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

He continued on like that, reciting from memory while the others followed along in their divergent texts. The words they heard differed from those they read enough that they focused on both equally, many of them hearing the old, familiar litany almost as if for the first time. Alish considered the words Otis said and the ways in which they might be interpreted by any nearby listeners and felt a surge of admiration for the man’s inherent guile. It was a thing expertly done. He paused intermittently along the way, working at times to recall certain word combinations and, at others, requesting those with a copy of the book to turn to a new section, but Alish heard the underlying theme through each recital.

Forgiveness.

She met Amanda’s eyes as Otis spoke on; saw the flash of recognition there and nodded.

After a half-hour’s time (long enough for a few impromptu speeches and one group prayer), Alan excused himself to step outside. He returned a few minutes later, causing Otis to pause in his delivery before continuing doggedly on. Alan crossed the floor to Amanda, leaned close to speak with her briefly, and then returned to his spot on the bench. Amanda waved a hand at Otis, who ceased speaking immediately.

Gibs, who’d appeared to be dozing on his feet throughout the entire proceedings, perked up at the sudden lull in delivery and hissed, “We’re sure?”

Alan nodded. “I poked around outside a bit before picking a bush. Was Julio one of the guys that followed you over?”

“Who the hell is Julio?” Gibs whispered.

“Shorter guy. Darker skin. Goes around with a clean shave and long, wavy brown hair?”

“Oh… yeah,” Gibs said. “Yeah, that was one of them.”

Alan gestured vaguely toward the tents. “Well, they’re still out there, but they’ve pulled away to shoot the you-know-what with their buddies. Looks like they’re sharing a bottle by one of their cook fires. Otis should stay where he is; they can see through the windows where they’re at.”

Otis stood abruptly at this; he’d been in the process of easing down onto a log as Alan spoke.

“So let’s hurry up and get this done,” Alan whispered. “Before one of them comes back over to check on us.”

Amanda thrust her chin over at Rebecca and said, “Can you sit by one of those windows and keep watch?”

Rebecca winked and repositioned to get as much of the common ground in view as possible. Amanda waited for her to settle into position so the sounds of Rebecca’s movement wouldn’t overpower their whispers.

“Okay, guys. Quick, like Alan said. First thing’s first: Barbara? How’re you holding up, hon?”

“I had my first meeting with Clay this afternoon,” Barbara reported, shaking her head. She sounded somewhat drained as she spoke and her defeated appearance inspired Gibs to zero in on her with the most attention he’d devoted to anything in days, which admittedly was not a great deal, to begin with, but she shook her head at him softly. She collected her thoughts briefly and said, “I don’t know how long I can keep it up with him, everyone. I laid out all the reasons why the task is impossible today—went over all the numbers between what we have and what he needs.”

“And?” Oscar prodded.

“And… it basically is what we already knew it was. We have so much time to figure out a miracle, or he just takes everything. He’s holding to the timeline originally promised, though, so there’s that. He told me to go back to the drawing board today and come up with something better, but I don’t really think he believes I can come up with anything new. I know I can’t for a fact. And that’s a big problem, ladies and gentlemen. There’s only so many ways I can move these numbers around to make it look like he’s getting unique information and… he’s a shrewd customer. You can’t really fool him for any length of time if you can fool him at all…”

She fell silent, picking at a patch of imaginary lint on her pants.

“What is it?” Amanda asked.

“Oh… nothing. Well—no, it doesn’t matter.”

“Barbara, what?”

The older lady sighed. “I just don’t like talking to him. I don’t have any reason why I should be exempted from doing so but… I feel dirty every time I do it. Like he’s a cat, and I’m a mouse or… I don’t know. Do any of the rest of you get that feeling? Like he’s playing with you?”

“Bastard has a high opinion of himself,” Gibs muttered.

“Every time I try a fib with him, I feel like he knows the truth before the words have even left my mouth,” Barbara concluded. She folded her hands and said nothing more.

“Okay…” Amanda began. She paused a moment, calculating rapidly, and then began again. “Okay, we need to move fast, then, before Clay loses patience. So… we have the gun duffels stashed up the hill; that’s step one. We have to get to them and hide them somewhere close.”

Wang raised his hand at this, almost sarcastically. It was a perfunctory gesture; he did not wait for acknowledgment before he said, “What good will that do?”

Amanda fell silent. It was a good question.

Wang elaborated his point. “We can’t move around freely, you guys. I mean, honestly, what happens? There’s two duffels out there, right? Assuming they weren’t found.”

“Oh, they weren’t. You can count on that,” Tom said.

“Fine, whatever. They weren’t found, then. You still gotta get them back down here. Where do you hide them? In the bushes close by? There’s no burying them; all the tools are accounted for in the garage. We can’t stage them anywhere, right? They watch us every time we leave our houses.”

“So what’re you sayin’?” Oscar asked. “Just let ’em take the grub?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. I wanna know what the hell the plan is. I at least wanna know we’re not making this up as we go; somebody’s gonna get killed—”

“Wang,” Amanda tried.

“No, damn it, just listen a minute. Pap’s guys search every house twice a day: once at curfew and then again in the morning when we start moving around. I guess we could figure out a way to stash a handgun or two but… two … freaking duffel bags worth? That’s not something you can just hide inside your mattress.”

“Hey, Wang, look. Just chill a minute,” Fred rumbled. His voice brushed against the boundaries of impatience.

“No,” Gibs grunted, shocking the others. “No goddamned chill. He’s asking good questions. I want to hear what our answers are.”

Wang reached toward Fred, as much to let him know he was nearing the point as to indicate he understood Fred’s annoyance, and said, “I get it, you guys, okay? I want this as much as the rest of you. But this isn’t some action movie. If we don’t get this stuff figured out, they’ll just line us up against a wall and shoot us. Trust me.”

Oscar shifted uncomfortably and suppressed a cough.

“The biggest problems follow, okay? First, no body armor. Clay locked it all up with the weapons, and we didn’t stash any backup in the caches. So there’s not a lot of room to screw this up, not that there was a lot before. Next, hiding them. These guys outnumber us… hugely . We’ve already lost six, four of which could actually fight. Alish is down now… sorry, Alish, but you are… and let’s not forget: there’s going to be a bunch of kids smack in the middle of this when the shooting starts. Never mind hiding the rifles; where are you gonna hide the kids? There isn’t any point where Clay’s not keeping an eye on us. This whole thing doesn’t work unless we can spring a surprise attack on them. If we send the kids running into the hills, Clay will probably know something’s up.”

Amanda had sharp eyes for the others as Wang rattled off points. She saw uncertainty in a lot of faces; despondency and flagging resolve. She realized she had to do something very soon before they deflated entirely and whatever initiative they might hope to create was pissed away into the dry earth. She looked at Gibs, trying to catch his eye and signal for an assist, but he only stared sullenly at the floorboards, nodding his head gently as Wang ticked off point after merciless point.