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

A knock sounded from out in the hallway.

“Yeah,” he called, still looking down at the notebook in confusion.

Pap poked his head in through the door. “Sorry, Baws. Uh… they’s a lady out’chere wants to see yah.”

Clay glanced up and saw that Pap’s ever-present hat was absent, a thick compression line in the hair over the ear and around the back of his head the only indication of its existence. Eyebrow lifted, Clay said, “Why, Pap. It’s not your mother out in the hall, is it?”

“Nawsir.”

He maintained his position, neither willing to enter into the room or go the fuck away, so Clay stuffed the notebook back into the desk, shut the drawer, and nodded. Pap did step into the room then, pulling back a few steps from the door to say, “This way, ma’am…” His cartoonishly oversized mitts mangled the living shit out of his hat as she passed.

She stood out in the center of the room, a small island between the large desk and the sofa. From behind her, Pap mouthed, “I’ll just be outside…” and reached for the door.

“Hang on,” Clay called.

“Yeah, Baws?”

“Esparza come back yet?”

“Nawsir. Been lookin’ out fer ’im. Ain’t come around yet.”

“Fine. Give it until afternoon today. If he doesn’t turn up, send someone down to Jackson to find out what the fuck happened to him.”

“Y’all suspect somethin’?”

Clay looked at Amanda and shrugged. “Later, Pap, huh?”

“Yassir.” Pap left the room, leaving them alone together. Clay continued to regard Amanda, wet eyes fixed in place.

“Clay…” she began and then stopped.

“Are you here to share some good news regarding those crops outside?”

“No, we’re not there yet.”

“Thought so. I have a meeting with, uh, Martha later on today to start discussing the topic.”

“Martha?”

“Martha Stewart,” he nodded. “You’re gonna find I’m shitty with names, but my heart’s in the right place, huh?”

She puffed a small gust of air through parted lips; something short of a scoff, though Clay didn’t know what the hell such a thing might be called. Her eyes never wavered in their regard, though. He admired that. He was getting tired of weasely fucks.

He nodded to the chair directly in front of the desk with his chin and waited for her to sit. She did, and he took a few moments to realize her smallness; she seemed undersized for the chair she’d taken, and the desk positively dwarfed her.

“What’s your name again?” he asked.

“Amanda.”

“That’s right. I know who your daughter is before you make it a fucking point to rub it in, huh? I’m just not so great with names like I said.”

She laced her fingers in front of her stomach and nodded slightly.

“So… Amanda. You’re not here to talk about the only thing in the world I actually care about—a thing I daresay ought to be the most important thing in yours; I mention this just in passing, you understand—so I’ll assume you have some goddamned thing you want to lay on the table, elevating it to a stature at least equal to the fucking rutabagas.”

She was silent for less than a second as she processed what he’d said before opening her mouth to answer. Clay was impressed; it hadn’t been his most convoluted delivery by a long shot, but he still liked it when they kept up.

“Actually, Clay, I’ve come to make a request.” She’d chosen her words very carefully, he thought. Buried beneath the surface of her statement, he imagined he heard the ghost of the phrase, “ask a favor.” His eyes narrowed as he considered adopting a different approach.

His hands rested palm-down on the surface of the desk. He turned them over to her and asked, “What can I do?”

“Just hear me out,” she began, and when he opened his eyes wider in response, she pressed on, “we—this is the people who live in this valley, now—we make it a point to get together and worship on a pretty regular basis…”

She saw his left eye narrow when she said the word “worship”; wondered what that might mean. It was enough of a reaction that she felt her heart catch. She wondered if she might have miscalculated, but it was now too late to withdraw. She was committed.

“There aren’t a lot of Bibles left anymore, unfortunately, and we found early on that it was just better for us to get together. It helps to stay connected, as well, you know?”

The corner of Clay’s mouth cracked open, showing the tip of one yellowed canine. “Jesus people, huh?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Yeah…” he said slowly. “Thought I heard you reading some verse back there. When you gave your folks that send off.”

He fell silent and watched her thoughtfully, head bobbing gently from the slow tapping of his foot. She worked to meet his gaze; held it unflinching for a period of time passing beyond comfortable when she realized a feigned timidity might better suit her purposes. She dropped her eyes to her lap and awaited his response.

He made a strange sound a moment later; something she’d not encountered before when dealing with anyone else. It sounded like the word “Uh,” but it came sharp and final, clearly not a question. The sound dropped out between them and fell flat, abrupt like a single hand clap, and she was unable to resist furrowing her brow in confusion.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been wondering a while, now, and just haven’t had the chance to suss out. I wonder—current situations, predicaments, and the like being as they are; also a general state of basic intelligence fucking assumed (a state with which you strike me as being fucking afflicted)—how is it, I ask to you, that a group of reasonable, modern folk reconciles the idea of sweet, loving, hippy Jesus up in the sky (that invisible floating prick of a wizard), smiling down on all the miserable sons-a-bitches with his sweet and holy love; meantime that very same group of sons-a-bitches finds itself in the process of extinction through a series of mishaps a betting man like myself might refer to as biblical plagues; one of the reasons being, at the very least, that one of those mishaps was an actual fucking plague?”

Her mouth had slowly come open as he rambled. Now that he finished, she asked, “I’m sorry, was that a question?”

“Don’t be cute with me, young lady. I’ll have your fucking answer. Now.”

“I suppose we haven’t given it much thou—”

“Bullshit,” Clay declared, leveling a finger at her chest. “I’ve been a sinner since before most of the people up in this mountain even knew what sin was, give or take a few of you fucking people, and even I know enough about that… fucking… book … to realize what the Jesus-heads must be thinking right about now, huh?” He swung his finger away from her as he spoke and she realized shortly after he’d finished that he was pointing to the old King James Bible on the shelf across the room. It seemed he’d been over the place enough to know what books were available and where they were located. It was mildly interesting, but she didn’t see how the knowledge might help her.

“What is it?” he continued. “Is it habit? You think this is the end times? How does that work out; the rapture’s coming? Or it’s already fucking happened? And if that’s how you see it, what must you bastards be thinking about your positions in the great scheme of things now, huh?”

She realized abruptly that the subject of religion made this man nervous. Perhaps even afraid. She wondered about that; wondered what it might mean. Was he suffering from guilt, or… was it may be something more direct? She supposed it was possible he was only made uneasy by the need to account for the idea that he was dealing with “true believers.”