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

Clay glanced around over the car’s fender and just caught a glimpse of his people shooting various weapons around their own cover before Pap grabbed him by the head and shoved him back down into hiding. He bellowed, “Baws, no offense or nothin’, but keep yer fuckin’ fool head down, will yah please?”

“What the fuck are we shooting at?” Clay demanded.

Pap’s eyes bugged out of his head. “Ain’t it obvious!”

“No, goddamn it, I mean what specifically? How can they see a goddamned thing?”

“Reckon they’re just offerin’ return fire. Probably don’t see shit!”

Clay shook his head, thinking fast. They were going to run out of bullets really fast if they kept that shit up.

“We gotta circle out around the side and come at them from another angle,” Clay shouted. He had to search for a moment before he found Ronny crammed up behind a building. Clay waved at him until he had his attention. Once he had it, Clay held up a finger and mouthed “ONE SECOND” at him. Ronny nodded.

Clay looked over at the man with the SAW, slapped him on the ass-cheek to get his attention, and said, “Hey, when I say go, I want you to lay that chopper over the trunk and spray everything higher than fifteen foot off the ground, got it?”

The man nodded and adjusted his grip on the weapon. Clay glanced back at Ronny again to ensure the man was looking his way and then shouted: “GO!”

The man with the machinegun—Clay would be horse-fucked if he could remember his name—performed as instructed, and if Clay thought that the gunfire from a moment before was painful, it was nothing compared to that belt-fed bastard kicking into overdrive right next to his goddamned head. He felt his fillings rattle against the enamel of his teeth in response to it and he began to wave frantically at Ronny while ineffectually clamping his left hand to the ear closest to the juttering, squealing piglet.

Ronny was crammed in next to Clay a moment later. Clay screamed at what’s-his-name to knock it the fuck off already with the M249 and then leaned over to look at Ronny, digging in his ear with an index finger.

“We gotta outflank these cocksuckers… or whatever the fuck it’s called; encircle them, see?”

Ronny nodded, wincing and flinching slightly from the sound of ricochets impacting around him. “You want us to break off and head up this side alley?”

Clay shook his head, “No! They might see that shit and figure out what’s happening! I want you to take a radio, fall back a block or two, and rendezvous with some other teams! Circle them back around the outside of the buildings and see if you can find a back way up! Try to get some of the army guys to lead the charge; get some with shotguns to clear out the rooms!”

Ronny nodded again, but instead of taking off, he hesitated a while, his face confused and uncertain.

Clay grimaced and shouted, “What part of that was unclear?”

“Nothing!” Ronny shouted back. He was silent a moment more, and then repeated, “Nothing! I got it!”

“Well then get going, fucking Ronny! We’ll stay here and keep our friends occupied!”

Ronny shuffled out of there as quickly as he could while maintaining a bent over position. Clay watched him depart, wishing he felt safe enough to send Pap away to do the job. Wishing he had another Pap, in other words.

“Think he’ll get ’er handled?” Pap asked.

Clay shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. We’ll give him twenty before we fall back on plan B.”

“Yup,” Pap grunted.

They fought on from their pinned position in the street, more than a few of their own piling up on the pavement; a hefty penalty for popping their heads up out of cover at the worst possible time. Clay did his best to add to the general confusion, lifting his own AR-whateverthefuckitwas over the hood of the car and yanking the trigger repeatedly. He glanced over at Pap between volleys and saw the man clutching that idiotic levergun to his chest, periodically raising it high enough to send a bear-load downrange before pulling it back to his chest to cycle another fatty into the chamber. Clay grimaced at him, shook his own rifle, and shouted, “You’re getting one of these whenever it is we get back to camp!”

“Hell no!” shouted Pap. “Gutless fucking round!”

Clay rolled his eyes heavenward but said nothing else on the matter. Pap was one of the most loyal men he’d ever encountered, but there were certain things he simply could not be told.

Ronny returned a short time later, collapsing into the car door and panting, shotgun clutched to his chest.

“What in the fuck are you doing back here!” Clay demanded.

“I got the rest of them set,” panted Ronny. “There’re two groups moving up on the west and east sides right now. It looks like whoever the fuck they are have dug in on both sides of the street.”

“That’s great, but I repeat: why the fuck are you not with them?” Clay yelled.

“I thought you’d need me back here!”

“Do not fucking think, Ronny! Jesus FUCKING Christ!”

Clay turned and resumed firing over the car. Pap and Ronny glanced at each other and, animosity temporarily forgotten, shrugged at each other before doing the same.

Over time, they noticed the return fire begin to lessen, though the frequency of gunshots sounding from up the street didn’t diminish at all. The snap of bullets passing by was still there, but it was only occasional now. They heard fewer impacts against their cover, felt the panels of the cars and trucks rattle less against their spines. They started to poke their heads up into the open to get a look downrange and, in contrast to a few minutes ago, the tops of their heads weren’t simply vaporized in fine, red mists. Seconds later, Pap’s radio barked, reporting static, tinny gunfire, and a woman’s voice shouting that they’d cleared the first floor of the east building, they’d killed a few and were moving on to the next level.

While Clay and Pap stared fixedly at the radio’s speaker, Ronny looked back down the street and saw Beau staring directly at him. He nodded at him before pulling back slightly from the car and repositioning over to the building closest to them. He stood, put his shoulder into the wall, and began sending one-ounce slugs at the west building; both at the windows and at any ground-level movement he happened to see. Pap and Clay glanced at him when he did this, so he nodded in his target’s direction and grunted, “We’ll want to keep that side occupied until the west team checks in! Keep the heat on them!” The two men at his feet both nodded at this, turned, and began to shoot in the same direction.

They continued to fight in this fashion for a few minutes, the machine-gunner on the far right of the car with his weapon settled on the trunk sending three-round bursts, Clay picking his targets carefully from a kneeling position and no longer even bothering to put his head down, Pap with his buffalo gun laid over the roof, and Ronny standing just behind him on the left. He looked back up the street and saw Beau coming their way, picking his steps carefully. The tattooed mechanic was perhaps a hundred feet away. Ronny pulled a few shells from his shot pouch and thumbed them up into the receiver hurriedly. Beau crept up behind them, eyes glued to the back of Clay’s head, while the men continued to fire their weapons, happily oblivious.

It could not have gone any better if Ronny had sacrificed a goat to some lost, forgotten god.

Beau came up to a distance of some seven feet behind Clay, pulling his rifle up to his shoulder as he positioned himself. Pap must have seen him coming from the corner of his eye; as Ronny brought his shotgun around, Mr. Big Texas himself whirled against the car, swinging the long, heavy barrel of his rifle back at Beau and screamed, “NO, BAWS!” Startled by the outburst, Clay flinched and started to spin around as well.