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

“Okay, what have you guys been told about… uh, about what happened over at the church?”

Elton shook his head. “Just that there was some kind of fight down there; Clay’d had to put down some kind of rebellion or something. It was tied into the attack at the movies, somehow, but I haven’t heard how yet. Clay was taking his best fighters into the mountains to try and cut out any further bullshit before it could escalate and finally see if we could work out some sort of trade. I know that Ronny works into it all somehow as well, but that’s about it. Pap didn’t offer a whole lot of details when he… oh, Jesus! Danielle?!”

“It’s okay, Elton. I took him over to a girlfriend’s place so you could get some sleep.”

“Which one?”

She drew back from the wildness in his voice. “Selena’s, Babe. It’s okay; she has a little boy of her own.”

The naked fear that flashed through his eyes a moment before slowly bled away to a muted throb; Elton slouched under its passing. “God damn! Never been responsible for nobody else’s kid before. Can’t say I’m a fan…”

“I told you, Babe, he’s fine.”

“Great. I’m glad. Bring him back when this is over, all the same. I don’t want that boy any further away from me than fifty feet. He can have his play dates after this is all settled.”

“Okay… okay, Elton,” she said.

He rubbed a hand along the back of his head, scratching absently at the scalp beneath the thickness of his hair, and nodded at Esparza. “Anyway, that’s what I’ve got.”

Esparza nodded, more to himself than anyone else, and said, “Okay. Well, I’d better start by telling you all that Ronny’s dead. Along with most of his crew.”

“Damn,” Elton whispered. “Clay did all of them?”

Esparza shook his head slowly. “No. He left Ronny. Look, let me back up and explain, okay? What happened was that Ronny… or maybe Riley, I don’t really know… well, goddamn it, somebody tortured information out of Edgar—where his people were hiding out. Got the turn-by-turn directions all the way up to their camp or base or… whatever they got up there.”

“I thought you saw it?” asked Doc.

“I did, I just don’t know what to call it. It’s almost a compound, you guys. Like they’re growing their own little village up there, building by building. Anyway, a couple of guys went up there, killed some of their people, and kidnapped one of their children.”

The sharp gasp from the dining table caused everyone to turn and look. They saw Danielle sitting bolt upright in one of the chairs, a hand clamped over her open mouth and eyes shimmering. It distracted the hell out of Esparza, who seemed unable to pull his eyes away from her as he continued.

“S-s-so… it was, uh, a little girl that they got. They took her down to the church and locked her up there, and Ronny set up shop there with a collection of his most trusted people, I guess. Clay spent some time questioning him when we got there, and it seems that Ronny’s whole plan was to incite whatever fighters they had to come down from the mountain and attack, right? So Ronny and his people would just kind of hide out in that church and let everyone fight it out and then, when the dust cleared, it sounded like his plan was to come out and take whatever was left over. Only you and Danielle derailed that whole plan, so… here we are. Clay rounded us up, and we went down there. You know the rest. Only we didn’t do Ronny. Clay locked him up and left him there.”

“Jesus Christ, why?” Elton asked.

“Peace offering. Jake’s people—oh, yeah, that’s the other thing; it’s not Gibs that’s in charge up there. It’s this guy named Jake. I’ll get to him in a minute. So anyway, they’d come down and wiped out everyone at the movie theater already, right? Well, I guess one of them went to work on Riley like a son of a bitch, so it stood to reason they knew where to find Ronny. So Clay’s thought was to just leave Ronny where he was at the church and let those people have him. Meantime, he had a whole crew rounded up (I was part of them, obviously), gave them the directions to the compound (which he basically took from Ronny), and sent us all up ahead to get tucked into the area. We were insurance, see? In case it all went sour.”

“In case what went sour?” Johnny asked.

“Clay, Pap, and a couple of other guys—Charlie and Perry—drove up there with the girl Ronny snatched. They no-shit took her back up there to try and give her back and say ‘Hey, our bad,’ right? He—Clay, that is—was hoping that handing her over would kind of show how not all of us where horrible bastards and try to start working a deal from there.”

“And?” Johnny prodded.

“Well… it all went sour…” Esparza muttered.

“Fuck…” Elton sighed.

Esparza nodded helplessly. “They opened fire, basically. I don’t think they knew Clay had the girl in the truck. They shot it so full of holes it’s a wonder it didn’t just collapse around its chassis. Pap figured the only way they managed to survive was them balling up behind the engine; that GMC had a big goddamned diesel. Not all of them survived, in fact. Some of ours were killed; Charlie, Perry, and Ralph. We got a few of theirs, too, but… but yeah. That’s how that went.”

“ That’s how that went? ” Doc demanded. “That… no… that’s not it. What the hell happened? Where are things right now?”

Sighing, Esparza said, “O.B. happened. He fought ’em all down to surrender, basically, and then he peaced the fuck out soon after.”

“He what…?”

“I guess he had some sort of falling-out with Clay. I don’t know what happened, honestly, but the story I hear from the guys was that O.B. just kind of disappeared up into the mountains. Nobody’s seen him since the firefight. Hey, he hasn’t shown up back down here, has he?”

Elton shook his head sadly. “Naw. We’d have known; somebody would have jumped all over his ass for news.”

Esparza nodded as though he’d expected that answer. “Yeah. I suppose we won’t be seeing him again. Sounded like he was fed the fuck up.”

“So… now what? They’re just staying up there, or what?” Elton asked.

“More or less. Clay took over. I mean, it sounds shitty, but I don’t really see what choice he has anymore. He’s given them a week to figure out some way to divide their food such that we can address our problems down here and still keep enough of it that they can get through the winter. If a week goes by and they haven’t figured it out, he said he’ll just take all of it and to hell with them.”

“Oh my God,” Danielle moaned. “Do they have enough for that?”

“Unlikely,” Johnny said. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to grow more than they could eat or replant. Doing any more than that would just be a waste of good food unless they’ve found some way to preserve it for long periods of time… Esparza, did you see any signs of preservation up there? Pickling jars or anything like that?”

“No, sorry. I wasn’t really looking, though. I did see that meat like I said; it looked all dried out like they’d smoked it, but even that can’t last too long. They hadn’t any way to vacuum seal the stuff; it was all just hanging exposed.”

“And how many of them are up there, would you say?”

Esparza took a few moments to think back. “I guess I’d say something like thirty to forty people. A lot of them were kids, too, and they had some older folks. Well… I mean old for me; I’m only twenty-six. I did see at least one lady that looked like a grandma, though.”

Johnny slumped back on the couch with his mouth hanging open. “Forty. Enough food to sustain forty people… spread out over hundreds…”