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

“You’re awake,” the man said quietly.

“Defuggg’re you doigg!”

“This will be your final chance, Riley. I want her back.” His hands began to move; one of them remaining at the wrist to clamp it in place like an iron vise—like the vise they’d used to crush Edgar’s hand—while the other ran down the inside of his forearm like a spider toward the cut that ringed his arm. “You’ll tell me where she is and who has her. If you do, I promise this stops.”

“Whaayou dotuh my haaand…?” he wheezed.

“Do you know what it means to be degloved , Riley?”

“Ohhhh, Jethugth! Ohhhh, Jethught Griiiitht…”

“I thought you might.” Fingertips began to pry into the cut, under the flesh, pinching and prodding, sending acid flairs of misery up his arm and through his shoulder, and he tried to pull away but he was far, far too weak and the thing that held him would not ever let him go.

“I’ll pull it off, Riley. I’ll pull every last bit of you away if that’s what it takes to bring her home. I’ll do whatever is necessary.”

“Izza church!” he panted. “Wesht end-uh towghn! Duh Prezbehghterighun! Fuggin Griiitht duh chuuugrch!”

“Good. That’s very good. Who has her, Riley?”

“Ronny! Ronny! Igzth Ronny! Ronny’th god ’er, Jethugth, pleeth, let id go!”

“Ronny…”

“Ronny! Igz Ronny!”

“How many are with him out there?”

“Ugh… fugg… ten, fifteeghn… no more than twenghty…”

The man let Riley’s arm drop to the floor and sat back. He remained motionless for a long time, perhaps looking down on Riley, perhaps not. It was impossible to tell. He sat as though he’d been switched off. Riley lay there clutching his arm to his chest, panting and wheezing and gagging on his own blood.

“I see,” the man said. He leaned forward, pushed something cold, hard, and sharp under Riley’s neck, and pulled.

The pain disappeared.

They had tried waiting out in the lobby at first, hoping to minimize their potential for discovery, but when the screaming wound up and then hit a fever pitch shortly thereafter, Amanda had taken one glance at Rebecca’s sickened, horrified face and ushered her out the theater emergency exit to wait under the easy-up outside. The sheering rainfall was enough to drown out Riley’s screams, thank God, and Amanda watched carefully as Rebecca began to uncoil. They stood out there for a few minutes, wondering how long it would be, and Amanda eventually glanced down at the two bodies piled up against the building. She grunted to herself—the kind of noise a person applies when she calls herself an idiot in her mind—and bent to grab one of them by the wrists. Rebecca noted what she was doing and moved to get the other.

“No,” Amanda cautioned. “I’ll get these. Just keep an eye out, okay?”

Rebecca nodded, and Amanda relaxed a little, thankful. She didn’t think it was such a good idea if Rebecca went back inside to hear more screaming.

She piled the bodies up under the screen within the theater, noting the silence that met her when she entered—an absence of sound every bit as unsettling as the frantic bellows she’d heard before. She paused a moment, wondering if Jake had finished when another round of shrieking kicked off, and she realized then that she’d only thought she heard screaming before; had only supposed she knew misery’s true voice. What she heard now seemed like misery’s purest essence, the very core of unbearable suffering.

She wondered if it was possible to simply die of pain or fear and muttered, “Easy, big guy. Let’s make sure you actually get something useful first.”

The shrieking wail tapered off and out, as though its originator fell down an impossibly deep hole, and then there was silence. Amanda nodded a silent approval and said, “Better…”

One of the bodies that she’d piled under the screen had a battered, dark ball cap twisted lazily over the left eye. She tugged it off and stepped outside.

“Here, Rebecca put this on.” She held the cap out for the other woman. “Your hair stands out, even in the dark.”

Rebecca took the cap in numb fingers without comment; pulled it down over her head. Her mouth was open and working slowly, as though her body wished to speak but her mind had nothing to supply.

“How we doing?” Amanda asked.

“What the hell is he doing in there?”

Amanda sighed and thought for a moment. “I imagine he’s finding out where my daughter is.”

A tear escaped from the bottom of Rebecca’s eye and bounced from the smooth surface of her cheek as it fell. Her eyes did not blink nor did they appear to function in any other manner. They’d been disconnected for a time, and the woman saw only from within.

“That sound… It was like an animal being eaten alive…”

“That animal killed George and Lum, Rebecca.”

“I know, Amanda, I know… but… He… he can do that? Jake?”

“Do what, Rebecca? Say it.”

She shook her head in a little jerk. “I don’t even know. What must he have been doing in there to get that man to make a noise like that?”

“Rebecca, look at me.”

She did.

“Jake does what he has to, okay? He always has, pretty or not. This is what happens when you work without a net, understand? Sometimes you have to take things to a place that you never thought you would before; that you never thought you’d be able to. But when you get pushed into a corner, and you have no choice, you adapt. You adapt because you have to. But think about this: this seems like a big shock to you, what he’s doing in there right now, but that’s only because we’ve had it so good for so long up here. The place he and I came from; maybe it’s not so shocking. And think about this also: he’s in there right now doing what he’s doing so that you or I or anyone else doesn’t have to.”

Rebecca regarded her for a time, openmouthed, then looked away again, casting her eyes out into the falling rain.

“That was the first time you killed somebody? Back there?” Amanda asked.

Rebecca nodded.

“You keeping it together?”

Rebecca thought it over and nodded again.

“Okay. At some point, it’ll get under your skin. You probably won’t even see it coming when it happens. When it does, you come and see me. Or, if you’re not comfortable with me, see someone else. Gibs would be a good choice. Just make sure you talk it through with someone, okay? Killing isn’t a natural act, and it’s not supposed to be easy. There isn’t anything wrong with it bothering you. It just means you have a good heart.”

“How can you be so calm right now?” Rebecca asked. “We… we still don’t know where Elizabeth is.”

Amanda nodded and said, “I have to be calm right now, so I am. If I do what I want—if I freak the fuck out like I want to—she’ll be screwed, and I can’t have that. Also… and I guess I don’t really know how you’ll feel about this, but it’s the truth so… whatever; having you here to keep an eye on helps.”

Rebecca looked over at her. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Eh, I didn’t at first.”

“Why?”

Amanda shrugged. “Can’t like everybody, right? Honestly… Jesus, I can’t believe I’m gonna say this… I was jealous of you, okay? Like, we were really poor growing up, and I used to look at a bunch of girls in school just like you who had everything. Money, looks, charm, and all that.”

“We didn’t have a lot of money…” Rebecca muttered.

“No, maybe not, but… look, this was wrong, okay? I’m saying right now I was wrong. I saw what I wanted to see when I met you, alright? Fair or not, it is what it is. I just saw this person who looked like she grew up with everything that I used to dream about, and I got sour. And now here you are out here with us, carrying a rifle, walking into gunfire trying to help get my little girl back. I don’t think I’ve ever been so wrong about someone in my entire life.”