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

She wished desperately that Jake was there. He would have the words necessary to bring them around; he always did.

Then she realized a moment later that he wasn’t there, that it was down to her, and that she was just going to have to nut up.

“Those are good points, Wang,” she cut in, stopping just shy of shutting him down with a verbal snap. “Now take a breath and let me answer. You’ve already said that just waiting for Clay to have his way shouldn’t be an option, so I won’t ask you to confirm the point—”

“Pick it up, guys,” Alan prodded nervously.

“Are they coming back this way?” Amanda asked.

“No, they’re… no. It looks like they’re telling jokes or something.”

“Okay. Be quiet, please, unless you see them coming back this way. Otis, be ready to pick up again if Alan signals.”

Otis nodded with wide eyes, striving to maintain in every aspect of his demeanor an appearance of noble piety.

Amanda looked back at Wang and whispered, “Right. We’re not rolling over for this son of a bitch; that’s to start. So the other option is fight back. You bring up a lot of great points, and we just haven’t worked them out yet. But can you at least agree that getting armed again is the first step? Can you agree that we’ll need to address that no matter what else we do?”

Wang sighed through pursed lips and nodded. “Yes. That’s true.”

“Good. Well… we’re running out of time. Clay gave a week. They’ve been here three days. Assuming he keeps his word, and we really have no clue if he will, that leaves four to get our shit together.”

“So, can we say we’ll solve the first big problem right now?” Tom asked. “Get the weapons down here and figure out where to stash them? Where can we? It’s like you guys said; they give our places a good going-over twice a day—”

“No,” Otis grunted; almost moaned. He hadn’t intended to speak. The word had nearly clawed its way from his mouth despite a fervent desire to keep it locked in.

“Otis…?” Amanda asked.

“No,” he repeated. “No… they… they don’t search e’rything. The bus. It has baggage compartments running along the side. On the bottom? They never search those.”

“Holy shit,” Greg whispered in awe. “Do they face the common ground or the slope?”

“Slope,” Otis grimaced.

“Well, that’s it,” Tom grinned. “Someone’ll have to head out and get ’em but… after that it’s just a matter of creeping up on Otis’s bus and stashing them away.”

“Otis?” Rebecca asked. She’d glanced away from the cook fires when he spoke, having detected the strain in his voice. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s a hell of a risk,” Otis said. He spoke slowly as if he feared how his words would be received. “Ben lives in that bus with me… how’s it gonna look if they catch us out? What if… what if they use Ben to punish me? I can’t… ah, shit. He’s… he’s all I got left…”

His face contorted as he spoke and, horribly, tears began to flow as he gritted his teeth. He made no effort to wipe them away, and this was perhaps more horrible to see, at least for some of the men present.

“Otis… damn, come on, man,” Fred said. He made no effort to hide his disbelief. “You’re not the only one with a child around here. You think Amanda ain’t takin’ risks? Oscar? Monica? You think Patty’s babies are less hers ’cause they didn’t come from her?”

“I know… I know…” Otis groaned.

“You just gonna let Ben starve?”

“No…”

“Well, come on, then. What’s goin’ on here? You helping us or them?”

Otis’s eyes shot wide; lips retracted back over sharp, white teeth. “What you sayin’, Fred?”

“What d’you think I’m sayin’?”

“Guys…?” Gibs said uncomfortably. “The hell’s goin’ on here?”

“Sounds like you comin’ close to saying somethin’ ’long the lines of ‘Uncle Tom.’”

Fred jerked on the spot as though he’d been struck. He heaved up off his chair and crossed the room like a slow-moving tsunami, causing the rest of the people scattered along the floor to lean out of the way and hiss warnings at him as he passed. He closed on Otis, stopping short of a collision, and hissed through tightened lips, “That… was… beneath… the both… of us . You go fuck yourself, Otis.”

“Fred!” Gibs hissed. “Fred, we can’t do this!”

“Don’t you worry, none, Gibs,” Fred said in a voice as steady as the granite in the mountains around them. “This was over ’fore it even started.” He looked at Amanda and said, “You let me know what you need me to do, hear? I’ll be ready, whatever it is.”

Then he turned on his heel and left the cabin.

“Well… shit. We’d better wrap this up, then,” Gibs urged, twirling a finger in the air.

“I’ll head out for the duffels tomorrow after everyone turns in,” Amanda quickly said. “My bedroom window dumps out behind the tree line. I’ll just climb out and scramble up the hillside.”

“I’m coming with you,” Samantha whispered.

Every head in that room swiveled around to look at her; Samantha, who hadn’t said so much as a word to anyone since burying Lum. She didn’t bother to look at the others, staring directly at Amanda instead. Her eyes were hollow over purple bags, and her skin was pale.

But she did not blink.

“My camper opens away from their tents. I can get out without them seeing me. I’ll keep an eye on them through the bedroom window; they won’t be able to see me through the blinds. I’ll wait a while after they turn in, then I’ll come get you.”

Amanda took her time in answering, wondering if she bore witness to renewed purpose or some foolhardy ploy for revenge. She thought of asking but hesitated, seeing in the younger woman’s eyes that the question was already anticipated. It was this more than anything else that decided the matter for Amanda; this and the truth she could see behind Samantha’s eyes—that such a question openly voiced would be regarded with the same contempt commonly reserved for a discarded bit of filth. Such sentiment was, to Samantha, worth as much as a runny patch of shit.

Amanda recognized this truth in Samantha as she recognized it in herself. It was undeniable; inescapable. Perhaps most importantly: to Amanda, it was acceptable.

Elton stood beside Danielle and Cuate on the flat grass pitch of Karn’s Meadow Park with a line of useless solar panels arranged mockingly to their backs and a press of some two or three hundred people gathered to their front. The sun had gone down some time ago and, with the syngas fuel supply having dwindled down to levels nearly as depressing as their food, there was a sea of torches out there bobbing over heads like incendiary buoys.

Elton knew they were necessary for people to see where they were going, but he disliked their appearance all the same. They reminded him of a big, damned mob. Pitchforks would have been fitting, he thought, if there weren’t so many of them going around armed with rifles.

Those rifles were a source of bitter amusement for him. More weaponry in their group than that of a South American drug lord, for all the good it would do them. They sure as hell couldn’t survive by eating bullets which, when you cut out all the bullshit, was the very reason they’d all assembled in the park.

Cuate stood quietly between Elton and Danielle, one arm wrapped around Elton’s thigh, and looked out over the ocean of strange faces suspiciously. Despite his grasp on the pant leg, Elton made it a point to reach down periodically and touch the boy softly on the head, just to confirm he was there. He’d been holding the boy’s hand when they walked over—felt it go rigid and pull back in his grip—and took a moment to kneel down and speak with him. When prodded, Cuate admitted nervously that he could not remember having ever seen so many people in his life. Elton didn’t know what the hell to make of that, but he sure didn’t like it.