Joshua Gayou - Commune - Book One

I found the little button on the back of the unit and pressed it. Even in the early morning light, I could see its beam in the dirt in front of me. I pressed the button to turn it off, but it started flashing at intervals. I pressed it again, and it went back to being solidly on.

“Hold it down,” Billy offered. I did, and it turned off. I shouldered the rifle and put my left thumb on the button without activating it. I liked that I could reach the button without having to move my whole hand. I was distracted by Jake, who was holding the magazine out to me.

Taking it, I said, “What about you? No light for the shotgun?”

In answer, Billy grabbed it by the stock and held it straight out in front of him, rotating it slowly so I could see it on all sides. “No rails,” he said contentedly and placed it back on the ground. “There are special kits and adaptors that you can get to modify the hell out of an 870… in fact you can even bullpup it, just like your Tavor there. But I could never bring myself to screw with perfection.”

We finished out the morning by brushing our teeth, cleaning our hands and faces with wet wipes (Billy packed the essentials as good as any professional mother), and striking camp when all of this was finished. Billy began shifting critical survival items like food, water, and tools from the truck to the back of the Jeep where it could be locked up in an enclosed shell. The gun bag went in the back of the Jeep as well. I rolled up the sleeping bags and worked on taking down the tents with Lizzy. Jake tried to help in this activity, but he was forced to move slowly and deliberately to avoid dizzy spells, which meant that we ended up accomplishing three or four tasks for every one of his. We had our tent completely bundled and stowed while he was still busy breaking his down, even accounting for a false start in which the tent wouldn’t fit in its carrying bag because we had folded it incorrectly. We went to him to offer help hesitantly, wondering if he would be irritable and insist on doing all the work himself. Instead of being annoyed, he gratefully accepted.

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.”