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

I threw the sling of my HK around my neck, braced at the door momentarily, and then rammed it open with my shoulder.

“Don’t die!” Wang shouted from behind me.

He timed his acceleration such that we were picking up speed again before I’d swung myself out onto the side runner, which I appreciated the hell out of. Reaching up to grab the steel tubing of the frame Fred had constructed for the armor plating (which wrapped over the roof of the cab), I began to shimmy backward to the rear. As I went, I leaned my head back to look behind us and saw a fat line of vehicles in close pursuit stretching far back enough that I couldn’t see the end of them; they were stacked up so thick that they were running off the sides of the road, which I assumed was to maximize the firepower of their front line. Davidson and Greg were standing up in the trailer with their rifle barrels held over the top of the shield wall, shooting at everything they could. It seemed to be helping; the constant rattle of bullet impacts had dropped off considerably.

Just as I closed the gap with the truck bed but before I’d managed to swing a leg up to climb in, I heard the frequency of our gunfire cut in half. I felt a flash of panic and jerked my head to see what had happened. Davidson was crouched low and fumbling with his receiver, either trying to clear a jam or swapping a mag; I couldn’t tell which. The return fire picked up again almost immediately. I saw an entire line of muzzle flashes over the tops of pursuing truck cabs and out the sides of car windows in the distance.

I swung my left leg into the truck bed and nearly lost my grip to fall away as something that felt like the size of a softball yet hard as a rock slammed into the back of my right leg, knocking it from the runner and out into open space. I screamed through clenched teeth and pulled myself up over the edge of the bed, using nothing but my left leg and a single hand. Falling into the giant pile of food, I lay there a moment panting. I reached down to feel behind my leg and encountered searing pain, as though a red hot charcoal had been dropped into my pants. I put my other hand back there as well and began to probe around, finding both entry and exit wounds.

“Motherfuckers…” I hissed. I pulled my hand back to look at it; saw that it was covered in blood and… something else. Something brownish-yellow.

“What the fu—” I gasped, trying to figure out what part of the body might produce a goo that color. Intestines? Down in my fucking leg? Had I shat myself?

I pulled my hand closer and smelled it, anticipating the aroma before it hit. I was shocked when it smelled the exact opposite of what I’d suspected.

“Er… curry?” Realization dawned on me immediately. “Fu-uck me!”

I rolled over to look beneath me; several of the mre packages were perforated by bullets, the contents spilled throughout the bed.

“You cock suckers!” I screamed. Pain forgotten, I heaved to my knees and swam the rest of the distance to the rear of the bed before launching myself bodily into the trailer, bruising several parts of myself painfully on the more jagged edges of ammo crates and boxes that were contained there. Stumbling across the pile of weaponry while fighting with my rifle to keep from tripping up over it, I eventually positioned myself between Davidson and Greg at the back wall. I noted in mixed horror and anger that several holes had punched through over the entire surface.

“I feel as though we’ve been here before,” Davidson shouted.

“Yeah, yeah, shit happens,” I shouted back. “How’s it look back there? Are they falling back?”

“Uh…” Davidson poked his head around the side and yanked it back immediately. “Negative. They’re matching speed.”

“Okay, get on the radio and tell Wang to floor it.”

As Davidson shouted into his mic, I began to search through the various boxes, bags, and crates at my feet. I grunted and screamed freely as I worked; the hamstrings in the back of my leg ignited in furious pain at the slightest muscle twitch. I began to throw shit around angrily. I’d known where it was when we loaded it up—I’d purposefully made a mental note so I could grab it out and play with it as soon as we got home. Everything had been shifted around now, and I was having a bitch of a time finding it.

“Hey, dude,” Greg shouted between taking shots around the side of the wall. “You want to get in on this, or what?”

“Just hang on a minute, damn it.”

I saw it then, lying under a pile of vests; a black, hard-shell case only a few feet away. I grabbed it and yanked it over into my lap, popping the latches immediately and throwing the lid open. Laying inside, just begging to be rotated into the fight, was a Desert Tech SRS-A1 chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, one of the nastier high powered, long-range sniper rounds ever conceived. With zero hesitation, I yanked it into my lap and kicked the case away, dropped the mag, and dove into the pile of shit in front of me to search for a box of the deadly ammunition. After a few short moments, I hit pay dirt and began thumbing the big, meaty bullets into the five round magazine.

“Greg,” I shouted, “get down in this mess and find me a scope. A big one!”

He rotated and dove into the pile like an Olympic swimmer. While he did that, I slapped the magazine home, pulled on the clownishly oversized operating lever, and cycled a round into the pipe.

I turned to face to the rear and, using my one good leg, popped my head over the barrier to see who was back there. They’d fallen back a bit, yet they were still close enough that I could hit them without the need of a sight, of which the rifle currently had none.

“Okay, Davidson, have Wang hit the brakes to kill some of that speed, and then tell him to jam the gas down again.”

“Hit the brakes?” he screamed. “Are you—”

“Just do it, already! I want ’em close enough that I can smell their pussies!”

Davidson grimaced and mouthed the word “Jesus” before relaying the message back to Wang. After a bit of argument between them, Wang did as instructed, and we all braced ourselves as our weight was thrown towards the front of the truck. I heard a grunt from my side as Greg rolled over onto his shoulder.

Three seconds later, we were thrown in the other direction as the Ford began to haul some real ass. I took that as my cue and popped up over the wall. I selected my target instantly, a big-ass gray Bronco that was close enough that I could see the paint scratches in the hood, and pulled the trigger.

The rifle butt slammed into my shoulder, nearly knocking me back on my ass due to the fact that I only had the one leg to stand on.

“You missed!” Davidson shouted in disbelief.

“The fuck I did!”

I suppose he’d expected me to disintegrate the driver’s head, which I must admit would have been nice, but I’d chosen instead to kill the Bronco, drilling a round straight into the grill. The truck was already bleeding off speed noticeably as smoke erupted from under the hood, creating a barrier that the other vehicles had to swerve around.

I crouched behind the wall to work the bolt on the rifle as Davidson said, “You wanted to shoot out his radiator?”

“Man, I wouldn’t be surprised if I punched a hole through his block. That truck is done forever.”

I stood up and administered the same treatment to another vehicle; a Mercedes of all things.

“Shit, Gibs! You’re shot!” Greg shouted from behind me.

“I am,” I agreed. “It sucks but we can’t deal with that just yet.” I took another shot, murdering a pickup truck. “We have to win the fight first. Always win the fight first! Where’s that scope?”

“I’ve got it here!”

I spun and dropped back down to my ass and took a long cardboard box out of the kid’s hands.