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

Edgar sat in his chair a moment, blinking stupidly. He shook his head gently and said, “I’m sorry, I thought I was going to be meeting with Clay? You are…?”

Ronny looked down at the floor and sighed. He brushed a hand through lank, blonde hair and said, “I see.” He crouched and unzipped the backpack.

“Uh, what is that?” asked Edgar.

“That’s his Questionnaire,” Riley said happily.

Ronny pulled an old, well-oiled bench vise from the backpack, fitted it to the edge of Riley’s desk, and began to torque down the mounting clamp. When that was done he began spinning the handle to widen the jaws. As he worked, he said, “Set him up, Riley.”

Riley nodded and opened a desk drawer. He removed a handgun, walked over to stand by Edgar, cocked it, and pressed the barrel down into the man’s balls.

“I’m going to ask you (yeah?) to put your right hand in that vise. You are right-handed, aren’t you? You must be; it’s how you shake…”

Edgar could only stare up into Riley’s face. The strength had run out of his body entirely and he struggled to steady his trembling voice as he said, “My… my hand?”

Riley pressed the gun in deeper until Edgar could feel the throbbing ache of his testicles through his kidneys and said, “Don’t make me ask twice, Steve.”

Riley’s lips stretched back into a slit so wide that it appeared someone had attempted to cut his head off at the mouth. Edgar’s bladder let go completely as a kind of preliminary opening ceremony in his education on the subject of true and total despair.

Lum stood in front of the bed that he shared with Samantha and pointed at each item laid out over the covers, whispering its name to himself while marking it off on his mental checklist. The two dome tents were outside, all packed up and ready to go, and he noted the other essentials as he jammed them into his ruck; blowout kit, paracord, bush knife, hatchet, folding saw, multi-tool, flashlights, rain fly, spare batteries, and ammunition for the .30-06. He packed these in with a few spare changes of clothes, zipped up the ruck, and set it on the floor next to the sleeping bags. Nodding to himself, he dusted his hands against each other and stepped out into the kitchen. Samantha was there, quietly preparing a bin of food to carry his group over the two-day trip. He approached her from behind, wrapped his arms around her waist, and rested his brow against the back of her head. He felt her sigh; her hands found his and she settled into his body.

“Alright?” he asked.

“I’ll be alright when you get back. This is really dumb if you ask me.”

He smiled against the fly-away hairs tickling his cheek and said, “Don’t have to ask. Yer tellin’ me plenty on a volunteer basis.”

“Well, I have to. You haven’t agreed that I’m right yet.”

She turned in his arms, and he loosened his hands to give her room to rotate. He did not let go of her.

“I can’t see how the rest of you don’t have a problem with this,” she said. “There’s practically a whole army out there.”

“Yep,” he nodded. “Was before, too. Sam, we’d done had this out, now. All-uh us. Them folks been staying put up in town an’ we been watchin’ ’em fairly regular. And like Gibs said, we’re fairly sure they’re okay. Ain’t a one of ’em done anythin’, so far as we can tell, not besides pickin’ houses and makin’ a way fer themselves.”

“Yeah, except they’re all armed…”

“Well, so’re we, Sweets…”

She pulled back, frustrated, and leaned against the counter. She crossed her arms, and Lum knew right there that they weren’t going to find any new ground in the discussion. They were looking like beating over the same old bushes. He worked hard to keep from smiling, not wanting to anger her. He’d developed a high amount of respect for her opinion and didn’t wish to be patronizing.

“It’s a risk, Lum. There is no good reason to go camping, of all things, right now!”

“Except that this is what we do. We take the kids out, teach ’em, tell ’em stories, show ’em how to git along on the mountain. Just don’t make no sense puttin’ our lives on hold ’cause them folks’re passin’ through. We can’t just box in right here and hide—”

“Jake sure thinks we can.”

“Jake has his own way-uh doin’ thangs. Can’t just ever’body be like him. An’ besides that, he ain’t hidin’; we’re all just keepin’ outta town.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, I do,” he nodded. Being a man unused to explaining himself in any detail outside of a debriefing, he spent a moment to collect his thoughts. Maybe his mistake was attempting to argue on the basis of evidence alone, but he really didn’t understand any other way. It was possible, he assumed, that Samantha was operating from a position of intuition; a power in which Lum held himself agnostic, though his mother had assigned deep value to the sensation. He bit down on the frustration that drove him to give in, to just throw up his hands and give her what she wanted. Unfortunately, he’d already given his word to George, Rose, and Lizzy that the trip was on and he’d never once in his life gone back on his word—he certainly didn’t intend to start now.

Taking her hands in his, he whispered, “Look ’ere, Sam. None of ’em knows where we are; we’re near certain, okay? And we’s just goin’ out the exit an’ over the next rise, good an’ deep in these hills.”

She looked away, an angry wrinkle having formed over the bridge of her nose. He leaned in and kissed it.

“Stop it,” she grumbled.

“What?” He kissed her again, this time on the cheek.

“Stop it, I said. You’re a thief. You’re taking those kisses from me; I’m not giving them to you.”

“C’mon, Rib, I can’t head out without knowin’ we’s okay…” He kissed her temple.

“No, damn it. That’s theft! That’s unwanted physical contact. I’m suing. Nope. No. No, no, no, no, no…”

She was smiling now, fighting to avoid laughter.

“I love you, Sam,” he whispered into her ear. He kissed the lobe.

“I love you too. You asshat.”

“Now, that there’s Gibs talkin’; been hangin’ around him a bit much…”

“Well, if the term fits…” she said. She looked at him a moment and then punched him in the chest. Her fist bounced away like a deflected tennis ball. Then she reached up and kissed him proper.

When he came up for air—breathing heavily with an elevated heart rate, she noted with satisfaction—she said, “Are you sure you don’t want to take someone else out there with you? Since George is coming along?”

He shook his head. “Naw, Lizzy an’ Rose been doin’ really well with each other an’ they work out better in a small group. Don’t wanna mess with that just yet.”

Samantha half-nodded, half-shrugged. “Yeah, I understand that. I just wish you had someone bigger going with you since George seems hell-bent on going along. It would be better if you weren’t the only strong one out there if he goes down and can’t get up again.”

He gave her a final kiss and headed back to the bedroom to retrieve his gear. When he returned, he dropped his bag by the door and said, “To start, that brace-uh his seems to be helpin’ a treat. On top-uh that, we’s takin’ the truck up yander to the clearin’ an’ it’s all flat ground once you get there. Feller only has to walk ’bout a hunnerd yards in over level field and plant his ass in a campin’ chair—it’s basic’ly the same damned thang he does ’round here. She’s purty low risk, Love.”

“Silly…” she muttered. She turned and resumed packing food parcels into the bin.