Free The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White Page A

shotguns. There were the typical rednecks, cops, and wannabe gangsters too. She wondered how often criminals were in here shopping for guns right alongside the cops who would later arrest them?
    Josh and Sarah walked over to one of the many display cases. A salesman with a thick Alabama accent walked over to them.
    “Good morning. What can I do ya fer?”
    “I’m looking for a handgun for my wife.”
    “Something little?”
    “No. Something big,” Sarah said.
    Both Josh and the salesman looked at her, surprised.
    “Well, okay then little lady. You ever handled a weapon before?”
    “My father was a lifetime NRA member. He taught all of us how to shoot. It’s been about fifteen or twenty years though, so I’m sure I’m rusty.”
    “You wantin’ this for home protection or to carry around witcha?”
    Sarah looked at Josh, who shrugged in response.
    “Home, I guess.”
    “Then how about a .38 Special? Smith and Wesson makes a nice one and it’s relatively cheap.”
    “I don’t want a revolver.”
    “Okay. Well, the customer’s always right.” He reached under the counter and took out a small semiautomatic. “How about a .380? It has about the same stopping power as a .38.”
    “Too small. I want to put a big-ass hole in whatever I shoot at.”
    Sarah didn’t smile when she spoke.
    “Then you want a .40. It has more stopping power than the nine-millimeter but it doesn’t have the extra kick of a .44. Glock and Sig Sauer make nice ones but they’re pretty pricey. We do have a used Sig on sale for five hundred dollars.”
    “That’s a sale? How much is it regular price?”
    “Nine hundred dollars.”
    “Wow. I guess that is a sale then.” She turned to Josh. “Can we afford it?”
    “Well, the mortgage is paid and we don’t have a car payment. We’ll have to tighten the belts a bit but, yeah, we can afford it.”
    “Then that’s what I want.”
    “How many bullets you want?”
    “I want two or three boxes so I can practice.”
    “How about two boxes of target ammo and then a box of hollow points for that stopping power ya want? How’s that sound?”
    “That sounds about right.”
    “You want to try it out first? We got an indoor range here in the back.”
    “Sounds like a great idea to me. What do you say?” Josh said.
    Sarah shrugged.
    “Then let’s go for it. I guess.”
    The salesman handed them both a pair of plastic goggles, headphones, and a couple of paper targets with a bull’s-eye in the center.
    “Do you have any of those targets that look like people?”
    The salesman cocked an eyebrow at her, then looked at Josh as if to say, “Are you sure you know what you’re doin’ here, buddy?”
    Josh held up his hands in surrender.
    “Yeah. They’s two dollars a piece.”
    “I’ll take five.”
    The salesman shook his head and took five targets out of a cabinet behind the counter. The targets had pictures of men in ski masks holding guns. They looked like the type of criminals Batman beat up in between fighting supervillains in the comic books Sarah hadread as a child. The salesman handed the targets to Sarah, then opened the door and led the way into the shooting range.
    “My name’s Mike by the way.”
    He held out a big, meaty hand with hairy knuckles.
    Josh shook his hand first and then Sarah did the same.
    “Josh and Sarah Lincoln.”
    “Pleased to meet you both. Go ahead and put the goggles and headphones on before we get in there.”
    He put on his own, then waited while Sarah and Josh donned their own protective equipment.
    The range was full of people lined up putting holes in paper targets. There were couples like Josh and Sarah, fathers with their sons, and single men and women. The sound of the gunshots was deafening. They walked up to an empty booth and the salesman put the gun on the table along with two boxes of ammo and ejected the clip, laying the gun and the clip side by side.
    “Now you load the clip like this.”
    The salesman shook out eight bullets