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

“Shit…” Elton whispered.

“We need to lower people’s need for food,” Danielle said absently.

Doc barked a laugh. “How do you recommend we do that?”

“How much energy does it take to go get wood?” she asked.

“You’re recommending reducing lumber?” Johnny asked.

“I’m recommending we stop collecting it entirely.”

Johnny’s eyes widened in a flash of shock. “All the power goes out if we do that. You realize what that means? The entire system runs on wood-fired electricity now.”

“Look, how many calories are they consuming to keep strong enough so that they can haul logs back here and cut them up for the Woodies?”

“How ma—… I… well, I don’t know…”

Suddenly angry, Danielle shouted, “How the hell can you not know? Why the hell aren’t you tracking that? You’re the numbers guy, aren’t you? How the fuck is it that you don’t know the exact consumption of every sub-group we have?”

“Danielle… easy, honey,” Elton said.

“No, goddamn it, I’m not gonna be easy!” Looking at the others, she stabbed a finger at Elton and demanded, “Why does he have to do all your thinking for you? Can’t you step it up? Can you once come to him with a single fucking option? Some solutions instead of just an endless line of shit you need him to deal with?”

Elton stood, crossed the room, and put his arms around her, shushing quietly, while the others looked away out of respect… or shame.

“Shh, Baby. Easy. We’re all tired, Danielle. All of us. We’re all making mistakes. Go easy now; this isn’t helping anyone.”

The knuckles of his large hands passed softly down her cheeks, over her neck, prodding gently, trying to sooth the anger away but failing. She held onto a small ember, keeping it buried down in her core. She was terrified to lose that last bit of fire; terrified she might just lay down and surrender if she did.

“Johnny?” Elton asked, resting his chin on the crown of her head, “can you start tracking the way she says? Your people know who’s who around here, right? Is that something we can monitor?”

“Sure, Elton. It’ll take until tomorrow morning to get some data together but… yeah, we can do that.”

“Good, Johnny. Thank you. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate all of you.”

“I’m sorry…” Danielle whimpered, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

“Hell no,” Johnny said. “It was a good point, Danielle; we’re gonna get on it. And don’t worry about yelling at me. I know where it’s coming from.”

“We all do,” Doc said.

Elton sighed and pushed gently back from her, looking a silent question into her eyes. She nodded at him, and he drifted back to his chair, collapsing into it with a whump.

“Stop the lumber crews,” he said as he settled into the chair back. “Get them all together and ask for volunteers.”

“Volunteers for…?” Horace asked.

“We’ll get a few trucks together. Give them the last of our diesel, and send them out. Ask for four teams, and we’ll send them north, south, east, and west for food—”

“Oh, n-no, no, no, no…” Ned shook his head in little jerking motions. “C-c-c-c-Clay won’t like that at all… Y-y-you-you-you-you kn-n-know how he is…”

“Clay is not here right now, Ned,” Elton slowly said. “I do not care what he does or does not like.”

The little engineer folded up and shrank upon himself like a dying spider.

They all sat around the room silently, contemplating this new direction. Wondering how far Elton was willing to go.

Elton wondered this as well. He was good with Clay; wanted things to work out for everyone if they could find a way. But it had never been truer that his ass was now pinned thoroughly to the wall, options severely limited. He wondered if he would be forced to choose between loyalty to Clay or to the people left in his charge. He hoped very much that he would not, knowing how he must decide.

A tentative knock sounded at the front door, though Elton was so deep in thought that he didn’t respond or seem to notice. Danielle opened it; then barked, “Get in here!”

The door slammed shut, and she was suddenly dragging Esparza into the living room; Esparza, who had gone into the mountains as part of Pap’s hand-picked team.

All of the men crammed into the little front room came up from their seats like they’d staged a surprise party, rushing Esparza and chattering at once like a flock of seagulls while he stood in the center darting his eyes around the gathering. The only one who maintained some level of calm at his appearance was Ned, who had stood from his spot at the couch and looked on at the bum rush nervously. He observed quietly, confused at the behavior of the others; it was clear they wanted to hear whatever news the man might possess. Why on Earth would they not let him speak?

Esparza seemed to have a line of thinking similar to Ned’s. He politely waited several beats for the assault to die down and, when it did not, finally gave up and shouted, “If you’d all just shut up a minute I’ll tell you!”

The others fell silent at this; mouths clicking shut as if they were scolded children. Esparza looked around at them all, shook his head ruefully while dusting his arms off, and muttered, “Christ!”

It might have been that he was waiting to be invited to sit or to perhaps be offered a drink, but he was out of luck. Any shred of patience Elton had left fizzled away in a vapor as soon as Esparza crossed his threshold.

“Cut the shit, man,” Elton griped. “What happened up there? How’d it go?”

Esparza pulled a double-take at his inquisitor, took in a breath, and seemed to realize he had about five seconds to spill everything before somebody in that room finally lost control and started pulling his arms off; possibly Danielle. He abandoned the measured, dramatic speech he’d been practicing to himself on the drive down from the mountain and shrugged.

“We’re in.”

“And? What have they got up there?”

Esparza resisted the urge to smile despite the situation. It was always a joy to be the bearer of good news. It was a complete fucking relief, in fact, to have any kind of good news to deliver.

“They have four full greenhouses up there, guys.”

“Four…” Johnny whispered.

“Yeah, man. I hadn’t looked inside them myself, but… they’ve gotta be producing. We saw a few buckets up there just filled with stuff. I saw some potatoes, beets, some carrots… hell, I even saw some broccoli! When was the last time any of you guys had broccoli, huh?”

“You saw this?” Elton demanded.

“Yeah, man. They have this giant detached garage up there with buckets of this stuff lined up along a wall. They even had two big damned slabs of meat hanging on ropes; looked like it had been all dried out and whatnot.”

“You got in…” Elton whispered. The first pangs of a reluctant kind of relief threatened to overtake him.

“How much was there?” Johnny asked, smiling.

Before Esparza could answer, Elton interrupted, “They let you in?”

The smile melted from Esparza’s face and he shook his head slowly. “No, man. Sorry to say, we had a bit of a gunfight up there.”

Elton’s eyes widened in dismay. He looked at Danielle hopelessly, but she only shook her head. Dismay soon gave way to a kind of burning need; a compulsion to understand this new situation for which they all found themselves volunteered.

“Sit down, man,” Elton said, guiding him over to the easy chair. “Start at the beginning; tell it all.”

The others resumed their previously occupied seats while Elton perched up on the couch armrest, hands posted atop kneecaps, while he stared hungrily at the new guest.