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

“What the hell’s going on in here?” called Ronny.

Riley didn’t answer. Ronny thought he saw a flutter out in the darkness; a beckoning hand, perhaps. He followed the aisle along the rows, letting the descendant fingers of his left hand tap over the back of each seat as he passed it. The back of Riley’s head and shoulders began to resolve as he approached under the reflected lantern light. When he stopped along the man’s row, he could see out into the flat stretch of floor between the first line of seats and the screen. Out in the center, illuminated as though under a dying spotlight, were two women wrapped around each other in an impossible jumble of twisted knees and elbows, both completely naked save for the socks on their feet. Pelvises thrust high, Ronny could see the secret aspects of their bodies at once both enticing and disturbing; their contortions reducing the artistry of their combined forms into something like body horror. As he recovered from the shock of the image before him, he looked beneath their outstretched hands and feet and saw that they strained over a gaily-colored Twister mat.

“What the fu—” he began, turning to look at Riley, words catching in his throat as he saw that the man was naked as well. There was a spinner board balanced on one bare knee. Ronny swallowed and tried again. “Riley, what the fuck is this?”

Riley paused, looked up to the ceiling as he appeared to ponder the question, and said, “I guess the best way (right?) to describe it… well, it would be a bucket list item, really. Pretty high on the list, too, hey?”

The women tangled about each other on the floor laughed again and their appendages quivered. Annoyed—even vaguely disturbed—Ronny raised his voice and addressed himself to them. “Hey, you two are okay with this? You’re not being forced into this shit?”

They erupted into a gale of laughter at his inquiry and collapsed to the mat. Each rolled over onto her back and continued laughing, shoulders and breasts shaking in the low gleam. Their heads notwithstanding, their bodies had been subject to a comprehensive depilation, as much innocent of hair as they were of shame. From his seat, Riley tossed his hands up into the air and swung his head toward Ronny. “Nice one. They’re gonna have to start all ov-You’re gonna have to start all over again, yeah?” he called. He laid the spinner board aside in an adjacent seat and sighed. “Why don’t you ladies have a rest? Refresh yourselves (yeah?) and we’ll try again in a bit.”

Slowly, they rose to their feet amid the giggling and play fighting, helping each other from the floor, and began to walk up the aisle arm in arm. One of them stopped directly in front of Ronny, hands on her hips, and thrust her breasts out like weapons. She said, “Have you come to save us, sir knight? Come to protect our virtue?” She leaned in close to him and stood on her toes. The hardened tips of her nipples brushed his shirt front and Ronny felt his breath catch. “Going to defend my modesty?” she whispered. Her tongue flicked out and brushed the tip of his nose. She continued on after her friend, laughing again.

Ronny’s eyes followed her up the aisle, drawn to the side-shifting of her naked hips, and asked, “Are they Isabelle’s?”

Riley laughed. “Pay for sex? What am I, married?”

“What’s with the socks?”

The other man sniffed and scratched his inner thigh with a thumbnail. “I dislike feet.”

“You what?”

Leaning his head back so he could look up at the eaves of the ceiling, Riley said, “You didn’t come here to learn about my various hang-ups, did you? Come sit down, my love, (yeah?) and have a chat.”

“You gonna put some fucking clothes on?”

“I’d rather not kill the mood if it’s all the same to you.”

“Jesus,” Ronny muttered. He entered the row of seats behind Riley and walked their length until he stood behind him. He sat down and heard more laughter float down from the rear of the theater. He refused to look back.

“So, my goodly sir. What brings you out to see us?”

“You know about the food situation?” Ronny asked.

Riley snorted. “You care about the food?”

“I do now. It’s gonna get us what we want.”

“Oh, baby,” Riley whispered. He turned in his seat to look back at the other man. “Do tell, yeah? What it is we want?”

“A number of things…” Ronny said, voice muted. The jittering of his words echoed stupidly from within the chamber of his own head.

“Ooo, fuck that. You (right?) you only want one thing. You can’t lie to me, sweetie.”

“I’ll start with Gibs’s fucking head and work my way up from there.”

“You mean down from there, hey?”

“Fuck you, I know what I mean.”

“Easy… easy,” Riley said and smiled. “Like I said, you’re the guy, aren’t you? I’m just here for the ride. I would advise, though (yeah?), that you come at this a bit more… dispassionately? You’re gonna miss a trick if you aren’t careful, Ronny, and then I’d be heartbroken. I don’t think I could stand it.”

Eyes narrowed, Ronny asked, “Why?”

Riley reached out and grasped Ronny by the wrist, lifted his hand up into the dead space of air between them, and shook gently. “Because you get me .”

“Fine,” Ronny said, “whatever you say. So you know about the fucking food or not?”

“I’ve heard a rumor or two.”

“We’re gonna use that.”

“Oh, do tell?”

“Clay dragged us all out here, right? This was supposed to be the big payday and what do we have? We’re running out of food faster than ever before.”

Riley sat up straight, expression scandalized. His mouth stretched wide in a corpse’s rictus grin and he said, “You slippery devil! It was your idea coming out here, yeah?”

Ronny nodded. “That doesn’t matter… much. He made the call. You think about this: we could never move directly at him because there’s too many following his lead. He’s too popular. But he’s got something he can’t solve, now, and he’s not willing to pick up and move again; I think mostly because he knows that nobody will put up with it anymore. This was supposed to be the end of the line. This was where we were supposed to settle. And it’s a big fucking lemon.”

Riley passed the first and second fingers of his right hand under his nostrils, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. He said, “You want to dangle him out there a while, yeah? Let his approval ratings drop a bit?”

“We’ll keep our ears open and prepare. I think a coordinated attack does it; we’ll go after Pap first since he’s the muscle. The trick is making sure enough people are pissed off sufficiently that they don’t come running when the shit goes down.”

“And then?”

“And then Gibs and his crew of cocksuckers. We’ll go find them. Whatever they have, we’ll take it. Starting with their fucking souls.”

He sat a while, staring out into the darkness of the theater, picturing how it would be. After a few moments he was distracted by the sound of Riley clearing his throat.

“What?” Ronny asked.

“Oh, nothing, Gus, nothing at all. No… nothing. Uh… yeah, if that’s all, then, right? You know, heh-heh. Bucket list?” He lifted the spinner board and gave it a flick. The black plastic arrow swung over in a lazy arc. “Not to be rude (right?) but… mmm-hey?”

Ronny sighed. “Hey, girls? Left foot yellow…”

He passed them on the way out, shrugging against the wall as their hands reached out to clutch and pull him in.

The curse of mankind is that we’re born with an innate sense of justice; a sense of right balance indicating, in its basest form, that we are being treated with fairly. Our egos dictate that such a concept be regarded as universal law, that a state of injustice is that which must eventually be addressed and corrected. If not by God then by fate, a reckoning must eventually occur.