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

I grimaced. She was silent a short while longer, then, looking back at me, she said, “Wanda and Emily got pinned down, but I got away. I… I left them behind.”

Neither her chin nor lip quivered but her eyes, those dangerous goddamned green eyes, began to well up with water as they stared into my own eyes unblinking. I was held in place by her stare, hypnotized, unable to move, trapped; like I was pinned by the gaze of some half-goddess/half-viper hybrid. She blinked, and tears ran down both cheeks, breaking whatever the hell spell it was that held me. It felt like a physical cord had been cut. Heat bloomed in my face as I looked away.

She continued: “I don’t know what happened to them. If I had stayed, it would have happened to me. I’m ashamed that I ran; I regret that I did and wish I could have stayed. At the same time, the part of me that I don’t really like is grateful… grateful … that I was such a little fucking coward.”

I looked back at her sharply, opening my mouth to argue but she talked over me.

“I couldn’t have done anything,” she repeated. “I know that. I’m basically a weak set of tits and a round ass out here. That’s how it is now. I’m fucking sick of it, Gibs. I’ve done that since I grew a set of tits. I don’t want it anymore.”

She lifted her chin off the bar, and the sad, heartbroken little girl wasn’t there anymore. There was fire there, and not just in her fancy hair. She started looking born again hard.

“None of that shit was my fault; that belongs to the animals that were chasing us.” She leaned forward and stabbed a finger into my chest; it was light, she barely made contact, but it got my attention—I took a moment to determine if I wanted to be pissed or not and decided to let it go. “Kyle and Jessica weren’t your fault. That belongs to those fucks that shot them. A lot of people on this bus feel like I do, Gibs. They don’t like their chances in this world. Now, will you man the fuck up and help us or not?”

I snapped my mouth shut and took a minute to regain composure.

“Did I just get no-ballsed by the Instagram hottie?” I asked without thinking.

A guffaw was shocked out of her. She put her hand over her mouth and began to shake violently with mad laughter. She coughed, cleared her throat, and said, “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”

I nodded and put my fist out. She bumped it just like the young guys in the platoon used to do, like even the damned officers were doing, right around the time I left.

“Let’s get some chow,” I said. “My brain works better on a full stomach.”

Davidson and Oscar finished fueling up the bus not long after my little “pep talk” with Rebecca. They reported filling a gas can four times and transferring the result into the bus’s tank, twenty gallons in other words, which Jake agreed would probably be enough fuel to get us where he intended to go. I was pleased to see that what we had taken apparently hadn’t put much of a dent in the fuel barrel’s level, based on how hard Oscar, Davidson, and Jake were all struggling to get it loaded back on the trailer; I had no desire to be so deep in debt that I couldn’t climb back out again if I had to—those things add up.

As everyone else was coming back onto the bus to settle in, I took my opportunity to run off for my own little evacuation drill. It seemed our group had found their way into some sort of vehicle rental agency offering everything from regular street transportation to quads and snowmobiles. I found the restroom sign in the low light and went to go have a look.

There were two his and hers heads, both with a single commode and one with the standard wall urinal. Between fifteen people (even fifteen underfed, dehydrated people), both restrooms looked like they just came out of the losing side of an abusive relationship. I looked down at a toilet already overfilled with the canned food of Christmas past and shuddered; the smell alone was enough to make a guy second guess his religion. Picturing the process of coming close to that mess was enough to elicit a shiver running through my body, and I shook my head in disgust. My gut churned, growling at me in aggravation, and I began looking around the room for alternatives.

The urinal was out of the question; it was just as bad as the commode, and I had no desire at all to take any splash damage. Squatting in a corner was more uncivilized than I was in the mood to be; I hadn’t crapped into a hole in the floor since the Philippines and was in no hurry to resurrect the practice. My gut growled up at me again, a sharp stab driving all the way through to my pelvis.

I regret to report that I finally landed on the only option remaining to me; the sink. Major drunken tears aside, this was the first time I had ever attempted such a maneuver, and it was a learning experience, to say the least. If you think it difficult to get the job done from a handicap John that elevates you a few inches higher than desired off the ground, try doing it sometime from a perch that has your feet swinging out in space. Finding the appropriate… leverage… is a challenge.

If there’s one thing they teach the Marines, though, it’s how to improvise, adapt, and overcome (Semper Gumby, as the saying goes); in the great battle between the sink and my ass, the sink lost, and I thankfully didn’t take any casualties. Having finished the shameful act (honestly, I don’t know if I’d be relating this right now if I hadn’t spiked my morning coffee with Jack), I hobble-stepped away to see to the aftermath with a trusty pack of wet wipes.

I returned to the bus with a lighter heart only to find everyone in their seats waiting for me, which was frankly a little unnerving given what I had just been up to. There was no way they could know what I had just done, but I felt a little heat in my cheeks, regardless.

As I sat down in the seat and leaned over to re-twist and tape the power lines together, Wang muttered, “Everything come out okay?”

“Can it.” I touched the ignition lines long enough to fire up the engine and then taped the ends up as before.

“You know, you don’t have to be the last one to go,” he said. “We won’t mind if you take your turn sooner.”

“No, trust me; it’s really better this way.”

I could hear the start of laughter in his voice and prepared myself to exercise restraint. I would not let this little shit break me. I was not about to break character and start laughing—that would ruin the whole damned joke.

“If it’s a question of safety, we could always send someone with a rifle to kind of watch over you; maybe offer a little moral support?”

I looked up to respond but made sure to keep my voice low. “Wang, just how the hell were you the fastest sperm? You bunch of ratbags don’t have hands clean enough to hold my nose.”

He cracked and began belly laughing. He sat back in his seat, shaking his head. I turned forward in my seat, allowing a smile only when I knew my face was hidden from view. I waved out the window to signal at Jake, who responded by throwing his truck into drive and passing by on our left. Once he cleared our length, he stopped and waited for me to get turned around. I pulled up behind him and shot a thumbs-up through the windshield.

He led us back down the highway towards the mountain range we had just passed, now on our left side, and continued on for five miles before turning off a crossroad and driving straight towards the range. In time, I saw that the road actually delved into the range itself; Jake passed through without slowing down.