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

“Enough to make up for that many mouths?”

“Well… I really have no idea. I suppose we’ll have to see how it goes and make some sort of projection. Billy was the numbers guy, not me.”

“Yeah, well, you better find a replacement if you’re gonna be the new mayor,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.

“Mayor?” He looked unhappy just saying the word.

“Oh, yeah. If we’re going to do this, there can’t be any question in these peoples’ minds who’s in charge, here. Didn’t you read any of those books Billy left us? Someone has to be in charge. Usually, the turd floats to the top of the group naturally, but this started out as our home, and it needs to stay that way. We can’t leave it up to natural group dynamics. Sorry, buddy: you brought them home. You get to be the turd.”

He sighed: “I realize all that, certainly. But I’m not calling myself Mayor. Besides, a title like mayor implies the consent of the governed.”

“Huh?” I said.

“I mean it suggests I was voted into position. As you say, we can’t let a vote happen here. We’ll have to play this more like they’re house guests than some sort of village situation. I’d suspect it will become reflexive for everyone after too long and we won’t have to keep tiptoeing around it.”

“So how do you want to do this?” I asked.

“Let’s go determine the leaders in their group and have a sit-down with them. Who was it, Edgar? That made that clumsy speech? I can’t imagine it’s him in charge; it felt like he was trying too hard to put himself out in front through that whole performance.”

“I agree,” I said. “I saw some people roll their eyes, too.”

“Good, but let’s make sure we invite him into the meeting anyway.”

“Oh, why?” I asked.

“Because if there are issues within their group, I want to know about them. I need you there in a background position, watching everyone. You’re going to catch things I miss; you’re better at this than I am.”

Jake led us out of the front door, where he turned abruptly and went over to sit down next to the older woman and man on the porch (who I later learned were George and Barbara), striking up a quiet conversation with them both. People from the new group had spread out all over the immediate property. Elizabeth, who had helped to prepare the food and came out to eat with everyone soon after, was sitting down at the opposite end of the porch with two young girls. She had her deck of cards out (a gift from a friend met on the road) and was dealing between the three of them.

There were a handful of people still milling around the tables, a giant of a black man among them holding a paper plate and plastic fork that looked tiny in his hands. He had what Jake later described to me as ‘the awkward posture of an overburdened frame’; basically, the man was so large that the weight of his body made him look like he was out of energy all the time. He didn’t walk around; he lumbered. He didn’t sit down; he eased into chairs with a groan. You could see it the most in his legs and also his feet if he went without shoes. He had long, skinny legs with knees that looked like they might fold in the wrong direction if he came down on them too hard. His feet looked spread out and mashed into the ground as though carrying the body above them had aged them prematurely. I felt physically uncomfortable whenever I looked at the man and, when he sat down, I always felt like I could breathe a little easier for him.

Next to him stood about the most attractive woman I think I’ve ever seen in person. She was one of those people who looked so effortlessly beautiful that you felt like a troll just standing next to her. She was tall, probably the same height as Jake (who was just a hair above average for a man); with long, perfect, white legs exposed by a pair of shorts I never would have been brave enough to wear. And when I say her skin was white, you have to understand: it glowed. A lot of people with pale skin typically get blotchy in different temperatures, hot or cold, and sometimes appear like they’re breaking out in some sort of rash in extreme cases. This blotchiness, along with the usual tracing of visible blue veins just beneath the surface of the skin, is why the ability to tan is so desirable. For her, tanning was unnecessary. Her skin was smooth, even, and flawless. She had a mane of fiery red hair that fell just below her shoulders but most likely extended to the center of her back or lower if pulled straight. It was arranged in thick, wavy curls that most of my friends would have had to spend three hours with a curling iron to achieve; I had to imagine it happened on her naturally given that she had been living on a bus. I’m struggling for words to describe it; her hair was so thick that it stood out from her head in such a way that… headdress! That’s it; her hair was like a giant, Indian headdress! I would have killed for hair like that. My hair was basically straight and dark brown, which my mother claimed I got from my Indian heritage. I don’t know if that’s true or not; I do know that it thinned out and became even more useless after I had Lizzy.

She stood chatting with a black woman who was more on my level: shorter, thicker, and darker. Her hair was pulled back into a stiff ponytail, and it looked like she had been living hard on the road for some time, as we all did, but the miles, lack of beauty products, and grime could not hide the strength and quiet dignity that she carried. I liked her on sight and admired her for all of the reasons my instincts told me to disregard the other, prettier woman.

I was startled by Jake appearing at my side, an annoying, unconscious habit that he still has and that others besides me have commented on. He called out into the open with a clear voice, “Gibs, Wang, and Edgar: could I beg a moment of your time, please?”

The three men approached all wearing different levels of curiosity on their faces. If I had to assign ratings for intensity, I’d have to say that the Asian man (Wang) had the most guarded expression; the taller, bearded man (Gibs) was somewhere in the middle; and the final person, a dead ringer for Ichabod Crane (Edgar), looked like he had just been called on to address the president.

Jake looked over at George, nodded, and asked, “Shall we?” The man called George pushed off from the low deck chair with the help of his cane and approached the front door, which Jake was holding open. Gibs, Wang, and Edgar followed into the house after George. Jake glanced over to the older woman left behind in the remaining chair and said, “Have him back in a minute,” before indicating to me that I should follow into the house. I noticed that Barbara didn’t smile at Jake or respond to his comment, which was odd. She seemed to smile at just about everything. Jake came into the cabin behind me and shut the door.

The entry hall (what a fancy-pants would call a “foyer”) was nearly crowded with five people standing around in it. The three men looked about themselves in appreciation, obviously pleased with all of the masculine wood and furniture. I couldn’t blame them; I always did think Billy’s home was attractive, though I personally would have added a bit of color if I had been in charge of decorating. Jake and I had once considered changing a few things up but ultimately decided not to. The home was always going to be Billy’s place; we didn’t want to turn it into something he wouldn’t have been happy with.

“Why don’t we head into the front room? There’s more than enough space in there for us,” suggested Jake. He slipped by all of them as he said this and walked into the formal front room where Jake, Billy, Elizabeth, and I had spent so many quiet evenings. He sat down in Billy’s old leather chair positioned just off to the right of the large fireplace and gestured to the rest of the seating surrounding the low coffee table. The rest of us filtered in and occupied various positions. Gibs, George, and Wang took the long sofa on the other side of the table while Edgar took a solitary chair off to the side of the room closest to the front door, a detail I was sure Jake caught. I sat down in the mate to Jake’s chair, which was located on the opposite end of the fireplace, placing Jake and I shoulder to shoulder with a span of probably six feet between us. The positioning was well arranged, giving me the ability to see everyone’s faces equally (Edgar’s was almost in profile). The whole environment struck me as a little surreal; I’d never been in anything like a boardroom meeting before, but I imagined that this might have been pretty close.