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

Edgar chose this time to weigh in, of course. “You know, I’m sure we all appreciate your experience as a soldier,” I inwardly cringed when he said this but didn’t bother to correct him; Marines and Army soldiers like to have their little pissing contests from time to time but, truth be told, I was actually very positive on the Army… besides, the only people who actually care about the difference between Marines and soldiers are Marines and soldiers, “but I don’t ever recall voting to put you in charge—”

“That’s because you didn’t vote. I just am.”

That shut him up.

“Let’s be perfectly clear, guys. The arrangement here is thus: I’ve voluntarily agreed to be responsible for this group’s well-being. This is nothing new to me; it was my job for twelve years as a United States Marine.” I restrained myself from emphasizing the word “Marine” for Edgar’s benefit—one must not be petty. “It may be a little more personal now; back then I was serving for a more abstract concept like Country whereas now I can see all the faces of the people I’m working for, but the concept is the same. The conditions of my service, now, are that I’m in charge. You all follow my lead; otherwise, I can’t do my job and keep you safe. And frankly, if I’m unable to do this properly, I’m not going to kill myself trying to half-ass the job.”

I let the unspoken threat hang in the air. I was absolutely serious, too. I wasn’t about to hang around with a group of people if they were going to start engaging in a bunch of fuckery likely to get people killed.

“So,” I concluded, “does anyone now care to hold a vote?”

No one spoke. I saw a few heads shake back and forth, some people had downcast eyes. It made me feel like a shitbag, but I still believe it was critical to get it out in the open. Clarity for the group was more important than my pangs of guilt over stomping puppy dog feelings. I locked eyes with Edgar, waiting to see what he would do. He breathed in, exhaled, and looked out his window.

“Outstanding,” I said. “Davidson, you take the rifle we found at the humvee.” Davidson lit up like a Christmas tree, no doubt thinking about the grenade launcher. I thought about taking the grenade belt along with me; the look on his face made me question whether I could trust him with ammo for the damned thing.

“Kyle, you’ll take my M4, and Jessica gets the pistol. Oscar, hang on to that Beretta.” I gestured to Kyle and Jessica, motioning them to the back of the bus. I followed them back and opened up the bag of provisions. I pulled out an MRE (Mac ’N’ Cheese, I noted, the lucky bastards) and handed it up to Kyle with a bottle of water. “You guys get this heated up and divide it in half. I’m going to get everyone else fed and then I’ll be right with you.”

I took the duffel back up the aisle to the center of the bus and addressed the group. “Let’s get some chow, people. One MRE for every two people; pair off and select your poison from the bag. If you run out of MREs, switch to canned foods and other items. I don’t know if it will come to that because I haven’t counted these out, but there are definitely less MREs than there are people. When it comes to the other, non-military food, make sure you get at least six hundred calories but take in no more than seven hundred. We need to ration this out until we get a resupply.”

I grabbed a can of ravioli from the bag and took it back with me to the rear of the bus. Kyle and Jessica had their ration pack underway; it was on the floor of the bus leaning against a seat strut. I used my pocket knife to saw through the lid of my can, making the jankiest, most jagged opening in history and not caring. Thinking about how I was going to eat my food, something suddenly occurred to me. I pulled out a pack of wet wipes from our supplies and pulled out several sheets to share between Kyle, Jessica, and myself. “Wash your hands,” I said.

I called out to the rest of the group towards the middle of the bus: “Hey! Everyone wash your hands! You do not want to get ass—” I cut myself off as I noted the women and children looking back at me. “That is… you don’t want to make yourselves sick.” I threw the wet wipe pack forward, where it was caught by Wang.

I spent the next fifteen minutes going over the operation and safety procedures of the M4 carbine and Sig Sauer P320 with my new team. I’m happy to report they never once rolled their eyes or fidgeted during the safety brief.

Within a half hour, everyone was fed, and the three of us were ready to hop off our ride to take a walk into town. As I was lifting my rifle to sling over my shoulder, African Carry style with the barrel down, Jessica said, “Shouldn’t you be putting on that equipment that we took from the dead soldier?”

“Negative,” I said. “There isn’t enough armor to go around. I’m not about to see to my own protection if the other guys in my team are going out naked. In fact, here Kyle, you’re the baby. You wear it.”

I smiled at his grimace when I said “baby”; I began to dig through our gear to find the rig. From behind me, I heard Wang speak: “Hey, don’t take this wrong, Gibs, but that’s pretty dumb.”

I straightened up to look back at him. “Excuse me?” I asked. I wasn’t pissed off at him; just a little surprised.

Instead of answering me, he addressed the rest of the bus. “How many people on this bus have served in the military?”

George Oliver, Mr. Thump-Step himself, raised his hand. That surprised me. I hadn’t known that about him. Either way, the guy looked older than the Pyramids and walked around on a cane; he probably served in World War One or something. Maybe I was being too optimistic. Spanish American War, probably.

Wang continued. “And how many of us have combat experience?”

Nobody raised a hand this time. Wang looked back at me along with everyone else.

“As you say,” Wang said, “we need you to teach us how to fight effectively as a team. We need to learn from you so we can survive. You’re kind of a VIP now. You’re not going to be good to anyone if you do something stupid like get killed.”

Jesus , I thought. You morbid little asshole .

I thought about it a minute and then shook my head. “Look, it’s probably a moot point, anyway. We haven’t seen a single person since we got here, and we’ve driven all over the place. I’m sure it’s safe out there.”

“If that’s the case then leave the weapons behind,” said Wang. “You’ll be able to carry more back here when you return.”

goddamnit, the cagey little bastard had me pinned. I was strongly considering just overriding everyone and forcing Kyle bodily into the gear if I had to. Edgar spoke up before I could.

“You do know that we’re right, of course. You wouldn’t look so uncertain otherwise.”

I held back anger at his insufferable, know-it-all, little comment. Maybe they were right. Maybe the best way I could do my job was to start by ensuring that I stayed upright. It was a bitter damned pill to swallow, though.

“Fine,” I growled. I pulled the whole works over my head and started strapping into it, adjusting the mag and grenade pouches as I went. Things were a little moved around from what I was used to when I wore one of these for a living, but I decided to not eat up the next several minutes repositioning pouches on the webbing. Instead, I started opening and inspecting each pouch to verify what I had. In addition to the usual stack of pmags wrapped around my belly, I located fragmentation, flashbang, and smoke grenades. There was all the other usual crap that I was used to seeing too; the flex cuffs, flashlight and chemlight, a blowout kit (I found that it was outfitted with the newer QuickClot gauze, which was a good thing; I’d never experienced this personally but the older pads used to burn the hell out of people)—I noted, however, that the standard cat (combat application tourniquet) was missing. I also located some partially filled out casualty and witness cards, now rendered useless by the fact that there was no one to submit them to in the event that we took any casualties. I stuffed them back in their pocket, not wanting to explain them to anyone else for fear of spooking them.