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

I nodded. I took a deep breath and said, “You would have been an outstanding Marine, Tom.” He said nothing back. I didn’t know if such a sentiment even meant anything to him anymore; realized I didn’t care. It still meant something to me.

“Greg,” I said into the radio, quieter now because we weren’t hauling ass up the road and the wind was down. “Stop the truck.”

He didn’t even bother asking what I was thinking that time. The truck just came to a stop.

I bent down painfully and dug an old, white t-shirt out of the pile of shit we were standing on; something we had used to wrap up a few handguns to keep them from slamming against each other in one of the boxes. I held it up high in the air and waved it back and forth.

Given the distance we were at, I could see a number of the men and women still standing in the remaining truck beds look about each other uncertainly. I smiled to myself and said, “That’s right. We got no more fight left in us. Come and get your prize.”

We hung out like that in the middle of the road for several minutes, walled in between a concrete divider on one side and a jagged mountainside on the other, and I waved until my arm felt like it would fall off. The shirt fluttered overhead, and Greg’s voice came again over the radio: “I hope to fuck you know what you’re doing, man.”

Some more static crackled over the radio and, buried just underneath it, an unfamiliar voice that said unrecognizable things. I put it out of my mind; whatever it was, it sure wasn’t going to contribute to the current situation.

Out in the distance, a man slapped the top of a truck cab, and they all started rolling forward again, slowly. It was just trucks and cars at that point; the folks on two wheels hadn’t done so well in the last skirmish. A few people jumped from truck beds to walk along on foot, rifles at the ready.

“They’re gonna be pissed,” I said quietly to Davidson. “They probably won’t shoot us outright. They’ll want to get close, get us under control. They’ll want to do us up close…”

“Okay,” he said. His voice was steady like iron.

“…so let ’em get close,” I concluded.

We did. At a distance of two hundred feet, give or take, I dropped the shirt and said, “Get some.”

The M203 let off a POONT ! from my right, followed immediately after by the crump of an explosion in the very center of the closest truck’s windshield. I joined in with my rifle, taking my time and putting rounds into the center mass of anyone or anything stupid enough to be visible. Davidson continued with the M203, firing grenades off into the mass of vehicles as fast as he could load them until there were none left and he had to be content with normal bullets.

Screaming had erupted as soon as we’d begun firing, only this time it was theirs. A few of them who were still alive after our initial volley attempted to reverse out of there in a hurry, but the space was so limited that they only jammed into each other and bound themselves in place. There was return fire in our direction but only sporadic, now. When we abandoned diving behind cover before, it was out of a general desperation and disregard for our own safety. Now, we didn’t bother with cover out of a general disregard for our enemy’s anemic response.

There was no yelling from us this time, no gnashing of teeth or cursing. We proceeded about our business purposefully, methodically. Before, it had been hellfire. This was just surgery. I shot my rifle empty and, rather than taking the time necessary to swap the mag, I just let it hang and picked up one of the others that Davidson had leaned against the wall. I shot that one empty, too.

Davidson did the same, picking his targets carefully and taking his time on them, every slug assigned a special purpose. Cars and trucks slammed into each other only a short distance away; tires spun in place and belched great clouds of white smoke into the air. Not long after, the excess rubber that had been laid onto the road ignited in several places from the heat and bright flames licked up to consume the vehicles’ undersides. A few people ignited as well and made to run off in all directions. I shot them when I could but put most of my focus on those that were still fighting.

Despite the fires, many of the vehicles were still quivering back and forth as the drivers attempted to escape. In answer, I dropped my second rifle, retrieved the SRS, and put a .338 round through every engine to which I had a clear line of sight. After a few moments, there were fewer tires spinning. The white smoke rising into the air began to darken over to black.

We both emptied several more magazines between us. After that, I picked up one of the shotguns and started shooting out every window I could see with one-ounce slugs. In some cases, the spray of glass was accompanied by the jerking of a human body, but that was coming less often now. The movement across from us tapered off; then stopped entirely.

We stopped firing and waited. The low idle of a few surviving engines floated out to us through the smoke. We listened for shouts or gunfire but heard neither.

I thumbed my radio and said, “Take us out of here, Greg.”

When we emerged from the other side of the pass, the radio came to life, and I heard a voice at once foreign yet totally familiar. It said, “Unknown station, this is Buzzard 1. Please identify, over.”

Davidson took note of the expression on my face and shouted, “What? What the hell is it? Wang?”

I sat there and blinked like a dumbass. The radio squawked again in my ear. “I say again: unknown station, this is Buzzard 1. Please identify, over.”

Greg’s voice came on: “What the fuck?”

I jammed the button and responded, “Buzzard 1, this is Casanova Actual, over.”

Davidson pulled a scandalized expression and mouthed, “ Casanova ?”

I waved a hand at him and concentrated on what I was hearing.

“Good to meet you, Casanova. What’s your status, over?”

“Traveling north along the 15 freeway just outside of the Virgin Mountains, approximately sixteen klicks away from the Utah border. Two casualties, one critical, over.”

“Roger that. Continue on current route, and we’ll come out to meet you, over.”

I looked at Davidson and swallowed. “Buzzard 1, define ‘ we ,’ over.”

“United States Army, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, Casanova. Just keep coming. We’ll meet you en route. Buzzard 1 out.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were pulled off the road facing a recently landed Black Hawk, the gusting wind of the rotor wreaking havoc on anything not tied down. The door gunner came running over to meet us.

In a daze, I saw the screaming eagle of the 101st Airborne riding on his shoulder. Without even stopping to introduce himself, he shouted, “Where’s your critical?”

“I… in the cab. He took a round to the hip. I think his pelvis is shattered.”

The man (his name tape said Jeffries) winced and started speaking into his team radio. Two more soldiers came running over to the truck with a stretcher.

“You’re wounded too, sir.” He had a lazy hillbilly drawl like he’d come tumbling out of the Appalachians.

“Huh?” I looked down at my leg. “Oh. Fuck it. It’s fine for now. Our friend with the hip is the one who’s in trouble.”

He nodded and said, “Understood.”