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

“Clay…” she began, thinking furiously. This was delicate work she hadn’t planned for. She picked her words as carefully as if they were steps through a minefield. “I… I can’t really speak for anyone else, okay? But for me, it’s something that brings comfort.” She paused for a moment as she organized her points. It was not easy work; she hadn’t considered such things for a long, long time. She remembered reading once that the best lies were always couched in truth, and though she’d never been much of a liar herself, the sentiment rang true. “Put it this way… I don’t even know if there is a God, okay? I grew up with God because my mother told me such and such a thing was true. And that was a belief she held because her mother or father told her such and such a thing was true, as well. And I guess we believe those things because they tell us to, but then you get to a certain age, and the world kicks your legs out a few times, and maybe you start asking questions. So, now? I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s there or not. But enough of us still seem to hold on. And it makes them feel good, so the rest of us who are maybe a bit shaky on the subject figure ‘Okay… that’s good enough’. Can you understand that? Going along with a thing just to keep the people around you happy?”

Clay sighed; an exhausted sound that seemed to go on and on. His lips parted marginally, and she saw the gleam of his tongue as it pressed into the side of his cheek. Then his eyes lowered to the desktop.

“Huh,” he grunted. The contraction required of his stomach muscles to make the noise caused his head to rock lazily on its neck. He did not look back up at her.

“We used to get together here in the cabin,” she continued. “In the front room… I’m guessing that’s not going to be allowed anymore. Unless…”

His eyes levered up again, peering at her through the tangle of his black eyebrows.

“No,” she rushed to conclude. “Okay. We could get together in my cabin if… that’s okay?”

“What’s it worth to me?” Clay asked.

“Worth?”

“You’re asking me for a concession I don’t have to give, Amanda. With no bargaining power to speak of, you’re asking for a concession. Now, assuming I’d like to proceed from the position that this all works out in the end, huh, that we all find a way to make this shit work, what do you have to offer me in the way of a good faith arrangement?”

“I don’t understand… you’ve taken our weapons.”

“Oh, yes, and so they’ll stay fucking taken, locked up in the fucking attic until I decide otherwise, but we’re not talking about such things. I don’t require your weapons, Amanda, and let’s just have this out in the fucking open, huh? I don’t need your help to take your provisions, either. All I have to do is step out that door, snag the first son of a bitch I see that rode up here with me, and say, ‘Load that shit up and take it home.’ I don’t need your help, consideration, or fucking consent to take things from you. Not even your lives, if you want to be morbid about it. I do, however, need these things if I’m playing a longer game.”

Amanda shifted in her chair and crossed her legs. Clay’s look had gone hungry like a fever burn. It made her intensely uncomfortable.

“You don’t think there’s any way to divide up your food such that my needs are met and your people don’t starve, do you?”

Amanda shook her head. They’d said as much already.

“Uh. I’m inclined to agree with you. And that’s the problem. My hands are effectively tied here, huh? If I take less than what we need back down the hill and say, ‘Sorry, folks, but this is what we could get, let’s all start drawing straws…’ Well, I think I made my point there already. That’s a mob, quick as you please.”

He sat up in his chair and leaned low over the desk.

“On the other fucking hand, say you folks come down the hill with me? Don’t make that face at me, just consider this a moment, huh? You want me to consider your goddamned Kool-Aid fest, you just listen a minute. All of you: down the hill with me and carrying all the food there is. The story becomes that you’re with us now, including all of the farming expertise you’ve managed to accumulate. We’re gonna spool up mass production, see? How would you be viewed then, do you think? Fucking saviors, I’d say.”

“But Clay…” Amanda started, shaking her head, “…that doesn’t change the situation. There’s still not enough food—”

“I’m betting that’s a problem that solves itself.”

“But how?”

Clay leaned back in his chair and drug a palm down his face, sniffing loudly. “We don’t stay here. We make the case for traveling to a warmer climate; somewhere the winters aren’t so bad. There’s always another town over the next rise. We’ve done it before. It’s a good way to bleed off headcount too, it turns out; I’ve seen it happen. If we have you with us, though—a group of people that can get a fucking farm going, huh? People will want to work to preserve that. Less chance of riot, huh? You need quite a bit of dissatisfaction to carry off a riot…”

“But there still wouldn’t be enough food,” she repeated.

“Well… you folks wouldn’t have to go without,” he said.

“What?”

“We’re not gonna starve out the crew that’s contributing the most, are we? Look, it goes without saying: we have some dead fucking weight in our community, huh? Certain of the people contribute more than others. We’ll move ’em to the front of the breadline.”

“God…” Amanda blurted.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, you don’t have to answer now, huh? If the prospect is giving you a case of the fucking monthlies? Just consider it a while. Maybe take that shit back to your first Bible study or whatever the fuck it is you do and put it on the floor for discussion.”

“Then you’ll let us…?”

“Yes, goddamn it, I’ll fucking let you. But you have an answer for me soon, get it? I’m about running out of patience for this sensitive bullshit. I’m not cut out for it; gives me a fucking rash.”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Amanda nodded. “I’ll bring it up with them tonight.”

“Fine,” Clay said, waving her off with an annoyed flip of his fingers. He waited for her to get a far as the door before calling out to her.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Think about where Jake might have gotten off to. Think about how we can safely bring him back in. As it is, if I see him… or one of my boys sees him, we’re just gonna kill him.”

“Okay, Clay.”

“Soon, goddamned Amanda. I want your thoughts on where he got off to very fucking soon. And those thoughts? They’d better be profound.”

She nodded and let herself out.

He stared at the open doorway a moment before reaching for the drawer. His hand paused over the pull as he thought about what must surely come next, then he folded his hands together on the desktop and waited. He watched the doorway quietly for at least ten seconds before his patience fizzled out like a wet fuse.

“Well, goddamn it?”

The question conjured Pap as if it was loaded with magic words of command. Abracadabra, if you like, and then poof! There was that big damned Irishman standing in the doorway, mutilated mass of woven straw restored to his head.

“Hey, Baws. Mind if I come in an’ sit a spell?”

“Yeah, come on, Pap. Take a load off.”

The cowboy crept in timidly; a demeanor made ridiculous by his near cyclopean frame. He lowered into the same chair Amanda had occupied not a moment before, wooden joints creaking in alarm as his weight fully transferred. Clay found himself holding a shallow breath as the man settled in, wondering if the furniture would hold or split apart under the unreasonable demand of Pap’s bulk. Slabs of Chambray-wrapped meat strained over the armrests, and he shifted his ass around like a dog with a rectal itch as he struggled to find a comfortable position. He finally settled into a static pose, though even a blind man wouldn’t describe him as being “at rest”; ankle crossed over a knee, clutched in both hands to keep it from sliding back to the floor, gut sucked in and breath held to spare his ribs against the hurtful chair back, face red with strain.