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

The last sensation that George Oliver knew in this world was the gentle smell of lilacs.

She burst into the valley following a run so like Lot’s escape from Sodom that the clouded overhead sky might as well have been raining fire down upon her. Panting violently, with blood running in thin trails from the scrapes on her forehead and arms, scoured there by the branches of the trees and bushes through which she’d barreled in her haste. She screamed as soon as the dim lights of their homes faded into view, floating unsupported out in the emptiness, tears streaming down and mixing in with the blood of her body, and she flapped her arms overhead in a panic. She willed her legs to work faster though they shook under her like the limbs of a newborn foal, and she screamed and screamed. Inarticulate, throat-ripping cries that tumbled up into the sky, end over end until they pierced the very high-stacked clouds overhead. The clouds split in deference to her torment and fat, dolorous drops of water began to impact the ground, pounding in time with her quivering feet.

Additional lights kindled in the distance to match those which she’d first seen, winking on like wood spirits reviving from an endless dream, and she moaned in relief as she ran; a long, drawn-out, “ Hhheeeeeeeee… ” that just came and came in an exhalation of inexhaustible misery. She thought she heard the sound of doors slamming from somewhere far away and her vision blurred again at the resurgence of hot tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, mixing in with the blood of her body and the falling blood of the overhead sky. Her foot struck something as she shambled forward, pitching her down into the dirt, and her head bounced off something hard and incredibly sharp, clicking her teeth together and bursting vibrant colors into being at the edges of her blinded vision. Low thud of impact reverberating within her skull.

She groaned up into a kneeling position in soil so thirsty that it pulled the rain under and within before it could pool. She rested onto her heels, threw back her head, and screamed into the night for her mamma. She screamed for her mamma again, and again, and again until she could scream no more.

And because the world need not always be subject wholly to the designs of the hateful and malicious, her mamma was there to hear her and call back to her, and take up her Rosie in her arms. Strong arms joined those of her mother—the familiar smell of her skin and hair—and voices, and she was being lifted and carried over the earth through the rain. She could see up into the sky, see up to the undersides of the high-stacked clouds, and the rain fell, and the blood intermixed with her tears ran thin.

“How is she?” Amanda asked. Her voice quivered and ground in her throat like a failing machine.

“Under control,” Jake said. He stood in the cabin’s great room over by the fireplace, the rest of the open area occupied by people in every conceivable way it could be occupied; sitting in chairs, balancing on armrests, leaning against railings, and standing out on the floor unsupported like lost islands. Amanda stood before him, the rest of the people there lost to her regard, as she stared fire into Jake’s eyes.

He continued, “There were two of them. They came in the night; she doesn’t know from where but I’m certain they’re with the newcomers from town. They murdered Lum outright—”

A gasp issued from somewhere at the back of the room, followed by a croaking sob. Barbara clutched Samantha to her body and led her into the next room, shushing quietly all the while.

“—and shot George multiple times. She says he was alive when she ran out of the campsite.”

Fred Moses caught Oscar Lopez’s eye from across the room, and they nodded to each other. The former yanked the Ford’s key from its hook by the door and clomped down the deck while the latter ran off in the direction of his home, no doubt to retrieve his shotgun and other gear.

“What about Elizabeth?” she demanded.

Jake wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were unfocused, staring off into the distance, and his face was smooth and unlined like a ceramic death mask.

“They took her.”

“How did they know where…?” someone whispered, possibly Tom.

The question was met with a lingering silence. Those in the room looked around at each other, disturbed in their hearts by the low sobbing wails coming from the kitchen and also from the bedroom down the hall. Doors slammed outside, followed by the thundering ignition of a diesel engine. Underneath this, the sound of raindrops fading into louder strength.

“Where’s Edgar?” Gibs growled.

They looked around; realized the man wasn’t present. A few shook their heads unhelpfully, as though they did not comprehend English. A low snarl rumbled through the Marine’s throat, promising wordless murder, and he marched over the threshold of the cabin door out into the night.

“We need to go, Jake,” Amanda said in a hollow voice.

“Wait,” he whispered. “They took her to incite a reaction. We’ll go tonight but… we need to think it through.”

“Think… it… through…?”

“We can’t help her if we give them what they want, Amanda. Regardless of what they want, you can be sure it puts us in their control.”

“One hour,” she spat. “I’ll wait one hour.”

He shook his head. “We won’t need that long.”

He cut through the crowd of people to the back hallway, entered the bedroom at the end, and found Monica and Wang sitting on opposite sides of the queen bed, both holding Rose in their arms and rocking her. Wang looked up at him as he entered, saw the look in Jake’s eyes, and whispered, “Can it wait?”

“No,” Monica said, squeezing his shoulder across her daughter’s body. “Let him. She’ll bear up.” She didn’t look up as she said this, refusing to break the contact of her cheek against the crown of her baby’s head.

Jake crept in without sound, dimming the meager candlelight like a passing disaster, and sat at the foot of the bed cross-legged, facing directly at the seemingly de-aged young woman pinioned between her parents.

“Rose,” he called. His voice fell flat into the air between them as though his lungs were battened with insulation.

She looked up into his eyes and ceased to breathe.

“I need to know what they looked like.”

“You’re going after them,” she whispered; almost mouthed.

He nodded.

Fresh tears spilling over her eyelids, she asked, “You’re going to kill them?”

“I’m going to do what’s necessary.”

She nodded and dragged the back of her hand under her nose, sniffing loudly. “I couldn’t see their faces so well; one stayed out in the dark, and the other had long hair that got in the way of his face. I saw his nose. It looked long and sharp like a beak.”

“What color was their hair?”

“The one that I could see had lighter brown hair; that was the one who had it long. It was kind of thin and stringy like he didn’t clean it so much and it looked like it hung down past his shoulders. The other one stayed in the dark. I couldn’t tell you what color his was.”

Jake glanced up at the others as he considered this. His eyes played over different points of the room, and he mused, “Long hair… light brown…”

“You know something?” Wang asked.

“Maybe. Did you see what they were wearing, Rose?”

She sniffed and then shrugged, offering a brittle, wet sigh. “The one that I could see was dressed all in jeans. Jean jacket, too.”