Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

That’s right, kid , I thought. You just keep being disgustingly cute. Win me a dinner.

I glanced back at the woman and had to work hard to keep a grin from spreading on my face. She was crumpling. I could literally see her folding under the awesome power of Maria’s cuteness. Oh, Jesus, come on, lady. Just give in. Where’s Sarah McLachlan when you need her? I would have superglued a fly to the kid’s face if I thought it would have helped. I would have settled for Sally Struthers.

The woman turned her head away from view again and said more to Jake, who nodded. She dipped her head, shook it slightly, and shrugged.

Oh, shit yeah, Maria! Oo-freaking-rah!

She turned and approached us along with Jake, now with a smile on her face, which continued to look fierce regardless of its softening. Jake said, “Everyone, this is Amanda. Amanda, this is everyone… many of whose names I have yet to learn.”

She nodded and waved to us. Now that she was close, it struck me that she was tiny. The top of her head wouldn’t have even brushed my chin. Even compared to Jake, who was a few inches shorter than me, she was still shy about a half a foot. I looked down at the rifle that hung comfortably across her chest and also noticed a sidearm strapped to her thigh. She looked like she was used to going around like that.

Amanda smiled and said, “Well, we can learn everyone’s names over dinner, can’t we? Why don’t you put the truck away and I’ll go dig out some tables?”

“You folks relax a bit,” Jake advised. “We’ll have you fed shortly.”

Dinner turned out to be a certified feast, although it didn’t follow any coherent theme. “Ghetto potluck” was how Oscar described it. Our hosts pulled out some folding picnic tables to lay out a spread but there weren’t anywhere near enough chairs for everyone to have a seat, so we all stood with the exception of George and Barbara, who took chairs on the home’s front porch.

The food itself filled a wide variety of canned tastes. White rice was used as a filling base for the whole meal; a large tray was put out in the center with spoons and paper plates. Around this were various smaller plates and trays filled with all manner of things like baked beans, whole potatoes, green beans, corn, and meats. There was even a small bowl of fruit off to the side for anyone who wanted it. All of this stuff came out of a can; I mean, when I say “meats,” I’m talking about stuff like Spam and Potted Meat. Much of it was stuff I would have turned my nose up at back in the day. Today, I and the rest of the whole group annihilated every bite.

We learned that Amanda had a daughter, Elizabeth, who had come out to greet us after the tables had been set out but while the food was still being heated up on a few propane grills running in overtime (all told, it had taken around an hour to get the food out, mainly because that was how long it took to get all the rice cooked). Lizzy (as both her mother and Jake called her) fell in almost instantly with Maria and even Rose, who I would have thought was getting a little out of the younger girls’ age range. Rose would have been fourteen during this time, as I think I mentioned already; she was at that in-between state where she wasn’t a little girl anymore but also wasn’t quite ready to be grown up as well. Greg and Alan looked on from the sidelines, most likely pondering both a lack of any males as well as any females in their age range. Like the rest of the men still possessing a pulse, they would have to content themselves for the time being by staring after Rebecca like lost pups.

“I’m sorry about the seating situation,” Jake said, having finished a small plate of food. “We’ve never had so many people here before. Folding chairs were never a priority.”

“Don’t mention it, Jake,” Fred called from a little down the line. “Most of us were sick of sitting, anyway, spending all day on that damned bus. It’s good to stretch the legs out a bit.”

Jake nodded and was silent for a time. I looked at him standing at the head of the table, there, next to Amanda, almost but not quite touching elbows; just on the edge of contact with each other. I wondered at their relationship.

“How long have you three been living out here?” I asked.

“Either three or four months, now, I guess,” Jake said.

“Four,” Amanda confirmed.

“Four, then.”

“So then you guys found this place? That was lucky,” I said as I looked around the valley. It was buried back deep into the mountains. I couldn’t imagine anyone happening by on accident. It looked to be prime real estate, well protected on all sides by high mountain walls with a single, narrow point of access.

“Well, we had a friend who brought us here,” Amanda said. “He owned the place. We lost him not too long ago. Shootout.”

“I’m sorry for that,” I said. “We lost some people too.”

“I think everyone must have, by now,” Rebecca added, looking pointedly in my direction.

I suppressed an eye roll and nodded at her. Alright, already. I get it.

I was deciding how to respond to her statement, or at least trying to decide if I should respond to it, when Edgar chose that moment to start speaking. I winced inwardly, trying like hell to keep it from showing on my face. I caught Wang’s eye, who only shrugged; it seemed he and I were both taken by surprise.

“I was hoping you all might indulge me a moment,” he said. “It’s no secret that we were in poor shape when you found us. We had eaten our last morsel of food, which was admittedly not a full meal at that (you must understand that we were all feeling the pangs of hunger well before our encounter in Jackson) and consumed our last drop of water. We had been chased from the streets of Denver by a band of deplorable, bloodthirsty savages, losing some of our own, as already noted, but also gaining new friends in the process.” He waved a hand expansively to Alish and the Page brothers. “What I’m trying to say is that we have learned to expect only famine and savagery out on this hard road. For this kindness you have shown to us, our people are in your debt.”

Edgar raised his water bottle and looked around expectantly at all of us. I became concerned that he was about to start reciting poetry or something soon, so I hoisted mine as well and said, “Erm, yeah, hear, hear…”

There were a few belated chimes of agreement from around the table. For Jake’s part, he looked as though he was put off balance by the whole display; he had his head down through the delivery, only looking up at the end when Edgar finished speaking. The expression on his face was unreadable. If he was confused or uncomfortable, I sure couldn’t blame him. While blessedly short, Edgar’s speech had killed any further conversation (any natural conversation, anyway) and drew everyone’s attention to a major, nagging question: now that we had been fed, what came next? Honestly, the exchange made me feel like a bit of a moron. I was certain there was a list of subtexts that had gone right over my head, mostly because I was unsettled by the outcome and couldn’t put my finger on why. My gut was telling me that something clumsy and ill-handled had transpired, only I couldn’t tell who was fully to blame or if we all held a piece of it. I decided to classify the matter as above my paygrade and opted instead to spoon another wad of rice into my mouth.

Up at the head of the table, Amanda leaned in close to Jake and whispered something into his ear. His face betrayed no expression as she spoke to him; the expression on her face indicated that she was having trouble in choosing between speaking to him and biting a chunk out of his face. Without waiting for a response, she departed towards the house, mounted the short flight of steps to the porch, and disappeared behind the front door.