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

The muscle along the back of his arm twitched involuntarily, as though her touch conveyed electricity, but he made no response. The bystanders began to shift again, progressively more uncomfortable as the silence wore on. Clay continued to stare down at Jake, eyes unblinking, content at having stated his case. He waited as if they stood together outside of time’s flow, forsaking all else in his regard for the mute creature standing low in the dirt.

Finally, before Gibs could lose all patience and seize the floor, Jake asked, “What would you have done to Ronny if I’d let him alone?” His manner indicated he considered only the presence of Clay; a manner suggesting he did not detect the others surrounding him.

Clay smiled at his question, thin and hungry, and whispered, “It was you that got after Riley, wasn’t it?”

Jake said nothing at this, though Gibs jerked in place and hissed, “What the fuck is this about, now?” Amanda frowned and shook her head at him.

Nodding, Clay purred, “Yeah… that was you. I can always sniff ’em out. Let’s not pretend with each other, huh? I’ll do you that fucking agreement right now. We’ll take the discussion offline if you like.”

“That’s it,” Gibs growled. “That’s fucking it. I’m done. Goddamned over. I don’t give one good goddamn what’s going on between the two of you ladies; I’ve just traveled beyond all capacity to care. Clay: you’re saying you want a peaceful end to this. Outstanding. You can begin by rounding up your platoon of ass-bandits and fucking off back down the hill. We’ll establish a meeting at a later—”

“No,” Clay barked over him.

“The fuck do you mean ‘no’?” Gibs demanded.

“I mean no. I think that must be the third time I’ve heard that line from you bunch of stone-wallers, huh? Every sonofabitching time. ‘Oh, yes please, just go wait for us down the hill, and we’ll come back and see you when it suits us!’ Fuck you, Gibs. You and your whole bullshit posse. I have something like three hundred or more people down in Jackson right now; all of them punching new holes in their belts. I expect you knew that, though, didn’t you? Earlier on when I told you we were planning to scavenge out that town and you shot me that cunt look? You knew it then, didn’t you? Yeah, I figured as much. And I guess you all were just gonna sit up here and laugh while the rest of us starved it out down there; the fucking women, children, and elderly be damned, huh? Yeah, I see you people—real moral fucking high ground types. Duplicitous cunts, I name you. Every one. Let’s be nice and straight with each other, young man: I’m not interested in morals, high ground or low, right or fucking wrong. I’m interested in the starving people I got looking at me with confused faces and rumbling guts, huh? We’ve done the various things, now; the hunting and the scavenging, even heading as far out as Teton Village, though that was all picked over as well, you bastards, but we’re too big now to keep the machine going on piddling measures. We need to fire us up some agriculture, or that’ll be it. Now… I tried asking nicely before, and I was invited, very politely, to go fuck myself. Well, I regret to report the very real and present tragedy that I was born into this world with a cock too small to engage in such an act, but God and heredity made up the difference with a set of balls as big as the goddamned moon; an attribute which I propose to bring to bear as I roll over on the lot of you. We’re gonna work this out together, kids, like good little neighbors, and you get to enjoy the karma incurred by saving several hundred people from eventually starving their way through winter.”

“You can’t! That’s not… you can’t do that!” Barbara yelped. She’d shot up from her seat in the midst of Clay’s tirade, face drawing out in slow horror as he spoke. “Our harvest won’t support that many!”

“No,” Clay agreed, “but it sure as hell goes a long way toward buying us some time. I’m sure if we work it over enough we’ll eventually come to a solution that allows—”

“No!” Barbara repeated, wringing her hands. “You don’t understand; there’s enough there to get us through winter, plus a percentage to hold over and plant in the spring! There won’t be anything left! You’re going to ruin us, and it still won’t do you any good!”

Clay held up his hand and sighed quietly. Barbara, who had drawn breath to continue making her case, fell silent, looking at him with swimming eyes. Her mouth worked silently like a miniature threshing machine.

“Let me try explaining this another way, huh? Using more simple language? You all find yourselves in the following situation: I’m giving you a week to get this figured out in a manner you can live with. I suggest you give it your best effort. If we get to a week from now and you haven’t figured it out, I’ll just take it all. And if I get the sense that you’re not putting every ounce of effort you have into solving this problem, I’ll take it all and burn your fucking homes down.”

Barbara collapsed back to her chair, fresh tears running over her cheeks as Patricia reached out to hold her.

“Baws!” Pap called out from the opposite end of the prisoners’ circle.

“Yeah, what?”

Pap held up a radio and said, “Just got word from ’Dini. Says they’s a hummer way out yonder with more of ’em, parked back in the scrub.”

Clay snorted and looked back down at Jake, Amanda, and Gibs. “Yeah… tricky little bastards. Gibs: you’ve got five minutes to get whatever bullshit happens to be staged out there front and center in this valley or I start shooting people. Starting with Martha Stewart, over there.” He gestured at Barbara.

“I’ll need to get my radio…” Gibs snarled through grinding teeth.

“Well, so get the fucking radio,” Clay answered reasonably. “We’ll wait. We’ll wait about five minutes.”

With Gibs off to pursue these instructions, Clay looked again at Jake and said, “I have a speech I like to give in times like this. Kind of a ‘Welcome to the Team’ thing, huh? It, uh… well, you know, it sets the tone, lays out the hierarchy; the benefits enjoyed from the various participants, and the like. Only… I think I’ll skip it this time. I think you and I need to have a little discussion, fucking Jake, about where you and I have been and where we go from here.”

With that, Clay finally took his weight from the railing and stood up straight. He walked over to the front door of the cabin, boots knocking loudly on the floorboards, and opened the front door. “Why don’t you step into my office, Jake? We’ll hash this out, explicit-like. Lay out the parameters of this little re-org. Write a new fucking playbook, huh?”

He stood there holding the door open, not looking at Jake so much as looking out over the valley as if it was a kingdom he’d already conquered. As it seemed, it likely was.

Jake looked at Amanda and whispered words so low she didn’t hear them all; could only piece the meaning together through context as well as reading his lips.

“Whatever happens here, you sit tight and keep them safe. I’ll contact you when I can.”

She was still working it out when he was halfway up the steps. Then, as he moved to the doorway, she had to restrain herself from shouting out to him, from asking what the hell he meant. She clamped her teeth together, cursing herself silently for an idiot, and the door of the cabin closed softly, walling Clay and Jake inside. She stood rooted in place staring at the door’s dark wood surface, looking for the man who’d disappeared. A moment later she came back to herself and looked over at her daughter, who sat quietly. Passively. She looked for all the world like she was patiently waiting for movie night to commence, possibly in anticipation of watching Lethal Weapon for the hundredth time; a favorite once shared with Billy.