Young Love in Zombieland

“What do you think will happen?  It’s going to be massive, huh?”  Samantha swept her long bangs behind her left ear.  “Once, I saw my dad use a harpoon.  I don’t know where in the hell he found a harpoon this far inland… but it was disgusting.”
“I can totally picture your dad popping three or four Zed heads in one shot with a harpoon.  I miss him.  Sam, you have the coolest dad.”
“I know.  I miss him too.  Let’s do this so we have something great to tell him about.  He will be so impressed.”  
Drew’s seventeen year old frame was very muscular, even though he was tall and slender.  He picked up the SMAW and threw it over his right shoulder like it only weighed one or two pounds.  Granted, it was more awkward than heavy.  Thanks to fiberglass, the later models were actually pretty light-weight at about thirty-five pounds loaded.  
Sam and Drew had started getting hot and heavy a few months earlier, and she blushed at his handsome man-boy grin.  He had planned ahead to look as much like the Rambo poster hanging in his bunk room as possible, even though he looked more like a post-apocalyptic Calvin Klein model than Stallone.  “They drew first blood, not me,” Drew tried to do an impression he’d heard the coach say in reference to Rambo.  Drew, of course, had never seen that movie or any other.  But, there was an abundance of Hollywood paraphernalia all over the modern world.
They stood at the top of their training center look-out at the old-world Anniston Army Depot.  It was a good location to start a Zed Specialist training center since it was in a location populous enough to have supplies,  access to a major interstate, and targets, but not in a major metropolitan area.  Rather, it was in a prime location just in-between Atlanta and Birmingham.  The U.S.Z.C. (United States Zombie Counteraction) had created several of these locations at older military bases around the U.S. (and around the world, more likely than not).  
It started with the American Intelligence agencies scouring the “net” for young adults who were experts on the subject.  Freaks, geeks and weirdos.  They got military “safe-housing” in return for agreeing to join the program and withstand a boot camp aimed at getting lazy videogame kids into shape in a hurry.  It was tough, but those who managed to hang in there became the “Saviors” of mankind.  Modern military tactics had advanced to the point that they relied too heavily on modern technology.  When the lights started going out, it required some drastic back-tracking in the way things were handled, and a generation or two of kids who had been raised on zombie/monster movies and strategy games was a great place to start.  Now, almost all viable teens spend at least a couple of years in one of these training centers.  It’s a matter of life or death in a world that has moved on in a way the average person was not prepared for.
Coach Freeman would probably break Drew’s arm if he knew what the two were up to.  Both Sam and Drew were seventeen and only a month or two away from their graduation, so neither was too worried about the consequences of their unapproved shooting practice.  They had found the “Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon” while on clean-up tour along the outskirts of town.  Having a military depot meant that early on, a lot of supplies had been spread around town and every sweep lead to more found.  Drew managed to keep his “new” rocket launcher hidden under a stack of tarps on the back of his ‘51 International pick-up truck after the last sweep.  There wasn’t much gasoline left in the States, but the militia had most of what there was, and rumor had it that a few refineries were up and running on a limited basis.  The “Tower” had been added on to the Depot after the training center had been there a couple of years.  It was used in communication, as those abilities were being rebuilt and it was also an excellent look-out and sniper stand.  
Sam placed earmuffs over Drew’s ears then on her own.  They were expecting this assault to be terribly loud, though neither had ever actually shot a rocket launcher.  She had brought one of their weapons textbooks just in case they had a problem, and they decided it was a good idea to harness in, as high up as they were, just in case Drew was propelled backwards.  
“Good luck, gorgeous,” she mouthed to him, anticipation obvious.  “Take those fuckers down.”
There was a car yard about 450 yards away, on the North side of the base that had recently become a home to some Roamers.  The scraps had been stripped to the point that they knew there was nothing useful left there, so this morning it became a large scale target practice site.  
Drew lined up the launcher and put his eye up to the sight.  With his left hand he held up three fingers, then two, then one.  He clamped down on the forward grip, and pulled the trigger with his right index finger.  Sam watched the small warhead they’d stolen whirl forward and fly just over the trees toward the graveyard of cars.  
When the rocket hit, Drew would have put money on an old Jeep flying up at 50 yards as a ball of fire.  They looked at one another, did a high-five, and quickly set down the launcher.  Sam was putting their ear muffs away as Drew unfastened his harness.  If they hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out to the zone and check the damage, they would probably had been all over each other.  Adrenaline combined with raging teen hormones tends to make the blandest of situations hot and heavy; this situation was hot and heavy without the aid of young love.
Holding hands as they ran down the stairs to get away from the tower as soon as possible, Sam whispered to Drew, “God, I love you .  I can’t wait to tell Dad.”