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

“That’s a good idea,” said Clay. “Meantime, let’s get someone to go flag the spots we think we found, huh? Not too fuckin’ close, now. Say three foot off, okay? Sticks with little flashy strips of tape or whatever.”

Elton shot a glance at Danielle, who nodded and climbed up into the truck bed. She started digging through a bag of gear without comment.

Clay watched her a moment, noting how well she seemed to work with Elton. He wondered about that a bit.

“Got something else?” asked Elton.

Clay glanced at him; the man was leaned forward slightly, head dipped towards Clay’s with eyebrows peeked into high points. Realizing he’d let his glance linger on the woman, Clay noted and cataloged Elton’s subsequent reaction. He wondered about that, as well.

Putting the notion aside, he said, “Looks like everything on those buildings are locked up like the goddamned Federal Reserve. You bring any tools with us? A grinder or some sort of torch?”

Elton grimaced and said, “Naw, sorry. Didn’t think to.”

“Fine, nothing to be sorry about. We found a keyring; we’ll try that out first. Just in case there’s no joy, get on the radio and tell someone to bri—”

A cascade of gunfire rattled off from somewhere to the north of them, causing both men to duck reflexively while Danielle jumped down from the truck bed. She had her Mini-14 up almost immediately and was running off in the direction of the shots, along with several others. Almost as quickly, Clay was yelling at them to quit with all the fucking running, which came too late, unfortunately, as one of Ronny’s guys triggered another mine on his mad dash in, blowing every bit of his legs and half of the material above them up to kingdom come. The remaining knot of people dashing across the grounds all hit the deck in response, rolling wildly in the dirt while patting themselves down in search of injury.

More shots rattled off in the distance, followed by enraged shouting. The voices had a detached, echoing quality, leading Clay to surmise that the owners were a ways off.

He and Elton fetched up their weapons and made in the general direction of all the chaos. They passed the others by, most of them regaining their feet, and Clay paid them no mind, figuring that if they didn’t understand by then why running around blindly was a bad idea, they never would, and he was probably better off without them.

It looked like he, Elton, and the rest of the people coming up behind them made nine people; he called out to them to see if anyone had a radio. A few moments later something hard and blocky nudged up against his right elbow. He grabbed it, found the talk button, and said, “Hey, this is Clay! Who’s that over there?”

They continued forward as he waited for a response, picking their way carefully through the dirt, stepping wide around anything that looked even remotely out of place. Distant gunfire continued to rip through the chill Colorado air and, after an amount of time that made Clay want to tear his hair out, the radio in his hand finally squawked: “Yeah, this is Mason! We’re out here with Ronny, uh… looks like we got six others with us out here! We’re over at that machine shop! Over!”

Clay thought about what he’d been told for a moment and realized he still had a few people unaccounted for. He briefly considered what to do about that before deciding to just say “fuck it”; they’d either make it to the party in time or not.

He keyed the radio and said, “How many are shooting at you?”

Maddening silence, followed by static. Under the static, the thin, almost cartoonish sound of rifle fire coming simultaneously from the radio and from the machine shop out in the distance. Following this, Mason came back, “Can’t really say! Seems they’re up on the roof shooting down at us! Got us pinned behind some old trucks and some other shit! Sure could use a hand over here!”

Clay ground his teeth and said, “Yeah, stand by; we’re heading over right now. Just try to keep ’em in one spot—don’t do anything stupid. Repeat: no fucking stupid behavior!”

He slung the radio back, not caring if anyone caught it, and exercised every last bit of will he had to move carefully over the ground.

The trail took them over a small wooden bridge spanning a dry wash-out. A fairly large building had emerged by now—another metal prefab job; it appeared to have its own little parking lot. A line of trees and some bushes obscured much of the bottom half of the building from view, but Clay could see some of his people crouched down in the dirt lot behind various bits of cover. He soon noticed Ronny huddled up behind a dumpster; every so often the man would hold his rifle over the top and spray the shit out of the horizon, not giving a good goddamn for what he hit. Pap grunted a laugh from Clay’s right and said, “Well, no wonder they’re havin’ such a time of it. Sumbitch wouldn’t hit the ground if t’weren’t for gravity!”

Clay ignored this bit of unhelpful wisdom to charge full-tilt at Ronny’s position. He got his aging legs pumping as well as they could and then had a moment of frustrated panic as his momentum threatened to carry him right through to be exposed on the other side of the dumpster. He stopped just in time to hang his ass out into the open, which tingled obnoxiously in anticipation of catching a bullet, before yanking everything back into the shadow of the bin.

He panted a moment to catch his breath and saw some of the others who’d come with him positioning themselves likewise along the lot. When he felt as though he could speak without gasping, he barked, “What the fuck, Ronny?”

“Sons-ah-bitches just started shooting when we walked into the area! I’m gonna cut his fucking balls off when I get at him!”

Clay sighed. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, huh? How many up there?”

“Fuck if I know!”

He was having a hell of a time thinking in all the racket, between the shots coming from every direction and the damned shouting. He looked around the area at his people, trying to resolve the shots he was hearing with their movements in some sorry attempt to see if he could discover a way for his brain to pick out his peoples’ shooting from theirs. It was working about as well as lipstick applied to a hairy asshole.

Despite all the lead flying around, no one actually appeared to be under any imminent threat. Well, Clay supposed they weren’t; he was no G. I. Joe or anything, but it seemed to him that as long as everyone stayed under cover, they weren’t getting shot. That seemed to be how it had gone so far, at least.

“Cease fire!” he yelled, earning a scandalized look out of Ronny. He ignored the man and yelled it again several times over. Pretty soon he heard Pap and some of the others yelling it out as well; a combined chorus of “Cease fire!” bouncing all around the lot. The gunfire petered out to nothing over the space of several seconds, with a single, errant shot echoing out over the field after it had gone quiet, like an accidental punctuation mark.

Clay waited a few more moments to ensure that everyone had settled the hell down, and then shouted out, “Hey up there!”

He waited a few seconds, but no response came. Ronny muttered, “What the fuck are you doing, man?” from his left but he continued to ignore him. Biting back impatience, he tried again.

“You on the roof!”

A timid, frightened voice issued from behind them, sounding almost like an old Alzheimer’s patient that had gotten lost in a department store. “Yeah?”

Clay jerked his head at Ronny and confirmed, “They started shooting first, right?” The man nodded, so Clay shouted, “Hey, uh, why’d you start shooting at us?”

A few moments of silence, followed by, “Well… you’re gonna kill me.”