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

I finally straightened up and took a deep breath, rolling my shoulders. “Hey, Davidson. Why don’t you push out a bit while I’m doing this? See if you can find some water, maybe.”

“I can do that,” he said. The kid was nothing if not enthusiastic. He reminded me of that little runt dog in the old Looney Tunes cartoons (“Hey, Spike, you want I should pick up some bones for yah, huh?”)

“Keep within a klick,” I advised.

He slung the rifle I had given him, a civilian M4 with a Vortex dot optic (he had accepted the thing like I was handing him a Hatori Hanzo samurai sword for chrissakes), and headed out. The M4 was one of two rifles I had brought along with me for the apocalypse. The other rifle (the one I still have and which nobody gets to touch… well, for the most part, anyway) is my baby: a Heckler and Koch MR556A1 loaded up with a 4x32 Trijicon ACOG optic and a Surefire light. This rifle was everything that the M4 I carried in the Corps should have been. If there had been any way for me to get my hands on the 416, I damned well would have, but you can’t do much better than the civilian MR556 in my learned (and correct) opinion.

“You’re really very good with him,” Barbara said. I like Barbara Dennings. She’s a sweet little old lady. I’m not sure exactly how old; you never ask a lady that—Mom would have broken her foot off in my ass if she ever heard of me doing such a thing. Even so, I’m going to guess late fifties to early sixties. I’m willing to bet she was and is a wildcat behind closed doors as she can flirt right alongside the best of the Spring Break college crowd. Better, in fact, because she has a lifetime of education and experience backing her play. No ditzy co-ed, our Barbara. My kind of lady.

“He’s a good kid,” I told her. “Once he gets a few accomplishments under his belt he’ll calm down a bit. Oh, thank you, Jesus!” I had finally managed to get the hose inserted. I heaved a sigh and began to work the little hand pump.

“We should see about finding some more of those,” Oscar said to my left, indicating the pump. “I could help you do this.”

“You are helping,” I told him. “Soon as I have enough in this gas can, you can take it over and fill up our ride while I go get another tank started.”

“Come on, man, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do,” I agreed. “But for now, I’m happy with you keeping your head on a swivel while I’m bent over this thing. You just keep that M9 handy.”

Don’t ask me how this had come about but not a one of these damned people that I picked up along the way had a firearm of any kind. I originally thought at the outset of this whole thing that bringing two rifles and a pistol was just being dumb, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave them behind. If I had known I would eventually be traveling with the 1 stBattalion Snowflakes, I would have brought a lot more.

Davidson returned twenty minutes later with a wide-eyed expression on his face. “Uh, Gibs? I think you’d better come have a look at this.”

I straightened up from the hand pump and rolled my eyes. The kid could be a walking movie cliché sometimes.

“Really? You can’t just tell me? Use your words, man.”

“Sorry. I ran into a ton of people living in a grocery store. They seem okay, but I figured I’d better come get you.”

I was not excited to hear this news. The seven of us were already piled into three cars; keeping them all fueled had grown into an operation that could take at least a couple of hours depending on how lucky we got while moving from vehicle to vehicle.

“Define ‘ton,’” I said.

“Eight people. All kinds, like our group.”

“Oh, Jesus bacon-eating Christ,” I groaned. I looked at Rebecca, a knock-out of a redhead that was both too damned young and too damned hot for my aged ass (a fact which deterred me not a bit from stealing the odd glance at her turd cutter—I am only a man after all) and said, “Okay, Rebecca, you come take this over, please. Davidson, trade weapons with Oscar and come show me this group. Oscar, you good with that rifle?”

“Yeah, I remember how it goes.”

“Good deal,” I nodded. “Lead the way, Davidson.”

He led me a few blocks away from where we had parked, the both of us weaving around or climbing over the various vehicles that had been pulled up onto the sidewalks. I hated walking through the area like that; hated everything about being in cities. They all felt too much like Fallujah now, with all the damage and all the shit everywhere. Every bit of conspicuous garbage lying on the side of the road made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I just about gave myself whiplash walking down the streets trying to clock every window and rooftop. I just couldn’t help myself. I mean, I knew intellectually that there were no Muj waiting to jump out at us but “old habits,” you know?

He finally brought me to a grocery store where, I swear to God, every square inch of glass in the storefront had been busted out. To compensate for this, the people inside had apparently piled up everything that wasn’t nailed down in front of the wreckage. And I mean everything—whole sections of aisle shelf, every shopping cart they could get their hands on, even a goddamned ATM was all stacked up in a big old barricade along the entire storefront. Wedged in front of the door in the center of it all was one of those refrigerator-sized Coke machines.

Davidson walked up to the thing like he was planning on inserting a dollar and slapped the plastic front panel with his open hand. “Hey, guys!” he called out. “We’re back. You can let us in.”

The sound of men grunting came from behind the machine, and it began to slide back slowly over the floor, creating a bit of a squeal and dragging a shopping cart along with it. As the gap between the machine and the door frame increased, I could see at least one man pulling from behind. He reached out and moved the stowaway shopping cart over with his hand.

Davidson looked back at me and indicated my rifle. “These people are skittish, but they’re okay. Go ahead and let that hang.”

I had my doubts and decided to compromise; I lowered the rifle across my body but kept my hands wrapped on grip and handguard. I did not engage the safety.

The Coke machine was pulled back only far enough that we could get past it and into the store by stepping to the left or right around it, so I couldn’t see in. A grubby, shell-shocked head poked out from the right of the opening and stared out at us. His face was dirty enough that I couldn’t tell he was Asian at first; I had to really stare at the guy to place his ethnicity.

“I brought him,” Davidson said. “This is Gibs.”

“It’s just you two?” said the man. His accent was just barely noticeable; you had to really listen for it to detect it at all.

“Sure. I said it would be.”

“Okay. Come on in.” The head pulled back and disappeared around the corner.

Davidson looked back to me and smiled nervously. “Hey, I know this looks fucknuts, but these people really seem okay. They’re mostly just scared.”

I nodded while grimacing internally at his use of the word “fucknuts.” There’s no nice way to say this: Davidson was a fanboy. He was in college when everything came flying apart, his plan being to join the Marines as an officer. Unfortunately for him (or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the Marines stopped existing before he had a chance to sign up. It still bugs the shit out of him now but back then he was overcompensating. I remember regretting telling the kid that I was a Marine; as soon as he heard that, he was busting out the lingo at every opportunity. I swear, I think he knew more Jarhead jargon than I did and I left the Corps as a Staff Sergeant. Davidson was that one motarded kid who would have shown up at the Island with a high-and-tight and a Semper Fi t-shirt. The drill instructors would have murdered his poor, dumb ass.