Commune: Book One (Commune Series 1)

by Joshua Gayou

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  It turned out that Billy had a plan for the taper punch and drip pans. In modern cars, all entry points into the gas tank have anti-rollover valves to prevent fuel from pouring out everywhere in the event of a vehicle roll. These valves also have the unfortunate side effect of blocking siphon hoses. You can get around this by using a really thin, stiff tube cut at an angle; you have to twist it into the tank just so and you can typically get past the valve.

  Billy had neither the tube nor the patience for that, so he fell back to plan B; a method he said he read about in a book. Basically, we were going to get gas through the cunning means of punching holes in gas tanks and catching the spill in drip pans. We had a couple of pans, so as one filled up, we could swap in the empty and let it fill up while pouring the first pan into one of the gas cans.

  Neither of us were excited about hanging around the area in which we had just engaged in a firefight, so we drove south towards the 215 and then swung out due East in search of cars with gas tanks we could access easily. We didn’t have to go very far to find likely vehicles but we pushed out a few miles anyway just to put some distance between ourselves and Pep Boys. The closer we got to the 215 and the 15, the worse the pile up became and we eventually had to call off the advance. We got out of the trucks with tools and equipment in hand and made our way over to a red Toyota.

  I handed my rifle over to Billy. “Here, take that. Keep an eye out.”

  “You sure?” he asked as he reached out to take it. “It sucks to get a face full of gas if you’re not careful.”

  I smiled and gave him a pointed look. “You see yourself getting under a Toyota any time soon, big guy?”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  I could hardly fit under the car myself. I could see the tank and I could even reach out and touch it but I simply could not get far enough under to drive a hole with the punch. “Well…shucks,” I muttered and got back up.

  “Okay,” Billy said. “Next one, then.”

  “Nope.” I was walking back to the truck.

  “Hey, where’re you going?”

  “If we limit this to only the cars we can easily crawl under, we’ll be out here all week,” I called back as I rummaged around in the back of the crew cab. I finally found the jack and lever and brought it back over to the Toyota. After I had the car up on three wheels, I swung around to lie on my back.

  “God damn it, we should have grabbed some jack stands. This isn’t safe, Jake.”

  I looked over at the jack and struck it with the meat of my hand; two solid shots. “Seems okay. We’re probably not going to be written up by OSCHA.”

  “Wiseass…”

  “Oh, yeah!” I said, sliding under. “There’s all kinds of room under here now!” I lined up the pan beneath the tank, set the punch directly over it, and gave it a whack with the mallet. The punch dimpled the tank and partially broke through, at which point fuel started dribbling out and ran all over my hands. “Gaaah, damn it,” I grunted and gave it another quick hit. Having punched through fully, I yanked it out, producing a dribble of a stream that pulsed at regular intervals.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “What’s up?” Billy asked from somewhere off to the right by my legs.

  “Well, I could have sworn there was more in this tank from the sound it made when I started tapping it but the gas is just dribbling out.”

  “Oh, right. I’m an idiot. Hang on…”

  I heard the sound of his boots rattling away as he ran back to the truck. A short time later, he ran back. I heard a metallic slam followed by a wrenching squeal. A few seconds later, the fuel stream started running fast and even into the pan.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “There was no way for air to get into the tank to replace the fuel coming out. We were fighting suction. I just busted open the gas cap and stuck a crowbar in there to wedge the valve open to let the air in. How’s it going?”

  “Better slide that other pan in here…” was my answer.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon going up and down the street punching tanks. The first few took some time but after we got the hang of it, we fell into a sustainable rhythm. It wasn’t long before we had both the van and the truck topped off and all the spare gas cans filled.

  “This is pretty good,” I said, lifting the last can into the truck. “This never would have occurred to me. I bet we could keep a vehicle moving for years doing this as long as we don’t run out of cities and no one else gets wise.”

  “Three to six months,” Billy said.

  “Huh?”

  “This will work for about three to six months. After that, the gas will have gone to shit. It expires a lot faster than you’d think. You can maybe extend the life of regular gas out to two years if you load it with additives and store it in some high quality stainless steel tanks but we don’t have any of that. So: three to six months.”

  “Well…shoot,” I said. “There’s nothing we can do about that?”

  “Well there’s always something you can do.” Billy leaned on the truck bed and wiped his forehead. “You just have to decide if the result is worth the effort. There’re more important things to deal with. Shelter, sustainable food, sustainable water. By the time you have all that figured out, all the gas will have gone bingo. The only viable option after that point will be diesel.”

  “It lasts longer?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Billy nodded. “Diesel is just a fantastic technology. The engines are really forgiving and run on just about anything and diesel fuel will last a good ten years even if you don’t baby it. The only problem there is finding diesel vehicles, which were less popular for some damned unknown reason.”

  “Should we not just be tracking down diesel right now?” It sounded like we might as well just pull the Band-Aid off fast instead of slow.

  “Naw.” He kicked himself off the truck and started wandering towards the van. “Regular unleaded is plentiful right now. It makes sense to use it while we have it. We’ll know when it’s time to trade up. The gas engines will start running rough.” He pulled the van door open; levered himself up into the cab. “Come on, Whitey. We got another stop I been thinking about all day. Time to test out my theory.”

  5 – Trafficking

  Amanda

  We were already with Dwight and his group by the time Jake and Billy found us. I had no idea what to think at the time. I didn’t know if they would be any better or any worse than Dwight. They looked just like Dwight’s people. They were men, they were stronger than us; had more guns than us. Certainly they knew how to use those guns better than us. Obviously we were saved when Jake and Billy came along but I didn’t know that at the time. As far as I knew, Lizzy and I were just being passed along to someone stronger.

  Dwight was running a caravan when we found him. It was him along with three other men driving two motorhomes: Dwight, Hugo, Richard, and James. I never got their last names – don’t really care. Dwight appeared to run the whole thing, though. The other three just seemed to be the sheep following along.

  It was actually me that found them and flagged them down, if you can believe that. Lizzy and I were out foraging among some busted up shops looking for anything the looters might have left behind when I saw the motorhomes rolling by at a crawl, weaving around the wrecks and other trash in the road.

  I said, “Oh my God! Come on, Lizzy!” or something close to that and started running (or at least tried to run) in their direction with all the crap I was carrying slamming off my sides. I started screaming for them to stop; I screamed so loud I was hoarse for two days after. We were almost out of food and completely out of water. I was desperate.

  I remember both laughing and sobbing when I saw brake lights. Doors opened on both of the motorhomes and four men came out, every one of them wearing the same shocked expression. They were too far away for me to hear them say anything but Dwight turned to look at the rest of them, said something, and made a gentle, pushin
g “stay calm” gesture with his hands. He turned and ran over to meet us.

  “Hey, are you two okay?” he asked. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  “We’re looking for food and water,” I nearly sobbed. “Please, can you help us? Do you have any water? Please…my daughter…”

  You would think that I would have been able to see that something was off with him but I swear to God, there was nothing. He gave absolutely no indication of who he was or what he planned. I think it’s possible that even he didn’t know at the time.

  “Yeah, come with me. We have plenty. Other stuff, too, if you need it. Hugo! Grab some waters, man!” He started leading us back towards the others. He didn’t so much as lay hands on us. I was so relieved that my legs were weak.

  In the lead motorhome, he sat us down at the little dining table while all the rest of the men stood around us, hands in their pockets and looking very out of place. He put bottled waters down in front of us, which we both grabbed and started sucking down as fast as we could.

  “Whoa, whoa, easy!” he said. “How long has it been since you had water?”

  “Two days,” I gasped and started drinking again.

  “Okay, okay, slow it down a little. Sloooow…good. Don’t shotgun it, lady. You’ll make yourself sick. Are you both hungry?” I nodded. Lizzy said, “Yes, please,” which shocked me. The most I had gotten out of her in a while were grunts.

  “Richard, would you set them up, please?” The one named Richard rummaged in a pantry and pulled out a can of beef stew. He retrieved a pot from another cabinet and turned on the gas stove. I stared at the stove. I couldn’t remember the last time we had eaten hot food.

  “Let’s start with splitting this up between you,” Richard suggested. “If you keep it down, I’ll warm up another can.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m Dwight. This is James and Hugo. The chef is Richard.” He pointed at each of them as he spoke.

  “I’m Amanda. This is my daughter Elizabeth.”

  “Lizzy,” she said. I squeezed her hand. It was so good to hear her speak.

  James, who had been completely silent until now, finally spoke up in a rough, cracking voice. “Amanda, I’m going to reach out and take your rifle, okay? I don’t want you to be alarmed or nuthin’. We’ve run into some crazies out here, is all. We’d prefer to be careful until we all know each other a little better, see?”

  I agreed and gave the son of a bitch my own weapon.

  Lizzy and I ate the soup when it was ready, which was delicious, and they made us another can after.

  They were all on their best behavior for the next few days. Every other day, two of them would head out together to go scavenging among the deserted houses and shops, which was nasty work. You always want to prefer the shops because they’re mostly just boarded up and empty but they’re also almost always picked over for all the best stuff. That means that your chances of finding useful items are actually better if you go house to house. The problem there is that you’ll find dead bodies in most of the houses; people who died in the Plague. We all learned to stop being squeamish a long time ago but the average sane person still wants to avoid a rotting corpse if possible.

  I became restless before too long (I had always been an active person) and started asking Dwight for ways to contribute. “Give me a rifle,” I said. I’d go with them into the city looking for supplies. Just sitting around with Lizzy and eating their food made me feel anxious. I didn’t want to wear out our welcome. I even offered to do their cooking and cleaning. All of my offers were refused politely.

  “You and your daughter just need to rest easy for now,” he said. “You’ve both had a rough run of days and you’re still recovering; we can all see it. When you’re better, when you’ve gotten a bit of your strength and color back, we can all sit down and talk about what you can do to pitch in.”

  As it turned out, that discussion came late one night after we had all gone to bed. Lizzy, Dwight, and I were sleeping in one of the motorhomes while James, Richard, and Hugo slept in the other. They gave me the queen bed in the back bedroom while Lizzy took the bed over the cab because she was excited about having a bunk bed. Dwight was on the fold-out between us.

  I was woken out of a dead sleep by Dwight shaking my shoulder gently. I was startled at first because I could only see a dark shape hovering over me but I realized who it was and relaxed immediately.

  “Dwight? What’s up?” I whispered.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered back. “Nothing to be alarmed about. Don’t wake Lizzy. We just need to talk outside. The, uh, the group needs to get your input on something.” He turned and walked back to the door. He looked back at me, held his index finger up to his mouth in a shushing gesture, and quietly let himself out.

  Wondering what was so important that had to be dealt with this instant; I sat up and pulled my jeans and shoes on.

  They were all waiting for me in a solemn half circle when I stepped off the doorstep. It was the middle of the night and dark; there was no moon to see by and all I had was star light.

  “Hey, what’s going on, guys?” I asked, hugging my arms.

  “Well, the boys and I have been talking,” said Dwight. “We all agree that it’s time for you to start helping out around here.”

  “Okay…sure,” I said. I was confused why the discussion had to take place in the middle of the night but I was still foggy from having just come awake. “I can head out with someone tomorrow to…”

  “No, no,” Dwight interrupted. “Deserted as things are, there’s still plenty of danger out there to be found. Hell, we had to put some marauders down just before you two found us, even. I think you’re a lot safer right here.”

  “Okay, we can come back to that later,” I said, not wanting to let it go. “We talked about me taking on some of the chores. Where can I help?”

  I could hear Dwight smiling as he spoke. “No, look, that’s very gracious of you, but what we were thinking of is that there are things you can do…things you can provide…that the rest of us are incapable of.”

  “Provide? I…”

  “Comfort, Amanda. Companionship. It’s been awhile since we’ve all seen a woman. There are certain…appetites. Drive a man crazy.”

  I took a step back. “What the hell is this?!”

  “Easy, easy,” Dwight said. He was putting on his best reasonable politician voice. “Look, we’re not unreasonable. Aren’t we providing you and Lizzy with food, safety, and shelter? We don’t like it rough or anything; we all want this to be friendly. We certainly don’t want to all tag team you in a single night…” he shuddered. “Unsanitary…”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. With the exception of James, who was always quiet, they had all seemed so normal up to this point. I did notice the occasional lingering stare on my body every so often but that wasn’t any different from before when things weren’t completely crazy. As they said, there weren’t a lot of women around. I just put it down to men being men.

  I started to back further away and they all spread out and encircled me, keeping close and putting my back up against the camper.

  The window on the door slid open and I heard Lizzy’s tired, slurred voice up over my shoulder. “Mom? What’s going on out there? Why is everyone awake?”

  “Just go back to sleep, okay Lizzy?” Hugo called out. “Your mom and us are just talking. Nothing to be worried about, babe.”

  “Lizzy doesn’t have to know about any of this,” Dwight continued. “We’ll keep it from her and only do this at night. I mean, shit, is it really that bad? All you need to do is roll over, let one of us have a turn, and this’ll all be nice and easy.”

  Despite how disgusted I was, I actually began to consider what he was saying. What he was describing didn’t actually sound like the worst thing that could happen. Our culture has it all built up like rape is the absolute worst thing that could happen to a woman but it’s really not. It’s especiall
y not if you’re a mother.

  James, who was always so quiet and sullen, spoke up as if to emphasize my thoughts. “This is easy as long as you make it easy. I’m tired of all the talking…”

  “Now, uh, James, we all agreed there was a better chance of this working out if we all just…”

  “Shut the fuck up, Dwight. I’m tired of hearing you.”

  Dwight clamped his mouth shut immediately and took a physical step back, head down. I had always assumed he was in charge but that one exchange demonstrated how badly I was mistaken.

  “Now,” James said, a cross between a purr and a growl, “your kid is up there in that camper. One of us is going in there with her. Dwight wasn’t shitting you; none of us is interested in a fuckin’ kid. When she gets older we’ll talk, but for now, no thanks. So, if you play along, she’ll be fine. Fuck this up; she won’t.”

  James turned and looked at the rest of them. “Dwight, since you’re feeling so fucking chummy this evening, you can go babysit. And…” he levelled a finger at each man in turn, “…any…one…of…you cunts comes in her cunt…” he pointed at me as he said this, “I swear to the blessed baby Jesus himself I will personally thumb fuck your eye sockets. Not one more mouth to feed – I mean it. If one of you idiots gets her pregnant I’ll fucking kill one of you off at random to make up the god damned difference.”

  All of them were staring down at the ground by now. I was shaking in disbelief. I can’t tell you what I was thinking at that point. It was as though some part of my brain, the important part that makes me “Me”, had switched off.

  James walked over to me and put his face close enough to mine that I could smell his breath, which had the scent of Certs on it for whatever fucking reason. It can’t have been to make a good impression.

  “I’m first,” he rumbled. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  He turned and walked to the empty motorhome, opened the door, and climbed in giving every indication that he expected to be followed. There was nothing I could do. I went. Completely numb, I went.