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

Fred wasn’t having any of it, instead opting to throw a haymaker left that was aimed right at Jake’s temple. Jake leaned back away from the swing to let it pass in front of his face, appearing almost bored, and I realized in that moment what kind of experience he must have carried with him. No one just leans away from a punch like that without all kinds of prior practice. Whatever else he’d been through, Jake was used to having people try to get physical with him, and he had the means to deal with it. Seeing Fred’s wild movements—his planted stance and utter lack of footwork—compared to Jake’s calm and competent evasion, it occurred to me that Fred was in fairly deep trouble.

“Fred!” I yelled out. “You’d better cut that shit out before you piss him off!” Other people surrounding the whole goat fuck shouted their agreement, though none of them attempted to jump in between the two men, having seen what happened to me for my troubles. Jake still had his hands up, was still backing up, and was still trying to placate the man.

Fred either didn’t hear or chose to ignore all of us, instead following up his left hook with another wild overhand right. Jake, who had apparently decided he had enough of the whole experience, slipped low and to the left just under Fred’s fist, close enough that his unruly length of hair was ruffled by its passage. At his lowered position, I was just able to catch a violent twist in Jake’s shoulders, his body appearing to blur as he drove up from his heels with everything he had, sinking a balled up left hand deep into the lower right side of Fred’s gut, at the bottom of his ribcage and directly into his liver.

Now, I have seen body knockouts on TV in boxing matches and whatnot, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it happen up close. Fred seized over as though someone had swung a sledgehammer into his midsection, ratcheting so quickly that his feet actually left contact with the ground. Let me make this clear, now: he wasn’t lifted off the ground from Jake’s punch—the contraction of his doubling over was so violent that it pulled his feet up off the ground before gravity had a chance to bring him back to Earth. He seemed to hover there in place for the briefest of periods just before we all saw him crash into the dirt hip-first and roll over into a big, tortured ball. I can’t ever recall seeing such a rapid reaction to pain before or since that encounter, not even from a guy taking a kick full-force to the beanbag. Just seeing it happen made me feel queasy. Well… it was either that, or I was still recovering from being winded.

Jake was already crouched by Fred before the rest of us knew what was happening, cradling his head, looking into his eyes, and calling out to see if the man could answer. Fred could only grunt and moan, so Jake let him stay rolled over on his side and began to rub his back aggressively like he was trying to help the guy get some air back in his lungs. It occurred to me to bitch about the fact that I’d received no such aid but was so disoriented from a lack of air, not to mention having witnessed Jake go from Whoop-ass to Assistance mode so rapidly, that all I could really do was breathe in and out and be thankful for the fact that I had that ability again.

“Anyone want to tell me what the hell happened out here,” asked Jake, actually sounding annoyed.

“It was me,” Wang said quickly. “I was talking smack and got him going.”

“That’s a bunch of bull!” Monica interrupted.

The rest of us looked at her and Jake asked, “Wang wasn’t talking smack?”

“No, he was doing that, alright,” she responded. “But you can’t fault him for what Fred did. Runnin’ your mouth isn’t any cause to get manhandled like that.”

Jake sighed and looked down at Fred, who had stopped moaning but still lay on the ground clutching at his side. Looking up at Wang, Jake asked, “What did you say?”

Glancing briefly at Fred, Wang said, “They didn’t have a good run this morning. They almost didn’t find any food at all.” He looked away, clearly embarrassed. “I guess they covered a lot of ground and came back hungry. He, uh, he was eating a lot of food. I said, ‘If you found food half as well as you shoveled it in, some of us might have a chance to survive the winter.’ Among some other things…”

“Oh, shit. Bad choice, bro,” whispered Oscar.

Jake had returned to a standing position, with his hands on his hips, staring at the ground, and shaking his head in little jerking motions like there was something inside his skull that he couldn’t quite understand and hoped he could make go away just by rattling it to death.

“That is a pretty lousy thing to say,” Jake agreed, “but that didn’t give him the right to attack you, as Monica said.” She nodded angrily in agreement.

Jake sighed heavily again and said, “Come on, Oscar. Help me get him to his bed. He’ll want to rest a while until his side stops hurting.” As he hunkered down next to Fred to take him by an arm, Jake leaned close and said, “You and I are going to discuss this later, yes?”

Fred nodded his head as he attempted to roll into a sitting position and grunted, “Yeah, I know.”

Oscar got Fred’s other side, and the two men helped the near-crippled giant hobble off to his bed in the larger RV.

I resisted following them at first, instead looking around to see if anyone else had been hurt. Davidson’s collision looked pretty dramatic, and Wang had spent more time getting rag-dolled around than you’d like if you’re interested in leading a productive, healthy life. As I gave them a quick going-over, I heard the hissed and angry conversations of the people left milling around the scene; a small amount of which were directing snark at Wang while the vast majority talked a foul, blue streak about Fred in glorious 5.1 surround sound. I cringed inwardly while I listened, foreseeing an ever-increasing gap expanding through the center of the group, with people taking opposing sides and ending in eventual fragmentation.

Fred had significantly damaged his standing in the community with his little outburst, and I saw no easy way back to harmony. People were going to be watching him askance, now, and no amount of apologies or attempts at reconciliation on his part would be able to rectify the whole mess. Worse, if it happened again… or hell, even if it didn’t happen, but he got agitated and showed his temper, the other people in the group were apt to call bullshit and demand his removal. I wondered how something like that would shake out. Fred represented a unique combination of skills and abilities. His total dismantling at the hands of Jake notwithstanding, he was a large, powerfully built man who had thus far demonstrated an aptitude with firearms and a willingness to work hard. Additionally, if he was turned out of the group his metalworking and fabrication knowledge would be sorely missed in the challenges ahead.

It was a nasty problem that needed patching fast. Unfortunately, community trust isn’t a thing that you get back with a “sorry” and a gift fruitcake. Like all worthwhile aspects of a relationship, trust required time and consistency. We needed time and consistency out of a guy with a volatile temper. Fuck me with a stick.

I excused myself from the group with a whispered comment to Amanda to come get me if any of them looked like grabbing torches and pitchforks. Dusting off my hands, I made the long walk to the camper trailer that Jake had led the other men to and stood outside the door wondering if I should enter. Not wanting to barge in, I decided to take a seat in one of the camp chairs that were set up outside just under a green, fold-down awning that extended from the side of the RV. I didn’t have to wait for very long before the door swung open and Oscar hopped out.