The Gunroom Novels & Stories

The air smelled of candle wax and gun oil. At the end of the hallway, double doors hung slightly ajar. My pulse thumped hard once. I raised my pistol and pushed the door open with my foot. What had once been a ballroom was now a fucking armory. Crates of rifles. Ammo stacked high. Kevlar vests. Enough firepower for a small army. Elizabeth sucked in a breath. “Jesus.” My lip curled. “He’s preparing for war.” Raphael spat a curse. “This isn’t a hideout. It’s a staging ground.”

My pulse tightened as I stepped into the weapon training room. It was located beneath Bastorin Academy—an underground facility lined with glass shooting bays, each with a small shelf for storing firearms. Straight ahead, the firing lanes stretched about 25 yards from the shooting positions. No one else was there yet; Alexei had told me to come early. Five in the morning, to be exact. I rubbed my palms together to warm them against the biting cold. My eyes swept across the room—rows of locked cabinets where the training weapons were stored, each secured with a code lock.

The heavy steel warehouse door rolled up slowly, and a gust carrying the metallic smell of rain rushed inside ahead of me. Housen approached, flanked by four heavily armed bodyguards, all of them in waterproof combat gear, still dripping from the storm. I watched a flicker of surprise cross Housen’s face when he saw me, quickly replaced by something greedier. The space behind him stretched far larger than I’d expected. Shelves reached the ceiling, the first level lined with AK-47s, M4 carbines, and Barrett sniper rifles, their metal gleaming cold and hard. The level above held crates of rifle rounds and armor-piercing bullets.

Raylan says as he walks ahead of me and I follow him, looking around. The floor is vast, with polished marble reflecting the bright overhead lights. One side has a boxing ring and a gym-like setup. Another has some office cubes. Third section is a glass conference room with a mock cityscape in the middle. The last section is a solid wall, so I cannot see much. We walk towards the end of the fourth section. “Are you familiar with gun safety?” “Not much,“ I say as Raylan presses numbers at a keypad on a metal door. As the door opens, I see rows of neatly arranged weapons.

“Come on. Let’s go shoot something. Clear our heads.” I smiled. Real soft. “Let’s go see how your balls handle a loaded barrel.” Get in the car.” His throat bobbed. “Sir?” “The range. You love the range, right?” I smiled widely. “Bring Mikey. And those three new boys. The fresh meat. I want to see what they’ve got.” Scarface swallowed. “Right away.” ******************************************************************** At The Gun Range. The gun range was underground. Private. Concrete walls, echoing chambers, bulletproof mirrors.

“Welcome to Stage 1, the Laser Test. This room is bulletproof, laserproof, soundproof — you name it. This is where you'd learn, through practice, how to use a gun. And not just any gun, a laser. Take those buds and tuck 'em in your ears. . . Put on these handgloves and that goggle. Remember not to let your emotions get the better of you, or you just might lose it all; and by ‘it’, I mean your life.

James says. "Uh. What basics?" I ask. I don't even need an explanation for what my dad wants me to do. Because I stand in front of a dark room with four separate cubicles, nets drawn around them and a target in front of each cubicle. Practice guns lie on some black tables, and as we walk in, our footsteps echo through the room. "Why would I even need a gun if you guys are following me around?" I ask James and Terry as I watch them prepare the ear protectors for me. Terry hands me a practice gun with practice bullets, and I put on the eat protectors.

Everything about her says she is lethal. We enter a small but brightly lit room. It’s lined with shelves filled with guns and ammunition. There’s a heavy scent of metal and oil in the air. I force myself not to breathe too deeply, focusing instead on the array of weapons before me. “This is where we keep the new stuff,” Blaire explains, walking toward a section in the back. I nod, doing my best to remain neutral, but my mind is already working. Wes will want to know everything. I make a mental note of each detail, each weapon, knowing I will need to get this information back to him.

It looked more like a mechanic workshop than a random garage. The first thing I noticed though, was the row of guns on the far end of the room. Army standard issue rifles and machine guns. Next to that was another display of knives and blades. There were car tools and spare parts everywhere, sure but I was more interested in the weapons. “Like a museum. Told ya." Ryan sniggered as we got out. "Thought you bailed.” A voice came from my right and I turned to see a face that looked almost exactly like Ryan's.

On the other side, there were different types of arrows, and daggers, safely placed in the bulletproof glass with a security code as their lock. In the middle, was the shooting area, they were divided, from the nearest spot, up to the farthest. There is also a door on the right side, headed to the forest, whenever they wanted to train in the field using toy guns. “Now let’s start,” Mariko announced as she took the pistol from the cabinet.