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

I nodded. “Yeah, well, he was probably right though. It sounds like they were armed and I didn’t see any weapons on you guys. ‘Guns versus Fists’ is never a thing you want to get into unless you’re the one with the guns.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe we could have ambushed a few in the dark, taken some of their guns, and evened things up.”

“Maybe,” I said, but I wasn’t buying it. In my experience, it’s pretty hard to take a gun away from someone who doesn’t want to give it to you. Typically, you need to shoot them a lot to pull it off.

“So, anyway,” he continued, “since then Edgar’s gone roach and complains at anyone else who doesn’t do the same.”

“Roach?”

“Yeah, it’s what some of us call it when you hide out like Anne Frank: absolutely quiet at all times, venture out only at night, hide like your own shadow is trying to kill you. It sucks.”

I nodded agreement. It did, in fact, sound like a shitty way to be.

Davidson and Barbara popped into view down the street ten minutes later; with him lugging the jugs of water and her clutching the wet nap packages. He was wearing his usual goofball grin, and Barbara had a concerned, purposeful expression on her face.

“Here they come,” I said to Wang. “C’mon, let’s go inside and get your guys cleaned up a bit and hydrated. We’ll figure out what’s next after that.”

It turned out that what came next was the whole goddamned crew joined up with mine for a cross country field trip.

“Brace yourself,” I advised Barbara. “They smell like they’ve been swimming… well, they’ve been swimming through it.” She nodded at me and followed us in.

Everyone was where I’d left them, more or less. I noticed Edgar was a little off to the side talking quietly to a smaller group, not that I really cared. “Uh, hey guys,” I said, waving with a hand. “We’ve got some water for you and Barbara, here, will come around and hand out some wipes for you to clean yourselves up with. We gotta get your sanitation under control before you get sick. You don’t want to get dysentery right now; it’s likely to kill you.”

Barbara started making the rounds among the group as I talked. I noticed she was handing out only one or two wipes at a time and said, “Fistfuls, hon. Their hands and faces need a total rub down.” She nodded to me and returned back to the beginning of the line. “The rest of you take the used wipes and just throw them in a pile on the floor. No sense cleaning up, we gotta get you outta here.”

Davidson glanced my way with raised eyebrows. I knew what he was thinking. I was a little shocked myself. I hadn’t realized I was going to say that last part until it came out of my mouth. I knew it was the right thing as soon as I said it, though. These people were going to die here if I left them.

“Just a minute,” Edgar said from his little cluster of people. “Exactly where do you propose to take us?”

I ground my teeth and took a deep breath through my nose. “For now, just out of here. Back to the others. We have some cars that we’re traveling in; we can get a few more and bring you with us, I guess.”

There were some uncertain glances around the room from everybody when I said this. I could see that some people were ready to pick up and go right then, but others weren’t so certain. They had been living in fear for a while now. I wondered how much of that fear was earned and how much of it had been implanted by Edgar’s attitude.

“And where is it that you’re traveling to?” he asked.

“Uh, well, we don’t know.”

“You don’t… know?”

“Yeah, I said that, didn’t I? We’re going towards Denver. It’s a big city, probably a lot of things we can scavenge. We were thinking we might find a little patch out in the suburbs; maybe find a place worth setting up a camp.”

“Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?” Edgar said to the rest of the group. “These people, of whom we know nothing, propose to take us into their little group to go to a new area which may or may not be more secure than this?”

“What, you call this secure?” I said. “Couple of Molotovs busted over all the crap piled up in the windows, and you guys are looking at a Soylent Green barbecue.”

“This has worked out for us so far,” Edgar said, overriding me. “We know it’s safe here because we’ve been here and it has worked. Even if someone gets curious and pushes their way in, we know we can get away from them. We know this because we’ve done it. We know this area…”

“Hey, listen, you dipshit…” began Davidson. I cut him off.

“Davidson, watch how you talk in front of my girl.” Barbara smiled at me and winked. The ladies never could resist my animal charms.

“Sorry, Top.”

I rolled my eyes. Top . I was gonna need to have a talk with him at some point. Top is what you call the Master Sergeant. I was a Staff Sergeant when I left the Corps, and I hadn’t even been one of those for twelve years now.

I looked back at the group of survivors. “Look, how much food have you got left in that little pile back there? How long is that going to feed eight people? How well is scavenging going right now? Are you still finding what you need or are things starting to thin out?” I looked over all their faces, hoping mostly that someone (anyone) other than Edgar would answer. Thankfully, my man Wang didn’t leave me hanging.

“It’s getting tight,” he said. “We can still find things to eat, but we’re going to bed hungry most nights now.”

“I cooked a rat a few nights ago,” one of them said; a young, slender looking man who I later learned was named Jeff.

“A rat ?” I asked, disgusted. I looked back over at Edgar. “And you want to stay here?”

“You don’t even know where you’re going,” Edgar reiterated. “You can’t promise us that where you’re going will be any better or safer than what we’ve carved out right here.”

I was dumbstruck. Clearly, he and I saw the palatial digs of the King Soopers in an entirely different light.

“Guys, you’re overlooking something really important,” Wang cut in. “These people have guns. We have a much better chance going with them. They can defend themselves. What do we have besides a couple of sharpened mop handles?”

“How many guns have you guys got?” asked a large black man in the rear of the group. His voice was Darth Vader deep.

“Hey,” I nodded to him, glad that more of them were willing to speak to me rather than let others speak for them. “What’s your name, man?”

“Fred.”

“What’s your last name, Fred?”

“Moses.”

“Nice. Okay, Fred, we have two rifles and a pistol, all semi-automatic,” I said.

Edgar jumped back in all over that, the little twat. “Three guns between us and… how many did you say were in your group?”

I sighed: “Seven.”

“Seven?” he scoffed. “So three guns between fifteen people? That hardly sounds like enough.”

A black lady who had so far been quiet as a mouse spoke up and said, “I don’t know if we can go out there on the road again. Nevermind the people who have come through this area shooting guns and whatever else. There are bad people out on the road.” She hugged a young girl to herself (her daughter, I guessed) and shivered.

“The more of us that travel together, the stronger we’ll be,” said Barbara to the woman. The woman looked down at the back of her daughter’s head, uncertain.

“Three guns are not exactly what I would define as ‘strong,’” Edgar replied.