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

The other armed man snorted. “Yeah, makes sense. What are you, military or something? You got the look, sorta, but your two friends look like they’re wearing daddy’s uniform.”

I didn’t like this one’s tone. Of the two armed men, he stood to our right with a guarded (I’d almost say aggressive) posture. I rotated slightly to my right so that all it would take to put a bead on him would be to raise my muzzle. I heard Amanda shift to my rear left as well, but I couldn’t see her anymore and so couldn’t tell how she had positioned herself.

“Something,” I said in answer to his question.

He snorted again and glanced at the others in his group. Turning his attention back to us, he said, “Well, I guess we’re all in luck, anyways. There are, indeed, some radios here. We’ll let you have them, too, in exchange for food and water.”

“Crap,” Wang said from behind me. “We don’t have any.”

“Oh, now I have to call bullshit on that,” said the snorting man. “You all look well fed and strong, just look at how strong they all look,” he glanced back to the others in his group as he gestured at us with a free hand, still holding his pistol in the other; I could see that it was a large framed revolver of some sort, chrome-finished and angry.

“He just means we didn’t bring any with us,” I said calmly. “Let’s just take it easy, here. We can work something out. I’ll trade you food and water for radios, no problem. We just have to go back and get it. Are you folks willing to wait here while we go?”

“He said he had a lot more people where he come from, right?” said the other armed man on the left; the one holding the rifle. “Suppose they all come back lookin’ to fuck us up?”

“Teddy…” one of the women whimpered from behind the table.

“Hush, now,” said the snorting man. I couldn’t tell if he was Teddy or not; she may have been talking to the guy with the rifle, or just to the third guy hunkered behind the table with the women.

“Look,” said Amanda before I could respond. “If we wanted to light you up, we would have done that by now. Do you see the hardware hanging off my friend’s chest? He has at least a couple of grenades. He could have happily tossed one in here instead of talking to you guys. I just put my rifle down. What more do you need?”

“Hard to say,” said the man with the revolver. “Could be y’all’s just friendly. Could be, you just don’t like the odds, one-sided or not. Could be you got six or twelve more like yourself… turns lopsided odds into a sure goddamned thing, don’t it?”

“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked, moving my index finger down over the trigger of my rifle. “You don’t intend to let us leave? Spell it out for me.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said the man with the rifle. “Nobody said that! Let’s just work through this.”

“Yes, let’s do,” I growled. “We’re offering to get you all some food and water in exchange for the radios you say you have. Note: I’m not demanding to see them. I’ll go get your munchies without demanding proof, see? What the fuck?”

“One of you stays here,” said the snorting man. “Insurance, like…”

“Teddy!” barked the third man behind the table.

“I said to be quiet, goddamnit! I got this!”

“If you’re dumb enough to think I’m leaving one of my people here with you, I have to question how it’s even possible that you know how to breathe,” I said.

Things got very quiet. There was a good five-count where nobody said anything, and then finally Teddy whispered, “I guess we have a real problem, then, don’t we?”

Without raising the revolver, he cocked the hammer back. Three shots erupted from behind me, fast enough to sound like a full-auto machine gun except for the fact that the report was clearly from a pistol. Teddy dropped his revolver, grabbed at the center of his chest, and fell over.

I was on my knees and swinging my muzzle out to the left towards the guy with the rifle, only to see that he had thrown it to the ground, put his hands in the air, and was screaming, “ No, no, no !” repeatedly. The women and third man had dived out of sight behind the table and were crying audibly.

I looked back to the left and saw Amanda with her Glock out; sweeping the barrel calmly from person to person (I supposed she was able to see the other three behind the table since she was still standing). Wang, to his credit, had his rifle up and trained on Teddy, who lay on the floor, still clutching his chest with one hand, and moaning, “Ah, fuckin’ shot me. Fuckin’ assholes… what the hell?” Wang’s face had gone white as a sheet, and the barrel of his AR trembled visibly.

I engaged the safety on my rifle, stood up, and sidled over to Wang. Placing my hand gently on his weapon’s rail, I pushed down steadily and said, “We’re good, Wang. Secure that rifle and get a breather. It’s okay.”

He took a deep, trembling breath, and nodded shakily. There were tears standing out in his eyes, ready to spill over. It was the adrenaline, of course; there must have been about a pint of the stuff chugging through his veins, just like mine.

I walked around behind Amanda and picked up the castaway rifle without looking too closely at it; I felt a synthetic stock, but that was about all I gathered at the time. It turned out to be a Ruger 10/22 Takedown—not exactly an infantry weapon but probably great for small game. I stacked it up against the wall next to Amanda’s Tavor and then retrieved Teddy’s handgun: a Smith and Wesson .44 magnum.

I dropped out the cylinder and saw that the revolver was empty.

I snapped my attention up to look at Teddy. “You… stupid… fucking, inbred, extra-chromosomed, sheep-raping, shit-eating, ass clown! Did you really just get yourself killed with an empty fucking gun? Goddamned moron, you should have been a blowjob!”

Teddy didn’t answer me, as he had expired.

I stood there, staring at him, wanting to kick his stupid corpse a few times, before I felt something strike the back of my heel. It had been Amanda standing behind me, advising me wordlessly to pull my head out of my ass with a kick to my boot. I realized I’d been grinding my teeth and the muscles in both of my forearms had cramped up due to how hard I was clenching my fists.

“Gibs?” asked Wang.

“Yeah, just… just gimme a minute, will ya?” I took a few deep breaths and turned to have a look at the others in the room. I thought about telling the women to stop their crying and just calm down or about telling the remaining two men to relax that no one else was going to be hurt if everyone just stayed calm. I couldn’t bring myself to say any of those things. Teddy had been a dipshit, but he was their dipshit; they were obviously hurting from his loss. I didn’t know who he was to them, but they obviously cared. Trying to apologize now or insinuating that everything was going to be okay from here on out would have only been an insult. Instead, I looked at the man crouched behind the table, who could have been my age or twenty years older than me for all I could tell, and said, “You can… see to Teddy, there. I’m not gonna get in your way.”

He looked back at me with reddened, enraged eyes but did not move. I shook my head and looked at the other man, who remained standing but was backed against the wall.

“Any more of you here?”

He muttered, “Naw.”

Amanda was just slipping her pistol back into the holster on her thigh. She retrieved her rifle, popped her sling swivel back into the stock, and looked around the room impassively. The only thing about her demeanor that betrayed any feeling about what just happened was the jugular vein in her throat hammering rapidly in time with her pulse. She met my gaze, and then glanced away quickly.