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

“Emissary? I thought you planned to just kill him outright.”

“Well, maybe I don’t need to.”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry, Clay. I truly have no idea.”

“ Yeah . Well, head out, then, Amanda. Maybe it comes to you in fucking prayer.”

He watched her retreating back silently, different corners of his mind pulling away from the center in varying directions. There was something there. He wasn’t yet sure what that something might be, but it was there, itching away like a hemorrhoid perched on the caldera of his anus.

He watched until she was far away—nearly to the door of her cabin—then whispered, “Go toss that big fucking cowboy out of bed, Bradley, huh? Roust him up and tell him to come here.”

They came together in Amanda’s cabin for one last meeting before the uprising. They noted with a kind of country sensitivity that the nights were getting colder—possibly the first sign that summer was nearing the edge of its influence. You were always sensitive to the world’s mood when you lived up in the Bowl. Amanda ran a fire in her little stove to fight the chill away, and the shutters were closed against the night air.

They did not open the evening with a prayer, feigned or otherwise. The crackle of electricity permeated the atmosphere; a measure of excitement. In a colossal blunder of goodwill, Clay had cut down his occupying force and sent the better part out of the valley. The remaining party constituted a rather manageable one-to-one ratio with Amanda’s own fighting adults, and so now they found themselves truly back in the fight. Whereas before they poked in the dirt with sticks and dreamt of some way to engage an enemy lopsided in both numbers and advantage, they now looked like having a chance at a real stand-up fight. They all felt the combined weight of possibility and opportunity, and the charge inside the little cabin’s common room was frenetic.

Gibs brought along a bottle of wine to the event grumbling that he’d probably never get around to drinking the stuff himself—not unless he became desperate—and they extracted the cork with gusto. Old glasses, coffee cups, and fruit jars spread through the room to those fanciful for a taste and Amanda passed a tray of seasoned roast potato slices around the room while the recipients complimented her excellent table along with Olivia’s exceptional rosemary.

They struggled valiantly to make pleasantries; to behave as if they’d gathered for the pleasure of company, each to the other, but the farce was not upheld very long. There was true business to pursue—the kind best contemplated at night when the shadows ran long and diaphanous in the firelight—and they set to.

It was Samantha who called the meeting to order, her sharp-nosed face drawn long and severe under hair pulled back into a tail. Her knuckles seemed large compared to her fine wrists and her hands, laid as they were at the center of her lap, resembled talons.

“Should we start? There’s a lot to cover.”

The room, so lively before, filled with so many possibilities, darkened a shade, and the rest of them felt the weight of what they’d gathered to discuss. They’d momentarily forgotten in the discovery of their unlooked-for hope the reason why such meetings were a necessity. Samantha’s words had jarred them back to the present, and many sensed Lum’s ghost standing close behind her.

“She’s right. Let’s get this moving,” Amanda said. “There’s a lot to figure out, and we don’t have much time left. First, I’ll give you all a progress update. Samantha and I went out last night—or I suppose you’d say it was this morning. The firepower was retrieved, and we managed to get it stashed away in the bus’s luggage compartment as planned.”

“That’s a minor cause for celebration right there,” Barbara sighed. There were scattered nods throughout the room, but no one spoke.

“Now, the next order of b—”

“Alan? Something wrong, son?” Fred interrupted.

Alan sat at the edge of Amanda’s dinner table—really just a salvaged picnic table from a dead family’s backyard. He was right next to the shuttered window to the left of the cabin’s door, and now he pulled the shutter open and stuck his head outside.

“Hey, Alan, what gives?” Gibs grunted.

“Be quiet a minute.”

They fell silent and waited while he probed the night through the window. The small measure of heat Amanda had managed to cousin into the little room began to leak out and the skin along the back of her neck prickled.

A few moments more and Alan said, “Give me a second…” before posting off the table and exiting through the front door. The others looked around at each other; some of their faces showed the first signs of mounting alarm. Gibs stood from his folding chair, selected a long piece of stove wood from the corner basket, and twisted the end in his palms like a Louisville Slugger. He nodded curtly to Fred, Tom, and Oscar and they followed him over to line up at the front door. Greg stood, wheeled Alish over by the door to Lizzy’s bedroom, and pulled a carving knife from the kitchen counter. They waited in this fashion, sometimes tensing as they heard Alan’s footsteps crunch by outside. This carried on a few minutes more, then a soft knock issued from the front door before Alan pushed it open.

Gibs held it long enough for Alan to squeak by and pressed it shut behind him. “Well?” he hissed.

“I guess it was nothing. Didn’t see anyone out there.”

“Any sign?” Amanda asked. “Prints?”

“Not that I could see, but there’s a lot of needles out there. Dark too.”

“Believe I’ll step out for some fresh air,” Otis stated in a loud voice. He made for the door, and Patricia moved to join him.

“Like some company?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am, love me some!”

He held the door for her and bowed slightly as she passed. Before he exited, he glanced at the others remaining and whispered, “’Spect we’ll have some call to be out’chere the remainder of the evenin’, folks. Plenty of reason; maybe Patty’s feelin’ sorry over Drew and the Wanderers. We’ll think-uh somethin’.”

The door latched shut, leaving the rest of them in silence.

“Okay… let’s all take a deep breath, guys,” Amanda said. “We’re getting jumpy, which is okay. But we can’t be jumping at shadows right now. Gotta keep it together just a little longer.”

Gibs resumed his seat, the hunk of stove wood still clenched in his fists. He posted it between his feet, leaned forward, and said, “Alright, boys and girls. We’ve got some ass behind us; mission achieved. We’re back to the main problem, now. What the hell do we do with the kiddies when it’s time to make with the curb-stomping?”

“Jake is back,” Amanda blurted.

“He’s what?” Gibs coughed.

“Back. I spoke to him this morning.”

“Well, where the heck is he?” Oscar fairly hissed.

Amanda leaned forward over her knees, drawing the others in with her body language, and said, “I saw him up on the rim. I’m not sure, but I think he might be up there now. If he’s not then he’s close by.”

Gibs’s face seemed to darken progressively as she spoke. He said, “And where exactly has your boy Jake been?”

She looked directly at him and measured her words out evenly. “He was up in Jackson for the last few days. According to him, he’s ‘harassed’ the people up there into a tightly packed group. He’s been giving them all sorts of problems to worry about, basically, so they don’t send any more people up here.”

“Define ‘harassed,’” Gibs said.

“I can’t.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”