Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2) Read online

  It was like this, day in and day out, always taking three steps forward and another two back. It really started to wear a lot of us down.

  We kept the jeep and dodge truck operating pretty much every day, trying to make the best use of our stored gas before it all went stale. We were still collecting fuel back then, too, because you could still pull usable gas out of vehicle tanks. We knew, though, that whatever we had after winter hit was going to be all we would ever have from that point on, so a lot of our scavenging runs were still being divided up between getting food and keeping the gas barrels filled. Like I said, it was a constant, never ending race against our own need to consume resources. It was horrible. I can remember looking at some people with resentment for even daring to complain about being hungry. I’d think about all that food Jake and I had managed to store and how long it would have carried us (how long it would have carried Elizabeth) before all these other mouths had shown up. It makes me cringe to remember how I looked at a lot of them back then. The only thing that kept it from coming to a head with me was how hard they were all obviously working. Not a single one of them was lazy. Everyone was looking for things to do; ways to be useful…even George, who could only get around with his cane. I think all of the lazy people must have died off naturally by that point, honestly.

  The routine we had fallen into was that half of the people who were physically capable of going out into the city for food (based on age and fitness of body) would head out for the day while the other half stayed behind and covered housekeeping duties. This concept of housekeeping was really just a catch-all phrase that covered any activity we could carry out in the Bowl that benefitted the group. If you were cooking the return meal for the scavenging party, it was housekeeping. If you were washing clothes (we’d constructed a kind of water processing and reclamation station with wash basins out on the north side of the garage), it was housekeeping. Even if you were reading one of the books from Billy’s library because you were trying to pick up some new, critical skill: housekeeping.

  Small arms training with Gibs became just another aspect of housekeeping. It’s probably not surprising, then, that we use the phrases “fire team” and “cleaning crew” interchangeably.

  He’d apparently been preparing this for some time because when he invited the first group of us out for the initial session, he already had a little shooting range setup along the north edge of the valley. Two of our folding tables were laid out with a small collection of rifles, magazines, ammo boxes, and what I assumed were cleaning kits on top of them. Twenty yards away, there were six wooden targets with human-shaped, hand painted silhouettes positioned just in front of the tree line.

  This first training session included me, Wang, Rebecca, the Page brothers, and Oscar. The others were out scavenging with Jake while George and Barbara stayed back to watch the kids. Gibs had rounded us all up and led us out to the range like a group of ducklings while delivering a speech that felt as though he’d either rehearsed or delivered it a few times already before presenting it to us.

  He said, “As some of you may or may not know, Jake has asked me to spend some time with everyone to get you all up to speed on small arms and tactics. Specifically, he asked me to get you all functioning as close to Marines as I could manage.”

  He paused for a moment to let that sink in as we walked. A few of the others glanced back and forth, some of them looking at me. I kept my face passive and pointedly ignored them.

  “The problem with that,” he continued obliviously, “is that I’m not really sure if that’s a reasonable request, or if it’s even realistic. By the way, this isn’t because learning to be a Marine is some mystical ability that only a small segment of the population is capable of achieving. Being a Marine really just consists of discipline, training, and repetition. It’s a lot more about desire than it is about aptitude. No, what I’m getting at here is that I’m not certain whether I’m equal to the task and, moreover, I’m not sure that turning you all into a bunch of Marine knockoffs is what we should be going for.”

  As we approached the little impromptu firing range, Gibs turned to face the rest of us with his hands on his hips. “There’s a whole list of things that Marines learn that just aren’t relevant anymore. You guys don’t need to march in formation all damned day. We don’t need to spend a bunch of time on uniform regulations, inspections, or making your goddamned beds, obviously. As much as I hate to admit it, as much as it pains my old heart, the Corps is extinct. There’s no more United States military and we’re simply not making any more Marines. I’d like to share some of the traditions that made me who I am with the rest of you but, for the most part, I need to be instructing you on those skills that will make you more competent fighters. I’m not treating you people like Marine recruits. You’ve all made it this far; you’re obviously survivors. I’m going to drill you like survivors. Recruits are treated like unformed maggots. I’ll assume you all have graduated from maggot status by this point; else you wouldn’t be standing. Consequently, let’s all just agree up front that I won’t be screaming at you like this is boot camp, fair?”

  We all nodded to this, to which Gibs responded with a thumbs up and continued, “All that being said, I tend to let my mouth get away from me when I’m talking shop. I’m going to apologize up front for any blue language, okay ladies? We’re not men or women out here, now, we’re just survivors. I’m not wasting any time tiptoeing around feelings and sensibilities; I have more important concerns right now. Is everyone good with that?”

  I didn’t bother to indicate one way or the other as Gibs had thrown all that out the window with me a while ago. Rebecca said, “Absolutely,” and bounced in place a little, which caused me to suppress an eye roll.

  I’m sure this is going to sound petty but she really rubbed me the wrong way when they first showed up. At the time, I attributed my reaction to all sorts of unflattering aspects of her behavior. She was always flipping her hair around or shaking parts of herself; or she was winking at the guys and puckering her lips out; always putting out her hand to touch the guys on their shoulder or arm. Everything she did was a flirt. On their first evening here, she immediately zeroed in on Jake like a man-seeking-missile. It was tiring…or maybe just boring.

  I pulled my eyes off her and put my attention back on Gibs, who was already continuing his speech.

  “…will find a selection of AR variant weapons. Now, these are all outstanding, standardized firearms that are easy to operate and maintain, with a few notable exceptions that are just garbage; mainly due to poor manufacturing. Those examples aside, an AR produced by a reputable manufacturer and properly maint…HEY! Nobody told you to pick anything up, goddamn it!”

  The word “hey” had come blasting out of Gibs mouth like cannon fire, causing all of us to jolt in place as though we had been electrocuted. I turned to follow the direction of his gaze and saw Greg and Alan standing by the table, both of them holding rifles. They stood frozen, staring back at Gibs like two preschoolers caught with their hands in the cookie jar. They were holding the rifles such that each muzzle was pointed directly at the other. I cringed inwardly, knowing what came next. Though I had never seen Gibs fully unload by that point, I had spent enough time with him out in Jackson to know how seriously he took this stuff.

  “Now, you two knuckleheads have demonstrated amply why it’s so important that we’re all out here today,” Gibs said. “Put the damned rifles back down on the table; you’ve already flagged each other and everyone out here a dozen times already.”

  “These aren’t even loaded, man,” laughed Alan.

  Shocked by his answer, I opened my mouth to tell him to just drop the thing, that he was about to be eaten alive, but Gibs was already moving through the group before I could draw breath.

  “You ignorant fucking children, drop those fucking rifles on the deck right fucking now! Get your filthy fucking smug little fucking hands off of my fucking weaponry!”

  The sheer volume of his v
oice was stunning. It bellowed across the valley like thunder. Birds dislodged from the trees overhead and flew away, calling back angrily in response to Gibs’s unholy tirade. Alan and Greg both dropped the rifles onto the ground, faces pale, and took two full steps away from Gibs as he advanced on them. The backs of their legs bumped into the folding tables and nearly knocked the rest of the assembled weapons into the dirt.

  He was in their faces almost instantly, snarling, as he thrust out a hand to point to a spot several feet away from the table, growling that they’d best displace to that point before they were annihilated. They stumbled over each other to move where they were ordered. In the meantime, Gibs reached up to the dead branch of a nearby tree and, yanking for all he was worth, pulled it down with a dry, grinding crack. He laid the length of it up against the trunk of the tree and kicked into the center of the branch, snapping it in half, such that he had two three-foot segments. He picked both of them up and walked over to the teenagers. He thrust a stick into the arms of each boy, both of whom flinched as though they would be struck.

  “Here are the only weapons fit for such as you two,” he barked. “You will both carry these around with you every fucking place you go, do you read me? You will sleep with them. You will shit with them. You will eat with them. On those occasions when you feel compelled to rub one out, your off-hand will be so occupied. Every time I see you two dumbasses, you’d better goddamn well be carrying those with you. And I swear to every deity that ever existed or will ever exist: if I see either of you assholes point the end of those sticks at anything breathing, I’ll jam a foot up each of your asses and wear you around the valley like a pair of autistic fucking flip flops! Is all of that perfectly fucking clear?”

  Greg shook his head vigorously while Alan nodded with his mouth hanging open.

  “Say it, shit-for-brains,” Gibs growled. “Say it’s clear. I want to hear your childish, mewling voices.”

  “It’s clear! We got it!”

  “Out-fucking-standing! Now get the fuck out of here and do whatever it is little children do. When I think you’re ready to try again, I’ll come and find you.”

  The two of them literally ran out of the area back towards the safety of the teardrop camper, which they were both sharing. Gibs stood and watched them as they went, not turning back to the rest of us until they were completely out of sight. When they were no longer visible, he nodded and turned to address us.

  “The main thing,” he said in a calmer speaking voice, “is that a weapon is always loaded until you’ve cleared it. Let’s all try not to forget that.”

  “What the fuck, man?” Oscar said, clearly disturbed at what he had just seen. “They’re…they’re just kids.”

  “Define ‘kids’, Oscar,” Gibs said. “Do you think they’re too young to take a bullet?”

  “Come on, Gibs, you know what I mean-“

  “No, I don’t really think I do, Oscar,” said an annoyed Gibs. He didn’t quite sound angry but he was still relentless. “I’ve seen blue-on-blue casualties before. I’m pretty sure none of you have. I’ve seen what it does to the guy who pulled the trigger. He spends the rest of his life wishing he had that second back. I don’t care if feelings get hurt around here, understand? My mission is to get you all competent and safeguard the group; not to make everyone feel good.”

  Oscar shook his head and looked down at the ground, unconvinced.

  “Just trust me on this, Oscar. Let them sting for a couple of days and I’ll bring them back in. This’ll be something they never forget and I can almost guarantee they’ll have their minds on safety forever after. Now, can we please continue?”

  Gibs started everyone out on the basics, consisting mostly of the rules of safety, how the weapons were to be held, how they were fired, reloaded, and so on. His discussion on safety was to the point and about as crude as you’d expect. Concepts like muzzle awareness and the assumption that a weapon is always loaded were covered when he unleashed his tirade on Greg and Alan. The subject of trigger discipline was even more succinct; he said, “Keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you’re ready to bring the heat.” My face screwed up in distaste when he said this but Rebecca absolutely gagged and coughed at his use of the word “booger”. I’m convinced that it wasn’t an act, either - she actually gagged violently. I may have had to suppress a bit of a smirk.

  There weren’t enough slings to go around, so we traded rifles between ourselves throughout the session so everyone could get some familiarity with the device. The only exception to any of this was my own rifle; I was free to fire it but Gibs didn’t want anyone else to use it. He said that he wanted all the newbies to build up muscle memory with a standard carbine and rotating in a bullpup would just complicate the process. Additionally, he had me work with one of the AR-15’s to “expand my horizons”. I did okay with the rifle even if I wasn’t that big a fan. With the exception of the magazine, all of the controls were in familiar locations and I already knew how to run it due to the brief period I carried an M16. I still didn’t like it as much as my Tavor, though. It just felt really uncomfortable holding my left hand way far out in front of me and Gibs insisted on all of us grabbing the front of the rifle in this hyper-aggressive fashion that had our thumbs wrapped over the top of the barrel, almost as though we were trying to corkscrew the whole weapon. He said doing it that way would help with barrel control and improve our target acquisition but all it did for me was make my shoulder tired.

  We shot a ridiculous amount of bullets. I’ll bet we fired twenty times more rounds on that day than I had fired in my whole life up to that point. It was incredible; the whole process morphed over time from being a nerve wracking rush to a sort of rhythmic routine. We were held to a rate of about one discharge per three seconds, or how long it took to reposition the sights on the target, take a breath, and squeeze the trigger without rushing. If we went any faster than that, Gibs would lightly rest a hand on our shoulders from behind us as a reminder to slow down. He divided his time between doing that and reloading magazines. None of us had to reload a magazine during the entire session. I’m not sure how he was able to divide his attention between this activity and correcting our mistakes (and there were plenty for him to correct, even by me) but he always had a full magazine ready to go when one of our rifles were empty. He just held out a full one and traded for the empty that we’d dropped. He kept us going nonstop for I don’t know how long; fire until empty, reload, repeat. He had us shoot from standing, seated, and prone positions. Sometimes he would command us to shoot at other targets instead of our own. The only thing we weren’t allowed to do was move around with the rifle; if we had to step back from the firing line we were instructed to drop the mag, empty the chamber, and surrender the weapon over to Gibs.

  Over time, I became numb to firing my rifle. It didn’t even feel like firing a rifle towards the end of that session; it was more like I was reaching out with an invisible finger and just tapping the target. If I wanted to touch the head, I’d tap the head. If I wanted to touch the body, I’d tap there too. I didn’t even have to think about what I was doing. I could almost feel the fibers of the plywood splintering under the pads of my fingertips. I mentioned this to Oscar after we were done that day and he said he had a similar experience; only he hadn’t thought of tapping targets with his fingers.

  When we were done shooting, Gibs took us back over to the tables to show us how to strip and clean the rifles, which was something I had never learned how to do with Billy even after we’d settled into the Bowl. He spent a little time monkeying around with my rifle after he had everyone else busy scrubbing out their barrels with wire brushes, trying to figure out how to take it apart. After a few moment’s worth of cursing and turning the weapon around in his hands, he found the take-down pin at the butt that, when extracted, allowed the shoulder pad to swing open. From there, he was able to remove the bolt carrier group. Lifting the trigger pack out from the underside of the rifle took even less time. He and I
both spent a little more time looking the rifle over to see if there were any other parts that looked like they required removal for proper cleaning. Failing to find anything obvious, I ran some CLP down the barrel while Gibs figured out how to remove the firing pin and extractor from the bolt.

  We all must have spent an hour or so out there cleaning our rifles, doing god knows what to our lungs while breathing in all those harsh smelling chemicals. Wang and Oscar started cracking jokes back and forth at each other, causing themselves as well as the rest of us to giggle frequently. I didn’t realize that Rebecca had edged up alongside me until I felt her tap on my shoulder.

  “Hey, uh, d’you mind if I ask you something?”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of this so I just shrugged. She bit her lip, seeming unsure of herself, and then pressed on. “I don’t know if this sounds weird, or whatever, but the next time you head out into the city, do you think I could come along with you?”

  Thoughtlessly, I said, “Oh, okay. Running low on eye liner?” I regretted it as soon as I said it and laughed it off to show that I wasn’t trying to be a bitch, which probably made it worse. She didn’t respond but maintained her position off to my left; a presence I could only just make out from my peripheral vision and yet found impossible to ignore. I looked at her and was shocked by the expression on her face. She was flushed bright red, making the minimal spattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks stand out in contrast; her electric-green eyes shimmered.