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

“But if we try to do a second stack of bricks, won’t that just bury into the dirt too?” I asked.

“Aw, shit,” said Oscar. “Hang on; I’ll go cut a couple more beams.”

“Monkeys and buckets, people,” grumbled Gibs. “Monkeys and goddamned buckets.”

Within one week’s time, we had the outhouses fully constructed along with four shipping containers all lined up next to each other and well on their way to being converted into livable homes. Oscar worked on these like a lunatic, driving himself from sunup to sundown each day, barely ever stopping to eat or rest. He pulled in the rest of us to help along the way, often times just grabbing whoever happened to be close by, yet some of us became regular helpers when we weren’t out trying to get more food, that persistent, nagging worry that drove everyone (that still drives everyone today, honestly). Some of us kept coming back to help because we enjoyed learning how to do new things—some in our group had never even driven a nail before—and others pitched in out of simple curiosity; they wanted to see how a row of ugly, boxed containers would turn into anything that a sane person would want to live in.

Each container was spaced about fifty feet apart to help ensure that they would all catch a decent amount of crosswind for ventilation. I wasn’t really sure how that mattered since they were just windowless boxes until Oscar explained that each unit would be getting a series of windows on each side for relief in the summer months.

He burned up a good amount of diesel traveling to and from Jackson in that first week alone just getting everything he would need. I usually ended up going along just to fill in guard duty, though we rarely saw anyone out there, and he almost always had one of the larger men along on the trip as well to help him carry items. With all the stuff we brought back to the Bowl, we almost could have built a regular house.

He started by having Fred cut windows out of each unit with the torch that had been left behind by Howard’s group a few months earlier. These weren’t any small windows either; each “home” got two large sash windows on each side, directly across from each other, which Oscar said would produce a good cross breeze in the warmer months. These windows were cut to a specific size to match—you guessed it—all of the frame windows Oscar had managed to lift from stores in the surrounding city. These were all the high quality double paned affairs, as well. It was fun to watch him go shopping for this stuff. You could see that he was taking extreme pleasure in grabbing the best and most expensive versions of every item he could find since price was no longer a barrier. It didn’t help (or perhaps Oscar considered it a great help) that, with the exception of items like sandbags and certain tools like axes, sledgehammers, crowbars, and the like, most home improvement stores were generally untouched by rioting or destruction.

So, as I said, each unit got the two sash windows, not to mention an assortment of smaller windows at various points. Fred also cut holes for doors, in all cases along the longer side walls rather than on the ends, and three holes in each roof to install skylights. None of these units were getting electricity of any kind so Oscar was doing everything he could think of to cool and light them naturally.

The holes looked really ragged to start out, which caused some of us to share disturbed glances, but Oscar’s obvious faith and self-confidence sustained us through our doubts. He never showed a moment’s hesitation throughout the entire process of converting these units. No matter what part he was working on, he was always mentally further along. I came to realize just how gifted the guy is. It was like he would plan out whatever the current task was that he had to work on and then just stop thinking about it entirely; he would just tell his body to go do it, and it would. And while his body was busy working on that little project, his brain would be busy working out the planning for whatever phase came next. Jake, who is probably the smartest person I’ll ever meet, used to just stand back and watch Oscar in either amazement or admiration… it’s always hard to tell with Jake because his expressions are so damned subdued, but it was definitely one of those.

When all of the various holes had been cut into the containers, Oscar shifted gears and began to frame the insides with steel studs, screwing each piece directly into the walls of the container with a battery-powered drill. Once the internal framing of the unit was completed, he started up the generator and went around the outer perimeter with an angle grinder (which happened not to be cordless), smoothing out the sharp ends of all the screws that had punched through the surface. Later, he made a second pass around each building and smeared some kind of dark goop over each puncture, which he told us would harden up and seal the hole off from any outside moisture.

He installed all of the windows, skylights, and doors after that. What followed soon after was a bit of inspiration that I was certain came from insanity, yet I was soon proven wrong. Oscar insisted that the scavenging teams go out and get four new fifty-five-gallon drums, preferably plastic, or at least rain barrels if the drums couldn’t be found. While the teams were out doing that, he climbed on top of each unit and poured some water over the roof to see which way it would run off (the ground was nearly level, and we hadn’t bothered to flatten it out perfectly before setting the containers down, so there was a bit of a tilt to each container; Oscar had insisted this was a good thing as it would keep water from pooling on the tops of them when it rained). He then built a rain gutter running around the entire outside perimeter of each unit and positioned the spouts at their respective runoff points. This stage in the process took long enough that many of the barrels he would need had already shown up by the time he was finishing.

Each container home received a rain barrel (at or around fifty-five gallons) on a raised platform just underneath the spout of the rain gutter, with the gutter itself tied into the feed hose of the barrel through something Oscar referred to as a diverter. He ran the drain hose of the barrel through a hole in the wall into the inside of the home, which he connected to copper plumbing that ran down the wall frame and eventually terminated in a faucet.

When he had finished one of these, he stood back with his hands on his hips and smiled. He looked over at me and said, “So these places’ll have running water… ish.”

I was impressed, but there were parts of it that I still couldn’t figure out. “Where does the water go, though?”

Oscar pointed below the faucet and said, “I’m going to build a sink right there with an open bottom, and we can put like a wash basin or a bucket under it. You’ll still have to dump out the water when it fills up, but it’s better than running down to the creek every time you need to wash something.”

I shook my head, laughed, and said, “This is freaking brilliant! This would have never occurred to me in a million years.” Oscar actually blushed when I said that.

I thought for a minute, then, and asked, “Wouldn’t it just be easier to run the sink back outside, so we don’t have to dump a bucket of water all the time?”

“I thought about that,” he said, “but decided not to for a couple of reasons. For one, we don’t want to just dump water back into the dirt. Even if it’s dirty, it’s still water we could use for, like, crops or whatever, right? I also thought about just running it outside into another barrel, but I didn’t like how out of sight that idea was. I was afraid that if we could just make water come and go when we wanted, we might fall back into old habits and waste the stuff carelessly. If we’re forced to carry it out and do something with it each time the sink fills up, I think we’ll be a lot more careful with it.”