Commune: Book One (Commune Series 1) Read online

  I had my eyes peeled for anything that might be useful as I walked into the little town (the larger cities had been swarmed thoroughly once things like “rules” and “manners” had fallen apart - though you could still get lucky - but I had hope for the smaller places with small populations). What I found would disabuse me of any hope. In Primm, I would find yet another example of the complete and total faith we had devoted to our society. There was nothing else for miles in all directions (with the ridiculous exception of a golf course) in this desert, and yet here in Primm there was nothing to be found that was conducive to living out in the desert. There was an outlet mall packed full of clothing made in India, China, or Taiwan that would fall to tatters after only a few weeks of hard living. All of the restaurants…the Subways and Carl’s Juniors and Taco Bells – all of those were filled with rotting food, if any of that could have been called food at any point. The restaurants did have water but no real way to carry it as it was distributed in cups via a filtered Magic Lever.

  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 backwards 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 th
ere 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.

  I got up from my spot and moved over to him, groaning as I went (my legs and back were killing me from all the time spent on the floor); checked his neck for a pulse. There was none.

  “God damn it,” I muttered. “You couldn’t just give it a night?” Silence was my response.

  Sighing, I shouldered the rifle and cautiously left the room. I know now that he was alone and so I feel a bit ridiculous now to think of myself creeping back down the line of rooms like some Recon guy out of a war movie but this is what I did, looking for anyone else who might be there to jump out at me. When I made it to his room unchallenged I loosened up.

  I pulled a small flashlight from my back pocket and had a look around. I was able to actually focus on things now that my attention wasn’t completely occupied by a half crazy transient reaching for a gun. He wasn’t exactly sitting on a survivalist’s gold mine but there were several useful items stashed away including several boxes of protein bars. Additionally, he had a hand axe, some clothes as nasty and ratty as he was, and a partial box of hollow point 9mm rounds. The ammunition had my interest – there was no gun to go with it but I had a good idea where I could find it. I rolled up the protein bars, axe and bullets in a tattered sweater and headed back to my room.

  I patted him down and found the pistol a foot away from his hand just outside of a spreading ring of blood. Shining the flashlight on it, I saw that it was a Glock 19. After fiddling with it, I was able to discover the button to extract the magazine, which I pulled from the grip and inspected. At the time, I didn’t understand that many magazines will actually show you how many rounds they hold if you know where to look. It was dark and that was a detail I missed, so I started spitting bullets out onto the carpet with my thumb, counting fourteen. I then pulled back on the slide and was rewarded with a fifteenth round popping out of the gun and dropping onto the carpet next to the others. With the chamber emptied, I pointed out toward the door and dry fired to confirm that the mechanism functioned.

  Finally, I started loading the loose rounds back into the magazine. I was able to get all fifteen in, though my thumb took a real beating towards the end. I slid the magazine back into the pistol and then examined it all over looking for some sort of safety mechanism, which I obviously didn’t find. This made me a little nervous as I intended to stash the gun in the back of my jeans waistband like you see in the movies but I didn’t want to shoot myself trying to haul it back out again. Understanding the reality of the situation, I opted to not chamber a round and placed the gun in the small of my back, shifting it around until it sat comfortably. The goods wrapped up in the sweater were placed in my bike trailer.

  Finally, I pulled the jumbled blanket from the chair and used it to cover the body. I collected my things and left the room in search of a new place to pass the night.

  -

  The morning found me well quit of Primm and headed North again up the I-15. I wasn’t having any luck finding another ride despite my best efforts (well, in this case “best effort” means I was checking anything in my immediate path) so it looked like another full day of walking, which it very much turned out to be.

  If you have ever driven through a long desert, you probably know how boring the activity can be when there is nothing to occupy your attention. I was fast learning that walking through a long desert is psychologically demoralizing. The horizon simply does not move. You walk for what feels like hours and, as far as you can tell, you haven’t made any real progress. Nothing moves. All the waypoints that you pay attention to out on the horizon just stay where they are, refusing to come any closer as you labor on. If you focus intently on objects far away, you’ll begin to get the sense that you’re not actually moving. I found this to be unnerving and began to put my attention only on those things that were close to me as I was able to perceive their change in position relative to my own. The problem with this, though, was that whenever I looked up again to the far away things, they were always exactly where I left them. All in all, the two realities from which I had to choose were to look up and never make progress or to look down so that I could perceive progress only to look up later and discover that progress was an illusion.

  It was at one such transition from looking down to looking up towards mid-day that I first noticed the speck on the road at great distance ahead of me. I couldn’t even guess at how far away it was; once a distance is great enough, the best a human eye can usually do is tell you “it’s waaaay over there”.

  At first, all I could tell was that it was something and that, over a few hours of steady walking, it seemed to be maintaining its distance from me (I was using landmarks like hills and so forth positioned laterally to the object to determine that it was not stationary). It was at this time that I began to suspect that I was looking at a person. I mean, I guess it could have been a howler monkey but another person on the road seemed the most likely explanation.

  You will more than likely call me a fool (I certainly kick myself every time I think of this) but it never once occurred to me to use the scope on my rifle to get a better look at what I was seeing. I was not uncomfortable around firearms at the time but I also certainly was not familiar with them either; the optic on that rifle was the first one I had personally ever looked through. I thought of it only as a mechanism used to sight and shoot at a target. When I realized later that it would easily stand in as a replacement for binoculars, I was so embarrassed by my own stupidity that I actually cringed.

  My suspicions regarding what I saw on the road were more or less confirmed when night fell. I kept walking into the evening. Far, far away in the distance, I saw the light of a camp fire off the road.

  I resolved to keep going. There was still a pretty good moon up in the sky so I had plenty of light by which to see as long as I kept to the road. I only had a sleeping bag with my gear and no tent so I didn’t have much to set up when I finally decided to stop for the evening. I wanted to catch up to that howler monkey and this seemed like the best way to do it. By the time I quit walking I’m sure it was into the wee hours of the morning. I pulled my cart a short ways off the road, pulled out the sleeping bag, and bundled up. I must have fallen asleep almost instantly despite how uncomfortable the ground was. Given the lack of sleep I enjoyed at Whiskey Pete’s and the long, miserable day of walking, there wasn’t much left in the tank.

  I jolted awake the next morning, afraid that whoever I was following had gotten a head start on me and eroded any ground I was able to gain the night before. I frantically jumped up, voided my bladder, collected all my gear, and got back on the road. I was relieved almost as soon as I did; I could see him out in front of me and he was close enough now that I could definitely tell it was no monkey. It was a person – a man judging by the shape of the shoulders.

  Now things were going to get touchy. I wanted to catch up to him but I didn’t want to scare him or get myself shot if I could help it. I couldn’t tell for sure if he had a weapon at this distance. I could certainly see that he had a large burden hanging off his back but it was impossible to make out fine detail.

  It’s hard for me to explain why I wanted to catch up with him so badly. My reasons didn’t come out of a feeling of loneliness or boredom at my envi
ronment. Mostly I think that the guy I shot at Pete’s was bothering me and I felt like I wanted a do-over. I told him I didn’t have any food because I was trying to avoid him attacking me to get it but it must have been obvious to him that I was the better outfitted of the two of us. Wouldn’t my refusal to share food have driven a starving man to desperate behavior? What if I had just said, “Yeah, man, here’s a pack of chicken curry,” and tossed him one of those god-awful MREs?

  I couldn’t know, of course, but I was in the process of figuring out that I wasn’t terribly interested in living that way; killing whoever I came across because they might be dangerous. It didn’t sound like much of a life worth holding onto as far as I was concerned.

  The day passed very much like the previous one. I maintained a steady pace and he maintained a static distance. As the evening came on, I was just able to make out his figure leaving the road. I continued walking. Shortly after, I saw the dim evidence of smoke rising from behind some hills. I realized that he was doing to me what I had done to the man at Whiskey Pete’s. He was choosing his ground and waiting to see what I would do. If I’m being honest, I was rather curious to see what I would do myself.

  As I approached the small swell of hills just off the road, I unslung my rifle and threw it in the bike trailer and continued on. As I came around a bend, I saw him sitting calmly on the ground and facing me, with the fire just to his left. His back was propped up against something (I later discovered it was a massive hiking backpack). He had a shotgun laid over his knee like it was a bipod and pointed in my direction.

  I stopped and put my hands out to my side. “Hey, there,” I said.

  “Eve’ning?” He pronounced it as two words and framed it as a question, as if to say, “What do you want?”