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

“So who was the last person to use the toilet?” Oscar called down from the porch. He was holding the pitchers from the bathroom in his hands; the pitchers I hadn’t filled, actually.

“Shit, that was me, man. Sorry ’bout that.”

Oscar grinned and said, “It’s cool, buddy. Just keep working on breakfast, and we’ll call it even.” As he came down the steps to go find the rain barrels, he asked, “Whatcha mixing up over there?”

“Pancakes, young man!”

“Awe, yeah, white boy tortillas,” he laughed as he disappeared around the side.

Amanda came back with a large pot filled with several unopened cans of potatoes. “How’s that going?”

“Getting there,” I said, “but it’s still lumpy as all hell. Gimme a bit, and we’ll be good.”

The next few minutes passed in silence as we worked together, Amanda hopping around underfoot like a hummingbird and me just shambling around, like I do, trying not to step on her. Gibs had one of those old-school metal coffee percolators going on the grill by this time; we didn’t want to start the potatoes before the pancakes since they would be ready way too soon if we did. We began to smell the coffee right as the batter was finally starting to come into line; the aroma hit me so hard that I almost wanted to cry. I’m not exaggerating here, either. I actually teared up a little. When Gibs put a full cup in front of me, the best I could manage was to choke out a “Thanks” before handing the bowl over to Amanda.

Amanda set the bowl down and started spreading a touch of oil on the skillet. As she prepared to get the pancakes going, she said, “Guys, I’m sure there’s a graceful way to bring this up and I’m sure Jake would have been able to do it if he had been out here instead of me, but I’m what you’re stuck with, so you’re going to get ‘blunt’ rather than ‘finesse.’”

Gibs and I both looked at each other over the rims of our cups with the same wide-eyed expression. Gibs said, “Oh, Christ. This isn’t where you tell us about the weekly blood sacrifice, is it?”

“No,” she laughed. Amanda is one of those with an honest, hang-it-all-out laugh; it put me at ease. “What I was about to say is that we need to get an idea of everyone’s skill set. There are a lot of jobs around here that need to be done; more now that so many people are here. Some of you will come with skills and knowledge that’ll be useful to all of us. In some cases, those skills might define what you’re expected to do around here.”

“Job interviews?” I asked. “I haven’t done one of those since I was a kid.”

“No, not job interviews,” she said. “You guys are all with us whether you’re a bunch of geniuses or… not so much geniuses. But the point is, what if one of you were, like, a dentist or a doctor or something? That would be a good thing to know, right?”

“She’s got a point,” Gibs said quietly before taking a sip of coffee.

“On that subject,” Amanda continued, “Gibs? Jake was hoping he could talk to you if you have a minute.”

“Well, okay then,” said Gibs. “I saw him head inside with Wang. I’ll go catch up with him.” He saluted both of us with his coffee cup and went off towards the cabin.

“So how about you, big guy?” Amanda asked.

“Been a welder now, oh, fifteen years.”

“Really?” she said, sounding pleased. “What kind?”

“Mostly construction stuff, fabrication, all that kind of thing. Had my own truck rig and such; did quite a lot of business in the greater Wichita area.”

“Kansas, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am, born and raised,” I said.

“So I get what welding is,” she said, “but describe fabrication to me.”

“Oh, hell, that’s just a fancy way to say that I made stuff that you couldn’t easily buy already made. Say someone needs a wrought iron fence put up on their property, but they wanted a special gate on it that was a little bit fancier than what you can get from the big name manufacturers? Or even, say someone needed a custom built rolling rack to fit a specific dimension so they could load it with stuff and roll it around on a shop floor? It’s basically using my skills as a welder to make some one-off thing to fulfill a specific purpose.”

“Sounds like a creative job,” Amanda said.

“Yeah, it was,” I agreed. “I really enjoyed it; I was good at it too. Before that, I was a forklift operator, but that’s pretty mindless work. I wasn’t going anywhere with that and got tired of answering to some warehouse boss, so at twenty-nine I decided it was time for a change and went to school.”

I finished my coffee and thought for a moment. “I don’t really see how this helps us right now, though. We don’t have a rig out here; don’t have the power to run it…”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Amanda. “From what you’re saying, it sounds like you know how to do more than just stick two pieces of metal together. Have you seen the shop?”

“What shop?” Oscar interrupted as he came over to join us. Amanda had gotten a good little stack of pancakes lined up on the side of the table under a towel and was starting to heat up a couple of cans of potatoes on the side. “You got some guero tortillas ready to go, yet?”

“Under the towel,” Amanda pointed with her chin.

“You want a plate, Oscar?” I asked.

“Nah, bro, I’m good,” he said as he lifted one of the pancakes out from under the cloth, rolled it up just like the tortilla he suggested it was, and bit the end of. His eyes crossed as he groaned. “Oh, holy shit, man. That’s really tasty.”

“Don’t you want any syrup?” asked Amanda. She was laughing at Oscar’s expression, which was pretty comical, honestly.

“Nah, it wouldn’t be right without butter.”

“Oh, hell yes,” Amanda nodded. “I miss butter so much. If I could find any that was still good, I think I’d just eat a few spoonfuls of it without anything else.”

I could see I was with my kind of people and began to laugh out loud. Pointing at them both, I said, “You two are talking my language now! Either of you ever had deep fried butter?”

Oscar hopped in place, pointed back at me, and nodded happily. He put his hand out and bumped fists with me.

“Holy crap, no. It’s probably delicious, but I don’t think my thighs could have taken it,” said Amanda. “I’d just have to cut out the middle man and rub it directly on my legs.”

We all stood around laughing at Amanda as she pantomimed the act of spreading butter over her thighs, twisting her face all around and sticking her tongue out.

After we got some control of ourselves, Oscar tried again: “So what was that about a shop?”

“It’s in the back of the garage,” she said. “There’s a whole workshop back there with all kinds of tools and stuff. I don’t know how half of them work, but it sounds like Fred might.”

“Well, so would Oscar,” I said, nodding at him. “He was in construction too, right.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I was a foreman at the end, there. Mostly did a lot of warehouses and stuff but I used to go and work for residential outfits building homes when the work slowed down.”

He crammed the last of the pancake into his mouth and, still chewing, asked, “’s it cool if I go over and check it out?”

“Sure,” Amanda said. “Don’t try to run anything, though. I think we have to switch the batteries over before you do.”

“Hey, that reminds me of something I was thinking about this morning,” Oscar said after he swallowed. “You said your friend Billy had this place custom built, right?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“So maybe you know. I get that this place is sitting on a septic tank, right?”