Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

As we neared the end of the yard, I saw that the fence in front of us had another section knocked out, the leftover material of which was strewn across the ground close by. We drove through the opening into an adjoining yard, which we continued through, passed between another two houses, and emptied out onto a street one block over from where we’d started. This area was much more open in the direction we wanted to travel and made for comparatively smooth sailing.

“I didn’t realize you’d been this way before,” I said. “When did you open up those fences? Was that before we arrived?”

“That wasn’t me,” Amanda said. “I only found them that way. Someone else was responsible for that little side passage.”

“Nice,” said Wang. “Lucky you found it.”

“The kicker,” Amanda said, “is that I’d been up this way once before when we first arrived with Billy, and that path wasn’t there. It was done sometime after we came to live here. There’re still people out and about. We run into them from time to time.”

“Bad?” I asked.

“Once,” she said. “Most times they run away before you realize you’ve seen anything. We try to call out to them and get them to talk, but it doesn’t work out.”

“Imagine it has to do with the hardware you’re carrying,” I said, nodding to her rifle. “Jake left his rifle behind when he approached us, which was good. I might have dropped him otherwise.”

“Yes, well, Jake has bigger balls than brains sometimes,” Amanda grimaced. “I personally don’t see how carrying a rifle makes a person any more dangerous these days. It’s just another piece of gear. I’m not about to set mine aside so I can make a stranger feel comfortable.”

Her tone didn’t leave a lot of room for discussion on the matter, so I let it drop. I could see her point, though. The presence of a rifle didn’t automatically indicate an evildoer. It sure as hell upped the ante if you happened to guess the wrong way as to a person’s intentions, however.

We pulled into a bank parking lot eerily devoid of cars in a part of the city that was crippled by traffic congestion on the streets. The shape of the bank building was irregular, with jutting sections and recessed alcoves, which all served to capture garbage as it blew past, causing it to pile up waist-high in some areas. Dormant parking lot lights towered high overhead, never to function again; a few of them had fallen to lie at odd angles across the asphalt for tens of meters. The base of each one had a mangled appearance, and I guessed (because all I could do was guess) that they must have been struck by vehicles at some point.

The front door was an all-glass affair that had been thoroughly busted out, leaving the entrance and main lobby of the branch covered in a layer of the same filth that had stacked up against the outside walls. Amanda parked such that we were pointed directly into the structure and lit the inside with the jeep’s headlights. The inside of the building looked angry. Hungry. It looked like some half-sleeping thing waiting patiently for three assholes to make the mistake of setting foot inside.

“I really hate how dark everything is on the inside, now,” Amanda said as she regarded the entrance. “It doesn’t matter if the place is a preschool; it always feels like something’s just waiting to jump out and get you. It gets old.”

“As long as it doesn’t get routine,” I said.

“What’s that mean?” Wang asked.

I sighed. “You always want to feel that unease when you go in to clear a building. It means you’re going to be alert. You want to be switched on like that. If you’re bored, you’re liable to do something stupid. More than likely you’re liable to get a buddy killed.” I got out of the jeep, patted down my rig to confirm all was in its place and adjusted my rifle. “Come on. It’ll be less spooky once we’ve been through the place and know the layout.”

I approached the bank entrance but stopped just short of walking in, waiting for the others to catch me up. When I sensed they stood close by, I said, “If nothing else, this’ll be a good opportunity to practice moving as a team. I’ll take point; Amanda, you get the rear. Ready?”

They said they were so I switched on my weapon light, gave what I could see of the lobby from the outside a quick sweep and, seeing no movement, advanced.

There were a series of offices encircling the lobby and entryway of the building, most of which were walled in glass. Regardless of my ability to see inside, I decided to clear each room individually; both to get the practice in for Wang and Amanda and also because each office had a wraparound desk that would easily conceal one or more people if they were crouched.

They moved pretty well and, to my satisfaction, successfully implemented many of the concepts I had covered with them back in the valley, which impressed me considering that I’d only just begun drilling them using the container homes as well as the cabin when Jake would allow it. I did note from time to time, however, that Wang had a habit of covering my sector; essentially, he was pointing his rifle in the same place I was. When you’re moving in a team as we were, you want each person to be covering their own sector. You hug a wall whenever you can, and your point guy covers forward. The next guy in line should be covering out in the direction opposite the wall, and so on down the line until you get to the rear position, which needs to cover (surprise, surprise) the rear. The pattern and positions shift around depending on the area, whether you’re moving down a hallway, up a staircase, where a door might be positioned within a room, and the like, but the overall concept is the same. Every person covers his own sector and you position in such a way that you can achieve overlapping sectors whenever possible.

Wang had a habit of just following wherever I put my weapon light. I didn’t really blame the guy; each physical room layout has a predetermined set of positions that fire team members need to assume automatically. These positions are chosen for the purposes of maximum dominance (or coverage) as well as to ensure that team members aren’t flagging each other. There’s a lot of shit to remember, all of which changes based on your position in the team, and this all has to be muscle memory so that you can move fluidly through an area, focusing on the task at hand rather than worrying about where your position of dominance was supposed to be, whether you should take a knee or not, and so on. They all just needed a lot more drilling, which would only come with time. Given the circumstances, I was still pretty happy with his performance. All I had to do was whisper, “Wang: your sector,” and his muzzle would snap to position (as evidenced by his shifting light).

I soon realized that Amanda seemed to have it all down, either because she’d managed to commit everything I’d covered thus far to memory or because she had a natural instinct for this kind of thing. It was good to know, yet not particularly amazing. You encountered people like her every so often; naturals who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time; folks who always put their feet right and only had to be told a thing once. In my own anecdotal (and also correct) experience, these were the same people who made outstanding dancers; people who seemed forever comfortable in their own bodies and could always move them exactly as they intended… natural athletes, in other words. I didn’t know if this was the case with Amanda at the time, though I would later learn that she is, in fact, an outstanding dancer, but she did seem to be a natural. This did not excite me, however. Everyone has a weakness that needs to be worked, without exception. I was just still waiting to discover hers.