Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2) Read online

  A black lady who had so far been quiet as a mouse spoke up and said, “I don’t know if we can go out there on the road again. Nevermind the people who have come through this area shooting guns and whatever else. There are bad people out on the road.” She hugged a young girl to herself (her daughter, I guessed) and shivered.

  “The more of us that travel together, the stronger we’ll be,” said Barbara to the woman. The woman looked down at the back of her daughter’s head, uncertain.

  “Three guns are not exactly what I would define as ‘strong’,” Edgar replied.

  I couldn’t take any more. I finally lost my shit and said, “For fuck’s sake, I can’t believe I’m standing in the middle of a goddamned King Soopers trying to convince a bunch of starving people into lifting a single finger to rescue their own miserable, broke-dick lives.” Everyone had shut up at that point but I didn’t care. I was on a roll now. Without even realizing what I was doing, my right hand had extended out in front of me, opened flat with the edge pointed down toward the floor, thumb tucked into the palm, with the elbow bent hard at ninety degrees and pulled into my ribs. Yeah. I was giving a bunch of starving civilians the “Knife Hand”. Not my finest moment, I know.

  “You wouldn’t think that I’d have to twist arms and ‘pretty-please’ a crowd of desperate people into climbing out of a shit pit for the purposes of getting a hot meal and unfucking themselves in general, but I guess we’re all just celebrating Opposite Day! Outstanding!”

  I grabbed the gallon jugs of water out of Davidson’s hands and threw them across the floor at the crowd of people, some of whom had to skip out of the way to avoid impact.

  “Now hear this: I have officially expended my daily allotment of fucks on all of you. I have a group of people who are awaiting my return to safeguard their way to some territory that is not a complete and total shit show. If you would like to join our merry band on this grand adventure, I advise you to move your goddamned asses! Or, you can stay here for all I care. I hereby resign from trying to talk you jokers into saving yourselves!”

  The area was dead silent after my little tantrum. As was always the case after such an explosion, I felt like a shit heel for yelling at them all. These people were all terrified. I didn’t have any idea what they’d been through but I could easily see that it had been rough. Regardless, you can’t reel back an ass chewing once it’s been deployed. You just have to let it hang out there and hope some of it sinks in. I slung my rifle over my shoulder, turned, and walked toward the Coke machine exit. I stopped next to Barbara on my way out and said, “Sorry, sweetie,” under my breath.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” she whispered back. “They needed a wake-up. Plus, that was kind of hot.”

  I smiled at her. Man, if only she was twenty years younger. Hell with that, I would have settled for ten. I nodded my head towards the exit in a “let’s go” gesture and walked out of the store.

  Once outside, I made a beeline back for our cars. They had to be fully refueled by now and our group had been made to wait long enough for this stupidity. I heard the sound of footsteps trotting up behind me but I didn’t turn to see who it was - even Davidson’s footfalls sounded eager.

  “Man, that was so badass!” he said when he caught me up.

  “It was not,” I shot back. “It was a failure. If I had been able to make my case better instead of blowing my stack, those people back there might have half a chance.”

  “Uh, well, I think they’re following us,” he said.

  “The fuck?” I said and looked back over my shoulder. There was Barbara, followed by that giant of a man (Fred Moses), Wang, and a trail of other people behind them. I even saw Edgar coming out at the tail. I faced back in the direction I was walking.

  “Well, shit,” I said. “Now I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do with all these fucking people.”

  2 – Picking up Strays

  Gibs

  “What the hell?”

  Oscar came over from where our cars were parked to meet me as I approached, looking past me at the filthy pack of strays that had followed me back. He looked over at me (well, okay, he looked up at me – he is pretty short) and said, “Uh, so I guess we better find some more cars, eh?”

  “Yeah. Sorry,” was all I could come up with.

  He looked back at them as they approached and sucked air through his teeth. Finally, he said, “Nah, man. You guys took me and Maria in. I’m not gonna start being an asshole when someone else needs help. What’s up with these people? They look like they haven’t eaten in forever.”

  Wang had reached us by then. He shook hands with Oscar and introduced himself. Our group had come together behind us and Wang’s group had stopped just a few feet back from where Oscar, Wang, and I were standing. I spoke up so everyone could hear me.

  “These people are gonna be travelling with us now. This is a good thing. More bodies mean a wider distribution of work. It means more sets of eyeballs to apply to lookout. And, more importantly,” I looked at each of my people for any signs of dissention as I spoke, “it’s a good thing because these people need our help and we’re in a position to provide it. If anyone has a problem with that, this is the time to sound off.”

  It was a bit of a dick tactic, I’ll admit. Nobody wants to be the asshole that says, “Hey, no, fuck these guys”, while the guys in question are standing right there in front of them. It was probably unnecessary too; I had a good lock on the people I was travelling with by this time. None of them were one-way types. I knew I could rely on them to do the right thing.

  “Well, okay then,” said George. He was positioned a little behind our group so that he could lean on a car bumper (he had a bad knee and used a cane to get around). “What’s the plan for provisions?”

  I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. We had enough food and water for our group to keep us moving at least a few more days. These people are going to need some of that right now so we can get some strength back into them and get them pulling their own weight.” I wanted to keep presenting the idea that we were coming out ahead by bringing Wang’s group in, even if my guys were showing good attitudes. As I said this, Rebecca walked back to the Taurus (one of the cars we’d been driving) and opened the trunk, which is where we were keeping our rations.

  I continued to lay out the plan: “We’ll get them squared away right now. This is going to put a significant dent in our supply, so we’ll need to address that soon but not today. The bit of logistics we need to handle right now is transportation. Two cars don’t cut it for…” I knocked out a quick headcount, “fifteen people. We’ll need two more cars at least plus we’ll need to spend the time to refuel them now.” I rolled my eyes as I thought about what it was going to take to keep four cars fueled. I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to see Wang standing behind me on my right side.

  “I may have an idea for transportation, if you’re interested,” he said.

  “I’m all ears, man,” I told him. I was excited to hear any ideas. The more initiative I could get people to take, the better off we were going to be.

  “There’s a school bus off the side of the road just on the outskirts; about a twenty or thirty minute walk from here. I’m pretty sure it was being used to transport people to emergency facilities. I don’t know how it’s set for fuel but it isn’t totally boxed in by other cars and traffic is light where I saw it. It might be easier managing one big vehicle rather than four little ones, don’t you think?”

  I thought about it for a moment, weighing the obvious drawbacks (size and lack of maneuverability) against the positives. It was a simple, utilitarian approach. We would have all of our people and supplies in a single vehicle. Communication would be instantaneous; we could just talk to each other without having to pull over to the side of the road. If we felt a need to keep moving, we could continue to drive in shifts while others ate or slept. The only thing we’d really need to stop for was head calls. On the other hand…

  “You have a
ny idea how much fuel those things hold?” I asked. “I don’t but I’ll bet it’s a lot. I’ll bet they get lousy mileage, too.”

  Wang nodded and said, “Yeah, I don’t know either but I’m sure you’re right. It still can’t hurt to go check it out, though, right? Maybe we get lucky and it has a lot of gas to start with.”

  “Eh, it’s probably diesel. What do you know about this area? Did a lot of folks drive diesel?”

  “I’ve lived in Colorado for several years now,” said Wang. “Yes, you can find a lot of trucks that run on diesel. You could say that outdoor activities are big around here.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, probably,” I agreed. “Okay, let’s go check it out and see what we find.” I eyeballed Wang for a moment, trying to decide if I should hand him the Beretta or not. I ultimately decided against it. I was reasonably confident in my ability to cover the both of us with a single rifle; an M4 and a pistol between the thirteen people remaining here was already incredibly stupid and I didn’t want to make it worse by taking that pistol to hand over to Wang. I turned to look for Davidson and Oscar – the two guys in our outfit who I had managed to brief on safety. I could at least trust them to handle a firearm without shooting their own dicks off. Probably.

  They were both standing over by everyone else near the supply trunk (most of Wang’s group had walked over for chow while I was talking to him). I approached and pulled both Davidson and Oscar aside.

  “Wang thinks he has a solution for our transportation,” I said. “It’s in walking distance from here so I’m going to head out with him and take a look. I want you guys to maintain position here until we get back.”

  I looked around at the buildings surrounding us on either side of the street. The place resembled your basic middle-America city street. A lot of the buildings were brick and mortar, went up two or three stories, and a lot of them had side alleys with fire escapes. The place actually looked like it was a nice little getaway town once upon a time.

  I pointed to Oscar (more of that knife hand - it’s a hard habit to break) and said, “I want you to take the rifle and get some overwatch on one of these buildings. You’re limited to whatever has a fire escape but pick one of the taller ones, get to the roof, and keep your eyes open. Be close enough that you can call down to Davidson if you see anything. Be ready to lay down suppressing fire if shit gets stupid. Do not shoot anyone that belongs to us.”

  Oscar nodded, slapped Davidson’s shoulder, and headed off with the rifle to find likely candidates. I grimaced to myself as he went, praying that nothing would happen. If a firefight actually did break out, I gave these guys even odds on shooting one of our own by mistake in all the confusion. They were untrained, unskilled civilians, which made them every bit as dangerous to themselves as they were to others.

  To Davidson, I said, “You hang on to the M9. Keep everyone close and keep your eyes on these alleyways; they’ll be a blind spot for Oscar. If Oscar calls down to you, I want you to lock up the cars, take the keys, and get everyone displaced into a building somewhere.”

  “What do I do after that?” he asked.

  “Barricade and dig in. Get everyone under cover, including yourself. Shoot anyone that tries to come in without first identifying themselves.”

  He nodded and (Jesus Christ) saluted me. I suppressed an eye-roll and returned it, being a lot lazier than he was on the snap – hoping he would take the hint. I sincerely hoped I wasn’t making a poor call.

  I returned to Wang and advised him to grab some food that he could eat while walking as well as a bottle of water. We headed out after that. Once we made some distance away from the group, I took the opportunity to grill him.

  “So what’s the deal with this Edgar guy?”

  “Deal?”

  I elaborated: “Well, what I mean is how much trouble am I going to have with him?” I wasn’t excited about every little decision turning into an argument.

  “Oh, yes. He can take some patience. He’s actually pretty smart in a lot of ways if you get to know him; unfortunately a lot of those ways aren’t very useful anymore. I guess he was a pretty successful accountant of some kind from before. Let’s turn right up here…”

  “Here, let me go ahead of you,” I said. I edged up to the corner of the building and poked my head around. I spent several seconds in this position sweeping the area with my eyes, looking at nothing in particular and trying to detect any kind of motion. Halfway down the street, a knot of vehicles were stacked up almost on top of each other, completely choking off the way through. Several of them were little more than burned out hulks.

  I looked back at Wang and said, “The street’s blocked off by a pileup – we can get through on foot but we’ll never get the cars through. Is there another way?”

  “Yeah,” Wang said. “We’ll just have to go another block up and circle back.”

  “Okay, let’s do that. I want to find the route we’ll have to take with the cars to get there if this works out. I don’t want to hump everything over there.”

  The majority of Colorado Springs was laid out in a grid, so he just led me up the street another block and found us a way through. Wang took the opportunity to finish his thought regarding Edgar as we walked.

  “Anyway, he can be a pain but he can be pretty useful. He tends to argue about everything but I’ve chosen to use this behavior as a way to reinforce our planning. Basically, if we can get him to shut up, we know we’ve covered all the angles.”

  I snorted while grimacing inwardly. Edgar sounded just like the type of guy who was going to tap-dance all over my last nerve. I decided to change the subject before I managed to piss myself off again just thinking about him.

  “So what about yourself? It seems like a lot of those people tend to follow your lead.”

  “Well, I guess they do. What, that’s a bad thing?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Well…I guess it’s a bad thing if you’re a dumbass but you don’t strike me as a dumbass-“

  “We haven’t known each other that long. Give me a little time.”

  “Anyway,” I said laughing, “you seem okay.”

  “So what I can tell you is that from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t take much more than speaking to get people to listen to you. The key thing is that you just can’t say anything stupid. It’s okay to appear ignorant as long as you show that you’re aware of your ignorance but nobody forgives stupid.”

  I compared what he said to my own life experiences and found that they agreed with what he said. I was impressed; he was a pretty young kid compared to me (I’d have to guess he was twenty-two or twenty-three) but he already knew more about basic leadership than most of the junior officers I had encountered in my military career. They always seemed to come to us with a chip on their shoulder; they knew they were young and inexperienced and always seemed to think that they had to compensate for this by knowing everything. The problem with that approach is that you can’t actually know everything at that age. The ones that ended up being good officers (few and far fucking between, I might add) learned early on that ignorance wasn’t actually a cardinal sin and that, by and large, you survive by listening to your NCOs. It seemed obvious to an old fart like me but the quickest way to win confidence from people was usually to be open and honest about your weak points. Then again, I was an old fart with years’ worth of leadership experience under my belt. Wang was a kid. I pointed this out to him and asked how he came about having such a seasoned understanding of human nature.

  “How did I figure it out so quickly?” he asked, rephrasing my question. “Could it be that it just took you a long time to learn?” he asked while smiling.

  I laughed and said, “I’m serious, asshole.”

  “You’re right, I apologize,” he said, nodding. “Basically, I was studying architecture in college and worked at this firm as an intern. They typically don’t let you do anything as an intern outside of being involved in the proofing process – usually assisting a senior designer. You sit in on
a lot of meetings, mostly taking notes for the senior guy, but I noticed early on that a lot of people were never willing to speak up or make decisions in meetings. It was like they all just sat around waiting for somebody else to stick their neck out.”

  “Sounds familiar,” I grumbled.

  “Yeah, I think it’s universal human behavior. You can find it anywhere, really. So anyway, I’ve always had a bit of a mouth on me-“

  “Oh, no shit? You don’t say?”

  “-and I would speak up in the meeting every so often to suggest a course of action, mostly because I just wanted to move things along. Those guys would waffle back and forth forever. I wasn’t even saying anything brilliant; just stating the obvious in most cases. They were all a little shocked by an intern speaking out at first but when it turned out that I was just saying stuff that they all basically knew anyway, they started to relax. After a while, they started asking my opinion in these meetings. I think a key part of all that was that I never opened my mouth if I didn’t know what I was talking about and if they asked for my input, I made sure to tell them when I didn’t know the answer. It helped to build trust in the relationship.”

  I nodded my agreement and walked on silently. He had made it sufficiently clear why the folks in his group were following his lead. He wasn’t describing anything that an effective person in a leadership position didn’t already know at a basic level, but then again, he was really damned young. I was duly impressed.

  It took us over a half hour to get to the bus because of all the time we had to spend searching around and doubling back for passable streets. I was confident in my ability to find my way back to the cars from memory; a skill I had picked up in my previous deployments where I often found myself traipsing through unfamiliar cities populated by unreadable signs and markers (where there were signs and markers, that is). That’s the bummer about being a Marine: outside of Okinawa and the Philippines (which I enjoyed the hell out of) you didn’t get to go see the nice parts of the world when you were deployed. Any place that needed the attention of the United States military was, by definition, already a shit hole.