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

“No, no. It was a whole lot of bullshit. Everyone’s spread thin trying to grow a rose in a stack of manure… well, you get it. You don’t need that shit; not from me especially.”

He looked at Pap and saw the man’s eyes contracting and loosening by turns, a wet shimmering not attributable to the low cutting breeze.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Pap. It’s not like I just proposed…”

“Awe… fuck it, anyway. You caught me by s’prise. Sumbitch…”

“I’ll warn you next time.”

“Yeah, that’d be a fuckin’ start.”

He cleared his throat, pulled the mangled straw hat from his head, and scoured his brow with the back of his forearm in a seeming attempt to excoriate the flesh from his skull.

“Anyways… ya’ll wanna see about them crops?”

“Not just yet,” Clay said. “One thing at a time, Pap. First, get some of the guys together and let’s round up the bodies. I guess the three bastards that O.B. did are still up there on the slope, so they probably need to construct some kind of sled or… I don’t know what you call it. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Sure, I got it. Y’all mean a litter.”

Clay snapped his fingers. “Sure, that’s it. Couple of branches; some of that fucking Visqueen or whatever else we have on hand. Ralph’ll be up there too, so make enough to haul four bodies. Then, one of them’ll need to head out to the main trail and bring the rest of the trucks in… do we know where O.B.’s guys stashed their trucks?”

“Naw, but I’ll get ’Dini to show me.”

“Alright. And bring a truck back and get Charlie and Perry out at the GMC.”

“Yeah…”

“What is it?” Clay asked.

“Nuthin’. Loved that truck. Goddamned bastards.”

This time Clay did smile. “We’ll find you a new one, hoss .”

“Sure, I know. Hey, uh… we gonna bury ours with theirs?”

Clay looked around the various homes surrounding them, seeing only his armed men posted at the openings. All of the windows where shuttered, obscured by curtain, or otherwise occluded.

“Probably not,” he said slowly. “We’ll get there at some point—they got no other choice—but let’s not force the issue, huh? People don’t integrate so well when you jam their noses down in shit.”

“Yip sounds good. Anything else?”

“Nah,” Clay shook his head.

Pap nodded without further word and rushed off to accomplish his assigned duties. Clay watched the expanse of his retreating back—a vast mound of undulating meat straining against the seams of an abused Chambray shirt—before his eyes drifted back to the four cylindrical enclosures some three hundred feet distant to his position.

“This’ll be like a prom night fuck,” he rumbled quietly. “Can’t go straight at the gash; it’ll be like diving into a bowl of sand. Go in slow, patient. Take your time. Maybe she softens up and even starts to think it was her idea…”

He looked back over his left shoulder, eyeing the smaller log cabin Martha Stewart had disappeared into earlier.

“Maybe,” he allowed. “A week’s worth of softening up might not be enough for such as these.”

He shook his head, looked back out over the field—this newly conquered place that was now his going concern—and sighed.

They buried the remains of George Oliver, Columbus Jeffries, Andrew Stokes, Isaiah Ware, and Victor Hannah close to Billy’s tree at midday. Fred and Oscar did the lion’s share of the work—digging out the holes, carrying the bodies over, and arranging them at the graveside swaddled in clean sheets. Some of the others came out as they worked, ostensibly to help, but they really only got as far as the fresh-turned earth and the haft of a shovel before they seemed to switch off internally, staring off into nowhere and seeing nothing. Lost.

Clay ordered his men back for the proceedings, instructing them to remove to a position just off the greenhouses, on the outskirts of the common ground. When he saw they were so positioned, with their rifles arranged in a neat line along the curved, milky Solexx walls of the tube-like structure, he lowered gingerly into an Adirondack chair on the cabin porch and listened with one ear to the sounds of the mourners.

At half-past noon, Fred and Oscar nodded to each other, understanding without words they’d extinguished all activities that could reasonably be said to bar their carrying on with the final act. Fred looked at Brian, one of those who’d come to stand on the sideline like a disconnected spirit, and said, “Better get the others, son…”

Brian nodded but remained a moment longer, looking down at the barrel-shaped form of George in repose. He struggled with a tremor in his lip; himself having been something of a lifelong student in pursuit of a Master’s degree, Brian had identified with and come to love the natural teacher in George almost instantly.

“Brian…” Fred prodded gently.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He managed to turn his back to the other men before the tears could escape his eyes, misunderstanding in the foolishness of youth that such a thing might be considered “soft.”

Fred and Oscar stood together shoulder to shoulder, solemn honor guards for the dead and waited for the rest to come.

Otis and his son Ben, Barbara, and Rebecca were among the first to emerge, followed soon after by Tom Davidson, who had come by way of Gibs’s trailer. Gibs himself approached at his own pace, isolated in silence, his usual energetic demeanor muted and withdrawn. His eyes narrowed in anger as he passed by the front of Jake’s cabin, sensing but refusing to see the intruder who had installed himself within the premises. Clay noticed this—there was little he would have missed under the circumstances, so heightened were his senses—but said nothing; only lowered his gaze in silent respect for the bereaved. Gibs passed beyond the cabin, came to stand beside Barbara, and placed his arm around her shoulders. She began to sob as soon as she felt his touch, collapsing into the warmth of his body; an undermined structure finally surrendering to gravity.

Amanda came soon after with Elizabeth in tow. She hadn’t let the child out of her sight since being reunited, naturally, refusing even to release her daughter’s hand. Elizabeth had balked at this initially… until Amanda explained quietly that the act was intended to sooth mother rather than daughter. At this simple admission, the girl had looked up into her mother’s eyes, saw the swirling, disbelieving panic that lived within, and relented. They’d spent a good, long period of time laying on Elizabeth’s bed in their own cabin, wrapped in each other’s arms, as they’d once done in a small apartment out in Utah, a hundred years ago and a hundred thousand miles away.

The last people to arrive were Wang, Monica, and Rose; Wang bookended on either side by his lover and now adopted daughter as though they mistrusted his ability to stay upright on the uneven ground despite his crutches. It was an unspoken, unconscious concern they both apparently harbored; silent in vocal expression yet loud as cannon fire in their behavior; the tensed cessation of speech when he rose from the dinner table; the quiet repositioning to stand behind him when he negotiated stairs or went uphill. It annoyed the hell out of him, but he bore it silently, knowing it was done for love.

A few remained absent. Olivia would not be able to attend, occupied as she was in the execution of her craft; cleaning out and patching up Alish’s legs as well as further examinations to ascertain the health of the baby. And, because Alish was absent so was Greg, refusing to leave her side for any reason shy of death. Alan had remained close by for a time, fidgeting nervously in Olivia’s front room before Greg popped his head through the door to let him know that all was well and that he should go to the funeral. Alan nodded hesitantly, seemed about to say something, and then left in a silent misery.