Joshua Gayou - Commune - Book One

I did get lucky at a gas station I found right next to a Starbuck’s (those places where just everywhere) and found non-perishable food in the form of pretzels and beef jerky. The water had been cleaned out by those who had come before me.

The good news was that since I was now on the Nevada side of the border, there were already hotels and casinos available that had been positioned on the utmost extremity of the legal limit to entice those lunatic gamblers who couldn’t restrain themselves from waiting the extra hour or so to just drive into Vegas itself. For me, this meant that lodging would be plentiful. I had not needed to use my sleeping bag under the stars by that point, and I wasn’t looking forward to doing so in the Nevada desert.

I opted for Whiskey Pete’s across the way from the gas station. Crossing the highway, I approached what I can only describe as a hideous attempt at a castle tower slapped onto a tall, hive-like hotel building (“See Bonnie and Clyde’s Getaway Car!” advised a sign out front). I had no idea what castles have to do with either Whiskey or gentlemen named Peter, but then, searching for any kind of logic in a gambling town isn’t exactly the done thing.

The hotel (which I had started thinking of as The Hive) was around the back of the casino itself. I wasn’t interested in navigating my way through the casino. Casinos usually smelled like a stale, wet ashtray even before the world ended. I was in no rush to see what the experience turns into when you mix in desert weather, dead people, and a lack of ventilation. I veered to the left through the parking lot and swung around the back.

What I found was a little swimming pool oasis populated by plants that had seen better days; the pool itself was drained. Ringing this “oasis” were rooms accessible either via doors or large windows, should I decide to break them, which I decided would be my last resort if I couldn’t find a way into any of the rooms. I wheeled my trailer to one end of a line of rooms, parked it, and checked the chamber and safety of my rifle. I approached the first room; saw that the door was wedged open. I slowly pushed it open with my left hand while the rifle was awkwardly shouldered with my right.

As the door opened, my eyes registered frantic movement before they adjusted to the dim light and I noted a man somewhere in the area of my own age but looking far worse off than me. His clothes were filthy and torn, his hair couldn’t decide which direction it wanted to stand up, and his skin was so caked in dirt and grime that I couldn’t be sure of his pigmentation. He was leaned over, reaching for something on the table.

“That’ll do right there,” I said.

He froze, arms stretched out in front of him. He grimaced, and I saw him mouth the word “fuck.”

“Hey, ease up, okay? I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just looking for a place to spend the night. Go ahead and straighten up—you don’t need to stay hunched over like that.”

He straightened into a more comfortable position and turned towards me, keeping his hands where I could see them, which I appreciated. “Kind of hard to accept with you pointing that at me,” he said, eyeing the rifle. His voice was nervous and hesitant.

“I know, and I’m sorry about that,” I told him. “But you have to admit: can’t be too careful anymore.”

He nodded and swallowed. “So, now what? What is it you want?” he asked.

“I told you. I’m just looking for a place to sleep. I’m going to back out of your room here and find somewhere else to sleep. I’ll just leave you alone, right?”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” I nodded and started to move backward.

“Hey,” he called. “You have any food or water with you?”

I stopped and tried to center the barrel on his chest without looking like I was trying to center the barrel on his chest. “Nothing I can spare,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Oh. Alright,” he muttered.

I backed out and let the door swing shut. I collected my cart and started walking backward by the line of rooms while pulling it with my left hand. I kept the rifle leveled at the door of his room as I went while attempting to watch all directions at once in case he had friends covering me from another angle.

I spent the next few seconds thinking furiously about my new problem. My first instinct was to just leave the whole area entirely and go find a new place to shack for the night, but I discounted that as soon as it occurred to me. My new friend knew there was someone else out here now, and he had the advantage of having spent more time in this area than me. I didn’t know how long he’d been here, but I had to assume he knew all the tricks and secrets of the terrain. He knew I had supplies—he at least knew I had a nice military grade rifle. I didn’t want to continue on with a possible stalker, but I also didn’t just want to kill the poor man outright.

So, though it may sound crazy, the plan I came up with involved staying right where I was. I figured on finding a vacant room, settling in, and giving him a night to see if he would behave himself. If he did, I reasoned he was probably safe enough that I could at least help him collect some provisions together from the surrounding area.

I found another vacancy with a busted door handle perhaps six or eight rooms down from where I met the human flea colony. Pulling my rifle up tight to my shoulder, I entered into the room hip and barrel first with eyes squinted against the change in light level. These rooms were not big or complicated, and it didn’t take long to clear. I pulled my supply trailer into the room behind me and shoved it into a corner.

Hurrying now, I moved to the back of the hotel room to poke my muzzle into the bathroom to confirm that it too was empty. It was, so I came back into the main area, righted a chair that was knocked over by a writing desk, and set it up in a straight line across from the door. Following that, I gathered what was left of the bed comforter (it had been ripped to shreds) and piled it into the chair in order to make its appearance even more irregular. My thought was that anyone barging into the room would be distracted by the unexpected and confusing sight of a nebulous mass lying in wait before them. It might be worth a half second or so, but I wouldn’t need much more than that.

I moved to the window and arranged what was left of the curtain such that my little slice of heaven couldn’t be spied into unless that hypothetical spy mashed his face right up to the bottom corners of the window. Having made these preparations, I got on the other side of the bed so that it was between me and the door. I sat down in the space between the bed and the wall behind me, propped my rifle on the bed with the muzzle pointed at the door, and settled in to wait.

I was just about to give up on my new friend when he finally came around (I saw his movement as he crept by my window, shadowed by the moonlight on the curtain). At first, I thought I was only dreaming as I had been drowsing in and out of sleep for what felt like hours, but I realized very quickly that it was real when I heard his feet scuff outside. There were several moments that felt like minutes to me as we both struggled to make decisions about what would come next. I could almost hear him arguing with himself out there, and I came very close to saying, “Just go away, okay? Just go away, and we can pretend you never came by.” I didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered.

Having apparently decided, he pushed the door open and slunk into my room, hardly breathing. He saw the chair and blanket almost instantly gasped and dropped into a crouch. Almost as quickly, I saw the silhouette of his head cock to the side as he uttered, “…the fuck?”

I shot him three times in the chest, and he dropped straight down onto his rump like he had been cut from a noose. He continued to breathe deep, slow, and ragged for a few remaining moments while the knee of his left leg flexed in and out rhythmically—two seconds to bend, two seconds to straighten, and so on. I think whatever was left of his conscious mind was still trying to run away as he died.