Commune: Book One (Commune Series 1)

by Joshua Gayou

  “Well, I did, but this is a bit much,” he told me. He nodded to Billy and waved him on, signaling that we would follow. “I figure we can spell each other. Billy has to go every time if he’s going to insist on stopping every few miles…” he trailed off as we took the 300 North Street exit.

  I considered his offer but ultimately decided to reject it. “No,” I said, “you get the next one. Like you said, this probably gets easier the more I do it. I’d prefer ‘easy’ to happen sooner rather than later.”

  “Well, I can respect that,” he said. “You’re on. I’ll take the next one.”

  “Do you mind if Lizzy stays with you?” I asked. “It didn’t seem like a big deal last time until we got into the building. Once we were in there it became clear how dangerous it actually was.”

  Jake scratched his chin and was silent a moment. “You sure you’re comfortable with that? I failed miserably the last time we tried-“

  “No. No you didn’t,” I interrupted. “You went and got her back. At great risk to your own life, you got her back. You fought for her as hard as her own father would have.” I stopped talking as his whole demeanor changed. Any bit of latent expression sloughed from his face completely, leaving a half-lidded, dead stare in its place. It was the kind of look actors assumed in movies when they had to pretend to be hypnotized. This was the first time I had witnessed this change in him but it would not be the last; I would later learn that this is the exact same expression he wears when he decides to kill someone. I had forgotten to be afraid of him as I became used to his manner and company, even enjoyed having him around. This look reminded me why I had feared him when we first met.

  I looked away from him and suppressed a shudder. “Anyway, I know she’s as safe with you as she’d be with me,” I said and let the matter drop.

  “Yeah…” I heard him say from about a hundred miles away.

  Billy attempted to lead us around the back of the building as we had done earlier that morning but there was actually no “back” to drive around to. There was a firing range immediately behind the building, which they must have used to test the ammunition that was made on site. He drove us around to the south side of the building as a compromise and we backed in there.

  We all got out of the vehicles and Billy promptly came over to throw a monkey wrench into our planning.

  “Listen,” he said, “I don’t like how visible we are from the road. All three of you hang out here by the vehicles and I’ll go through this place myself. You have good visibility; if you see anything coming lay on the horn and I’ll come out.”

  “Are you sure?” Jake asked. “One of us can lay on the horn just as well as three.”

  “I am. I want you guys to be able to support each other if a group comes along. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

  We checked our rifles and leaned them against the truck. He opened a rear door on the Jeep for Lizzy to hop into and then leaned against the bed of the truck to eyeball the road. Billy tried the side door and found it unlocked this time. “Well, that’s not a hopeful sign,” he muttered. “Be right back.” He disappeared into the door, shotgun and flashlight in tow.

  We weren’t waiting out there very long, maybe only five or ten minutes. Jake and Lizzy chatted about the music selection that had ended up in the truck. She had apparently been schooling Billy on some of the very best Lady Gaga had to offer all afternoon. Their conversation was interrupted by Billy bursting from the building.

  Jake and I both swung back around towards him with our rifles levelled. We both lifted the muzzles high when we saw it was him. He had the wild eyed look of a prospector too long in the hills away from humanity who had stumbled across a massive gold strike. He walked directly up to us and said in a very low voice, “Let’s start moving the food and water back over to the truck.” I couldn’t be sure but I thought I saw his eye twitching. “We hit the god damned jackpot!”

  -

  We made Spanish Fork just after four in the afternoon. This was the next in a series of planned refueling stops that Billy had mapped out on our route to Jackson, Wyoming. Our vehicles had become an integral part of our survival so the intent was to not push things. We would stop for top-offs whenever our tanks were at half empty or less, assuming the area looked hopeful (meaning there were enough cars to tap with good visibility in the surrounding area). Spanish Fork was a town dense with housing along with the businesses to support that housing; there were vehicles aplenty for us to exploit.

  We exited the freeway at Main Street and only had to proceed south for a block or two before we started passing vehicles stopped in the middle of the road. Rather than getting in too deep, we opted to stop there just in sight of the freeway and begin what I was already thinking of as our topping-off operation. I had engaged in this activity once before with Billy when we first picked up the Jeep but I didn’t see the particulars at the time; my job at that point had been to stand as a look-out for Billy while he worked under the cars.

  “Come on,” Billy said as he hefted the jack from the truck bed, “Jake can keep a look out for us this time. You can watch me and learn how to do this. It’s really easy.”

  Hearing this, Jake positioned himself between the truck and the Jeep just between their front bumpers, his AK-47 held at the ready. He started scanning back and forth over the horizon like some kind of automated sentinel. Billy positioned the jack towards the rear wheel of our first target (a grey sedan), showing me how to find a strong jack point as he did. He lifted the end of the car up just high enough that he could wriggle under on his back. I lowered down onto the ground and lay on my side to see what he was doing.

  “Okay, just stay out there and watch what I do. At some point I’ll find a jack stand and this process will actually be safe…” His hand reached out, snagged the lip of one of his drip pans, and swung it back up over his head in an arc like he was making a one-winged snow angel. He pulled out a mallet and punch to go to work on the tank.

  The first drip pan was nearly filled when the flow of gas began to die out. Billy tsked to himself and said, “Eh, maybe the next one has more.”

  “Guys,” Jake called from his position as Billy wiggled out from under the car. “Company.”

  Billy and I locked eyes. I could see the gears turning in his head; an ambush with two thirds of the adults in such a vulnerable position was bad news. “How many?” he asked without moving.

  “I only see the one right now. He’s keeping his distance.”

  “Let’s get out there and see,” Billy said to me and started to scoot back out from the car. From my position, all I had to do was roll to my back and sit up. I was walking back toward the Jeep while Billy was still in the process of achieving an upright position, looking over Jake’s shoulder as I opened the door, told Lizzy to stay down, and pulled out my rifle. There was indeed a single person a quarter of a mile distant – far enough away that I could see only basic details. He stood unmoving, watching us.

  “How long has he been there?” I asked as I came to stand beside Jake.

  “Not sure. I called out to you as soon as I noticed him.”

  “He’s just been standing there watching?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “Not…sure.”

  I looked at Jake and saw that this was true. His expression was focused; the unconscious look he assumed whenever in the process of solving a puzzle. He looked out over the distance between us and the stranger, unblinking.

  “We have a choice, here,” Billy said from behind us. “We can pack up and move on or approach. Either option comes with its risks.”

  “Leaving has risks?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Jake answered. “Right now, we can see him. If we leave, we’ll lose sight of him but he’ll probably be able to keep an eye on us. Means he can follow us. In fact…” he trailed off as he started looking out in all other directions, “there could be friends of his closing in right now while he stands there distracting us.�
�

  “Look!” Billy said.

  The stranger put one hand above his head and began to wave at us in large, sweeping arcs. He then lifted what was clearly a rifle over his head and held it aloft for several seconds, giving us all plenty of time to see it. Finally, he let the barrel drop towards the ground where it swung back and forth (there must have been a two-point sling on it), holding it out away from himself in that position, pointing down at the ground. He turned his back on us and began walking due north back towards the 15. He continued to hold the rifle out away from himself in the same fashion as he walked away.

  “What the hell…” Billy muttered.

  “I think we’re being invited to a meeting,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, nodding slowly. “I believe you’re right, Amanda.”

  “Sure, a meeting. Or luring us into a damned trap,” grated Billy.

  “I’ll go,” Jake said. “I want to see.”

  “This ain’t firewood, Jake,” said Billy, making no sense at all to me. “We know there’s something out there this time. The smart bet is to just move on.”

  Jake sighed, a sound that was so worn and exhausted that I almost felt by way of premonition the person he would eventually become. I have read about hindsight bias and know how it works but I would almost swear to you that I saw into his future in that moment; saw the weight he would one day place voluntarily on his own shoulders. It made me feel tired to think of it.

  “Billy,” he said with the sound of someone repeating an old argument, “I’m not going to live in a world where the first instinct is always ‘shoot them in the face’. If they prove out to be bad people, then fine.”

  “That’ll get you killed,” Billy answered.

  “That’s fine, too,” Jake said. “It’s why I’ll go alone and see.” He handed his rifle over to me. “There is no sensible reason we all have to turn into a bunch of pirates. We managed to function as a society before all this. The only thing that keeps us from continuing to do so is our decision to stop.”

  With that, he began to walk in the direction of the stranger.

  “Yeah, well I just hope the rest of the population got the damned memo!” Billy called from behind him. He watched Jake walk away, clearly indecisive about what he should be doing. He finally scoffed and said, “Shit. C’mon, Little Sis. Let’s go after him. You follow behind in the Jeep. I’ll get this gas into a can and catch you up. Won’t take long.”

  The stranger led us all off Main Street in a northeast direction along a narrow patch of dirt that ran just along the freeway interchange connecting the 15 to the 6. Billy and I had to drive up over the curb on the right and navigate through a small, landscaped patch of earth past the sidewalk. Beyond this was a narrow corridor walled in by the freeway on the left and a row of trees acting as a windbreak on the right. The corridor was narrow enough that we had to drive single file behind Jake; the branches of the trees would reach out occasionally and scrape along our door panels. I remember worrying about the Jeep’s paint job like a moron.

  We continued on along this narrow track for close to four hundred yards. Towards the end, the wall on the left lowered, disappearing into the ground and the track itself opened up into a large dirt triangle that was around the size of a professional baseball field; the exit point of our little path made up the South West corner. The triangle itself was bisected by the long, sweeping curve of the interchange as it wrapped back around on itself and provided South-bound access to the 6. In the top half of this triangular dirt area just off the highway 6 awaited our stranger as well as a minivan and what looked like a small camp site. There was an easy-up sun shade close by with some chairs positioned beneath it.

  We spread out wide to either side of Jake and remained 20 feet behind him; far enough to keep a good field of vision but close enough to swing around in front of him to provide cover if things became violent. For his part, Jake walked deliberately toward the camp, never wavering or hesitating. We moved at a steady four or five mile per hour pace, which is actually a pretty good walking speed but was painfully slow for me as a driver. I instinctively understood the purpose of doing it this way; giving the stranger time to look Jake over and become comfortable to his presence. Unfortunately for me, it had the side effect of making my nerves feel like frayed cables. I stole a glance over at Billy and saw he was doing little better – he was bent over the wheel of the truck trying to choke the life out of it with a death grip.

  One hundred feet out from the minivan, Jake extended his palms to us and fanned his hands slightly, telling us to wait there. I applied the brake but did not put the Jeep in park so that I could slam down on the gas instantly if I had to. Jake continued on his path to meet the stranger with his hands extended far out to either side of him. I saw the stranger nod and put his hands out as well. I noticed now that he was a black man, probably around the same age as Billy if not a tad younger, judging by the grey in his thinning hair. He was wearing brown cargo pants and a grey T-shirt with a button collar. Jake walked to within a few feet of him. They both dropped their hands and began to talk.

  Both of them looked incredibly stiff during this exchange. Having been in close company with Jake for the past few days, I had become used to his body language and was to a point where I could read his basic moods through those cues fairly well. His arms hung long at his sides without fidgeting, his back was upright, and his head was thrust forward slightly; it was the way the cowboys always stood in the old spaghetti westerns just before having a shootout, only Jake didn’t have any guns. He was playing nice right now but it was easy for me to see he was ready to get nasty very fast.

  In the case of the other man, he held himself stiff and rested his weight on his rear foot with his thumbs looped into his front pockets. His expression was guarded but he looked Jake directly in the eyes as they talked to each other, which I felt was reassuring. He struck me as a man who was both confident and not in the habit of hiding things.

  Presently, the black man gestured back toward the minivan, where I could just make out the silhouette of a head in the passenger window. The sun was low, now, and to my back, throwing a glare and making it hard to see.

  Jake nodded and extended his hand to the man, who accepted it while smiling. Jake nodded again to him, released his hand, and walked back in our direction. He positioned himself between our vehicles and spoke to us through our open windows.

  “This man has people with him: his son and two others that they picked up on the road. He was out foraging for supplies when he saw us come off the freeway. They would like to trade and exchange news.”

  Billy asked: “They seem okay to you?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. “Pull up close in a circle around the camp. They have water they can part with. Bullets are the main thing they’re in need of.”

  Billy and I both perked up at this; our water supply was getting low enough that we would have to stop soon to find more – not dangerously low but enough that we began to think nervously of the shape we would be in if we suffered a vehicle failure and had to go back to walking. If a trade was successful, we might be able to push all the way through without having to stop for any.

  “There’s a kid!” Lizzy said from the back seat. A boy had exited from the minivan and now stood by the man’s side; his son, I assumed. Billy pulled the truck forward in an arc and drove it around to the side of the easy-up opposite the minivan, parking in the opposing direction while obscuring my view. I swung out left and then made a large U-turn to pull up behind his truck. The black man waved at me and nodded as I killed the engine. I nodded back and smiled. Smiles were cheap. I sat in the Jeep for an indecisive moment and finally opened my door half way to speak to him. “I have a rifle here with me. Are we getting off on the wrong foot if I bring it out of the car?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve a rifle here, too. Just another tool we all have to carry, now, like a pocket knife.” He had a good Southern drawl on him, pronouncing words like “anothah” and “carre
h”.

  I thanked him, pulling the sling over my head and arm. I came out of the Jeep and heard the man chuckle. “What?” I asked as I looked back at him after closing my door.

  “I was just thinking: that is one hell of a pocket knife,” he said while pointing at the Tavor. I didn’t know what to say to this so I just waved for Elizabeth to get out of the Jeep. I walked over to the man with my left hand resting along the top spine of my rifle to keep it from swinging. I extended my right hand to shake.

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

  “I am pleased to meet you, Amanda,” he said as he took my hand. His hands were warm and soft; well cared for. He put his hand out for Elizabeth, who took it shyly. “Pleased to meet the both of you ladies.” He shook with Billy as well, who had just approached (not carrying his shotgun, I noted). “My name is Otis; this here is my son Ben.”

  Ben put his hand out to shake each of ours in turn and said either “Sir” or “Ma’am” as he shook each, even to Elizabeth. He was a beautiful young man of maybe eleven or twelve years who very clearly favored his father. He was on a definite path to break hearts one day, assuming he could find any to break.

  Billy gave his name belatedly and said, “Jake mentioned you had two others with you?”

  “Yeah,” Otis nodded and held his finger up in a wait-one-minute gesture. “They’re a bit skittish. I’ll have ‘em out. Make yourselves at home!” This last was shot out over his shoulder as he went around to the far side of the minivan and slid open the side door. We heard him conversing with those hidden inside behind the tinted glass. I noted Jake was already pulling chairs out of the truck bed and setting them up in a lazy circle opposite to Otis’s.

  Presently, Otis came back out from around the minivan with two new people, clearly brother and sister. They looked to be either in their late teens or early twenties. The girl was pretty in the way that all young people are pretty, with youthful skin, thick lush hair, and a lean body; however it was clear that as she aged her larger nose would become prominent if not distracting. Her brother featured the same nose but, with his stronger chin and masculine facial structure, the nose would serve only to add to his appeal in a Clive Owen kind of way as he aged. Any appeal he may have had right then was masked by an obviously sullen attitude. They were sandy haired and Caucasian.