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

He turned back to the door, putting the endless world out of his mind for a time, looking back at the hateful knob. A crowbar would have been a treasured item right then. Angrily, Gibs drew his knee to his chest and kicked out toward the center of the green surface as hard as he could. His leg moved as if resisted by water or mud and the sole of his boot only bounced off the surface apologetically; an effort as sad to him as a field of unseen flowers.

He sighed and descended the steps of the porch.

Now turning, he began a slow walk of the home’s perimeter, hoping to find access through a side- or backdoor. The view of the horizon was the same here as it was from the front porch; endless expanses of green. Blood-red broken teeth of mountains far off in the distance. The clouds flitted across the sky faster than he’d ever seen, tumbling over each other in a punishing wind he could not feel. He looked away from this, as unsettled by the display as he’d been from the sight of that malignant brass knob. The edge of the house drew near, and he stretched forward unconsciously with his chin in an effort to hurry his advance.

There was a screened-in mudroom in the backyard. He thought he could see an old, sprung couch next to one of those cheap, plastic wash basins you used to see in garages. There were a few beds of daisies, more of the Christing Baby’s Breath, and then, further off by a swing set fallen to rust, a patch of fresh-tilled earth and an entrenching tool jammed nose-first into the ground. Gibs gasped, whimpered, and braced his palms against his knees. He stood there a long time panting while he waited for the strength of his legs to come back. He felt the house behind him, waiting. The presence was gleeful.

Running the back of his knuckles up against the corner of his mouth, he looked forward again; hoping that the little E-tool would be gone, though of course, it wasn’t. He went to it on numb legs, took it in hand, and began to paw ineffectually at the dirt. He was able to articulate the tool about as well as he’d been able to kick at the door, working with hands slow to respond; shoulders weak and quivering. He struggled with it for some time before he finally began to make true progress, before he uncovered a swollen, purple leg. As he’d known he would.

Tears now streaming uncontrollably down his face, Blake Gibson threw the shovel away, fell to his knees, and began pulling at the soil with hands like claws, terrified to damage the soft, spongy flesh of the ruined body. His vision blurred and he wiped irritably at his eyes, mashing grit under the lids and hurting the tender organs underneath quite terribly. Blinking repeatedly, gasping, dragging soil with hands, groaning, throat seized down on a thinly-hissing scream that threatened to burst forth, threatened to explode right out through his ribcage and belch his poor heart across the soil. Digging until nails ripped from their beds, white lances of pain running up the backs of his forearms, through the muscles of his neck, and into the back of his skull. Tattooed arms uncovered, followed by a grotesquely deflated breast, and finally, just before he really did begin to scream, the face.

The face that was a smooth, featureless expanse of flesh pulled over skull, immaculately unblemished by mouth, nose, or eyes; an impossible sheet of unmarred, pink skin belonging to the familiar nightmare face of one who he had never before seen.

He shrieked.

Gibs jerked violently awake, soaked through to the skin with sweat. He was panting spasmodically as though he’d run several miles. His right hand ached bitterly, and his eyes and cheeks thrummed with the exhausted, wrung-out exertion of uncontrolled, drunken weeping—a sensation he could not recall experiencing since his first marriage failed. He lay there for several minutes waiting for his heart to either slow to a manageable rate or go into cardiac arrest. Eventually, he regained some level of control and, some undefined period after that, his limbs ceased shaking. Hitching a slow, lamenting sigh, he sat up and groped for his Maglite.

He looked around the bedroom at the back of his camper, noting the total absence of morning light through the blinds, the bedcovers pulled into an impossible tangle. He shined the light on his aching hand and discovered a shallow cut across the backs of his fingers. Glancing around, he saw what was left of his water glass on the side cabinet; a circular base and the triangular shard of its remaining side. He leaned over the edge of his bed and found the rest of it amid a soaked patch of carpet. He huffed, scooted off the edge of his bed, and climbed out of the cold, damp sweats and shirt. He dug some replacement clothing from the built-in dresser at the foot of his bed, fished around for his wristwatch, and checked the time.

0318.

Gibs groaned and tossed the Casio back on the dresser. He briefly entertained the idea of climbing back into his bed to lay about stubbornly until sleep found him but discarded the notion as vanity even before it finished forming in his mind. He’d done this enough times to know that he was finished sleeping. He shuffled down the hall to the kitchen, found a book of matches, and lit some candles.

He had the kitchen window cracked for the little charcoal burner that smoldered away under his coffee pot before his bladder came alive enough to insist on being emptied. Gibs examined the coffee setup to verify it was secure—he understood that burning to death was an absolute bummer—and went to find the old five-gallon bucket stashed in the shower. He did his business in the dark out of habit, shook a bit while stamping a leg, cursed bitterly when a few drops chilled the inside of his sweats despite the effort and stole a glance in the mirror with the flashlight.

“Jesus. Don’t you just look like ten pounds of hammered dog shit?”

He sniffed mightily, coughed, toweled his hands off with a wet wipe, and drifted back out to the kitchen. He waited for the coffee to finish, keeping himself occupied by thumbing through a stack of old newspapers—all of which he’d read.

His mind drifted back to the image of that blank, featureless face framed by a ring of dark earth. Gibs snarled and threw the stack of papers across the room.

He drank four cups of coffee by 0600. Waiting for the day to begin was a struggle, especially because he had people to go see. He’d heard Warren, and a few others go hoofing by not long ago, but he left them to do their own thing. Poking his head out the door as they passed was likely to result in his being invited for their morning bout of insanity, reinforcing the idea that misery really did just want some company after all. They’d even managed to pull Amanda into the mix when she wasn’t pestering Warren to show her some more of that Jiu Jitsu .

“Fucking cultists…” Gibs muttered.

The broken shards of his glass had been swept into a neat little pile and deposited into the trash some time ago. Suffering uneasy premonitions of cutting the bottoms of his feet on a missed sliver, he’d then spent another thirty minutes scouring over the area on his hands and knees, pronouncing it safe, only to return again a few minutes later to repeat the process, absolutely certain he’d missed something.

He could no longer contain himself by 0700. He tossed the remainder of his second pot (now cold) off the front doorstep, brushed his teeth and washed his face, dressed for the day, and hauled the night bucket out to the barrels behind the garage. He walked carefully so as not to slosh himself on the way over—though the danger of doing so was minor as he never let it fill a great deal—set it down on the bed of brown pine needles covering the dirt, and eyed the barrel suspiciously. It sat there quietly. Mocking him.