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

“Yeah, maybe,” Barbara said.

“I could try to get close to him and see,” suggested Rebecca.

“What?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Come on. You know…”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Sorry, excuse me. No, you’re not doing that. Nobody has to do that.”

Rebecca nodded, cheeks burning, looking relieved. I saw Davidson loosen up as well out of the corner of my eye.

We all had an awkward little silence after that, which I suspect we all needed after Rebecca’s unsettling fucking offer. It made me feel really uncomfortable that we were in a situation where she felt like such a thing needed to be an option. The fact that I had considered it, even if only for a fraction of a second, was equally alarming. I remember feeling thrown way off balance at this point and lost myself for a few moments digging around in my own head; asking myself questions and finding no answers. When I came back to myself, I noticed a lot of faces staring back at me, all packing unanswered questions behind their eyes. This elevated my personal level of agitation even higher, obviously.

“What? What’s everyone looking at?”

Davidson shot an exaggerated shrug at me, “Are we staying or not, man?”

“Oh, goddamnit, that ain’t my call. You people have to agree on what seems right for you. I’m just in charge of keeping you all safe—”

“Can I suggest,” George cut in over my tirade, “that we play it by ear? It’s late enough now that we’re probably not going anywhere tonight, anyway. It’s just Jake and Amanda. They can’t force us to stay if we don’t wish to do so. It could be that this is just what we were looking for. Let’s sleep on it.”

Several nodded at this, to my great relief, and the tight little knot of people began to break up. Smaller subgroups wandered off to various areas; I noticed Fred and Barbara began to bustle about the tables, stacking up trays and cleaning up. Most of the cookware was ceramic or Tupperware, yet there was still a good deal of trash out there to be taken care of. I began to idly wonder about how they disposed of trash around here. It wasn’t as though a city trash service came through to offload the refuse and take it to the dump. This thought led me naturally to the challenge of waste disposal.

Jake’s cabin would have been built with a septic tank; there’s no way a tie-in for city sewage was brought all the way out to this location. So, in a pinch, we could use the toilets in the cabin, assuming we had enough water on hand to charge the tank for a flush. The only problem there was that Jake and Amanda probably wouldn’t be terribly happy about sixteen people stomping through the house all day and night to make a head call. This would be one of those problems we’d need to solve soon to avoid wearing out our welcome. I started looking around the area for a good spot to dig a deep hole.

“Give us a minute, please, guys,” George said, bringing me back to the present.

Davidson, Wang, and Edgar were all muttering some form of the phrase “no problem” and moving off to positions of their choice a respectful distance away. I looked to George and asked, “What’s this?”

“Gibs, I have a pretty good handle on where you’re coming from with these folks, but, well, if you’re going to be in charge, you need to be in charge. You can’t suddenly abdicate if you get asked a hard question.”

Maybe it was his choice of words or the way he delivered them, but I started to get a little pissed. “Hey, horse shit, alright? This wasn’t some issue concerning the group’s safety, the question under discussion was basically, ‘Hey, Gibs, tell us where we’d like to live.’ Exactly how much hand-holding do you consider to be appropriate, here? Shall I wipe noses and asses while I’m at it?”

George had his hands up with the palms extended at me in a ‘calm down’ gesture. “Okay, okay, easy. I’m sure I delivered that wrong. All I’m trying to say is that when you establish yourself as the leader under one set of circumstances, people are going to expect you to take charge under all circumstances. If you look indecisive under any of these, they’re going to start second guessing you when it counts, or at least when it has to do with a subject about which you feel strongly. Can you see what I’m saying? You can’t have it both ways with followers. You’re either all the way in charge, or you’re not in charge at all.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “that sounds a lot better than talking some shit about ‘abdicating responsibility.’ Nice revise.”

I was starting to cool off a bit and got a good look at George, who was staring off in the direction of Jake’s huge garage. He had that kicked-dog expression that always drives me up the wall. I used to get it all the time from my Marines after lighting them up for some stupid thing they had done. It used to infuriate me. You walk in on some moron igniting his pubic hair with a fucking zippo, and suddenly you’ve gotta feel like the asshole for spoiling everyone’s fun. I never understood how it was that I ended up being the dick after correcting someone else for their stupid shit, but there it was.

“Hey, never mind,” I said to George. “I get what you’re saying. But, man, I can’t be the mother duck. I left that shit behind for a reason; poor sleep and premature hair loss are only a part of it. I’ll snap asses back when it comes to safety, and I’ll absolutely take a round to keep these people alive. I just can’t do their thinking for them. I’m drawing the line there.”

George nodded, glanced back at the cabin, and looked back at me. “Well, let’s play it by ear, like I said. Maybe it’s a problem that takes care of itself.”

I wasn’t sure what he was alluding to, but I frankly didn’t have enough energy to give a shit; I just let the comment pass by like so much dust on the wind. My nerves had been ratcheted up to eleven for the last several days. I was only getting a couple of hours of sleep a night towards the end; a combination of trying to rack out on that goddamned bus, worrying about keeping everyone fed, and my stupid brain trying to turn every little sound heard in the middle of the night into creeping bandits. We were finally in a strong, isolated area where provisions were no longer an immediate problem to be solved, and I didn’t feel like I had to be constantly looking over my shoulder for an ambush. As I felt my body starting to crash from running too long at full capacity on fumes, I was a little shocked to realize that I desperately hoped Jake was on the up and up. I wanted terribly for this place to work out for us. I couldn’t lose any more people on some endless hunt for a home.

“Hey, where are you off to?” George asked from behind me; my feet had started moving (almost on their own) without me signaling my intent.

“I’m going to go tell them it’s a deal and beg for a rack. If I have to sleep in a bus for one more night, I’m going to shoot myself.”

The front door opened almost as soon as I knocked, revealing Jake on the other side. I could see Amanda standing not far behind him. He said nothing; only looked at me and waited to hear what I would say.

“We, uh, would like to take you up on your offer. I’m not sure where you’re going to put us all, but we’re willing if you are.”

He smiled at me then, and I want to say it was the first time I saw him really smile, though he’d been doing it at everyone all day. There was something in the way it made you feel that let you know for sure. There wasn’t a great deal of change in his face when he did it, but his eyes let me know it was for real; they made all the difference.

“I’m glad,” he said and extended his hand to shake. I took it and was mildly shocked at how it felt. His hand was fat and meaty through the palm and, though it was only of average size, I had a hard time getting a good grip around it. The texture of the skin was all leathery, and the surface of the palm was sharp with callus. I could feel the bones moving around inside of it until he started to squeeze; when he did, the soft parts broadened and became hard, like his fist itself was expanding. The pressure exerted on my hand stopped just short of discomfort.