High Surf

Weather was bad last night. The surf was high and it washed a couple of those bags of shit up on our little island here.

We’re going to have to take them out before we can do anything else.

I’m trying to teach the older boy to shoot, so I figured as soon as I cleared the island, I’d let him target-practice with a couple of the ones up on shore. I showed him how to cock the gun and all of that, and I made him stay just inside the door while I went out.

There was a female and two males, and I put ‘em down sweet and easy, a routine kill. When I knew it was all right, I called Ronnie out.

“Come on, boy. You can come out now. Help me drag these son of a bitches over to the cliff, though. I don’t want ‘em up here, even dead.”

He didn’t say a word. He was staring at the corpses with such a look of awe and horror I thought I must not’ve got one of ‘em all the way.

I whirled around, weapon ready, but they were just laying there.

I looked over at the boy.

“Something wrong, son?”

“Yeah,” he told me, pointing at the dead woman. “That’s my mom.”