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

Jake reached out across the center to rest a hand on Otis’s shoulder (an uncharacteristic familiarity that surprised me) and said, “Thank you. That’s going to make a big difference to us.”

“You folks are having dinner on me tonight as well,” he continued. “Won’t take no for an answer.”

“That’s much appreciated,” I said.

“You have any more of those guns?” Robert asked out of nowhere.

Without missing a beat or hesitating in any way Jake’s head rotated to him, any of the warmth his face held freezing over in that one fluid motion, and he said, “’Fraid not.” He offered no further explanation but also did not look away.

After a few moments, the perpetually sour look melted from Robert’s face and settled to an expression of uncertainty. He looked down at his lap and said, “Fine, then.”

“Cheer up, Squirt,” said Billy. “You can take the Remington, there. After tomorrow, you should be able to shoot it as well.”

“My god damned name isn’t Squirt,” growled Robert. He got up from his chair and walked off on his own toward the overpass to the north of us.

“I’m sorry… about him,” said Samantha. Listening to her speak, I thought I understood the true definition of a ‘mousey voice.’ “He’s been really angry since our parents…” she trailed off.

Jake nodded. “Lost them on the road?”

“We… yes.”

Jake nodded again and looked off at Robert’s retreating back. “Yeah,” he said to himself in a low voice.

As promised, dinner was provided that evening courtesy of Otis and what provisions his people had found on the road. Mostly this was canned food, some of it Chef Boyardee, some of it Campbell’s, but he did produce a profound delicacy in the form of a nearly two foot long dry salami that he had been saving either for when they were feeling very low or very high. He said that he insisted on sharing it on account of our “extravagance and generosity.” It was so delicious that I half wanted to offer him another rifle to see what other food he might have stashed away. We do a lot better these days with the subsistence farming and our hunting parties mean that meat is often available, if not plentiful. One tends to forget those early days before any of us had managed to establish a real toehold anywhere. All food was canned, dried goods, or MREs if you were really lucky to stumble across a cache—most of which tasted like “a wet bag of ass” (Gibs’s words, not mine), to tell the truth. A regular old piece of salami cut fresh from the package was heaven.

We managed to produce a fire, get the food warmed up, and put the fire out before the sun went down. We were in an exposed position out in the open located next to two major highways and decided it would be best to avoid a fire during the evening. I recall there was no moon during that time; however the starlight has been forever strong since the lights went out—we couldn’t rely on the night to obscure us from view, so part of the discussion during dinner involved arranging a watch schedule between us throughout the evening. The larger number of the group meant very short shifts even if we ran two people to a shift; one of the first of many benefits I would come to realize in living in greater numbers.

With the logistics of the evening out of the way, the conversation turned to the exchange of news between our two groups. Otis brought a good deal of information with him out of New Mexico.

“They started rounding us up and transporting us by vehicle to the tent cities outside of Albuquerque,” Otis said. “School buses, Greyhound buses, Army trucks… hell, we even saw people getting pulled behind trucks on flatbed trailers and big shipping semis with containers full of people. Sick or healthy, minor symptoms or nothing at all. Didn’t matter what your condition was; if they found you, they brought you.”

Billy got up as Otis spoke; made his way to the truck and the container marked “pantry.” Otis’s story halted as he moved and Billy said, “Please go on. Don’t mind me.” He came back to his chair with a very familiar brown bottle and some Dixie cups.

“Hey,” Otis said in appreciation. “Whatcha got, there, Billy?”

“Tellin’ stories is thirsty work,” Billy said as he offered a cup to Otis, who took it and nodded. He filled two other cups a third of the way full and passed them out to Jake and me. He looked to Robert (who had come back when the food came out) and Samantha to ask, “Will you share a drink with us?”

“Seems pretty stupid, honestly,” said Robert. “What good does it do to stand watch if we’re all going to do it drunk?”

Billy, who had just been getting ready to pour two more cups, betrayed a fleeting expression of hurt before he covered it up with a smile and said, “Well, no one’s planning on getting drunk, kid. It’s just to take the chill off, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Robert said. Samantha tried to lay a calming hand on his arm but he shrugged her off, and I could see that he was winding up for quite a tear. “Please explain to me how you take the chill off without drinking to a point of being numb. I mean, it seemed perfectly clear to me that the same thing is accomplished more easily by putting on a fucking sweater as opposed to intentionally thinning out your blood. Exactly what backwoods, shit-kicker, home remed…”

“Robert.” It came from Jake. His voice was flat and low; I almost didn’t hear him. Robert certainly did—the tone of Jake’s voice stopped him in his tracks before he could truly unload.

“Yeah?” Robert asked. He looked less than pleased at being interrupted while in the process of building up momentum. His voice was impatient.

“Not a single thing that’s come out of your mouth since we’ve arrived has been useful. It would be good if you thought about that and maybe see if you might be able to contribute something meaningful the next time you open it.”

“Oh! Well, how abou…”

“Shut the fuck up, Robert.”

I had only known Jake a few days by that point, but in that time, I don’t think I can recall him ever using the word “fuck” in conversation. I have since learned that he can curse with some of the best (you should see him when he gets going with Gibs sometime) but he tends to be very polite with people he doesn’t know well… at least until he gets a lock on them. You become attuned to his manner of speaking and assume that it’s the only way he communicates. In reality, he’s more of a vocal chameleon—changing expressions and speech patterns to suit his audience (another one of those behaviors that tends to draw people to him). Consequently, for those rare occasions when he does say “fuck” in strange company, the reaction in those around him is similar to what you see in animals when thunder cracks unexpectedly: they cringe and try to crawl under the nearest cover. Even with people who have only just met him, it’s as though they sense that he pulls that word out only for special events.

In Robert’s case, his mouth fell open, and he seemed to shrink about three inches in his chair.

“I’m sure you’ve had a long and stressful day,” Jake continued as though nothing had happened. “Why don’t you turn in? I’ll take your watch for you so that you can be fully rested for tomorrow.”

Samantha rose from her chair, eyes downcast, and pulled at her brother’s hand. Inwardly, my heart ached for her embarrassment, but there was nothing any of us could say that wouldn’t make it worse. He followed her, trying and failing to walk with some kind of dignity. They got into the minivan and were hidden behind the tinted windows.