Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2) Read online

  This was entirely different. My closest support was probably a mile or more away, they were in a school bus instead of an MRAP, and they had a single rifle and a pistol between them. They had no idea what my situation was because I had no way to radio back to them. They could probably hear the gunfire and were more than likely tap dancing in place trying to figure out what they should do (I prayed to any god that would listen they were smart enough to stay put). I had a single rifle and whatever ammunition I was carrying. Kyle and his rifle (my M4) had simply been lost in the no man’s land between our initial point of ambush and the military outpost; I hadn’t even thought to check Jessica for the pistol until I had her stretched out on the counter, discovering that it was nowhere to be found. Our asses were hung out twisting in the wind and our only chance was to simply outrun whoever was coming at us. We had however long it took for that runner to catch up to his buddies and tell them where we were before we had a serious running gunfight on our hands. I began to contemplate sending the three ahead of me to the bus while finding a strong position to make a stand.

  We had just passed a narrow river and were rounding a bend to travel under another overpass (this time the freeway), when I heard a sound that made my bowels turn to water; way, way off in the distance of the city, I heard the shrill revving of motorcycle engines. The sound was muted and far away, no doubt baffled by all of the buildings and other structures between us. They knew where we were, though, and it would not take them long to reach us.

  Now we were in some shit. Making a stand to buy Greg, Alan, Jessica, and Alish some time to get away was out of the question now. A single guy with a rifle wouldn’t be able to stop a bunch of people on motorcycles. I might get two or three before they veered off my line of sight and, with their superior mobility, they would just blow right by me. By the time I caught up on foot, it would probably all be over with the better part of my group dead or dying. We could try getting off Washington and running up a side street, however this wouldn’t gain us much. This area north of the freeway was a lot more wide open than the denser city we had just come from, with far greater visibility in all directions. Additionally, the last thing I wanted was for our pursuers to pass us by, getting between me and my group waiting back at the bus. All they had to do was ride up the last street they’d seen me on and they would run right into my people.

  I ran up, slapped Greg on the shoulder, and said, “Out! Lemme carry her a bit. Alan, take Alish’s spot. Move, move!” We jockeyed around for position and then I really started to haul, man. I was dragging Jessica and Alan both up the street like they were overfilled bags of shit and I was terrified of flies. I heard Greg say, “Holy crap, dude!” as he struggled to keep up. Jessica’s legs were still dragging behind us, slowing us down, so I shouted, “You two! Take a leg each and run out in front of us!” Alish and Greg both scrambled to their new positions and pulled Jessica’s lower half off the pavement. Having each quarter of her bodyweight supported by a person lightened the load considerably and I started feeling pretty good about our chances again.

  “Now run, goddamn it!” I bellowed. “Don’t stop and don’t you dare trip; I’ll kick your ass all the way up the street! GO!”

  They went. We hauled literal ass, running for the next several blocks at full tilt, breathing heavy and grunting like frothing horses. Alish and Greg both exhibited excellent endurance, keeping their arms curled under the weight of Jessica’s legs so that they could stabilize her shifting mass as we ran. Alan and I didn’t have it so easy; the whole of her dead, flopping weight was transferred right into our spines. We hadn’t even gone a mile yet before the two bearers out in front had their elbows completely extended and were leaning out away from the center to counter the constant pull against their arms. Women are naturally stronger in their lower bodies than they are up top, so I called for Alish to swap places with Alan. The change in weight distributions appeared to help both of them because I was able to detect a momentary increase in speed. Unfortunately, the intensity of the screaming engines coming from behind us also increased.

  Greg glanced back over his shoulder as we ran and I saw his eyes widen in panic. “Oh, shit, I see them back there! They’re coming!”

  I coughed and shouted back, “Don’t look back that way, damn it! Watch where you’re going!” I jammed my head over into Jessica’s to knock it out of my way and look around Alan. In the distance, I could see the bus. Standing in front of it appeared to be Davidson and Oscar; there were other people milling around as well but I was in too much of a scramble to identify them. Both Davidson and Oscar stood rooted in place; distance rendered their expressions unreadable but their body language said they were in a state of either utter shock or complete confusion.

  In the midst of running under load, awkwardly carrying a casualty, and resisting a magmatic burn in lungs that hadn’t worked so hard in years, I pulled in enough air to physically hurt and bellowed: “START…THE FUCKING…BUS!”

  The desired effect was achieved; Oscar jumped to life, backhanded Davidson across the shoulder to get him moving as well, and ran around to the front entrance of the bus while fanning his hands out in front of him in an underhand motion. He looked like he was trying to direct a herd of scattering ducklings, which looked so ridiculous to me that I wanted to laugh. The scream of pursuing engines increased in volume behind us, feeling as though they were riding right up our spines. The skin on the back of my neck began to tingle in alarm as I angrily tamped down the anticipation of bullets ripping into our backs. There were one hundred yards between us and the bus if there was a foot.

  “Make for that bus,” I gasped. “Don’t stop…until you’re on it!”

  No one responded to me. Alan and Greg dropped their heads down low like charging animals, hunched their backs, and began to pound pavement so hard that I began to wonder if they were trying to translate force of impact into speed. Alan began to growl on every exhalation, either in frustration, anger, or fear; he had Jessica’s knee pulled up into his chest like a cradled football. On my left, I heard and felt the shrill wheeze of Alish’s exertions; a short, frantic scream that sounded only on every alternating footstep.

  Before I realized what was happening, the rear taillight of the bus was blurring by the five of us on the left side and the two boys out in front were slowing down to match the speed of the vehicle, which was already rolling forward. The fact that whoever was driving had the bus rolling before we were safely on told me everything I needed to know about the proximity of our assailants. As if to punctuate this realization, the sound of gunfire erupted behind us.

  I looked up at the entrance to see Fred Moses in all of his giant glory hanging out of the door with his arms extended to us. I reached down under Jessica’s ass with my left hand and heaved her bodily up into Fred’s general vicinity, praying that he would catch her. He did, grabbing her like a linebacker and pulling her back up the steps and down the aisle. I reached out, grabbed Alish by the arm, and shoved her into Greg and Alan. I was attempting to cram all three of them through the door at once and succeeding, despite the fact that I was probably shaving skin off any exposed parts coming into contact with hard, metal edges. They began to stumble up the stairs of the bus on legs turned to rubber; I chose to assist their efforts by slapping backs and asses indiscriminately while screaming, “GO, GO, GO!” like a madman.

  Inside the vehicle, I heard more gunfire; this time right up on top of me. I realized it was coming from inside the bus and saw Davidson shooting through the windows all the way down at the tail. I looked over to the driver’s seat, which happened to be populated by Oscar. “Do NOT crash this son of a bitch, do you read?”

  He nodded hard enough to rattle his brains, not even looking up at me, hands white-knuckled on the oversized wheel.

  “Good,” I said. “You take us out the way we came in. Don’t get lost!”

  I turned and bounded down the bus to the rear. As I went, I screamed at all on board to either hit the deck or lay down in
their seats. Halfway down the length of the center aisle, I planted my hands on seatbacks to either side of me and vaulted over Jessica’s body.

  Davidson continued to fire out the windows as I approached; the closer I came to the rear of the vehicle, the more of our attackers I could see. There was a large group after us, perhaps twelve or thirteen people, on all manner of two-wheeled vehicle. Many were riding alone, attempting to manage throttle, clutch, and pistol all at the same time (which likely accounted for their failure to hit any of us as we ran); a few rode double and appeared to be making good use of their ability to focus on aiming. Despite Davidson’s efforts to shoot everywhere at once, the rear of the bus was taking fire and I saw pinpricks of light appear instantaneously on the areas of the back wall not obscured by seating. I could see all sorts of vehicles pursuing us, from some of the standard Harleys to a lot of Asian crotch rockets; I think I even clocked a Ducati out there and I know for certain I saw two scooters.

  One of the Harley riders pulled up along the bus on our right side, a heavy man with a bandana obscuring his face like an old Western bandit. He held out a machine pistol in our direction with the clear intent to spray our broadside. Before he could do so, I screamed, “Swerve right!!!” to Oscar, who complied immediately, God bless him.

  The “bandit” managed to squeeze off a few before the bus slammed into him. It was expertly done on Oscar’s part; you typically want to oversteer in these situations and destabilize your vehicle, which would have been catastrophic in a bus with such a high center of gravity, but our man Oscar swung her over like a true artist. The biker was lost to view under the side windows but I heard his shout along with the crunch of metal on metal as we first plowed into and then over him. The whole back end of the school bus launched up under my feet and ratcheted back down, slamming my head into the ceiling before driving me into the deck. The others of our group screamed or grunted depending on how hard of a shot they sustained; I came from my knees to my feet in a daze and shaking my head.

  Davidson was firing out the window again with his M4, scoring good hits and dumping pursuers onto the pavement. I leaned forward to squint out a rear window almost completely devoid of any glass, save a few stubborn fragments, seeing a twisted Harley, a body, and a big red smear trailing behind us in our wake. As I looked, a red-hot line of pain bloomed across my right shoulder and a side window exploded behind me, spilling safety glass all over Rose, who screamed in a voice that was only beginning to find womanhood.

  It was at this point that I’d decided we were done putting up with the Denver Chapter of the Hell’s Asshats.

  I looked over at Davidson, specifically at the M4 with underslung grenade launcher he was firing out the window. I growled, pulled the sling of my MR556 off my arm, and shouted, “Trade me!”

  Davidson looked at my rifle in dismay, shook his head, and bawled, “But…you said-“

  “Stick a dick in what I said!” I called back and held my rifle out at him. “Give, give, GIVE!”

  He scrambled to do so. I saw him pull my rifle into his shoulder and grin wide as he aimed it out the window. “Don’t you dare get comfortable,” I shouted as I rammed forward the barrel on the M203. “You do not get to keep her and she damned well better come back unsullied!”

  I pulled a 40mm frag grenade off the belt stashed in our sorry excuse of a weapons duffel, stuffed it into the pipe, and rammed it closed. I crab walked up to the rear window and shouted, “Down!” at Davidson, who dropped below the window level instantly. I stood up like the world’s most pissed off jack in the box and took aim out the back; they were so close it didn’t even occur to me to raise the leaf sight at the front of the rail. I just took aim through the optic as though I was firing normal rounds, put the reticle on center mass and pulled the M203’s trigger with my left index finger. A loud POONT! issued from the weapon and, out in front of me at a distance of no more than thirty feet, an explosion erupted right in a biker’s lap.

  Now, I feel as though I should pause here and dispel some Hollywood bullshit about our friend, the M203. The former artists in cinema (bless their hearts) like to show these things blowing up entire cars and throwing devastating fireballs up into the air, almost as though they were firing exploding gas cans instead of little exploding artillery rounds. In reality, you get a puff of grey smoke only a little larger than a man; the effective range on these things is really only within a five-yard diameter and, in most cases, they won’t kill you unless you take a direct, unprotected hit to the chest or face. They’ll just load you full of shrapnel and ruin your whole week.

  Unless you’re some jerk on a motorcycle hassling a tired, pissed off, salty old Marine and you’re dumb enough to ride so close that said Marine doesn’t even have to aim.

  That first grenade fairly blew the motorcycle right out from under the man, plowing him all across the pavement. I heard the metallic patter-clank of shrapnel fragments as they struck the rear of our school bus and was thankful I had told Davidson to kiss the deck. I made a mental note to also duck on subsequent shots. The guy just behind the man I had blown up (one of those riding a scooter) was unable to avoid the wreckage and drove right into it, flipping over the handlebars and landing directly on his face, which was unprotected.

  I dropped to my knees and fished out another grenade from the belt while, behind me, Davidson popped up to send more fire out the window over my head. He was doing well, anticipating my need and intent. I felt a tentative degree of pride in his performance but, of course, he still had a whole firefight to fuck it up, so…

  I drove the launcher’s barrel open and the expended grenade shell popped out onto the floor; I snatched it before it could roll away. I had no desire to step on the thing, fall over, and fire off a grenade into the ceiling or inside wall. I threw the empty into the duffel bag and popped the fresh grenade into my weapon. Without needing to be told, Davidson again dove to the floor.

  I sprang up, selected a new target, and fired. I missed this time, the round passing just over the intended mark and detonating in the street between two motorcycles riding side by side. Both men appeared to be peppered; they flinched and dumped their rides into the pavement, rolling off in different directions and hammering into vehicles lining the street.

  Before I had any time to admire my two-for-the-price-of-one score, I heard Oscar yell, “Hang on!!” while the bus swerved alarmingly to one side. The entire length of the vehicle jolted, then shuddered violently as I heard the hollow, box-slam of metal on metal combined with the melody of shattering glass. The tires directly under me squealed across the pavement and were arrested as the back end blasted into a truck parked along the street’s shoulder, driving myself, Davidson, and likely a few others into the seats and right wall of the bus.

  “What the hell-“ I began but was interrupted by a muted bang sounding off just beneath me, followed by the whop, whop, whop of a blown tire. “Goddamn it, blowout!” I shouted.

  Davidson shook his head at me and replied, “It’s okay. This bus has a dually rear axle! We can probably keep it moving.”

  I nodded, recalling the four wheels in the rear. It certainly wasn’t optimal but then, we left optimal behind a long time ago. I reloaded the M203 a third time, climbed to my feet, and fired it into another motorcycle, this time picking a couple of people riding double. My aim was good and I just glimpsed them belly-flopping into asphalt as I ducked back down below the window line.

  Without stopping to catch a breath I was already digging into my pack for a fourth grenade. Before I could tug it out of the belt loop, Davidson said, “Hey, stand down. I think they’re breaking off.”

  Ignoring him, I shoved another grenade home, climbed to a standing position, and looked out the window. A greatly reduced gang of bikers did in fact appear to be falling back, either to check on their dead and wounded or because they had lost the will to continue. I lifted the leaf sight on the rifle, braced the barrel against the bottom of the rear window frame, and began to line up my next s
hot. A couple of bikers were turned side-on to me, so I picked one of them as the broadest area at which to aim.

  “Dude,” Davidson said over my shoulder, “They’re breaking off, man!”

  “Hell with that,” I muttered, and fired. For a guy who had only played with the M203 during weapons training (never having carried one in combat), I have to say the skill comes back pretty fast. The grenade impacted into my target’s broadside, knocking him off his bike and plastering a few others close by with fragments if their reactions were any indication. I pulled the rifle up to my shoulder, rammed the selector over to full auto, and sprayed in their direction as we drove away, even managing to hit a couple before the rest dove behind cover. I put the rifle back on safe, set it down in the seat next to me, and screamed, “FUCK YOU!” out the back window hard enough that I was afraid I might have torn my throat open.