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

I couldn’t take any more. I finally lost my shit and said, “For fuck’s sake, I can’t believe I’m standing in the middle of a goddamned King Soopers trying to convince a bunch of starving people into lifting a single finger to rescue their own miserable, broke-dick lives.” Everyone had shut up at that point, but I didn’t care. I was on a roll now. Without even realizing what I was doing, my right hand had extended out in front of me, opened flat with the edge pointed down toward the floor, thumb tucked into the palm, with the elbow bent hard at ninety degrees and pulled into my ribs. Yeah. I was giving a bunch of starving civilians the “Knife Hand.” Not my finest moment, I know.

“You wouldn’t think that I’d have to twist arms and ‘pretty-please’ a crowd of desperate people into climbing out of a shit pit for the purposes of getting a hot meal and unfucking themselves in general, but I guess we’re all just celebrating Opposite Day! Outstanding!”

I grabbed the gallon jugs of water out of Davidson’s hands and threw them across the floor at the crowd of people, some of whom had to skip out of the way to avoid impact.

“Now hear this: I have officially expended my daily allotment of fucks on all of you. I have a group of people who are awaiting my return to safeguard their way to some territory that is not a complete and total shit show. If you would like to join our merry band on this grand adventure, I advise you to move your goddamned asses! Or, you can stay here for all I care. I hereby resign from trying to talk you jokers into saving yourselves!”

The area was dead silent after my little tantrum. As was always the case after such an explosion, I felt like a shit heel for yelling at them all. These people were all terrified. I didn’t have any idea what they’d been through, but I could easily see that it had been rough. Regardless, you can’t reel back an ass chewing once it’s been deployed. You just have to let it hang out there and hope some of it sinks in. I slung my rifle over my shoulder, turned and walked toward the Coke machine exit. I stopped next to Barbara on my way out and said, “Sorry, sweetie,” under my breath.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” she whispered back. “They needed a wake-up. Plus, that was kind of hot.”

I smiled at her. Man, if only she was twenty years younger. Hell with that, I would have settled for ten. I nodded my head towards the exit in a “let’s go” gesture and walked out of the store.

Once outside, I made a beeline back for our cars. They had to be fully refueled by now, and our group had been made to wait long enough for this stupidity. I heard the sound of footsteps trotting up behind me, but I didn’t turn to see who it was—even Davidson’s footfalls sounded eager.

“Man, that was so badass!” he said when he caught me up.

“It was not,” I shot back. “It was a failure. If I had been able to make my case better instead of blowing my stack, those people back there might have half a chance.”

“Uh, well, I think they’re following us,” he said.

“The fuck?” I said and looked back over my shoulder. There was Barbara, followed by that giant of a man (Fred Moses), Wang, and a trail of other people behind them. I even saw Edgar coming out at the tail. I faced back in the direction I was walking.

“Well, shit,” I said. “Now I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do with all these fucking people.”

“What the hell?”

Oscar came over from where our cars were parked to meet me as I approached, looking past me at the filthy pack of strays that had followed me back. He looked over at me (well, okay, he looked up at me—he is pretty short) and said, “Uh, so I guess we better find some more cars, eh?”

“Yeah. Sorry,” was all I could come up with.

He looked back at them as they approached and sucked air through his teeth. Finally, he said, “Nah, man. You guys took me and Maria in. I’m not gonna start being an asshole when someone else needs help. What’s up with these people? They look like they haven’t eaten in forever.”

Wang had reached us by then. He shook hands with Oscar and introduced himself. Our group had come together behind us, and Wang’s group had stopped just a few feet back from where Oscar, Wang, and I were standing. I spoke up so everyone could hear me.

“These people are gonna be traveling with us now. This is a good thing. More bodies mean a wider distribution of work. It means more sets of eyeballs to apply to lookout. And, more importantly,” I looked at each of my people for any signs of dissension as I spoke, “it’s a good thing because these people need our help and we’re in a position to provide it. If anyone has a problem with that, this is the time to sound off.”

It was a bit of a dick tactic, I’ll admit. Nobody wants to be the asshole that says, “Hey, no, fuck these guys,” while the guys in question are standing right there in front of them. It was probably unnecessary too; I had a good lock on the people I was traveling with by this time. None of them were one-way types. I knew I could rely on them to do the right thing.

“Well, okay then,” said George. He was positioned a little behind our group so that he could lean on a car bumper (he had a bad knee and used a cane to get around). “What’s the plan for provisions?”

I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. We had enough food and water for our group to keep us moving at least a few more days. These people are going to need some of that right now so we can get some strength back into them and get them pulling their own weight.” I wanted to keep presenting the idea that we were coming out ahead by bringing Wang’s group in, even if my guys were showing good attitudes. As I said this, Rebecca walked back to the Taurus (one of the cars we’d been driving) and opened the trunk, which is where we were keeping our rations.

I continued to lay out the plan: “We’ll get them squared away right now. This is going to put a significant dent in our supply, so we’ll need to address that soon but not today. The bit of logistics we need to handle right now is transportation. Two cars don’t cut it for…” I knocked out a quick headcount, “fifteen people. We’ll need two more cars at least plus we’ll need to spend the time to refuel them now.” I rolled my eyes as I thought about what it was going to take to keep four cars fueled. I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to see Wang standing behind me on my right side.

“I may have an idea for transportation, if you’re interested,” he said.

“I’m all ears, man,” I told him. I was excited to hear any ideas. The more initiative I could get people to take, the better off we were going to be.

“There’s a school bus off the side of the road just on the outskirts; about a twenty or thirty-minute walk from here. I’m pretty sure it was being used to transport people to emergency facilities. I don’t know how it’s set for fuel but it isn’t totally boxed in by other cars and traffic is light where I saw it. It might be easier managing one big vehicle rather than four little ones, don’t you think?”

I thought about it for a moment, weighing the obvious drawbacks (size and lack of maneuverability) against the positives. It was a simple, utilitarian approach. We would have all of our people and supplies in a single vehicle. Communication would be instantaneous; we could just talk to each other without having to pull over to the side of the road. If we felt a need to keep moving, we could continue to drive in shifts while others ate or slept. The only thing we’d really need to stop for was head calls. On the other hand…