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

“I know Barbara, I get it,” I said, taking an easier tone with her. “But it’s not enough to make or break us. And you didn’t see these people. You weren’t there.”

“It makes a person wonder why he should go out and get any more,” mumbled Edgar.

“Easy,” George said. “Gibs is a Marine Veteran. He tends to look out for people. We know this about him. We’ve all benefited from this attitude many times over, lest any of us forget. It’s a little disingenuous to start complaining when the very attitude that makes him such an asset in our group gets directed at some strangers in need.”

“Yes, George, that’s all well and good, but the fact remains,” Edgar interrupted. He turned his attention back to me and said, “First off, thank you for your service—”

“Don’t… you… even… try to start in with that line,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“That ‘thank you for your service’ bullshit. It’s what a Vet usually hears right before he’s told that he’s basically wrong and irrelevant. If someone’s gonna tell me I’m full of shit, I want to hear it outright. I don’t want to be buttered up. You know how many times I heard that line right before someone told me in the same breath that I was full of shit and didn’t know what the hell I was talking about? I’ll give you a hint: it’s like a big, old, sloppy blowjob in your basic, garden variety porn. It’s foreplay, Edgar, and you’ve just told me that you like it rough.”

Everyone stopped trying to say things for a bit after that, not that I could blame them. Being fair, it’s probably hard to continue making your point when someone tells you to spit their dick out. Jake decided to step in, once again, to save everyone.

“Was there something I could help you folks with? I can’t imagine you ran out to grab me over a couple of cans of food.”

Appearing relieved, Barbara almost jumped to provide an answer. She had warmed to Jake considerably during our time there, having decided, apparently, that he was not, in fact, the Boogey Man. “It’s about the kids, Jake. We’re not doing enough for them here.”

“Oh?” asked Jake, showing genuine concern.

“They’re kept safe and fed but what about their education? They’re more or less left to their own devices all day while everyone bustles around doing their thing, and all. If we don’t take an active role in their development, well…”

“They’re going to grow up to be a bunch of morons,” I concluded for her.

“Okay, um… well, I wasn’t going to use the word ‘morons’ but essentially, yes Gibs. Pretty much.”

“We’re not suggesting they be taught Shakespeare or Calculus,” George said, “but there are basic skills from the old world that we need to hold onto and reinforce for everyone’s survival, as you know.”

Jake was nodding, looking off into the distance rather than anyone in particular. “This is a good point. I can’t believe how much math I’ve had to employ just in figuring out how much farmland we’ll need to support everyone going forward…”

“We have some preliminary plans for this,” said George. “I was a high school history teacher, once upon a time, and it turns out our friend Alish taught sixth grade.”

“Really?” I said, impressed. “I didn’t know that about her.”

“We don’t know much about her at all,” Edgar said. “She keeps to herself for the most part. I don’t even know her last name.”

“It’s ‘Rouhani,’” said Barbara.

Edgar stared at her, surprise painted across his face.

“All you have to do is ask, Edgar,” Barbara chided.

I started shifting from foot to foot, anxious to be on my way. “Okay, okay, we have a history teacher and a sixth-grade teacher, which basically means a person who can teach everything at an introductory level. You guys have anyone else?”

“Well, I was an accountant,” Edgar said, “so I can cover most math as long as it doesn’t get too advanced. I haven’t touched trigonometry in years, though, and anything higher than that, like calculus or physics, is a deal breaker.”

“We were thinking Jeff, too,” Barbara supplied.

“Jeff worked at one of those self-serve ceramics joints, didn’t he?” I asked confused. “What does that have to do with teaching kids, outside of showing them how to clean a paintbrush?”

“I was thinking he could sort of apprentice with the others, like Greg and Alan have been doing with Oscar,” said Barbara. “I think he’s struggling to find a place here. Monica and Fred have both mentioned that he looks just all kinds of shaky and uncomfortable when they go out into Jackson.”

“I’ll second that,” I said. “He holds a rifle like it’s a snake. I’m not sure he’s cut out for that kind of activity. He’s not coming up to speed, and there’s the real possibility that he’s more of a danger than a help out there.”

Barbara nodded, “I think it’s why he spends so much time with the kids; watching them while the rest of us are out working and suchlike. He’s looking for some way to be useful, and I don’t believe he has many real-world skills that we need. I think that bugs him quite a bit. Plus, he seems to be good with them.”

“Well, I can appreciate that,” Jake said. “At least he’s actively trying.” He glanced at me and twitched an eyebrow in just such a way that I knew he was about to end the conversation; he was letting me know that he knew I was impatient to get going and he was about to handle it.

Sometimes people describe knowing each other so well after years of working or living together that they complete each other’s sentences, express a complex idea with a wink and a smile, and so forth, which is a roundabout way to describe what Jake had just done. Back in the day, I could hold entire conversations with my sergeants with nothing more than simple hand gestures and a few facial twitches. Low bandwidth, high resolution.

The catch is that you typically don’t get up to this level of communication until you know someone for a significant amount of time because it’s all based on knowing that specific person; all their little idio-whatevers, expressions, and moods. That is, unless you’re Jake, apparently. Then you can just start doing that shit after a few weeks of hanging out. I don’t know how the hell he managed it, honestly, but he always had a way of reading people.

“We need to be on our way,” said Jake “but this dovetails pretty nicely with some things I’ve been wanting to bring up with the group. Let’s get together, either tonight or tomorrow night. Does that work for everyone?”

They all glanced around at each other and nodded.

“Great. We can probably have this knocked out pretty fast, along with some other things. Ready, Gibs?”

I had thrown the food and water into the backseat of the truck and was elevated halfway into the driver’s seat. “Yeah, man. Let’s hit it.”

He waved at the others and hopped into the passenger seat beside me. “Why don’t you drive,” he advised sarcastically as he checked the safety on his AK and then laid it into the foot-well next to his leg.

It took me a little longer to find my way back out to the bank than it would have taken Amanda, mostly because our first trip out there hadn’t been a direct route; we’d spent most of the morning meandering around like idiots looking for a construction site. Jake eventually directed me along the right series of roads, pointing out various landmarks as we went, that got us further north towards the center of Jackson. Once we got into that general vicinity, and once I found Amanda’s little backyard passage, I was golden and made directly for Wells Fargo.