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

You know how you have those situations in your life where you wish more than anything in the world that you could go back and just change one decision? Even having nightmares where you’re screaming at yourself to do something different?

Yeah.

That first week was a flurry of activity. Everyone had taken Jake’s little speech about food to heart, and it was clear they were all moving at full blast to make up the difference. If the snow was likely to come in October, we only had a little over a month to get ready.

Every day, people divided into two basic groups: scavengers and builders. The scavengers would head out into the city in one or more of the gas vehicles, taking along an armed guard; either Jake, Amanda, or myself. In the case of the Jeep, it was almost always a two-man team so that the rear seats could be folded down for more storage space. With the Dodge, there was a whole truck bed available, so four or five people usually made the trip there. Because of this, we found that the truck was always going out for bulk supplies (mostly food and such) while the Jeep went out for harder to find specialty items.

Poor Oscar often found himself torn between duties. He and Fred knew more about building things (or at least, building things the right way rather than just slapping any old shit together) than the rest of us combined but they were both also very strong and could lug heavy things around all day long. Additionally, Oscar usually had to go out to find stuff that he needed to build with. Sometimes he could just tell the rest of us what was required, but he was often afraid he either wouldn’t explain the needed items well enough or that we’d misunderstand and end up wasting gas getting the wrong items. You could tell it frustrated the hell out of him because it ended up taking him twice as long to finish a lot of projects.

Fred and I had the shit holes dug and ready on day one but, not surprisingly, no one was really in a rush to start using them because they were just a couple of holes out in the middle of nowhere. Most everyone else was out in the city, except for George and Barbara, looking for food and other stuff so I couldn’t tell Oscar the work was done and that it was time to get going on the outhouses. He was out working on the shelter problem, anyway, so I figured it would be a while before the pits were put to active use, which was actually a little galling. Why the hell had I jumped in so quick to dig a couple of shit pits, making myself all sweaty and dirty, if they weren’t going into service for a few days?

Walking up to the edge of one of them, I unzipped and relieved myself.

“Oh, you’re just gonna whip your stuff out and get busy, ain’tcha?” Fred said, mildly disgusted.

“I’m testing my handiwork, man.”

“That’s just nasty. Can’t just be pulling out your dick like that. At least turn away or something.”

“Hell, it’s not like I give a damn,” I said, shaking off. “I lost all those barriers a long time ago.” I packed it away, pulled out some wet wipes from a bag we’d kept by our water bottles, and wiped off my hands. “You know what it’s like doing a piss test in the Marines?”

Fred shook his head.

I walked over to him and stood shoulder to shoulder, then leaned my head close to his and looked down his front. I whispered, “An observer is there, standing close by just like I am now, to watch you fill the bottle. He could almost put his arm around your shoulders…” I said as I started to creep my left arm around him and rest my palm against his back.

“Hey, get the fuck off me, man!” he erupted through nervous laughter.

I laughed as well and said, “Sorry, man. You just get used to it. I got out of the habit for a long time, what with all the civilized behavior I was exposed to when I left the Marines, but it’s one of those skills you can always fall back to, like riding a bike.”

I went over to grab the shovel, waters, and other stuff to walk back to the house. “We’ll need to put some plywood over these to keep them from filling in and keep people from falling in. Would you grab the pick?” I turned and was mildly surprised to see Fred, with his back to me, pissing into the hole next to the one I’d just used.

“No, man. That’s the lady’s room,” I said.

His shoulders started to shake as he laughed and he said, “Hey, kiss my ass, Gibs.”

“This ain’t one of those gender identity things, is it? Do I need to dig a third hole or something?”

He laughed hard at that but then turned and said, “Alright, man, that’ll do.” He said it amiably enough, and his smile was genuine, but I could detect just a hint of an edge underneath his voice like he was getting ready to start taking offense if I didn’t lay off.

“Hey, no problem, man. No offense, okay?”

He flapped his arms at me as he walked back in my direction, as though I was being silly, and said, “Hey, it’s cool, man. We all are just fucking around here.”

He slapped me on the shoulder, hard enough to jerk the top of my body to the side, and squeezed my arm. He then deliberately pulled the pack of wipes out of my hand, removed a few of them, and began to wash his hands, all while smiling at me in good-natured fashion.

“The fuck was that?” I said, voice low.

He pulled a confused expression and said, “What, man?”

“Don’t pull that innocent cunt look with me like a what-the-fuck grenade just went off in your face. You know good and goddamned fucking well what’s going on here. How far do you want to escalate this, Fred?”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had taken a few steps towards him. He backed up a couple of paces, putting his heels on the edge of one of the pits. I’d dropped the bottles of water but was still holding the shovel. Belatedly, I dropped that too.

“Hey, Gibs, look—” he said.

“It’s too late to pretend you didn’t mean anything, Daisy. We both know perfectly well how I feel about proper sanitation. You’re counting on me not calling out that you just purposefully rubbed your fucking mitt all over me before washing your hands… some fucking moronic dominance horse shit. Only now here I am in your face, and you look about as vicious to me as a bowl of Ovaltine.”

He stayed quiet a moment while he considered me and I began to wonder what would happen next. I’d gotten the worst of my annoyance off my chest and was just remembering the fact that I was only really up to Fred’s chin and he probably outweighed me by eighty pounds. I was beginning to wonder if I wouldn’t just be better off shoving him into the hole and running off for a bazooka.

Finally, Fred sighed and slowly picked a water bottle up off the ground. Uncapping it, he dumped the entire thing over his hands and washed them thoroughly. He held one hand out to me and said, “Look, sometimes things piss me off, and I take it the wrong way. We’re both assholes. Do over?”

I considered for a moment just how much of an asshole I wanted to be but decided ultimately that he was sincere. I took his hand and nodded. “I’ll tone the ribbing down.”

Right about the time Fred and I were wrapping up our little pissing match, Oscar and Amanda were returning to the valley from the day’s first excursion. They rolled up in the jeep just as we were dragging a plywood sheet out of the garage.

“Hey, any luck, you guys?” called Fred as they climbed out of the Jeep. In answer, Amanda walked around to the back to open the rear door, exposing row on row of clothing stacked up as high as the seat backs.