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

On our first day there, Jake and Amanda were already laying all the groundwork. They were talking to each of us, either on our own or in little groups, and figuring out backgrounds; strengths and weaknesses, you know? It was crazy because everyone had their own idea about what was going on. People who Jake had talked to were convinced that he was just being friendly and bullshitting with them; dude was smooth, like. He could just rap with you a while and get whatever he needed out of you. Amanda came right at you, all direct and everything. The people she talked to knew what was up immediately because she told them. Different people had different ideas about this; some of them appreciated Amanda just coming out and saying, “Look, everyone has a job around here. There ain’t no free rides, sabes ?” On the other hand, Jake’s method put a lot of people at ease. He creeped out a few of us when we first met him (it took Barbara a long time to get used to him) and being able to talk to him like that convinced a lot of people that the dude was just the quiet type.

For me, all I knew was that I was relieved that Maria had a place to sleep and a full belly. I would have put up with a lot of shit just for that and, honestly, Jake and Amanda are cool. Gibs is the man, and I think we would have probably found a place on our own eventually, but we won the fucking lottery when Jake found us, no lie.

Right off the bat, we had a little powwow out in the garage by the whiteboard, where Jake started listing off all these projects we had to get going on. I should probably make it clear here that they had a stack of three or four different whiteboards that they used to keep track of various projects. They had some pegs set up on the right inner wall of the building that they could just throw a board on and get to work. Jake was sitting down on a shop stool while Amanda wrote for him at the board, which was a good thing. Jake’s writing looks like some kinda jacked up Chinese.

So Jake starts describing all the stuff we need to do, and by that time everyone’s got it figured out if they hadn’t before.

He goes, “We have a list of items we need to get going on immediately so that we can be in a good position when the snows come, which could be as early as October around here. When it does, the roads may become impassable unless we can find and operate a snowplow or some similar tool, so we’ll need to have the ability to hunker down here in the bowl for long periods of time if we’re forced to do so.

“We have four major areas to tackle: provisions, shelter, sanitation, and supplies. There’s a lot more than that, of course, but these are the main items that we need to get moving on immediately, listed in order of importance.”

He had our complete attention by that point; we all wanted to know how we were going to handle these things. Some of us had gone in a few circles arguing the issue. Why were we sticking in the valley when there were whole tracts of housing outside of the mountains in easy to reach areas? The valley only had the one house and a garage, so there were already a lot of areas that we had to play catch-up on. What we kept coming back to was the reliable water supply (both the well and the seasonal stream that ran through the area on the northeast side) and the seclusion. Denver was still fresh on everyone’s minds.

Jake continued: “First, provisions. The food we have laid aside may look like a lot, and it is. It’s enough to sustain three people for about eight months. Now, please don’t get me wrong, we’re happy to have you all with us, but that same amount of food will only carry nineteen people a little over a month. Before you arrived, the plan was to coast out the winter on our existing food stores and then work on a subsistence farming solution as soon as spring came. The winter would have essentially been used to lay out our plans and prepare for that first crop. At the same time, we were going to begin scavenging again as soon as the roads opened back up. The idea was to supplement our scavenging with our first crops (we were looking at beets and potatoes to start) and see what percentage of our meals came from which source. Based on that, we would have known how much more we had to ramp up farming for the following season. This is critical data that we have to collect because, as you surely all know, the food that’s just lying around is going to run out, probably sooner than we’d all like. If we’re not ready for when that time comes, things are going to get really hard; a lot harder than anyone realizes. Things have been really easy so far because everything we need is basically just out there for the taking. This cannot and will not last.”

I felt a lot of people shift around during this speech and even heard one or two people mutter quietly towards the end. I guess they thought that Jake’s definition of “easy” was a bit different from their own. I could see it from both sides. Yes, it was technically easy to go pick a bunch of stuff up and bring it all home. On the other hand, getting shot at by random strangers is bullshit. I grew up in a pretty rough area, but my past was a cakewalk compared to how things were now.

“Our plans don’t necessarily change now that you’ve all come to stay with us,” Jake said. “They just have to scale up. We’ll need to do everything we can to get our food stores up to an acceptable level; enough so that we’ll be sustained through winter. Scavenging is going to be everyone’s responsibility, with the obvious exception of the children. We have enough vehicles to support everyone who can do it; we’ll go out in teams and comb the area in grids. It’s going to be tight, but I believe it’s entirely possible if we keep organized.”

That fucker Jeff said, “Someone will need to stay behind with the kids, won’t they?”

“That’s right,” Jake agreed. “I suppose we could draw lots for work duty or something similar—”

“Or, some of us might be better at certain jobs,” Jeff said. “I know that Alish and George were both teachers once. I wasn’t, but I used to do a lot of community work with the ymca and such.”

“That’s a good point,” Jake said, “but I also want to avoid people getting pigeonholed as much as possible. The sad fact is that everyone needs to be competent with firearms and be able to fight as a team if the need arises. There’s no way around it. But your point is noted. I’m sure we’ll be able to work up a solution with little trouble.”

Jake looked around us for a bit to see if there was anything else. Amanda stood behind him banging away at the whiteboard, collecting the important points. When nobody said anything, he continued, “So much for provisions; the next item is shelter. Now, please don’t get me wrong. As I said, we’re very happy to have you all here with us, but, well, we’ve got to get you all your own residences.”

“Hell yes,” Tom said. “Fred snores loud enough to wake up a dead man.”

“Oh, hush now, fool. Ain’t that bad,” Fred shot back.

“I’ll take Fred’s snoring over your horrible, horrible singing,” Wang said.

“Dude,” said Tom, “my singing rules .”

“Alright, goddamnit, secure your pie holes,” growled Gibs. I mean, dude straight up growled; you could always tell when he was getting pissed. If you get him worked up enough, he’ll go from growling to full blast in, like, zero-point-three seconds. I’ve seen him do it a few times. It’s epic.

There were a few muttered sorries, which Jake waved away. “So as I was saying, we need to figure something out for your homes. I had considered putting you all up on cots here in the garage to start, but I’m against it for a few reasons. First, it’s a temporary solution at best. The building isn’t insulated, and you’ll all freeze once the snows start in. On top of that, living in a garage on cots in a big group of people is just a miserable way to be. It’s like living in a shelter; actually, no, it is precisely living in a shelter. People need a home, a place that’s theirs. So we might as well skip the whole shelter concept and get busy working on something more permanent.