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

All things being put away, we went to the back of the Jeep and prepared ourselves. We only had the two vests; one went back on me with the help of a little fresh duct tape. The other went on Lizzy at Jake’s insistence. It took a bit of work on Billy’s part to get it to fit properly as it initially hung so low on her that too much of her upper chest was exposed for the vest to be of any use. Billy adjusted the shoulder straps down as tight as they would go and then doubled what was left of the straps back over on themselves, wrapping them in several rounds of duct tape each. The midsection was taped down in a fashion similar to my own vest. We pulled a large sweater over the result and, though the shoulders stuck up like a woman’s power blazer out of the 1980s, the solution was workable enough that she was protected adequately and could still move well.

In my case, I opted to put the vest on over my shirt this time and then just buttoned the flannel up over it. Jake and Billy’s reasoning about keeping the vest hidden to keep opposing weapons aimed at my torso, which would be the most protected part of me, made good sense. I was beginning to wonder about the other point that had been made.

“Hey, Jake,” I said. “Remember how you told me about that article Billy read—about how guys tricked out in military gear were targeted more than the average looking folks in those society breakdown situations?”

“I do,” Jake said.

“Grey Men. That was a good article,” Billy said as he slipped a bandolier over his head.

“Well, I don’t think that applies anymore.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. As a society or a species, we’ve never actually been this bad off. Everyone is a target now, whether we look like soldiers or not. Someone pushing a shopping cart down the street used to be a hobo. Now that same person is a target because that cart probably has goodies, maybe even water. The fact that we’re driving around in a convoy makes us more of a target than any fancy gear we’re wearing. If that kind of gear really is useful or gives us any kind of edge, we should use it when we can.”

“Yeah. Hell, she’s right,” Billy said. “Dammit…”

“What is it?” Jake asked.

“When you look at it that way, I should have grabbed all them tac-vests and molle gear back in Vegas. Damn it!”

“It’s fine,” Jake said. “It all would have been stolen with the van, anyway.”

“Don’t bring that up again. I’m still pissed about that van.”

We finished gearing up. I got in the Jeep with Jake, but Lizzy opted to ride with Billy up in the truck (I think she was still angry with me). I let her have it. She needed the time to cool off.

Billy followed us in the truck since I knew the way to the store, but once we got there, he extended his arm out the window and motioned for us to follow him. He drove us around to the back of the building where the loading docks were located. We reversed both of our vehicles down one of the ramps leading to a roll-up door, and I saw that we were easily below ground level once we had backed up all the way to the bottom of the trough. Even if someone happened by the back of the building, they wouldn’t notice anything until they were right on top of us.

“Do you have any requests once I’m in there?” I asked Jake.

“I’d like to avoid Bro Country and Bieber, if at all possible.”

“I can live with that,” I chuckled. “How about what you might actually want? Makes it easier on me.”

Jake’s eyes squinted as he looked out over the dashboard. “See if you can find any Johnny Cash.”

“Cash, huh?” I said, mildly surprised.

“You don’t care for the Man in Black?”

“Oh, no, he’s fine. I just didn’t think of you as a Cash fan.”

We were interrupted by Billy outside. “C’mon, let’s get moving.” I smiled at Jake, grabbed the keys, and hopped out of the Jeep. Billy was already moving toward the steps leading up to the door that was next to our ramp. He was carrying the crowbar with him.

Jake was out of the Jeep and walking up the ramp in the opposite direction to a point where he could just see over the edge of the walls in both directions, his eyes level with the ground. “How long do you think you’ll be?” he called back to us. He was shifting his new rifle around and adjusting the spare magazine in his hip pocket.

“I think give us about thirty minutes,” Billy said; trying the handle of the door and finding it locked. “After that, come check on us.” He lifted the crowbar and started prying daintily at the lock just as he had done at the house the day before.

“I can give you what feels like thirty minutes,” he offered back. “No watch.”

Billy put down the bar and looked back at him. “What kind of man doesn’t have a watch?”

Jake shrugged. “I just used a cell phone before.”

Billy shook his head and threw the truck keys over to Jake, who caught them deftly out of the air. It was a throw of perhaps fifty feet and rather impressive for how casual it was. “Use the truck radio,” Billy said and turned back to the door. He finished mangling it open (it took much longer than the house—there was a metal plate protecting the bolt that had to be pried back first) and returned the crowbar to the truck. “Well, come on you two. Let’s get it.”

It was dark and cold on the other side of the door; the only light was coming in from outside. Billy pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and handed it to Lizzy. “I can’t deal with this and the shotgun,” he told her. “I need you to manage it for me. Just pay attention to me and try to keep it pointed wherever I’m looking. If you hear a noise, shine that light on it for me, and I’ll look into it. Whatever you do, don’t shine that in your mama’s or my eyes.”

“Okay,” she said and took the flashlight. She turned it on and pointed it out in front of her. I reached up with my thumb and activated the light on my rifle, which threw way more illumination than I expected for such a little device. Billy propped the door open with a box he found nearby.

We were in the back warehouse section of the store. It was a smaller area than I had expected it to be (I guess they wanted to get as much floor space for shoppers as possible when they were still operating) but it was still of decent size, with lines of storage racks running throughout the area. Most of these were empty, but some still had pallets sparsely populated with items. The whole area was ghostly and oppressively quiet, all things standing out in the no-color of our flashlights in flat shades of grey. Little motes of dust reflected the beams back at us, further limiting our visibility. The size of the storage area seemed to expand and contract by turns; if I set my light level with the floor, it spanned easily across the room and to the opposing wall, which was fifteen or twenty feet away at most. When I lowered the muzzle back to the floor, all shrank back in around us. Sounds became stuck as they traveled through the air and it was psychologically hard to breathe.

“I somehow pictured this all to be a lot brighter,” I said. “I’m starting to feel as though this is a stupid idea.”

“It’ll be okay,” said Billy from behind me. “There will be skylights on the main floor. He made his way around me and walked toward a set of double doors across the room. “We’ll make one complete circuit around the store. One full track around the outer perimeter and then a few passes through the center to make sure it’s just us in here. Following that, we’ll grab a cart or two and go shopping.”