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

He stared at the open engine compartment of the truck sourly, pondering how the world had gone to absolute dog shit and yet here he was, still turning a wrench on some other asshole’s truck, barking his knuckles on sharp edges and blackening the undersides of his nails with so much gunk that the only way to clean them was to get underneath with a goddamned knife.

He thought about the fact that he’d just performed an oil change on a Chevy Colorado in the state of Colorado. He experienced a moment of near panic when he became convinced that he was just on the edge of losing his shit; of busting out every window on the truck, setting the fucking thing on fire, and walking off into the sunset. He wished like hell that there were still decent drugs in the world; something he could smoke, snort, or shoot. He could really use a decent trip right about now.

The sunlight showing through the garage door darkened momentarily, and Beau looked out towards it, wondering who was coming along now. He was sure they brought another assignment, whoever the fuck they were, and he contemplated whether he could get away with telling them to go chew on a mouthful of dick.

When he saw who it was, his mood darkened even more.

“Oh, well, look who the fuck has come around today. Hello, Ronny. Long time no see.”

“Can we talk a bit?”

“Can you eat shit and die?”

Ronny grimaced and sat down next to the man. “I get where you’re coming from, okay? But you have to understand why I distanced myself—”

“ Distanced ? You backed away from me like I was fucking AIDS so you could go suck your nigger-loving boss’s cock on the regular!”

Ronny’s face twisted in rage. He whipped out a pistol faster than Beau would have credited possible and put the barrel right up against the man’s tattooed throat, pushing hard enough to leave a mark. The color drained out of Beau’s face while his mouth and both of his eyes expanded into horrified little circles of panic. He’d seen Ronny blow his stack before; knew just how far the man could go when he’d decided he truly no longer cared.

Slowly, he lifted his hands up. The half-empty bottle slipped from one of them and clattered to the concrete floor, spilling warm liquor across the surface. He whispered, “Easy, Ronny. Take… take it easy, man.”

Ronny pushed the barrel even harder into the man’s throat until his eyes watered. “Beau, let me ask you something. I’ve wondered about this before, personally, but I’ve never really talked it over with anyone. I’m wondering if my thinking is sound. If I shoved a handgun up a man’s ass, aimed really, really careful, and pulled the trigger… well, do you think I could get the bullet to blow his teeth out or do you think it would, like, yaw around in the body and come flying out the side?”

Beau grunted nervously.

“Because we seem to be all about these little faggot science experiments, these days. That sounds like an experiment I could put to the test right now, you know?”

Beau tried to look down at the gun, tried to get a sense of how far the trigger was depressed, but Ronny twisted the weapon evilly into his larynx, causing an outraged ache to spread out through his neck all the way down to his sternum.

“I figure I’d have to grease you up quite a bit with some of that 15W-40 first. You ever try to buttfuck something that didn’t want to be buttfucked, Beau? You must have, right? When you were in prison? It sure ain’t easy, let me tell you. Probably harder in this case; the barrel of this gun sure is square and jagged.”

“Please…” Beau whimpered.

“Oh, will you listen to me now? Is that what that means?”

Beau nodded in jerking, hitching motions.

Ronny took the gun away and stashed it under his thigh.

“I had to back away from you, you dipshit,” he whispered. “Clay hates my ass enough as it is. If he’d seen me continuing to be all buddy-buddy with you after dispensing that country ass-whooping, I’d have never gotten close to him again. Shit, he may have gotten suspicious enough that he just had his fucking Sasquatch do us both on general principle.”

Beau massaged his neck, breathing heavily. Carefully, so as not to offer insult, he whispered back, “That sounds real good when you say it like that, but it’s been months, man. I been blackballed around here! All I’m good for now is keeping up the trucks and such but won’t nobody trade with me outside of that. Even Isabella’s is turning me away. And… look, I’m sorry man, I get that you’re saying you mean business, but goddamn it, if you were going to do something, you’d have done it by now.”

“We’re gonna do it right now.”

Beau straightened in his chair, drawn up short. “How’s that?”

“You want to get even, don’t you?”

“I… well…”

“Don’t you?”

“Well, fuck yeah, I do.”

Ronny nodded. “Okay. A fresh brigade of pussy’s rolled into town; the same ones Ned told us about. You heard ’em, out there?”

Beau squinted. “Thought I heard something. Thought that was our own.”

Ronny shook his head. “Wasn’t. Clay wants to go in hard on them. Nip the problem in the bud before it bites us in the ass. There’s gonna be a lot of confusion when we do.”

Beau blinked several times, fluttering his eyes rapidly. “You’re saying we drop him then?”

Ronny lifted a shoulder slightly and let it fall. “I can’t handle Clay and Pap both. Pap’s always on my ass when I’m around Clay, and he’s too fast with that fucking .44. But he’s busy watching me, see? Not Clay. He has his eyes glued to me. A fella like you could walk right up behind Clay and punch one right through the back of his head.”

“Oh, shit, right. Leaving Pap to shoot me, of course.”

“Nope,” Ronny whispered. “I’ll do Pap. It’s perfect. We’ll all have our guns out because we’ll be cleaning out the city. I won’t have to beat him on the draw; I’ll just have to turn a bit until my shotgun’s across his guts and pull the trigger. You stand on me, Beau. I know you feel like I abandoned you, but I never fucking forgot. I don’t forget my loyalties, you believe that. This is a long game. And those two, Clay and Pap, are the real muscle around here. We put them down, and the rest of these twats’ll just fall in line. Who’ll oppose us? Johnny? The Doc? Fucking Ned?”

“Elton might stand up; he can work a rifle in a pinch.”

Ronny smiled. It was twisted and broken, making Beau’s guts churn. “Don’t you worry about the coon. You and I both’ll get him. Just one thing at a time.”

Beau giggled despite his unease.

“You’ll have to hang back, now. If anyone sees you it won’t work out ’cause Pap’ll put eyes on you like fucking searchlights, and you’ll never get close enough after that. I’ll be close-in to them; Clay’ll want his lieutenants around him when we do this, see? So you gotta lurk back behind us. We take no chances. You’ll wait for me to signal you and then step forward and take care of business. But wait for me to signal you. It’ll be during some heavy fighting, probably, when everyone’s all confused and shit. And, if such a thing never happens at all, you won’t get any signal out of me, right? We’ll just finish out the day, go back to our lives, and wait for the next opportunity. No risks, get it?”

“Yeah,” Beau nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. This could actually work, couldn’t it?”

“Bet your ass it’ll work. If we get our chance and we have the balls to take it, things’ll change quite a bit around here. It’ll be us calling the shots; telling people what’s what.”

Ronny held his fist out, and Beau answered with a bump.

“You wait on that signal, Beau. Not sure what it’ll be but it’ll be obvious when I do it. Just keep your eyes on me, be fast when the time comes, and everything’ll be put right forever after.”