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

We went through the first few offices in quick order, stacking up at the door, moving in to find our points, pronouncing the room cleared, and moving on. By the fourth office, we made what I’ll call an unfortunate discovery.

“Jesus Christ!” gasped Amanda. “What the hell?”

“Shit,” said Wang.

And he was right. In the back of the office, hidden behind the desk, was a prodigious pile of the stuff. Arranged in various shapes, colors, and consistencies, as though an artist of the obscene had been laboring away for weeks (or maybe even months) at some kind of fucked up, Howard Hughes-level magnum opus of turd sculpture. Judging by the smell, much of it was fresh.

“Goddamn,” said Wang, “why the hell wouldn’t they just do this in the bathroom?”

“Perhaps the bathroom’s already full?” I pointed out.

A gagging sound came from behind us. I turned to see Amanda bent over outside of the office, leaning her right shoulder against the glass partition separating the little room from the lobby. She hadn’t actually emptied her stomach as far as I could see, but she looked close to it.

“Okay, come on. Let’s move along,” I said, and backed Wang out of the room. Shutting the door behind me, I placed a light hand on Amanda’s left shoulder and asked, “Okay?”

She nodded without straightening up, panting, and shot a thumbs up over her shoulder. After a few moments her breathing returned to normal and she advanced a few steps forward before standing up, probably so she could put the room outside of her range of vision. Wiping sweat from her forehead, she said, “You forget how disgusting people can be sometimes, you know?”

I agreed with her, though I actually did not ever forget. A pile of shit in a corner is the least of what I’ve seen, even if it did look like an original Jackson Pollock.

“Hey, can we call this area covered, or what?” asked Wang.

“Have we cleared every office?” I asked.

“Well, no, but come on, man. They’re all glass. We can see inside. There’s no one here.”

“They’re not cleared until they’re cleared, Wang,” I said. “If it was a good idea to clear the first few, it’s still a good idea to go through the rest.”

“Fu-uck…” he groaned, tilting his head back. “Fine. You’re right. Let’s get it over with.”

It turned out that they were all empty, as I knew they would be, but I didn’t care. Empty rooms or not, it was still good practice, and Wang needed all he could get, whether he was willing to admit it or not. It was good for Amanda as well. She was still a little grey after nearly vomiting and moving around a bit helped her to re-center.

We completed the area and thus began to move down a hallway connecting the main lobby to what appeared to be a smaller back area containing additional offices, a cafeteria/rec room area, and, all the way at the end of the hall, what I hoped would be an employee locker room of sorts. I noted this last area, assuming that any kind of security shack or locker would likely be located there. Amanda had the same idea as well, judging by her reaction, but I held them to the plan of clearing area by area, which was probably not a bad idea, in hindsight.

We made our way down the hallway such that we had decent cross cover for a three-man team; I was along the right wall covering the left side of the hallway, Wang was along the left wall covering the right side, and Amanda was to the rear and in the center of us, covering dead ahead. As we advanced, I caught a hint of movement around the cafeteria door jamb on the left side of the hall and extended my hand to stop the others. They immediately tensed up.

My mind began racing furiously, running through options and discarding them as fast as they were considered. If this had been a normal situation, I would have pulled a flashbang off my vest, tossed it into the room, and rolled in hot. This was anything but a normal situation. I didn’t know a damned thing about who or what was on the other side of that doorway. In fact, I didn’t even know if it was human or not; it could just be a scared dog or nothing at all. It may have been that I just saw a shadow cast by my weapon light. If the room were empty, it would be a waste of a priceless bit of gear; it didn’t look like we’d be stocking up on additional grenades any time soon. Even if the room wasn’t empty, what if it was just a kid?

I really, really missed having decent intel at my disposal. We usually had a good idea who we’d find in a building when I used to do this stuff for a living; all the recon had already happened by the time we were sent in, for the most part, so we felt more confident about mixing it up. This situation, by contrast, was horse shit. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go in hot or easy.

I finally sighed, coughed out a “ fuck ” beneath my breath, and raised my voice to address no one in particular.

“Alright, goddamnit. Whoever’s in there, I hear you… existing . I’m coming in right now. I’m armed to the teeth and prepared to ruin your whole fucking experience. I’m only interested in talking, okay? Bullets are expensive, and I hate wasting them, so you be cool and so will I. I guarantee, though, that if you play stupid games, you’re going to win stupid prizes.”

I glanced back at my buddies. Amanda was good to go. Wang, with his bugged-out eyes and hanging jaw, looked like a spilled can of fuck.

Well, fine. Two out of three ain’t bad.

I moved to the left wall and choked up on the door, waiting for the others to stack behind me. When Wang tapped me on my shoulder, I hunkered and pushed in.

There were five of them within easy view as we positioned ourselves in the room, some of them behind an older wooden laminate folding table that had been turned on its side as a useless barrier, given that it would be ripped to splinters and dust by our rifles. Two men were standing out in the open; they were both armed (one with a pistol while the other had a rifle) but had their weapons pointed at the ground. They were all filthy and underfed, giving me flashbacks of the King Soopers in Colorado Springs.

When I saw that their weapons were lowered, I did the same with my rifle and said, “Muzzles down, guys,” to the others. They complied, but all of us kept the rifle butts pulled into our shoulders, ready to raise them back up on a moment’s notice.

There were two women and three men; two of these men stood armed, as I said. I gave up trying to determine their age. The grime caked onto their faces emphasized every crack and wrinkle, adding on years if not decades to their appearances. Their combined odor was at least as offensive as their appearance; they smelled like sweaty Funyuns and hot, buttery garbage. As I looked closer, I realized the two armed men were frozen solid with white-knuckled grips on their firearms. A loud fart could have knocked them over.

“Hey, ease up,” I said. “We’re not here to start anything, and we’re definitely not here to take… whatever it is you might have. Just… just take it easy.”

From my peripheral vision, I saw Amanda disengage the swivel stud on her sling and slowly lean her rifle up against the wall behind her. She resumed her position and let her hands hang at her sides.

Well, now who has more balls than brains ? I thought, and refocused on the two men in front of me.

“Why are you here?” asked one of the women from behind the table.

“Just looking for radios,” I said.

“Radios?” said one of the men, confusion clear in his voice. “What d’you mean?”

“Radios,” I repeated. “Two-way radios, like what you’d see security guards carry. We come from a larger group of people, and we’d find them useful. I don’t need to explain why, do I? We suck at smoke signals, is the main thing.”