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

From his position off to the side, Otter nodded. “My surgeon didn’t find the round when he cleaned Wang up, so we’re not sure what hit him, but it was high powered, to say the least. It pulverized the top of his leg halfway up the femur and a good portion of his hip. There wasn’t anything there to rebuild. We were fairly amazed he survived, to be frank. He lost so much blood before we got him in that Montoya—our surgeon—didn’t give him very good odds on pulling through. He should have taken a transfusion, only it turns out that his blood type is O-negative. Not another person in camp had that type. My, uh, medical staff tells me that we should have been able to use O-positive, only it seems none such of those are at hand either, which is troubling since the O-positive blood type was the most numerous in the human population…”

His voice trailed off and the man, clearly troubled, retreated into his own thoughts momentarily.

“Well, then what did you do?” asked Amanda.

“They shot me full of fluids and let me sleep it off, basically,” Wang said with a grin.

“I’m told they helped him sleep it off,” Otter added. “Light sedatives.”

“Well, you seem to have made an impression on these boys you’ve been runnin’ with, anyway,” Fred noted, gesturing at the men standing close to Otter.

“He did, indeed,” said Otter. “He accepted less downtime than I would have thought reasonable and began pushing himself almost immediately to find ways to be of use, despite the obvious difficulties involved.”

“He whooped a little ass, too,” Montez interjected.

Amanda raised her eyebrows and glanced at Wang, remembering their encounter up at the bank; the way he was shaking after it all went down. His attention was presently affixed uncomfortably on the pavement.

Either oblivious or insensitive to Wang’s mood, Otter nodded and said, “Yes, my forward team came under a bit of an ambush on the way up. There was some confusion when we got the radio call, and Mr. Zhao took the opportunity to slip away to high ground, at which point he comported himself admirably at range.”

Montez smiled and punched Wang on the shoulder, perhaps at reduced force though it looked like a solid blow to Amanda. Wang seemed not to notice. Still smiling, Montez said, “He basically pinned the bastards down and softened ’em up. It gave us the chance we needed to get out from cover, find them, and clear ’em out. By the time QRF showed up, there wasn’t anything else to do.”

“Well, come on and tell us about it on the way back,” said Fred. “There’s a lot of folks back home who’ll be excited to see you.”

“Well, with regard to that,” Otter said, “I’d like to hold on to him just a little longer, if that’s alright.”

Wang’s face had gone very still at these words. He looked up at Amanda, staring so hard that it seemed he was trying to bore into the center of her brain using only his eyes. His expression was unreadable, though the set of the muscles in his cheeks and neck betrayed the fact that his jaw was tightly clenched. Wang’s look combined with Commander Warren’s almost casual delivery triggered warning bells in her mind.

“We’ll need him to show us the way up to your camp, of course,” Warren said without pause.

“What… all of you?” Amanda asked.

“No, of course not. That would be a little off-putting, I should think. I’ll come up first, along with a contingent of people, to meet with your Jake and some of the others as an introduction. We’ll decide where we go from there.”

He said these words easily enough, but they were conveyed along on the wake of an irresistible force and, intended or not, Amanda sensed a great deal of menace hidden just beneath them.

Elizabeth pressed the Glock 19 in between the palms of her hands, concentrating on holding the blade of the front sight right up under the center mass of the target. She began to grind her teeth; the more she attempted to hold the pistol motionless, the more it wobbled around, it seemed. She tamped down a wave of annoyance by taking a deep breath. She began to squeeze the trigger, working to take her time while knowing instinctively that she was rushing the shot against the fatigue of her shoulders.

“Stop,” Gibs whispered from behind her.

She exhaled, blowing hair from her eyes, and lowered the weapon to point at the ground a few yards in front of her.

“What happened there?” he asked.

“I can’t stop it from moving.”

“Oh, hell, of course, you can’t, Lizzy. You’ll never get the pistol to stop moving one hundred percent. The best you’ll ever do is slow it down. You just want to be patient, let it waver where it needs to, and squeeze when it’s right.”

She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you just get done telling me to clamp down on it like I was trying to choke the life out of it?”

“I did, but that was for different reasons.”

“Ugh, I wish you’d just let me shoot it already…”

Gibs straightened up and put out his hand. “Give me that pistol.”

“Wait, I didn’t mean—”

“Just give it here, damn it.”

Deflating slightly, she held the weapon out to him, taking care to keep the barrel pointed down range. Gibs took the weapon in his hands, pushed it out in front of himself and, without hesitating in the slightest, fired off two rounds in rapid succession. The hand-painted silhouette was close enough that Lizzy could see the two impacts in the dead center of the chest, spaced less than an inch apart.

He handed the pistol back to the girl and said, “Given that I taught your mother a great deal of the things she knows and, moreover, given that she personally asked me to school you in these matters, can we not proceed with the understanding that I might actually know what the hell I’m talking about?”

“Sorry, Gibs,” she said sheepishly.

“Damned right. Now let’s try this again. I want you to concentrate on getting the web of your right thumb as high on the back of that grip as you can, okay? And really work on jamming your middle finger up into that trigger guard. Okay… good. Now get your left on there like I showed you… and roll your wrist forward a bit so that… yeah, there you go. Now, when you push it out in front of you, I want you to think about pulling the four fingers of each hand away from the grip, okay? Like you’re trying to pry the gun in half right down the center. That’ll help lock it in place. And don’t spend all day trying to get on center mass. Just push that barrel out to where center mass should be, make sure you can see the front sight, and squeeze. You’re not clamping down on the gun to stop it from moving before you shoot; you’re doing it to control the recoil and get it back on target as fast as you can.”

She waited a few seconds to ensure he was done talking and when he said nothing more, did as instructed. The Glock popped loudly and jerked in her hands. She took her finger off the trigger and lowered the weapon.

“Not bad,” said Gibs. “You were aiming on center?”

“I was pointed dead at his chest.”

“Huh. Well, you’re flinching, then.”

“I am not!”

Gibs looked down at her, grimacing faintly. “We’re only out at twenty feet, Lizzy. You bored out his naval. Nine millimeter doesn’t drop that quick.”

“Not flinching,” she repeated.

“Jerking, then.”

She looked up at him earnestly. “Gibs… I really don’t think I am. Or if I am, I can’t tell. I swear.”

“Alright, hang on a bit.”

He walked over to the folding table, pulled the revolver from its leather holster, and began to load it. As he did, he said, “This is a .357. I’m loading it up with some light .38’s, though, so it’ll feel about like a nine with the heavy frame. I want you to shoot a few through it.”