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

I nodded to the tangle and said, “Any of that look planned to anyone else?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Samantha said.

“We don’t even have to move both of them,” Robert pressed. “I think if we just push one of those trucks back, we can squeak by.”

I sighed and nodded. We’d spent all mornin’ and the better part of the afternoon getting to this spot. I didn’t want to turn back now; we’d have lost the whole day travelin’ basically nowhere’s. “Get your rifle, Robert. Let’s see what we can do.” I looked at the others in the back seat. “You two sit tight.”

Robert and I climbed out of the suv and made it about halfway to the trucks when an ear-piercin’ whistle echoed out along the street corridor. We froze in place, both of us liftin’ our rifles up, as row on row of heads popped up from behind all the garbage, shop windows, alleyways, and busted-out cars. I never got a complete count of how many was out there, but I’d guess they was at least twenty of ’em. All of them was armed with some sort of gun, and all of them had red bandanas tied ’round they arms.

“Okay, easy, folks! Easy! Let’s put those rifles down,” a voice called out.

As you might imagine, the sight of several people poppin’ up out of nowhere with guns caused me ’n’ Robert to do the exact opposite.

A voice, muted more than the first, sang out from behind me, “There they go, he’s drawing down, Mike. He’s going for it!”

“Whoa, WHOA!” the first one yelled. “Nobody shoots, you hear! Everyone just settle the fuck down!” He popped up from his cover behind the truck that was blockin’ the street and skittered out into the open in front of us, wavin’ over his head wildly as he came. “Just… Jesus Fuckbunnies, just everyone chill a minute, will yah? Just everyone be cool! I need everyone to not be a bunch of stupids, right on? Disco-titties!”

The answer that floated down from the barricades was patches of silence interlaced with muffled snickers, I’m assumin’ because the man who jumped out had such an odd way of cursin’. The good news was that it seemed no one was actually getting ready to shoot us, though there were plenty of barrels pointed straight at us from all angles. I saw a lot of the people behind those barrels ease up and settle back. I took a relieved breath and felt Robert loosen up a bit beside me.

“Hey, guys,” the man said, dragging out the word “guys” as though he had some genuinely depressin’ news to deliver and he wanted to soften the blow, “my name’s Mike. Or, Mikey, if you like; that’s what my friends always used to call me.” He smiled, half extended his hand to shake, and then drew it back at the last second and wiped it down the front of his jean jacket. He had what looked like sports-gear strapped down over his left shoulder, as though he’d cut a set of football pads in half, cinched one side down over the joint, and strapped it in place with nylon tie straps. I looked around at some of the others and saw that they was all decked out the same, with knee pads, shin guards, and such, and wondered what the hell they thought they was on about. That stuff would work fine in a fist fight, I guess, but most people was carryin’ firearms; pistols at least. That hard plastic nonsense wouldn’t even slow a bullet down.

Off to my left, Robert snorted and said, “Hey, what the hell is all this, guys? You supposed to be a Comicon cosplay group or something?”

“Easy,” I hissed at him. “Those guns’re real enough.”

“We make it kind of a point to look uniform,” Mike said, still soundin’ like a used car salesman. “Kind of dress the same? Wear these little armbands and all. Helps us to know who’s on our team, you see? It’s important to know whose team you’re on around here.”

“Okay,” Robert said, “unless someone just gets a red bandanna and ties it around their arm, right? What’s stopping someone from doing that?”

Mike smiled, not unkindly, and said, “Don’t think that would work… yet, anyway. Maybe there’re enough of us that we don’t all know everyone’s name, but there’s few enough that an unfamiliar face gets noticed.”

Nobody said anything after that for at least a good fifteen seconds. It was like some sort of conversation stopper that pulled the life out of everyone. When I got sick of standing around, I finally said, “Say, what is this, Mike? Why’re you stopping us? We ain’t starting nothin’; we just passing through.”

Mike raised his hands in a “hang-on” gesture while bowing his head slightly. “I know, I know, and I’m sorry, you guys. I keep telling folks we need to put some decent signage up, so travelers know what the hell to expect around here, but one thing at a time, you know? The deal is this: you’re kind of in a group territory. People don’t get to come through this way without they check in, get cataloged, pay a little tax. You know. Mainly, you gotta meet with Raul.”

“Raul?” asked Robert. “Who’s this, now? Gang leader?”

Mike winced thoughtfully as he wobbled his head back and forth, making a more-or-less gesture with his hand. “Eh, you could say we all kind of fell in behind him, I suppose. I don’t know if I’d use the word gang , though. Organization, maybe.”

“Oh, hell,” I said, disgusted. “So you tellin’ me you folks are charging tolls for people to pass by? What sort of foolishness is this? Y’all just robbin’ people passing by, right?”

Mike was waving his hands over his head again, agitated. “Okay, okay, okay, dude, I hear what you’re saying, but I hate to say that this is really how it has to be. There are something like a good hundred and fifty—”

“Two hundred, Mikey,” called the man behind him.

“Two hundred! Fine, that’s even worse. There’re a good two hundred folks in our crew. That’s a ton of mouths to feed, man. Can you imagine trying to keep two hundred bellies full on a day to day basis? It’s a fucking chore, dude. Believe you me.”

He completely dropped the barrel of his weapon, lettin’ it hang off his shoulder as he began to build up a momentum.

“We do our best to get by on scavenging, and that’s mostly enough to keep us fed, but we run into a real problem when travelers just come… flitting through the area. As far as us in our crew are concerned, this is our area that we staked out, you know? We defend it, keep it clean, keep the streets safe at night and all. And now here comes some random people, drawn to the spoils of the fat, dense city, trying to get all set up to compete with us for food and shit. What would you suggest we do? Kick a can and go, ’awe, shucks, guess we’ll have to just search that much harder, now’? We have mouths to feed, man. A lot of them are kids.”

I dropped my rifle and motioned for Robert to do the same. “I see your point,” I said. “Fact remains: you’re aimin’ to steal from me, whether you call it a toll or not. We just passing through, like I said. We ain’t takin’ any food out this’ere area. We just wanna leave.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” said Mike. “But you might also want to stay, you know? Two hundred people could easily turn into Two hundred and… uh, four? Looks like you got two people in your… yeah. Two hundred and four, hey?”

“We join your group just like that, right?” Robert said with sarcasm.

“Well… yeah,” said a perplexed Mike. “More eyes, more arms, more strength, right? Why the hell not? How did you think we got so many people? We sure as hell aren’t holding entrance exams.”

“Okay, look,” I interrupted. “We ain’t interested in joining up, no offense. Like I said, we’re just passing through.”

“Yeah, right, I know,” Mike laughed while waving me off like I was some obstinate child. “They always want to be stubborn. Either way, come on. We’ll go see Raul, figure out what’s what, and decide what happens next.”