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

“We’ll pass, Mike. Don’t feel like goin’ to see anyone and we sure ’nough don’t feel like joinin’.”

Mike’s face took on an aggrieved expression, and he said, “Aw, shit. Look, man, this isn’t a discussion, okay? You’re coming along with us. We’re not gonna hurt you or anything like that, but this is how it is. It isn’t perfect, but this is what we got.”

All around me I saw rifle barrels raise back up and, from some locations, I heard the ratcheting sound of weapon actions as they were cycled.

They loaded Robert and me into the bed of one of the trucks blockin’ the street while Ben and Samantha was left in the Suburban. Mike and the fella that kept correctin’ him jumped into the bed along with us, keeping they rifles leveled at all times, though they didn’t trouble to tie our hands up. Mike said doing so would’ve been rude. Two other men from Mike’s crew climbed into the front seat of our suv. So, all in all, it was a lead truck, followed by the truck me and Robert were ridin’ in, and finally our Suburban in the rear.

“We’re gonna head back across the Willamette River and travel up into the hills for a bit, okay?” said Mike. “Your suv’s gonna stay behind us so’s you can look back from time to time and see that no one’s dicking around with your friends, see? Everything is totally above board, here.”

“Yeah, above board. All except for the whole kidnapping thing, right?” said Robert.

Mike grimaced and said, “It’s temporary, kid. Trust me, I’d much rather be drinking a beer and reading a girlie mag.”

“Maybe watch that attitude,” said Mike’s friend. “Someone might end up having to fuck yer face up a bit—”

Mike jerked in his spot over the rear truck wheel and groaned loudly. “Oh, son of a dildo-swinging… can we just not, Pete? Huh? For once, can we just please not have you start off by assuming god-tier levels of douchebaggery? What the hell is it with you, anyway? You watch too many eighties action flicks as a kid? It’s like you’re trying on every cliché you can think of. You were probably a Verhoeven fan, right?”

Pete looked confused, between his slackened jaw and loosened grip on the rifle. He stared at Mike for a few beats before he said, “Ver… wha? What the fuck’re you talking about?”

Mike rolled his eyes and looked back at me. “Right, probably more of a Cameron guy. You’re a shoo-in as Henchman Number Three for that Burke dickhead.”

“I… what?” Pete reiterated.

Mike ignored him and continued to address me and Robert. “Look, I’m sorry about him and sorry about all the rest of this. Nobody’s fucking up anyone’s faces,” he shot a pointed look at Pete, “unless you guys do something really stupid. We just got this way of doing things. It ain’t the best way by a long shot, no sir. But goddamnit, we need some sorta way , or everything just runs to shit. Seen it a hundred times. Raul’s seen it, too.”

I didn’t want to get into a big philosophical debate and tried to steer the conversation towards somethin’ approaching useful. “Okay, Mike, okay. So we’re goin’ ’cross the river. Fine. Whereabouts? You got a town hall over there or something like?”

He straightened up and smiled. “Oh, naw, dude. We’ll take you up to The Man’s house. He’s got himself set up in some really nice digs; a place they used to call Pittock Mansion. Some kind of museum or something. You know, that’s been, by far, the absolute best thing about this whole little reset? We used to live in a world of complete and total inequity, right? There was, like, this vanishingly small percentage of assholes that owned everything everywhere, a slightly larger group of shlubs who could barely grind out a comfortable living, and then a massive horde of people who had to go without, right?”

He reached over to a cooler, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of water. He grabbed an extra one and held it up questioningly to me and Robert, but we both turned him down, not wantin’ to owe anything. He shrugged and handed it over to Pete.

Taking a sip from his own bottle, he continued, “Now, I’m not saying that everyone who was rich was a cock donkey or that everyone who was poor was an unwashed, noble saint, but you have to admit: a violently leveled playing field is kind of fun, ain’t it? Take me. Before this all happened, I drove a forklift in a warehouse. I barely scraped enough money together to pay for my shitty-ass apartment from month to month. And now? I’m living The Life in an eight hundred thousand dollar home up in the hills, man. Sure it sucks for all those people who had to die and all, but I’ll tell you, this is really working out for those of us that’re left and have the brains to organize appropriately.”

“This Raul fella,” I said, “he knows how to organize appropriately? He raised you all into an army, or what?”

“Naw, we ain’t big enough to be called an army,” he scoffed, taking another drink. “We’re only a hundred and fifty, like I said—”

“Two hundred, Mike,” interrupted Pete.

Mike snorted and rolled his eyes again. “Fuck. Yes, two hundred. Thanks again, Pete. But, no, we ain’t no army. We’re just set up in work crews, plus we have outposts just like the one you ran into all along the river. We have positive control all through the South Waterfront, Downtown, the Pearl District, and the Northwest District. We hold just about everything west of the Willamette, man. Nothing really happens around here without we know about it first. It’s really not bad at all.”

I looked over at Robert to try and get a sense of whether he was buyin’ into any of this. Mike did a good job of sellin’ the concept, but I knew Old Boy shit when I heard it. For every nice little perk he was describin’, I’m sure there were at least five gotchas just waitin’ to rear they heads, every one of them poppin’ up right after you signed on the dotted line. I was gettin’ a vibe off Mike, alright. I figured he was lyin’ like a no-legged dog. Only question in my mind was: could Robert see it?

Robert didn’t give me much to work with; no expression, wink, or nod. Probably best, too. Them other fellas was right up in our business. They’d have caught on if me or Robert tried to get cute. Still, made it hard for me to know how to move forward. I figured I’d need to find a good point where they guard was down and make a grab for one of their rifles. They’d thrown ours in the back of the Suburban, obviously with the intention to keep everything we had whether we decided to hang around or not. I don’t know how things would have ended up, either way. If we’d all gone before this Raul, listened to his pitch, and told him ‘thanks but no thanks,’ would they have killed us or turned us loose?

I honestly can’t say. Could be, they’d have just taken everything we owned and dumped us on the road outside the city limit. I s’pose that would have been as good as killin’ us. Sure wouldn’t have gotten far that way. Won’t never know, though, ’cause we never met the son of a bitch.

I don’t recall what street we was on when it all went down. All I can honestly remember from right when the you-know-what hit the fan was that gunfire erupted from all around us to start, I saw the silhouettes of helmeted heads and shoulders popping up from rooftops, and Pete hollered out, “Army!” before divin’ off the back of the truck with his rifle.

Mike followed over the side soon after, shoutin’ over his shoulder as he went, “You’ll want to seek some shelter!” He hit the ground, ran across the street, and dove around the side of a building. His head peeked out from around the corner so he could keep an eye on the goings-on.