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

She nodded and thrust my vest out to me, which had been hanging on a hook by the door. I yanked it over my head and pulled the Velcro straps down as tight as they would go. It fit me better than it used to as I’d thickened up a bit (I’d taken up weightlifting with Jake early on), but I still had to cinch it way down around my waist to keep it from swinging. I grabbed my Tavor, which had been placed up against the outside wall of the house, checked the magazine, and peeked into the chamber to confirm there was a round in the pipe.

Several people came scurrying out into the field as I situated myself, some people running flat out for the garage, while others, like Rebecca, Greg, and Alan, helped those who didn’t get around so well. I saw Monica yanking her daughter Rose by the hand so powerfully that I half expected her to just pick the reedy girl up and carry her. Everyone made a straight shot for the garage without fail.

Tom and Oscar came running up by then, Tom with his M4/M203 combo and Oscar lugging Billy’s old Remington shotgun. They looked keyed up, wide-eyed and breathing heavy.

“What the hell is this?” I barked. “I said, everyone!”

“All the other guns are locked up in the safes!” panted Tom.

“Oh, chinga tu… Fred !” I hollered at the big man as he ran across the field to the campers. He came to a skidding halt and looked back at me. I waved frantically at him to get back over to the porch. As he approached, I pulled the Glock from its holster on my thigh and thrust it into his hands’ grip first.

“What’s up?” asked Fred in a state of shock.

“We’re out of time, that’s what’s up,” I said back, looking over his shoulder at the advancing suv. It was hard to make out at a distance, but I thought it might be a Chevy; I was almost certain that what I saw on the grill was the classic bowtie and not just a trick of the light.

“Tom, get upstairs and positioned at the front window. Oscar, hide yourself around the side of the house. Fred: other side. Wait for my signal before you do anything.”

“What’s your signal?” asked Tom.

“I’ll start shooting,” I responded, and pulled the rifle sling over my head. They all ran off to get situated, Tom diving through the front door and Oscar clomping off down the planks of the deck. Rather than going down the front steps and running the long way around, he just vaulted over the rail at the end of the deck and hit the ground running. Fred took a smoother approach, swinging first one leg and then the other over the railing on the opposite side; I assumed he took such care owing to his weight and the danger of landing awkwardly. I turned to regard the suv as it advanced across the field and waited, thinking about the last time something like this had happened. I readied myself; I wasn’t going to let it go any further than it needed to this time. Even funny looks would be met with gunfire.

I moved to one of the beams holding the roof up over the front porch and placed the palm of my left hand against it, arm fully extended. I stretched my left thumb out to the side, creating a little rest, and settled the foregrip of my rifle on top of it. I did my best to put the red dot of my optic at a point on the windshield where I thought the driver’s head might be and wished (not for the last time) that it had some sort of magnification.

“Hey, Tom?” I called out.

“Yeah!” his voice was muted from his overhead position.

“Can you see what the driver or passenger looks like?”

“Um… negative. The sun’s at a funny angle. I can see the driver’s hands; he’s either a black guy or wearing gloves. That’s about it.”

I thought back to the bank and tried to remember if any of the people there had been wearing gloves but couldn’t recall for sure. Certainly, none of them had been African American. The suv was unfamiliar as well. We hadn’t seen anything like it in the parking lot when we had our mix up.

The vehicle lumbered closer as I tried to suppress my feelings of déjà vu. The suv was halfway across the valley to our home; my home. I thumbed down the safety selector on my rifle’s grip and prepared to blow out the windshield.

Suddenly, the vehicle (which turned out to be a Suburban) came to a halt in the middle of the field. I had just enough time to catch my breath and whisper, “What the fu—” when the high beams flashed three times. Following this, there was fluttering movement on either side of the truck, though with no magnification on my optic I couldn’t see for sure what it was.

“Tom,” I called to the man positioned overhead, “can you make out what that movement is?”

“Hands,” he responded. “There are two sets of empty hands coming out of the passenger side and another set coming out of the driver’s side window. They’re just kind of waving around and stuff… wait. There’s only one hand on the driver’s side now…”

The Suburban began to roll forward again as Tom finished speaking, moving much slower than before but still at a good twenty or thirty mile per hour clip. My mind raced as I tried to decide if we were being screwed somehow. Uselessly, I wished that Jake and Gibs were with me. Either one of them would be able to come up with something better than just sitting around waiting for whoever this was to drive up to the front door. They weren’t there, though. Almost as soon as we’d returned with our radios from the bank, Jake and Gibs had bundled up a bag of supplies, jumped in the Dodge, and headed off for a destination about which I could only guess. I was on my own; had to make do with the tools I had rather than the tools I wanted. My finger tightened down on the trigger, squeezing through the few millimeters of slop before the mechanism actually engaged and threatened to discharge the first round.

The truck was close enough to read the license plate now. I breathed and waited.

They were a hundred yards out from the common ground when it stopped for the last time. The driver, who I could just barely make out through the double distortion of dirty windshield and low sun glare, again hung his hands out the side window and waved them around, making a big show for everyone watching. The door popped, swung out, and a black man stepped into the open, hands extended high over his head.

“Muzzles up!” I shouted immediately, the urgency in my voice startling even to myself. “Holster weapons! These are friends!”

I popped the swivel stud on my sling and tossed my rifle into the chair I had occupied a few minutes earlier. I vaulted down the steps of the porch to the dirt ground, almost rolling my ankle like an idiot, and started to run at the suv. I heard wild laughing as I ran; realized a moment later that the laughter was my own.

“Otis!” I shouted. “Otis, you made it, oh my God! I never thought we’d see you again!”

“Eh-hah, hey, hey, girl, I-OOF!” his voice was immediately cut off when I threw my arms around him and began to squeeze.

“I can’t believe you’re here! Did you guys make it to Oregon? What did you find? Oh, shit! Where’s Ben‽”

“Easy, easy, Amanda,” he laughed. He disentangled himself from me, held me back at arm’s length to look me up and down. “You lookin’ good, sweetie. Strong.”

A voice from off to my left tentatively said, “Dad?” I looked in the direction of the voice and saw Ben and Samantha coming around the front of the Chevy. “Ha-hah! Oh my God, look at you!” I laughed and threw an arm around the boy’s neck to pull him in.

“Hey, Amanda,” he said, voice muffled by my shoulder. Samantha gave a shy smile from behind him and waved. I looked around and saw that there were only three of them. I felt a flash of alarm, tried to stifle it from my voice and failed as I asked, “Robert?” I looked from face to face trying to find some hopeful sign; finding none.