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

I looked around. “Okay, I’m wearing the damned thing. Is everyone happy now?”

Barbara smiled at me. “I’m happy. You’re looking yummy.”

I restrained a laugh. “Later, Barbara. Not in front of the children.” I turned back to the pile of gear on the aisle floor, crouched down to the food duffel, and pulled out the last of the food and water, which was distressingly little. I handed the empty bag up to Jessica and said, “Here, you can pack mule for us. If we luck out and find a large cache somewhere, we can come back for more people to help us carry it all out.”

She took the bag and I nodded to both of them, confirming it was time to head out. I paused by Davidson as I went and said, “You stay away from those grenades, okay? Don’t let me come back here and find that you’ve blown half your face off.”

“Understood, boss. Not until I’ve been trained.”

“Good,” I said, feeling a little guilty. Davidson was eager, but he was no dummy; I’d ordered him to keep off already, and so that was very likely what he would do. I felt as though I needed to loosen up a little and stop expecting the worst possible performance out of everyone all the time. The fact that none of these people were Marines didn’t make them five-year-olds. In fact, a lot of the guys in my platoon had demonstrated several times that they were perfectly comfortable operating at a five-year-old level—all they had to do was get a little bored, and the shenanigans would ensue.

“There isn’t really any place to get elevated around here,” I said to him. “At the same time, the buildings we do have around will limit your field of view. I recommend you just position yourself outside the bus, so you have good visibility running up and down the street. Keep everyone else close by.”

He nodded and grabbed the grenadier’s M4 to follow us off the bus. I walked up the aisle towards the exit, having to rotate around the people in the seats to keep from smacking them in the heads and shoulders with all the pouches hanging off my torso.

Outside of the bus, I looked at my two new teammates and said, “Let’s just stick to Washington. We’ll head south and keep our eyes open for anything good. Keep on the lookout for the standard stuff like grocery stores and the like, but also look for larger businesses or office buildings. Most of those places had employee rec rooms or cafeterias. They would have food and Coke dispensers we can break open.”

We walked south together for several blocks, looking for things to jump out at us. Kyle gestured to several buildings as we went, but I shook my head to indicate we should keep moving. The businesses in the area were small; a lot of them were little Mom and Pop take-out joints that would have either been cleared out or stuffed with rotting food. There would be more hope for water in these places, but we had a good distance to go into the city; I didn’t want to load down with bottles of water here only to have to carry them double the distance. Besides, I was still dreaming of an Army checkpoint.

Being younger and subject to less aches and pains (and perhaps also because he wasn’t humping another forty pounds of combat load), Kyle began to drift out ahead of us as we walked. I appreciated his drive but called out to him anyway, advising that he not get too far ahead. He waved back to me and slowed his pace. Jessica stayed by my side as we walked, the tattoos on her bare arms standing out in the daylight. She had the long strap of the duffel bag crisscrossed over her body with both of her hands wound up in the strap at the center of her chest, keeping the bag up high on her back rather than slapping around at her hip.

I stole glances at her out of the corner of my left eye as we walked, trying to get some kind of read on her. I could tell she was younger than me, but she was a lot closer to my own age (forty-two at the time) than she was to Kyle’s; I’d have to place her in the early-to-mid-thirty range. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she had a serious face; a face that described a certain familiarity with getting only slightly less than what was needed from life. It struck me, then, that she was an attractive woman in all of the ways that Rebecca was not. Rebecca had a lot going for her including an unlined, baby doll face and a body loaded down with curves in all the right places; but her attitude was basically still that of a kid. Taking into account her flash of insight at the tent city, I had begun to suspect that the whole “helpless bombshell” thing might be more of a performance on her part; a calculated persona designed to attract those of the White Knight mindset. I wasn’t anywhere near certain if this was actually the case, but if it was, my estimation of her would be knocked down a rung or two; I am not an admirer of feigned incompetence.

Jessica’s beauty, on the other hand, had its core in the competence she expressed. Her face carried life experience in the fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth as well as the deeper wrinkles of her forehead, and yet these only added to her appeal. She looked like she had probably hit some rough patches along the way and had been blessed with the inner drive necessary to push through. On the road in a pair of dirty, stale jeans, a sweat stained shirt, greasy unwashed hair, and grime highlighting all the cracks of her skin she yet managed to be striking. I imagined that once she cleaned up, dressed nice, and applied a bit of makeup, she could turn some serious heads.

“Uh, you see anything you like?” she asked, shocking me out of my thoughts. I had been convinced I was being all stealthy, but apparently, I was staring like a dumbass.

Having enough experience to answer with neither “yes” nor “no,” I said, “Sorry. Don’t take it wrong; I was just curious about who I’m traveling with. I have a pretty good lock on Kyle since we had a chance to talk a bit up at the airport. I was just wondering about you, that’s all.”

Apparently not willing to let me off the hook, she said, “Ah… nice dodge but you still didn’t answer my question.”

I blew air out between my lips in an obvious stall for time. Rather than going for a gambit in either direction, I decided to hedge by calling attention to my position, hoping for a little pity. “Okay, well if I say ‘no,’ I’m the rude prick that thinks you’re not much worth looking at. If I say ‘yes,’ I’m that creepy old guy that likes to get the ladies separated off from the group so he can ogle them and start making propositions.”

“I don’t think you’re old at all, Gibs.” She didn’t look at me, but the corner of her mouth pulled up in a smile.

Well… damn .

I decided to put a pin in that train of thought and see if I could press her for background. I’d be coming back to this, though. There was charming to be done here. Oh, yes.

“Okay,” I said, scrambling to pick the main thread back up, “all that aside, I’m basically walking into an undefined situation right now with a couple of armed strangers and Kyle is slightly less strange than you. No offense; I just mean that you’re unfamiliar. I don’t know anything about you. For instance, have you ever fired a gun before?”

She tilted her head and nodded off into the distance, body language indicating that she considered this a worthy line of inquiry. “I have,” she answered, “but I was not the best at it nor did I enjoy it.”

“Oh, what happened?”

“Bad case of a shitty instructor,” she said. “It was my ex-husband. He was dead set on having his ‘woman learn how to handle a weapon.’” She said the last part of the sentence in a mock-basso voice while puffing out her chest and widening her elbows far enough to encroach into my space, which didn’t bother me in the slightest. “Then he let me rattle my fillings loose with his .44 magnum.”