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

“Be cool, dog. Don’t take too long healing up.” He stepped away and waited as the other men (Wang could not tell by their appearance if they were soldiers or marines or whatever else) moved by in procession, each one bumping Wang’s fist as they passed. The others who had remained back at the tables watched silently as this all transpired. Some of them nodded and offered relaxed, two-fingered salutes. Wang returned the gesture and noticed his cheeks warming under an obvious flush. He felt like an imposter doing that; saluting a bunch of real soldiers.

After they were alone again, Wang asked, “So… what was that all about?”

“They admire you,” she said easily.

“They what? What the hell did I do?”

“The other guys who were with you… Gibs, Tom, and Greg; they all told us what happened on the 15. Most of us here at the camp even saw what was left of the truck you guys were driving. Just the sight of that truck… the amount of fire you four sustained… well, it was enough to put a lot of people back on their heels. And then they explained how you held it together to get them out of there, literally continuing to drive until you passed out. Your little cross country trip has impressed a lot of people.”

Wang scoffed and shook his head. “All I did was get myself shot. That’s not impressive.”

“Would you say the same to Montez?” she asked. Wang said nothing so Olivia, being able to see only the top of his head, continued. “How do you imagine he lost his leg? A hail of gunfire with popped grenades in each hand? It wasn’t anything like that. Ask him about it sometime; he’ll tell you. He had it blown off just outside of Keshem while his squad was maneuvering under fire. His buddies pulled him back undercover and took care of him until they could get his ass out. They returned fire, but he still has no idea if they got the one who took his leg. He doesn’t know if they got any of them at all in the return fire, actually. So, leg blown off and no payback. How would you characterize that? Would you tell Montez that all he did was get blown up? Would you turn your nose up at his purple heart?”

“Hell no!” said Wang, disgusted at the idea.

“So then why are you holding yourself to a different standard? Are you somehow harder than a marine? Or a sailor or soldier?”

He rolled his eyes and said, “Well, obviously not…”

“So then knock it off,” she concluded. “You don’t need to be Rambo to earn respect, Wang. You just need to be steadfast. Hold up your end and always be the first to support your buddies… your teammates. Do that , and they won’t care if you’re a hippy pacifist. I mean, they’ll probably still give you some shit over it, but they’ll at least like you enough to do it to your face, you know?”

“I guess…” Wang mumbled.

Olivia sighed. “No one that was ever in a legit encounter thought he was a hero, Wang. You’ll either accept that or you won’t, and I’m not going to beat you over the head with it. But do try to watch what you say around the guys, okay? Don’t insult them accidentally by saying something stupid.”

Wang shrugged and said, “I’ve said some pretty dumb stuff in my time, Olivia, but I get what you’re saying, at least. I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Good,” she said, not bothering to hide her smile—he couldn’t see her, anyway.

It took less time than he expected for her to show him around the rest of the main camp; the greater portion of it, which stretched out to forever by his reckoning, was essentially vacant. Any of the remaining survivors and supplies scattered throughout the encampment had been consolidated together into their current central location long ago. Wang felt isolated and even a little disturbed as he was rolled through that wasteland oasis. That nearly unending sea of empty tents represented a death toll he had trouble processing. He wondered what had become of the bodies of the men, women, and children now passed away but resisted the urge to ask. Suppressing a shiver, he knew to a certainty that he simply did not want to know. He recalled that large bonfires had become common towards the end of his tenure at the last camp.

They were on their return trip to the recovery tent when a figure appeared in their direct path, facing them square-on as they approached. The morning sun was to his back, casting him as a dark silhouette. His fists rested on his hips in the classic Superman pose and, though any details were hidden in the glare, everything about his stance spoke of breadth, immovability, and an iron resolve. Just looking at the spacing of his legs and the set of his shoulders, Wang had the impression that this man could stand in the way of an oncoming train; that the train should, in fact, have one hell of an effective prayer to offer if it wished to avoid derailment.

As they approached, the shifting relationship of his position in reference to the sun put a larger tent directly behind his back, throwing him into a shadow that offered muted detail as opposed to a pure black void. The man looked down at Wang, expression unreadable, and he understood (truly understood for perhaps the first time) what a caged zoo animal must have felt when it was regarded by the pink, hairless guests, back when zoos still existed.

The man was not exceptionally tall, yet the impression of sheer size emanated from him; it was a perception of thickness rather than bulk, he was all meat, knobby bone, and inertia. His physicality recalled Jake to Wang’s mind, except the illusion of similarity died immediately at his face. The man before Wang had a face composed primarily of a giant cleft chin, craggy wrinkles, and hard, unforgiving angles. His head, which was shaven clean, was oddly asymmetrical, a prominent forehead set into the wider, crested ridge of the greater skull like that of a caveman. He had a nose that looked too small compared to his chin and forehead, a mouth slightly too wide with a full upper- and nonexistent bottom-lip, and eyebrows drawn a little too close together in a permanent frown. One of his ears stuck out further than the other; in fact, everything about his appearance was more or less knobby, reversed from what it should have been, or otherwise ill-fitting.

His eyes, which rested over the deep bags of his lower eyelids, were the most un-Jake thing he had and instantly destroyed any further physical comparison that Wang might have drawn between the two men. Whereas Jake’s eyes were hidden, withdrawn, flat, and emotionless, this man’s eyes burned through you like disapproving fire. His eyebrows and cheeks mashed down around them in a frozen scowl while his eyelids widened in resistance, showing a generous amount of white. The skin of his top eyelids overhung the lashes, shrouding the slate-gray iris and pupil, which shone forth from the hollows of his sockets like determined lasers. Wang felt the urge to shift and fidget under that unyielding stare as soon as it was unleashed upon him.

“Wang Zhao, is it?” he asked in a cracked, grinding voice. He sounded like he would boom even if he tried to whisper, causing Wang to picture Hulk Hogan trying to quietly read a bedtime story. Wang was also surprised to hear the man’s pronunciation of his name, impeccably executed such that the first name rhymed with “thong” and the surname started with a proper sharpened “J,” rather than the usual “Z” that most Westerners used.

“Uh, yes. You can just say Wang , if you like. All my friends have always called me that.”

The man nodded and extended his hand to shake. When Wang took it, he said, “I’m glad to meet you, Wang. I am Commander Otto Warren, though most of the people on the Field call me Otter , which suits me just fine.” His hand was dry, Wang noted; scratchy like sandpaper.