Commune: Book One (Commune Series 1)

by Joshua Gayou

  “See something out there?” he asked. He had his shotgun up to his shoulder and was scanning all around.

  “I can’t be sure. I thought I saw some movement but it was just peripheral. I might just be jumpy. Seeing a completely deserted city takes getting used to.”

  “I get yah,” he said, offering his hand. I took it, and he levered me up to a standing position. He pulled rather effortlessly, I thought, and my feet may have left the ground a little at the top of the motion.

  “Strong for an old man,” I mentioned.

  He chuckled modestly. “Yeah, training for general strength is a thing you do at my age if you want to be able to wipe your own ass past a certain point. A thing you do at any age, really.”

  “Why do I get the impression that you’ve been practicing for everything to fall apart?”

  “Oh, well…” he muttered, going back to the shopping cart inside, “I don’t know that I was practicing for all of this, but I’ve always been a bit of what you might call ‘a prepper’. It was one of the things I always focused on in my tribal council days…when I still had a tribe. Self-Reliance in all things. Being in a position where you don’t have to rely on anyone else makes you stronger. From the perspective of our tribe, that meant achieving self-reliance in our sovereignty from the U.S. government. That was where all the gaming came from – we wanted a genuine and powerful mode of income on whatever scraps of land we had left that didn’t rely on the sufferance of outside forces or governing bodies. Gaming casinos were an outstanding way to realize that dream – a self-contained, little ecosystem of revenue generation that relied very little on outside sources or suppliers. No manufacturing, no supply chains to consider. It was beautiful.”

  I noted that Billy spoke with genuine pride when he discussed these concepts. I wasn’t sure how high up he was in his tribal government but it was fairly obvious that he had some significant skin in the game.

  “Anyway,” he continued as he reached out to toss various odds and ends into the cart, “as I continued to push these values in council, I became more interested in ways that I could pursue self-reliance in my own personal life. Because of that, I picked up a thing or two that ended up being useful when the world went to hell.”

  “Seems I have some catching up to do.”

  “No worries,” he said, offering a light slap to the shoulder. “I have one or two things I can share.”

  We went through the store getting more items that made sense. Some of it was picked over but not as bad as I had feared it might be. Common sense stuff like roadside emergency kits were completely pillaged; there wasn’t a flare to be found anywhere in the shop. Other things like tools and replacement parts could be found if they were items not commonly replaced. I probably could have turned that whole place upside down looking for replacement belts for our vehicles and never found a thing but items like alternators and torque wrenches were still available.

  We threw a few more tools into the cart (more wrenches, pliers, channel locks, vice grips and the like as well as a replacement battery each for the trucks. Billy finally found an emergency air compressor in the back of the shop that could be plugged into a cigarette lighter port and we finished out the plunder with as many tire patch kits as we could find. Things like batteries, flashlights, and so on were simply no go.

  Satisfied that we had established a successful balance in need versus capacity, we gave each other a nod and rolled the cart toward the front door of the shop. I picked up the M4, slung it over my shoulder (Billy hadn’t laid his shotgun aside at any point since we’d been in there; he literally slept with its sling over him), and exited out the glass double door.

  Directly across from the front entrance was the Dodge truck, backed in with the gate about five feet from the door. To the left of the truck was the van, also backed in. To the right of the truck were two men of entirely questionable nature. They looked rough and ragged, but then we all looked rough and ragged after the fall, so I wasn’t exactly holding that against them. What I didn’t like, what set me on edge immediately, was that they had positioned themselves such that the sun was to their backs and in our faces and they were spread out far enough that they made two discrete targets about 30 degrees apart. Their demeanor suggested a friendly conversation but everything about their placement screamed ambush.

  Billy must have seen it immediately and processed it much faster than I did. When I stepped outside, he had already moved out to the left and positioned the truck bed between himself and our two new visitors. He had his shotgun held loosely in his hand and resting lightly over his left forearm. It looked comfortable but it would take an idiot to miss the fact that he could have it up and ready in an instant.

  For my part, I froze for a beat, grunted, and swiveled my rifle up under my arm and aimed it at their general direction. If they had actually had a firearm ready to go, there would have been ample time to kill me several times over. Thankfully, they had a plan slightly more complicated than simply shooting us full of holes. The one on the right was armed, as far as I could see, with a pistol jammed into his waistband like some sort of gangster. They both raised empty hands when my barrel came up.

  “Whoa, whoa, stranger! No harm meant. We’re just passing through, is all,” said the one on the right. I didn’t like his look and his voice settled the deal for me. He had a weasely, greasy look with an unctuous, assuming little voice that set my teeth to grinding the minute words came out of his mouth. His friend was harder to get a read on; he just stood there silently.

  I swiveled my eyes over to Billy, who was in my peripheral view and who, to my shock and horror, put his back to the whole thing and began to focus his attention in the opposite direction. I wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing but I didn’t want to do so out in the open in front of Weasel and Mum.

  “Passing through,” I repeated. “Fair enough. What can we do for you?”

  Weasel put on what I supposed he thought was his most winning smile; it was grotesque and unnatural. Mum divided his attention between me and Billy, who had seemed to lose interest in the whole thing. “Nice of you to ask, there, friend. Quite nice. Larry and I couldn’t help but notice that you and your partner had these two outstanding fucking rides here. You look like fellas who have straightened your shit right out. We were thinking maybe you’d be interested in joining forces or maybe just trading?”

  Weasel and Larry, then. Fine.

  “Joining forces, huh? Just what kind of force are we talking about?”

  “Oh, it’s just me and Larry here. Not much of a force, really, but four is better than two, after all, wouldn’t you say?” He chuckled at this, seemingly pleased with his ability to do simple math. He and Larry were both stealing glances over at Billy now, who continued to look down the street in the direction opposite of where I would really have rather he devoted his time, shotgun now in low ready with butt in shoulder and muzzle down.

  “Hey, uh, what’s yer buddy looking at, there?” Weasel asked, then louder and directed at Billy, “Conversation’s over this way, bro. We boring you over here?”

  “Fucking rude, is what it is,” rumbled Larry. His eyes were dark and nervous and now bouncing back between Billy and me like he was watching an Olympic Table Tennis match.

  Getting fed up with the whole stupid scenario rather quickly, I wanted to ask Billy just what he thought he was doing as well. Forcing back my frustration, I kept my eyes locked on the two men with my rifle muzzle up and spaced at the midway point between the two of them and said, “Bill?” I always called him Billy because that was how he’d introduced himself so I strongly hoped my calling him Bill would knock loose whatever it was that had gotten stuck in his brain.

  He had apparently noticed, either by my tone or my usage of his name, because he said, “It’s okay, Jake. These two just really want me to turn around. They don’t want me to se…”

  I’m going to do my best to describe what happened next without getting it all confused. I remember ever
ything happening at the same time and I’m not sure I can explain this coherently.

  In the middle of Billy’s sentence, the sound of gut shaking explosions thundered off to my left – one blast followed by two additional blasts in rapid succession. After the first explosion but before the second two, Larry raised his hand in the direction of Billy and shouted, “Danny!!” At the same time as that, Weasel reached into his waistband and started hauling on the pistol.

  I immediately began to drop into a crouch, swinging the barrel at Weasel and yanking on the trigger. The trigger itself didn’t move and nothing happened - I suddenly remembered that I had the safety on in response to Billy’s instruction from the night before. I cursed (or at least I tried to; it came out sounding like “Fyurk!!!”) and slammed the safety as far in the other direction as it would go. In the meantime, two more explosions detonated off to my left for a total of five.

  Weasel had gotten the pistol out of his shorts by now and was lifting it towards me while Larry appeared to be digging furiously in his butt (I supposed at the time that he was going for his own weapon). I instinctively kicked out with both feet in an attempt to get away, like a kind of jump reflex. This propelled me backwards two or three feet and landed me on my back with my feet pointed towards the attackers. This most likely saved my life as the first shot from Weasel’s gun passed over me and through the glass double doors of Pep Boys. On my back, I spread my legs to avoid shooting my own feet off and pulled the trigger.

  I nearly soiled myself as the M4 came alive in full automatic fury, stitching a line up and down Weasel, with little dusty penetrations appearing all over his torso and thighs. In the movies when you see someone shot, you always see copious amounts of blood splatter flying all around the screen. Well, the movies are full of it. I saw puffs of dust raise off the impact points and his clothes rippled about as holes appeared. If there was any blood it was in a fine mist and it was too fast for me to see. The guy didn’t start bleeding until after he hit the ground.

  I whirled my muzzle over to Larry, who was still in the process of losing a tug of war battle with his keister, and pulled the trigger. I recall very clearly how hard he flinched as the first few rounds hit him. He pulled his head way back, squinted his eyes nearly shut, opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue while putting his hands out in front of him. He looked like nothing so much as an awkward schoolyard bully trying unsuccessfully to fend off a haymaker.

  As Larry went down, I heard a snap very close by (I would have to place it just above my head, were I forced to guess) and something sharp and hot stung my cheek. I rolled over onto my left shoulder to look in the direction of whatever chaos was breaking loose down the street. As I did, I just noticed some mass peaking around the side of the building at the corner while, at the same instant, two more ear-shattering explosions detonated a few feet away, now to my right with my new position. The mass at the building corner disappeared and was replaced by a kicked out foot.

  I rolled to my back again and looked at both Weasel and Larry, confirming that they were no longer moving. When I rolled left to look up the street again, Billy was out from between the van and truck. He was walking quickly to the outstretched leg. He was bent over and I felt a moment of sick panic when I thought he had been shot. When he reached the end of the building he swiveled left and I realized he was just bent into his shotgun. He discharged it at the ground behind the building where I couldn’t see. It was at this point that I finally realized the explosions I heard were Billy’s 870. I was completely shocked; I had not realized a pump action shotgun could be fired as quickly as Billy had managed. He was walking back towards me, thumbing new shells into the magazine. As he neared me, he stopped abruptly and said, “Hey, are you okay? Did you get hit?”

  I looked myself over, patted the length of my torso. “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “Your face…”

  I reached my hand up to my face and felt wetness. It came away streaked with blood. “Awe, Jesus…” I said, and levered up to my knees to look at my reflection in the shop window. There appeared to be a nasty cut under my left eye and it was running red all down my cheek. Billy came over and turned me by the shoulders to get a look at it.

  “That’s not a graze or a hit of any kind. You just got nicked by something.” He stuffed a hand into one of his pockets and pulled out a green handkerchief. “Here, dab that up. It’s fine,” he said, “I don’t blow into that. Just use it to wipe off sweat.”

  “Lovely…” I said, and began to wipe at my cheek. The cut wasn’t too bad; it was already clotting up.

  “You got damned lucky,” said Billy. “I don’t know what it was that cut you but that could have been your eye.”

  I nodded and handed the kerchief back. He crammed it back into its pocket absentmindedly.

  I looked back towards the end of the building where that ominous leg was sticking out. “Just how the hell did you know he’d be back there?”

  “Didn’t,” Billy stated. “Was afraid he might be. I figured you had the two assholes covered well enough. That was really the only direction someone could have used to sneak up behind us. Seems like that was their idea, too.”

  He came around the truck bed and had a look at what remained of our assailants. Whatever blood that was in them was oozing out freely by this point – two fat rivers of the stuff were running out from under both of the dead men, joining together and disappearing under the vehicles.

  He said: “Jesus, that’s messy. Did you really have to go full Rambo on the Mario Brothers?”

  “It wasn’t my intent. I had an issue with the safety lever.”

  “You mean they had an issue with the safety lever. Damn!”

  “Have it your way,” I sighed. “Can we get out of here now before any more of them show up?”

  “Sure, sure, keep your shirt on, Kemosabe. I just want to go over them and see if they have anything worth having.”

  “Oh, Christ’s sake,” I moaned, looking up and down the street. “That’s really morbid, man.” I conveniently left out that I had acquired my Glock in the same fashion. I wanted to get out of there at that point and was arguing over anything.

  “They’re not using it anymore,” he said, totally unashamed. He had a look at Weasel’s gun, held it up, and sighted down the length of the barrel. “Hi-Point,” he muttered. “Eh, screw it…” he decided and slipped it in his back pocket. He moved over to Larry and rolled him over onto his stomach. What we saw stopped both of us in our tracks.

  The front of each man that I killed was relatively undisturbed, with little pin-prick bullet holes dotting the surface area at various points. When Larry was rolled over, we could see that the whole back of his shirt and most of his jeans were soaked through with dark red blood. The surfaces of both articles of clothing were torn and perforated. Billy squatted down and pinched the tail of Larry’s shirt between two fingers and lifted. Some forty percent of his back had been reduced to a mutilated crater, as though an explosive had been set off just under his spine. The whole area looked like nothing more than raw, ground up hamburger with bits of spine and ribs exposed. Smaller racket-ball sized craters surrounded the main focal point of damage.

  “God damn,” said Billy, letting go of the shirt.

  “I thought you said they were just .22 rounds?” I asked him. “I’ve never heard of a .22 round doing that to anything.” I felt queasy from what I had seen.

  “Evidently I was wrong.” He sat there on his haunches for several seconds simply shaking his head. Finally he said, “I’ve never seen anyone shot by a 5.56 round before…or maybe it has more to do with him being shot by an M4 on full auto or something. I don’t know. I’m going to have to rethink this whole carbine versus shotgun thing.”

  I must admit I was a little taken aback by Billy’s attitude to the whole situation. Having learned that his assumptions were incorrect, he became curious and inquisitive. He levered the body back up on its side so he could get another look at the entry woun
ds, set the body back down, and attempted to lift and separate the leg of his jeans to get a look at the damage done to the rear thigh.

  I looked away. My initial viewing of the mass crater in the man’s back had been a shock to my system; I felt the same sensation in my stomach that you undergo when you suddenly feel the bottom drop out from under you (similar to a roller coaster ride). Subsequent looks just made me feel sick. This was the first time I had examined anyone up close after shooting them with the M4; the first time at Whiskey Pete’s had been in near total dark. I walked to the truck and leaned against the bed with my forearms draped over the top of the tailgate, breathing deeply. My attention was drawn back to Billy only a few moments later.

  “Hey, shit, this one shot himself in the ass. He literally shot himself a new asshole, Jake.”

  “You seem to be enjoying yourself, considering we just killed these men.”

  He stopped probing around Larry and looked up at me. He then stood and walked over to me. His face was serious then, all joking gone.

  “These dubious motherfuckers were set up to ambush us, Jake. They were going to kill you and me both for our trucks and whatever we had in them.”

  I didn’t have any response for this so he kept speaking.

  “I can see your point of view; I’m not a total bastard. It’s just that I don’t really care. If you spend your time in this new world agonizing over everyone you have to kill when they force you to kill them, you’re just not going to last that long. For those people you meet that are worth preserving, you hold onto them and give all to keep them safe. And,” he turned and pointed at the dead, “for such as those, they’re worth less than your contempt. They’re not evil. They’re not big game or good sport. They’re an obstacle. They’re another challenge that the world throws at you; something you have to best. They aren’t worth any more consideration than that.”

  He walked back over to Larry while I stood there trying to absorb what he had just told me. He picked up the pistol (another semi-automatic) and read the side. “Taurus,” he scoffed. “Fuuuuuck you,” he said and left it on the ground.