Commune: Book One (Commune Series 1)

by Joshua Gayou

  Billy sat back and pinned Jake with his best “I’m serious” look. “I could cover the thing in mud, dump it in a lake to rinse it off, and it would fire happily without a malfunction.”

  “Well, I’m for that,” Jake said. “Which one is the AK?”

  Billy reached into the bag to pull out a rifle that was all black and more solid looking than the other rifles I had seen so far. He pulled back the lever and peeked inside. Confirming it was empty, he handed it over to Jake.

  “Okay,” Jake said while he looked it over. “This one’s all different. You’d better take me through it so I don’t miss anything important.”

  “It’s not bad. It has all the same controls you’re used to; they’re just in different places. The fire selector is on the other side – it’s that long bar above the trigger.”

  Jake rolled the gun over and looked. “Huh. Liked the thumb lever better.”

  “It’s just different, is all,” Billy said. “Okay, charging handle is pretty obvious – this one’s on the right, so you’ll have to take your hand off the grip. I’m not crazy about that myself, but some people don’t seem to care. Magazine release is that button just on the front of the trigger guard. Outside of that, fire it similar to the M4, cheek weld and all.”

  “Magazine?” Jake asked with his left hand extended. Billy bent over and pulled a long, curved bar out of his bag.

  “That’s 30 rounds,” Billy said. “There’s another one in the bag just like it. The AK fires 7.62. We have about 200 rounds between the mags and some boxes.”

  “How much of the 5.56 do we have?”

  “Three hundred-thirty to three hundred-fifty, give or take.”

  “And then just the assorted 12 gauge and 9 mm, right?”

  “Yes,” Billy said. “Around two hundred of the one and maybe one hundred-fifty of the other. All of these are round numbers, you understand. I haven’t counted them off one-by-one in a while.”

  “That’s fine,” Jake said. “So, all of that to get us all the way to Wyoming, huh?”

  “I see what you mean. Yeah, I can only think of one place to get more along the way - I’m really only interested in that and stopping for refuels at this point. And music, of course!” he directed at me.

  “What about when we get where we’re going?” Jake asked.

  “Oh, I’ve been stockpiling a while; all sorts. It should hold us over if we don’t get any visitors. But we should make it a practice to always be scavenging for more. I have reloading equipment as well. The issue there will be running out of primers, jacketed slugs, and powder. We’ll have to be good about retrieving our brass.”

  “Can I have a gun?”

  Billy and Jake both froze at the sound of Lizzy’s voice. Things got intensely quiet as they waited for me to decide how I wanted to deal with the inquiry.

  “No,” I said. “You’re too young for that.”

  I saw her put her “but, mom” face on.

  “Too young,” I emphasized.

  She looked down at her lap. Billy cleared his throat, leaned forward, and started going through the duffel. Jake looked contentedly off toward the 15.

  “Mom? Just listen to me.”

  Something in that little voice glued my mouth shut. The adult tone that she adopted combined with the timbre of its sound was unsettling. I found myself unable to do anything but comply, as though I had been hypnotized by a viper.

  “Things haven’t been going so well since we’ve been out here. There was James and them. Then Jake and I got picked up by those people. I’m always waiting for you or Billy or Jake to save me. If I had a gun I could protect myself. I could protect you.”

  I was struck then by how she must have felt. Elizabeth is my daughter and I will always love her no matter what but in those early days, when we were on the run, I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t factor her in as much more than baggage with a mouth. She was a responsibility that had to be juggled along with all the other needs. If we had to scout an area, she was a problem that had to be solved first; a bit of logistics. I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about her perspective up until that point. People want to feel useful and they want to feel as though they have some sort of control over their own destiny - even seven year old people. This poor girl kept getting shucked from situation to situation without any real say in what was happening to her and she was just looking for some sliver of self-determination. Once upon a time, I would have become frustrated and angry at her continuing to argue with me after I had made a position final, especially on such a hot topic. Now, I was just tired and heartbroken.

  “You’re right, Mija. You’re right. But seven is still too young. I know you’ll be eight very soon, but no. I’m sorry. Just a little longer.”

  “Mom…”

  “NO.”

  Now Elizabeth became frustrated. Years of conditioning at the result of being raised by a Hispanic mother meant that she didn’t pound her fist, raise her voice, or exhibit any of the other temper tantrum behaviors that had become so common in our youth. Lizzy was old school (because I was old school) and she knew that didn’t fly. Her mouth only tightened to a line as she calmly but slowly stood from her chair, walked carefully back to the tent, pulled back the flap, and went inside. It was about as close as she came to storming off in a fury.

  The boys both remained uncomfortably quiet after Lizzy had gone, studiously focusing on their own immediate areas. When I’d finally had enough, I asked, “Was I wrong?”

  Billy shrugged. “You’re the mom. Even when you’re wrong, you’re right.”

  There must have been some frustration left in my look when I glanced in his direction. He put his hand out gently in a holding-off gesture. “Take it easy. You were right in this case. I agree with you: seven is too young. There’s still too much development that needs to happen at that age…too many fine motor control issues. She’s old enough that we could start teaching her how to shoot a gun, if you’re okay with that, but that’s only under constant supervision with one of us over her shoulder at all times. You wouldn’t want to just hand her a firearm and forget about it at her age.”

  This, of course, begged the question: “What age do you think is appropriate?”

  “I don’t want to put a number on it,” Billy said while scratching under his chin and jaw. It was clear the white scruff of his beard was bothering him. “Depends on the individual. I make it a range from about ten to fifteen, if that helps.”

  “It does,” I said. “It gives me about two more years before I have to start worrying about daily heart attacks.”

  Jake snorted abruptly from his chair, the sound made sharp and angry by his currently useless nose. It startled us both and Billy grinned sheepishly.

  “Hand me your rifle a minute please, Amanda,” Billy said.

  I looked down and popped the swivel from my sling’s attachment point on the stock (a trick Billy had demonstrated the night before during our drinking session) and handed the rifle across to Jake, who passed it along to Billy. I watched as Billy pulled the magazine out of the receiver and worked the operating handle to eject the bullet from the chamber. Sliding the bolt back to double check the chamber (“being triple and quadruple sure is always the right thing to do”, he always told us), he took the safety off, pulled the trigger, and put the safety back on.

  He laid the rifle down in his lap, bent over it, and reached into the duffel bag at his feet. He pulled out a small and irregular shaped flashlight from the bag – it was black, swelling from a cylindrical to a square, blocky profile. He stuffed this into the left breast pocket of his Chino shirt, working his wrist in a few circles to get the light around and under the pocket flap.

  Reaching down to the rifle, he manipulated a panel on the front end just to the left of the muzzle. He slid it forward and it came completely off the weapon, exposing a line of bumpy ribs that looked just like the spine along the top of the gun where the optic was mounted. He put the panel in the duffel bag.

 
He produced an Allen wrench, pulled the bizarre little flashlight from his shirt pocket, put it on the exposed portion of the rifle, and started fiddling with the wrench. He began talking as he turned it.

  “They used to make about a jillion different rail accessories for these rifles back in the world but the only ones I ever thought made any sense were optics and lights.”

  “Those things are called rails, huh,” Jake asked, saving me the trouble.

  “Yap. Picatinny rails or Weaver rails. All the same thing: a place to bolt on a bunch of heavy shit and accessorize your weapon like it’s a god damned bedazzled handbag.”

  He handed the rifle back to me by way of Jake. “In this case, it will most likely be dark in the Walmart. You don’t want to be goofing around with a rifle and a flashlight. Best to put the flashlight on the rifle. Don’t look into that light, now. The package I pulled it from said ‘1000 lumens’. That’s enough to suck.”

  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 1980’s, 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 towards 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 hou
se – 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.”

  “Okay,” she said and took the flashlight. She turned it on and pointed it out in front of her. I reached up with my thumb and activated the light on my rifle, which threw way more illumination than I expected for such a little device. Billy propped the door open with a box he found nearby.

  We were in the back warehouse section of the store. It was a smaller area than I had expected it to be (I guess they wanted to get as much floor space for shoppers as possible when they were still operating) but it was still of decent size, with lines of storage racks running throughout the area. Most of these were empty but some still had pallets sparsely populated with items. The whole area was ghostly and oppressively quiet, all things standing out in the no-color of our flashlights in flat shades of grey. Little motes of dust reflected the beams back at us, further limiting our visibility. The size of the storage area seemed to expand and contract by turns; if I set my light level with the floor, it spanned easily across the room and to the opposing wall, which was fifteen or twenty feet away at most. When I lowered the muzzle back to the floor, all shrank back in around us. Sounds became stuck as they travelled through the air and it was psychologically hard to breathe.

  “I somehow pictured this all to be a lot brighter,” I said. “I’m starting to feel as though this is a stupid idea.”

  “It’ll be okay,” said Billy from behind me. “There will be skylights on the main floor. He made his way around me and walked toward a set of double doors across the room. “We’ll make one complete circuit around the store. One full track around the outer perimeter and then a few passes through the center to make sure it’s just us in here. Following that, we’ll grab a cart or two and go shopping.”