Joshua Gayou - Commune - Book One

At the door, he leaned the bar against the wall. He then placed his shotgun next to it. He looked over his shoulder at me. “That gun’s safe is on?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Take it off.” He knocked on the door.

We stood there a few moments, after which he knocked on the door again. Glancing down at the wall, he pushed the doorbell button. There was no discernable sound from inside the house and Billy muttered the word “dumbass” under his breath.

We waited another few minutes. Billy finally looked back at me with his eyebrows raised in question. I nodded that we were good and backed up to give him some room. He hefted the crowbar.

I expected him to slam it into the door or perform some other act of violent destruction, but he did the exact opposite. He placed the flat tip of the bar into the crack of the doorframe where the bolt would be, gave it a shove, and began to pry at the crack almost daintily. I was shocked. I had no idea how much noise he had been preparing to make with the thing over by the garage door, but the only sound he produced here at the entryway as he tickled the door was a mild grinding. I half expected him to raise his pinky off the bar as he levered it around. After about five minutes’ worth of work, he had destroyed enough of the jam, the door, and the deadbolt that the whole thing swung open easily.

“Hello?” Billy called into the home. The lack of response carried a psychological weight with it, as though the air in the house was pushing back against us. He set the crowbar aside and shouldered the shotgun. Not looking back, he said, “Muzzle, Little Sis. Don’t point that at anything you’re not ready to kill.” He lifted his own muzzle and passed the threshold.

The inside of the home was unexpectedly tidy. Having been conditioned to find disarray in all things, the cleanliness of the front room was off-putting. I had to force back the urge to look back out the front door and confirm that it was still the same fallen world outside. We made our way from room to room, Billy always in the lead. We stayed in each location long enough for him to clear the area and look in all the closets before moving on. At one point, Billy reached out and tapped my right elbow lightly with his hand and whispered, “Not so high, Little Sis. Makes it hard to maneuver. Pull ‘em in tight to your ribs.” I did as he suggested, noting immediately how the new position felt easier for my shoulders to maintain.

As we moved toward the back of the house where the master bedroom was, a foul, rotten smell became apparent, becoming more oppressive as we went deeper. I don’t really know that I can do the experience justice through description; it was the smell of rotting meat and sweet, cheap perfume. As we approached the final door at the end of the hallway, I was holding my rifle one-handed by the grip and, with my left hand, holding a tail of the flannel shirt up over my mouth and nose. I had to breathe slowly and shallowly to avoid gagging.

Billy worked the knob on the door and swung it open. Inside, there were two bodies lying in the king-sized bed. Vast expanses of bone were visible among soupy ropes of red, meaty tissue. They were both glued to the mattress by brown pools of congealed liquid and surrounded by a tornado of flies. I just had enough time to make out that something white was moving along their surface before Billy bellowed, “Gah, sonofawhore!!!” and slammed the door. He and I both stumbled back down the hallway, coughing and gagging.

We made it back to the front room, turned right, and exited straight out the front door. Outside on the doorstep, Billy leaned over and placed his hands on his knees while coughing violently. I leaned against the wall of the house and tried to teach myself how to breathe normally again.

A few minutes later, still bent over and panting, Billy said, “That was pretty much the worst thing ever. Can we just leave now?”

“I’d love to,” I said, “but we haven’t seen inside the garage yet.”

“Ah, God damn,” he coughed and spit into the bushes. “Excuse me,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Ready?”

“No,” he grumped and walked through the front door.

We both engaged the safeties on our weapons and let them hang as we walked in. Billy indicated off to the left, and I followed. I could smell that rotting odor as soon as we stepped in this time; subtle but still there. I don’t know how we missed it the first time around.

Once in the hallway, Billy tried the handle on a door on our immediate left—what we were both sure was the garage access. It opened into a dark garage with the bumper of something large and grey just visible. There was a spool on the front of the bumper with a coil of steel cable.

Billy pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket, turned it on, and shined it at the vehicle. It lit up what may have been the most gorgeous Jeep I’ve ever seen. Along the side of the hood in black and red letters was the word “rubicon.”

“Holy shit,” Billy whispered. “Jackpot. Nice wor—Hey, where are you going?”

“Keys!” I called back as I went back inside the house. I had a panicked image of having to go back to the master bedroom to fish in someone’s pants to get the keys—I didn’t think either of us could do it. Luckily, I found a set of keys hanging from a wall hook in the kitchen. Confirming that the largest one on the ring said “Jeep” on the side, I grabbed it and returned to the garage.

Billy was just rolling up the exterior door as I came back out. When he took his arms away, it began to roll back down, so he pushed it back up into place. “Good, you’re back,” he said as I approached. “Would you look around and see if you can find anything to wedge this open? There isn’t enough tension on the springs to hold it in place.”

I started digging around, conscious of the fact that he was standing there exposed to the outside world with his hands extended high in the air. After what seemed like way too long, I said, “I’m not finding anything.”

“It’s okay, take your time. This thing isn’t heavy; the springs take up most of the weight of the door. I can hold it here with a finger. Look for something like a long piece of wood, or maybe even some rope.”

A few more minutes and I finally found an orange extension cord. “I found this,” I said, holding it up for him to see. “Does that help?”

“That’ll do.” He pointed up at the top corner of the door where it connected to the track. “You see how the top of the door has a wheel that rides inside the track?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now do you see how the track is suspended from the ceiling by that support bar?”

“Okay, I see what you mean,” I said. I put the cord aside and found a step stool. I positioned the stool under the top corner of the door, grabbed the cord, and climbed to the top step. I was just able to reach the door. I threaded the extension cord up over and around the wheel that road in the door track and tied it off. I then took the other end of the cord and wrapped it a few times around the track’s supporting frame and tied that end off as well. “Okay, let it go.”

He did, and the door stayed open. “Nice one,” Billy said and approached the driver side door. I went to meet him.

At the door, Billy held the key up in the air between us. “Let’s keep it under a hundred, okay?” he smiled and handed me the key. I couldn’t help but grin back as I took it from him and opened the door.

I slid into the leather seat, which was much more comfortable than I expected, and inserted the key into the ignition. I turned it to the right without actually trying to start the engine. The dome light and instrument panel lit up. It had a touch screen integrated navigation and radio system in the center of the dashboard that was set to the radio tuner. I could hear light static over the speakers.