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

Expelling a breath in resignation, he tugged a rubber cleaning glove onto his right hand, unfastened the barrel lid, pinched the edge in his protected fingers, and slid it from the top. He got a small whiff of the contents as he did so, gasped, twisted his head nearly one-eighty to get his face the fuck away from that foulness, and sucked in a lungful of air through pursed lips. Screwing his face up in a wince so contorted that he could only see through one eye, he carefully poured the bucket into the barrel while leaning as far away as he could physically manage, terrified to be splattered with the drops of other peoples’ urine. When it was done, he stumbled back away from the barrel, gasping air and thanking Christ that there had been no mishap. Through tender measures every bit as careful as those employed to pour out his bucket, he restored the lid to its position atop the barrel and fastened it quickly. Peeling off the cleaning glove, he reminded himself yet again to badger Fred into constructing some form of mechanism that allowed him to offload without the danger of contacting any alien piss-mire.

Gibs shuddered furiously as he carried the empty bucket back to Casa de Redneck.

Having completed the morning ordeal, Gibs set off for Olivia’s infirmary just beyond the original Connex homes constructed by Oscar and the Page brothers. The infirmary had been the first project undertaken by Otter and his crew, once it became clear the civilians he’d brought along to the bowl were all full steam ahead on the greenhouses with no signs of letting up until they were completed. It had become clear to the SEAL that he and his men could stand around and get in the way while the others worked or find some way to contribute as well. The Otter was never one to just stand around, so he and his team began meeting fairly regularly with Gibs to work out what else could be done.

They’d collectively agreed that Specialist Olivia Lee, the nurse/medic of the Elysium Fields FST, would stay behind in the bowl along with a selection of civilians who were willing to put down roots. As the most trained medical technician on site, Olivia needed a place to set up shop (not to mention live) so Warren, who’d taken a shine to the converted Connex homes already on site, requisitioned fuel, trucks, and Marines to travel out into Jackson, find more shipping containers measuring in at a forty foot or greater length, and drag them the hell back to the commune. Being highly motivated Jarheads, the team hauled back six in a handful of days.

Step one of the Infirmary Construction Project had been to take two of the containers, slap them side-by-side, and join them together through the middle. This had been a relatively simple task, once they’d actually figured out how to get the ground leveled and pack the containers in tight. They were all out of fuel for the old cutting torch but there was plenty of propane left for the generator (they were still finding a good supply of the stuff up in the city, not counting the large amount that had already been stored in the garage) and an angle grinder cut a nice little walkway between the two units without too much trouble. A little more TLC with the grinder resulted in a couple of doors and some windows similar to what had been done on the original four homes and, a few days after that, Oscar and Alan had the place fully framed out, dry-walled, and ready for paint. When it was all said and done, they’d passed Olivia a wave and moved on to the next four units, now happily back into their old routine, while Olivia, Gibs, and Montez made a run to St. John’s Medical Center over in Jackson Hole to clean out every cabinet they could find.

Gibs passed by Monica’s place (now shared by Wang—honestly, some of the folks changed residences like fucking socks; starting off with Alan when he moved into Fred’s RV back in December) and started looking around in an attempt to spot Olivia moving about outside. She had a collection of planters, pots, and soil patches lined up where most people would keep their barbecue, having begun experiments in the growth of natural herbs since she moved into the place. Some of these were faring better than others; the basil was sadly anemic, for instance, whereas the chamomile seemed to be kicking ass. Olivia pursued the activity stubbornly, knowing very little about gardening in general while understanding that the use of medicinal herbs would become an important part of her toolkit in the years to come. She sought help from Barbara frequently on the matter when she wasn’t restraining herself from just tossing a pot of unresponsive seeds into the wash.

He was mildly surprised when he didn’t find her out among her projects as he’d anticipated; shrugging, he walked around to the residence side of her building (the side that faced in toward the center of the property) and knocked on the door.

The view of the handle as it turned was unsettling, so Gibs focused on the door itself as it swung inward, a little bemused as always at seeing a contrivance as common as a front door socked into the side of a shipping container. Olivia was standing behind it, still wearing her night clothes and slippers. She held a steaming mug in one hand and scratched at tousled hair with the other.

“Miss Lee,” he greeted.

“Mister Gibs.”

They regarded each other a moment, her waiting while he searched for something to say. Finally, he tried, “Uh, is the doc in?”

Olivia laughed softly through her nose. She nudged the door further open and retreated back inside, sitting down at a small table by the kitchen counter. It supported a selection of books, loose papers, a few pamphlets, and a spiral notebook.

“Shut the door and have a seat,” she said. “You don’t mind if I keep at this while you talk…?”

“No, knock yourself out. What…”—he craned his neck around to look at the stack of material—“…Jesus, what is all that? You studying for the Bar exam?”

“Not quite. I’m still trying to get a handle on all these damned herbs; figuring out which ones will grow around here and which are just no-go. Hey, do you know if we can find any willow trees in the area?”

“Sure, there’s quite a bit of Pacific Willow all through here. Why?”

“The bark’s useful. I can use it to make aspirin, for one thing.”

“Oh, nice,” Gibs nodded. Leaning in her direction, he lifted the cover of a fat hardback and read, “ Aulton’s Pharmaceutics … this book told you about willow trees?”

“No,” she scoffed and shoved the book off the edge of the table. “That book is a goddamned bastard.”

“Whoa. Okay…”

Olivia shook her head and had a swallow from her mug. “The problem is that the really potent shit, which is basically all the stuff we dragged back from the hospital, is also the really dangerous stuff, okay? I mean, I’m simplifying here, but you get the idea, right?”

“Okay.”

“Right, well I’m neither an actual doctor nor am I a pharmacist. I know what a pretty good portion of it all is, but then again, there’s a lot of really complicated names on a lot of those vials that I never learned about in school. I’m just a medic that got upcycled into a nurse. And this stuff… well, who the hell knows what some of it does? Could be just what we need in the right situation—if it doesn’t end up killing one of us.”

Gibs leaned over, retrieved the book, placed it on the table, and began to smooth the pages that had folded over. “I see. You’re trying to identify it all here. Not going so well, huh?”

“I won’t bore you with the details but… no. That book delves into some pretty complex chemistry. I just need a thing that tells me ‘Use this stuff for warts but beware: anything over five hundred milligrams will make a dick rot up and fall off.’”