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

Stacy glanced up, noted the next person in line—a woman—and wrote another line in the notebook. He nodded without looking at her and gestured to the gate in the wall behind him. She said something and passed through. A few minutes later, someone else exited, having finished juicing up their item. The steady thrum of a few different generators issued from behind the wall.

Riley smiled contentedly and said, “It’s a fair gig, really. He usually pulls a shift of some four hours or so, hey? Someone usually comes around to take his place or, if it’s late enough, he’ll stick around until the wood burns out and they close up for the night.”

Danielle sighed from her end of the little round table. She looked from Stacy, a couple of hundred feet away, to Riley, who was three feet to her left, and said, “I know there’s a reason you asked me to meet you here…”

Riley swung a lazy half-smile from Stacy’s direction over to Danielle, lingered on her sharp-yet-attractive features only a little too long, and asked, “Anxious to get back to Elton?”

“Hey, eat shit. Ronny said to get close. I got close.”

“Oh, easy,” Riley waved her off. “I like Elton; he’s a good guy. You could (right?) you could do a lot worse.”

“No shit,” she muttered.

“Don’t be rude, sweetie.”

“Don’t call me ‘sweetie.’”

“Danny, then?”

She thought quietly. “I can live with that.”

Smiling broadly, he lifted his glass. “Danny it is, then.” He downed its contents and dropped it back to the table from the height of at least a foot. The glass bounced violently, skittered, and rolled toward the edge. One of the folks moving among the tables rushed over and put a hand under the edge against the danger of the glass rolling off, though it stopped before going over.

“Riley… I really, really wish you’d stop doing that,” the young man griped.

“As I said, you could just leave me the bottle—”

“I’m not allowed to…”

“—or be here on time when the refill’s needed, hey?”

The man (barely a man, so far as that went—his uneven complexion and angular shape suggested the downslope of puberty) sighed and lifted his bottle. “Shall I?”

“Oh, yes please, thank you, Gus.”

“Again, my name isn’t Gus.”

“It is to me,” Riley grinned. “You’re all Gus to me. The best friend I ever had in my life was named Gus. And here you are bringing me one of the three things I dearly love the most, so I guess you’re Gus, too. Thank you, Gus!”

Riley threw back the liquor, held the glass over the table, and dropped it. The young man barked angrily as he thrust his hand out, catching the glass just before it could bounce off the surface.

“That’s it, Gus!” Riley hooted in glee. “That’s progress!”

“Riley, are you done being an asshole to the kid yet or should I come back later?”

Riley glanced at Danielle, expression hurt, and said, “Asshole? Didn’t I just explain about this? I like Gus. Hell, if he keeps filling that glass up, I fucking love Gus. We’re establishing a rapport, here, you see? I’ll persist in being insufferable (right?) and then (yeah?) he’ll become accustomed to my eccentricity, eventually taking a shine to me, okay? I’ll probably end up giving him advice at some point, eh? Maybe comfort him (right?) through his first break up? Isn’t that beautiful? It all starts with him catching that glass. Imagine how all this might have gone (see?) if he’d dropped it? He’s at least getting a fat fucking tip for the outstanding performance he’s shown thus far, isn’t he?”

The young man filled the glass up again.

“Thank you, Gus!”

Danielle winced. She looked up at him and asked, “Hey, what’s your name, kid? Don’t mind Riley; he’s just a dick.”

“It’s… uh… it’s Gus.”

“Hah, hah!” Riley laughed. He reached back and grasped the young man’s hand, squeezing happily. “Bless you, Gus! God bless you!”

The young man moved away to another table, blushing furiously.

“Do you really believe the bullshit that comes out of your mouth?” asked Danielle.

Riley cradled his chin in the palm of his hand like a lady at high tea discussing the success of her garden. He said, “Ooh… belief can be a dangerous thing, Danny. Belief’ll make you believe a thing, true or not, and might just come back to bite you, hey? You never want to let belief get in the way of what you believe if you see what I mean. Just take our man Steve, over there…”

“Jesus Christ, that’s Stacy. Can you quit with the fucking names already?”

“Hoh, hoh, ho, no, that’s Steve, now. Steve was a lying bastard (yeah?) that lived a lying bastard’s life. He thought he could hide things, thought he could skate on by with nobody noticing. Steve (right?) Steve was a duplicitous little cunt who fell prey to believing things he shouldn’t. Steve believed he was safe, didn’t he?”

Danielle’s eyes narrowed. Looking over at Stacy, she asked, “You’re saying Stacy’s a liar? What have you got on him, Riley?”

“Steve (yeah?) Steve has a nice little setup, see. Does quite well for himself. Quite well. Quite well indeed. Comfortable living, yeah? Has more than he needs, yeah? Has a woman that lives with him, see? See? See?”

“No, I don’t fucking see, you gibbering fucking psycho.”

Riley belly laughed and slapped the table, spilling a few drops of his drink though he didn’t knock it over. “Danny, have I ever done anything to you? Hurt you in any way? Wronged you, yeah?”

She hesitated. “No…”

“Then why do you insist on hurting me so?”

“Just get to the point, will you?”

Riley smiled broadly, eyes shining, and said, “He has (yeah?) a woman that lives with him (right?), but she’s got comfortable telling him no… and little Stevie has an itch she won’t scratch, doesn’t he? He does, Danny, hey? Don’t you know how miserable it is having an itch you can’t scratch it? You must know, right?”

“He goes to the tents!” Danielle whispered, a smile creeping onto her lips.

“Steve does indeed frequent Isabelle’s tents. Imagine he’s handling his own transfers (right?) under the table? On the down low ? It’s against the rules, isn’t it? I do seem to recall something to that, hmm, regard.”

He began to giggle perniciously.

Now fully smiling, Danielle said, “Yeah. Yeah, it is. Holy shit, Riley, what happens if he gets nailed for it?”

He shrugged. “Who the hell knows? It would be the first case of such a thing, wouldn’t it?”

They looked back at Stacy, his features dim in the low glimmer of the overhead Christmas lights. He waved away the rest of the people standing in line and began to collect his effects, hunching slightly as they all began to protest. He said some things to them, spread his hands, and shrugged. Stepping carefully around the grousing line of people, he wandered off down The Row.

“Even better than that?” Riley sighed. “He gigs at a few other stations. One of them (yeah?) is Food Tallies.”

Danielle whipped her head over in his direction, her mouth hanging open. “That’s it. We’ve got our in.”

“We’ve got our in!” Riley sang.

They both raised their glasses and shot them back. Danielle placed hers delicately on the table while Riley suspended his over the surface by a good foot. They both heard a panicked squawk issue from the other end of Corina’s patio and, a moment later when Riley released it, Gus was there clawing across the tabletop to grab it before it could go over the side. Danielle barked a sharp laugh despite her earlier disgust.

“God bless you, Gus! I love you, Gus!”

“More?” he panted.