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

“You two stay here,” I said to my friends. “I’ll go see if there even is a radio.”

Disgusted with the whole situation, I moved through the remaining rooms adjoining the hallway rapidly and aggressively, first finding a warren-like sty of a sleeping area packed in among some cubicles with a paltry little pile of food and no water that I could see anywhere. The final room, the room I had assumed to contain the security lockers, was located at the end of the hall. My assumptions about security lockers and so forth were apparently off, though; there were a couple of file cabinets and an empty bookshelf that stood about elbow high. One of the file cabinets had been knocked over, its paper guts spilled all over the floor.

Perhaps even more surprising (or less, depending on how you chose to view the world around you); there were a couple of no-shit two-way radios with matching earpieces all plugged into a dormant charging station on the shelf. I picked up one of the earpieces and saw a small microphone mounted on a clip; the kind of thing you’d affix to your collar or vest.

“Well, thank fuck for that,” I said and left the room.

As I walked in the opposite direction along the hall back towards the lobby, Wang called out through the doorway: “Any luck?”

“Yeah, wait one,” I said. I moved back behind the teller counter into an area that had an array of desks and tables arranged at odd intervals. Not seeing what I was looking for, I began to knock tables over, yank drawers out of desks, and generally ransacked the hell out of everything. I was more interested in being fast than careful, so there was quite a bit of noise; enough that Wang came out into the main lobby to see what I was up to.

“Are… you okay out here, Gibs?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m just looking for a sack or something. Maybe a duffel bag. I recall seeing that kind of thing in banks. I’m hoping there’s something out here because if I don’t find it, I suppose the only other option is the vault.”

I rummaged around a bit more, my energy beginning to flag as nothing turned up. “I guess it’s not a big deal,” I muttered. “It’s a couple of radios and an AC adaptor. I’m not carrying it all home; it’s just a walk out to the jeep.” I kept tossing the room, regardless.

“Hey, Gibs?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You’ve been through that set of drawers three times now.”

I stopped and looked around at what I’d done. Numerous tables lay on their sides with papers and little shitty ink pens scattered across the floor. Office chairs with broken wheels remained where they’d fallen, resembling either passed out drunks or prisoners too beaten to move anymore.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I asked myself. “A fucking duffel bag?”

Wang stood close by clutching his rifle, saying nothing. I met his gaze. The expression of worry or remorse or whatever the fuck it was made me angry and I struggled to hide it.

“Amanda’s okay?”

“Those guys aren’t doing anything,” Wang responded. “I think they just want us to get the hell out of here.”

“I can’t blame them,” I said as I returned to the hallway. “Let’s give ’em what they want.”

We worried about leaving the firearms with Teddy’s group for all of twenty seconds before we just decided to bring them out into the lobby. The survivors weren’t exactly being responsive after Amanda killed one of their own; they mostly spent the rest of our time together alternating between huddling in a corner of the old cafeteria and glaring in our direction with righteous anger. You can’t even apologize to people in such a state or talk your way off the hook. You just have to accept that you’re the asshole and be about your business.

“Hey, listen, I’m not gonna leave these here,” I said, gesturing at the rifle and pistol that Wang had repositioned on the sink’s countertop, “but we’re not taking them either. I’m going to stack these out in the center of the lobby where I can keep my eye on them. Then, we’ll get in our car and get the hell out of your lives.”

I grabbed the weapons while Amanda stood in the doorway, her rifle again held across her chest, and made to exit. Before stepping out of the room, I hesitated, looking down at the threshold where cracked linoleum gave way to shredded, low-pile carpet. Damn it.

“Look, I’m… uh… I’m sorry as hell about what happened—”

“Please just go,” one of the women sobbed behind me.

“Right. Fuck me, anyway,” I whispered to myself. I passed by Amanda without looking her in the eye, feeling like an ass, walked through the lobby (dropping the rifle and revolver on the floor as I went), and out to the parking lot where Wang waited by the Jeep. They both climbed into the vehicle after me, occupying the same positions we had on the way out. Amanda sighed, fired the engine up, and drove us out of there.

We traveled in silence like that for several minutes with Amanda picking her way back through the confused maze of streets and side roads. Wang was so silent in the back seat I forgot he was there; at one point he coughed loud enough to startle me.

“I’m really sorry,” Amanda said.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t have killed him. He didn’t even—”

“Hey, knock that shit off right now,” I said. “You did the right thing. He cocked the freaking hammer back. How were you supposed to interpret that?”

“He didn’t even lift it. It was still pointed at the ground.”

“Horse shit,” I said. “A person can lift a muzzle and drop someone at that range faster than it takes to respond if you’re not ready to go.”

“I noticed you didn’t bother to put your rifle on him…”

“I should have,” I said. “This whole thing was completely screwed up, Amanda, but Teddy died because he was a fucking dipshit, okay? Did he deserve to die? Hell no, but it was his own goddamned fault.” I turned in my seat and faced her even though she had to keep her eyes on the road. “You keep your shit squared away, Rah?”

“ Rah , what the hell does that—”

“ Oorah , for Christ’s sake, Amanda. Say ‘Oorah.’”

She looked off into the distance, confused. “I’m not a Marine, Gibs.”

“Hey, neither am I. Marines are extinct. I may be a dinosaur, but the thing that stuck with me from the Corps the most is the concept of brotherhood. Family. My family’s all dead, both blood relations and the ones I signed up for. You people are the family I got now. And I’m giving you permission. Oorah .”

“Gibs… I—”

“ Oorah , you stubborn little shit.”

She sighed. “Oorah?”

“Bullshit. Like you mean it.”

“Oorah.”

“OO-RAH!” I barked.

“Oorah!”

“Goddamned right. Hey, Wang! Oorah!”

“Oorah!” Wang called from the back seat.

“Fuckin’ A,” I growled and looked back out my window. Once-normal houses passed by, now made surreal in a world where housing tracts full of single-family homes were a relic of a past era.

I carried the radios into the garage when we returned, all cradled into an arm like a football. There was a little table close to an outlet by the battery pack array up on the second level that had reliable power since we rarely ever used the electricity provided by the solar panels. Amanda and Wang had gone off to lick their wounds; we were all dealing with the Teddy incident in our own way.