.