It is Saturday once more. From several inches of snow just a couple of days ago, so bad that the cats were afraid to go out, to rain from yesterday into today and 60-degree weather and climbing. Wow. Watch out for flooding next. Or sunburn, or both.
I am working on writing here, as always, and enjoying doing it. In between I am dealing with all the things we all have to deal with because we live in this world, some of the good stuff , some of the bad stuff we get from living in this world. Lately, and I mean the last few weeks, for me it has been more dealing with things, people, situations that I didn’t create. And that irritates me to no end. That is why my circle is so small.
I live a live and let live lifestyle. Whatever you are doing over there is fine with me with a few exceptions. If I see you doing something that is hurting someone else I will step to you and point that out. Likewise if you try to shove things down my throat I don’t agree with I will speak up. No other rules, no subsection C or A, or appendix B. Simplistic. Live your life and let me live mine. The rub is that there are people in the world that don’t want other people to live their own lives. They want you to live your life the way they want you to live it. Do your best to ignore people like that. They are lacking something inside themselves that makes them do that. I’m not going to say more than that, but that is the reason I can count my friends on one finger.
I remember hearing so often as a kid that if you don’t have a solution then shut up. You are just wasting space, time, etcetera. But the problem with that analogy is that it assumes there needs to be a solution when many times there doesn’t need to be. You just need to leave the person alone and let them live their life. They already have a solution and their solution is for you to shut up and leave them be. Let them live their life. So what if what you predicted would happen happens. So what, that’s how we learn. It’s how you learned. Too bad if you only mean it in a good way. If it is rejected and you don’t stop it becomes forced. How is that a good thing? It really is simple if you look at it. Live your life, let the other person live their life. I think the world could be that better place we all want if we could just practice that. So maybe this holiday season you could put that little game play into the mix. Step back, let people live, realize that is the same thing you want really, and the world could be a better place, not to sound too cliche’.
I am going to leave you with a free look at a book. So if you want the book, like what you read, you can click the link and go get it.
The Zombie Plagues: Book One
Copyright 2010 – 2014 independAntwriters, Geo Dell, Wendell Sweet. All rights reserved.
This preview is approved for Geo Dell’s blog, no other use is approved. If you would like to share this with a friend please point them to blog entry where you found this material. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.
This excerpt is copyrighted material. As so it is protected under U.S and foreign copyright laws. It may not be reprinted, distributed electronically or otherwise copied or offered in any other medium without the express written permission of the copyright owners. There is no provision for any other use of this text, including critiques, quotes, etc. You must obtain written permission to use the text in any form other than what it was intended for.
THE ZOMBIE PLAGUES
March 15th
Early morning darkness held the road that fronted the cave. The moonlight, sparse, reflected off the rapids of the Black river.
A shadow moved by one of the pickup trucks. Another moved by the Suburban. The sound of sand gritting beneath the sole of a shoe came clearly in the shadowy darkness. The door of the pickup squealed loudly as it was carefully opened. The shadow paused, looking towards the Suburban. The shadow there appeared to be fighting with the door to no avail. The shadow next to the pickup gestured quickly with both hands, and the shadow next to the Suburban gave up on the door, crossed to the pickup and quickly climbed inside. Once they were both inside, silence returned to the small patch of asphalt that fronted the cave. A few seconds later the pickup roared to life. The headlights snapped on, the wheels turned hard left and the driver launched the truck down what was left of the shattered roadway.
Voices were raised in alarm from inside the cave, and within just a few moments everyone inside was outside. Lydia, gun in hand, unloaded a full clip at the fleeing pickup truck. Both Tom and Mike snapped off a single shot, more in startled response to Lydia’s’ shots than with any real hope of hitting the retreating pickup truck.
“Jesus,” Lydia said breathlessly. “They stole our truck!” She turned and looked at Mike with wide, frightened eyes. “They stole our Goddamn truck,” She repeated. “How could they steal our truck?”
Tom headed for the suburban and pulled the keys from his pocket, preparing to unlock the door.
“Tom,” Mike called. “Where are you going, Man?”
“That’s our Goddamn truck. I’m going to get it.” His eyes were wild, the truck keys in one hand, a pistol in the other, no shirt, sock-less shoes, laces trailing.
“It’s an old truck, Man,” Mike said.
“It’s my old truck,” Tom said defensively. “And if I catch that fucker…”
“Fuckers,” Lydia said.
“Huh?” Tom asked.
“Fuckers, as in I saw two heads. Two of them. Not one,” Lydia said. Her voice held a breathless, excited quality to it that Mike didn’t like. She was dressed in jeans and a thin T-shirt. She shivered slightly, whether from the cold or the excitement, Mike couldn’t tell.
“Either way. One, two, how would we catch them? And then what? Are we going to shoot somebody for stealing an old truck? Is that what things have come to?” Mike asked.
“Look, don’t get moral on me,” Tom said. He leveled his eyes at Mike. “I do things my way. You take from me, you pay for it.”
Mike just stared back at him.
“You’re soft,” Tom said. But his fists, still clenched, dropped from the truck door and he walked away from the Suburban and back into the cave.
Lydia threw Mike a nasty look, finally managed to fish a replacement clip from her overly tight front pocket. Ejected the empty one into her hand and slid the new one into the pistol with a solid click. “Soft,” She echoed as the clip clicked home. She turned and went back inside the cave. In the distance, the muffler of the truck began to fade. It was hard to tell which direction it had gone.
Bob stepped up beside Mike where he stood with Candace and Jan. “I’m not going to kill anybody over an old truck,” he said.
“Me either” the other three said in near unison.
“Guess we better start making sure everything’s locked up tight,” Mike said.
“We’re going to have to start keeping a watch,” Jan said.
“We will,” Candace agreed. “What if the next thing they want is a woman?”
“That’s not funny,” Mike said.
She leveled her dark eyes on his, silvery moonlight reflecting from them. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. Now that they know we’re around…” she shrugged. “Lydia may have overreacted, but maybe not. Who the hell would pull a stunt like that anyway? Everything’s just lying around. Want a truck? Go get one. No… It’s a mind set. Someone who takes like that doesn’t take because it’s easy; they take because they like it, because they can.” She lowered her voice, “Truck, woman… might all be the same to them.”
No one answered.
~
Tom and Lydia sat talking in low tones as the others walked back into the cave. They had rebuilt the fire, and the warmth and light spread out, glowing on the stone walls. “Tom,” Mike started.
“Listen,” Tom said. “I shouldn’t have said that… I didn’t mean to say that. And, no, it would be stupid to go chasing after a goddamn truck in the middle of the night. And, no, I don’t want to kill someone over stealing a piece of shit truck,” Tom said. “But that kind of shit can’t happen. I mean, what’s next?”
“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “Yeah. I guess what’s next is locked up trucks. No keys left in them. And…” He looked over at Candace. “I guess a guard at night. Candace said… She thinks someone who would come to take a truck might come to take a woman too.”
The silence held only for a second.
“Fuckin’ A,” Lydia spat.
She looks positively rabid, Candace thought. “What I mean,” Candace said, “A truck… Maybe one of us… Who steals a truck when everything’s just laying around free to anyone who wants to pick it up?”
Tom nodded his head.
“Well, as soon as it’s light I say we follow the tracks. If we’re careful, it should be no problem at all,” Mike said.
“Goddamn right,” Lydia said.
“Should be armed. I’m sure they will be,” Candace said.
“Not you. You’re not going are you?” Mike asked.
“I’m the best shot we have,” Candace said. “It’s that simple. If we don’t go after them,” she shrugged and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “The more I think about it, they’ll probably come back. And they’ll probably come back armed also. Hell, maybe they were this time.” She looked at Lydia.
“Lydia saw two in the truck, but how many more were there? Or back where ever they went to,” she finished seriously.
“So. The idea is to take it to them before they bring it to us?” Bob asked.
“Got a better idea?” Tom challenged.
“No… No… But I’m no killer. It’s still just a damn truck.”
Bob finished.
“Yeah, tonight it was a truck, tomorrow it might be me… Or Candace… Or Jan,” Lydia said.
Bob stayed silent, thoughtful. He sighed. “What a damn mess,” he said at last.
“It’s that,” Tom agreed.
“I got to agree, Bob,” Mike said. “It’s not the same world. What if they do come back? Do we decide then to do something? It might be too late.”
“Honey. I think it’s best to go get them,” Janet said quietly, her eyes on Bob’s own. Those eyes looked frightened, Mike thought. He supposed a little of that fright was resting in everyone’s eyes right now.
“I don’t like to be bullied or pressured into anything,” Bob said.
“Hey,” Mike said. “It’s no pressure, Man. It’s real. It really just happened.”
Bob nodded his head yes, but a frown remained stamped onto his mouth. Deep lines scarred his forehead. His hands twisted restlessly in his lap. He suddenly brought his hands together firmly. “Okay,” he agreed. “Okay. I see the point. I’ve done a lot of hunting. I’m a good shot with a rifle. I’d like to go too.”
~
When the sun began to peek over the top of the ridge on the opposite shore of the Black river, everyone filed out to the two remaining trucks. It had been decided that Mike and Jan would stay behind while the others went in search of the stolen truck. They switched on and tested two sets of F.M. radios.
“The range is normally only about two miles or so, but it’s not like there’s anything to interfere with them anymore,” Tom said. “We’ll take three with us, and you keep the other here to monitor us, or if they come back here,” Tom finished.
“Do you think that’s a possibility?” Janet Dove asked.
“I doubt it, Dear,” Bob told her with a reassuring smile. “It’s just to be safe.”
Mike walked over to Candace. Her eyes met his. He kissed her softly, and her arms slipped around him.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I’ll be careful. And I’ll make sure they’re careful.” She kissed him and pulled back.
Mike stared at the face of the two way radio for a long second and then watched her get into the Suburban. Bob got into the front seat with her. Her eyes met his once more, and she smiled reassuringly, then started the Suburban and fell in behind Tom as he drove the big State truck out across the pavement.
Mike and Janet stood quietly as the two trucks drove away. Neither of them wanted to go back inside the cave. The sun was up and warming the old asphalt of the road where it passed in front of the cave, and what little snow remained was already beginning to melt.
“Left here,” The radio squawked. It sounded like Lydia.
“Behind you,” came an answer that sounded like Bob.
Mike shifted the 30-30 Deer rifle he held in one hand and thumbed off the strap that held his Nine Millimeter in his web holster. Janet Dove grimaced and then thumbed the safety off the shotgun she was holding. A short clip protruded from the base of the shotgun, just forward of the trigger. She had two more clips in a small pouch on her side, as well as a fully loaded Three Eighty in a tooled leather side holster she wore.
What must we look like, Mike thought. Aloud he said, “They’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Janet Dove asked. “I truly hope so. I truly do.”
~
The next twenty minutes went by slowly. Occasional squawks of directions came from the radio, and in the distance the sound of both trucks could still be heard. The silence broke all at once.
The radio squealed in Mike’s hand. One word jumped clearly from the static… “Jesus!”… Mike couldn’t tell from whom. A crashing sound accompanied it, and in the far distance gunfire erupted in the still, previously quiet morning air.
The squeal from the radio abruptly cut off and it fell back to low static. In the distance the sound of gunfire continued for what seemed like ten minutes, but was probably no more than thirty or forty seconds in reality. Mike keyed the radio, ”Candace,” he screamed. “Candace?”
Gunfire broke out again in the distance. The fast… POP, POP, POP of semi automatic gunfire, but the sharp crack of a heavy rifle too. No answer came back over the radio. Janet Dove made a small strangled sound in the back of her throat and a low sob slipped from her mouth. “No, God, no,” she whispered.
“It’s alright, Jan,” Mike told her. He didn’t believe it himself, but it was what you said. It was how you lied to yourself when you were pretty sure that things were far from fine. Life didn’t work that way in his experience. The gunfire had stopped, but the radio maintained its teasing static as his mind continued to assure him that nothing at all was right and nothing ever would be again. Just as he had the thought, the radio in his hand squawked once again.
“You guys okay?” a panicked sounding Bob asked.
“We’re good… We’re good, base. We’re all good. Everything’s okay,” Tom answered.
Beside Mike, Janet broke into a sob. He reached over and pulled her close to him. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “They said they’re all okay,” Mike repeated dumbly, like the words were some magic mantra.
“I need you to come over here,” Bob said over the radio in a tight, controlled voice. Fear quickly spiked in Mike’s heart.
“Yeah… Uh, you need… Uh, yeah… Okay… We’re coming… We’re on the way,” Tom replied.
Mike pressed his button down. “What is it?” he asked. He spoke with more calm than he felt. “What’s going on?”
“Mike… Mike, we got a little problem here… Give me a second and I’ll get right back to you,” Tom told him.
“Standing by.” Mike forced himself to say. Now Janet was hugging him and the fear gripped his heart hard, refusing to let go.
~
“I’ll kill you. I will,” The kid said. He held his gun sideways like some banger kid from a bad Hollywood movie. Blood trickled slowly from one nostril, as well as from several deep cuts up the left side of his face. His eyes were focused and hard.
“No,” Candace said quietly. Her own forty five was held in both hands aimed at the kid’s chest. He looks like he’s only about thirteen… Fourteen, she corrected.
The kids lip curled at her. “You think I won’t do it, Bitch? I will… I will, Bitch… I’ll do it.”
“No,” Candace repeated quietly. “I drop it and you shoot anyway. No way, Kid. No way.” She watched as Bob shifted to his right, drawing farther away from Candace so the kid couldn’t keep both of them in sight.
“Stop fuckin’ movin’! Stop fuckin’ movin’!” the kid suddenly screamed. The gun barrel wavered a little, nervously jittering up and down, the kid’s finger lightly, compulsively caressing the trigger as Candace watched.
Tom and Lydia worked their way up silently behind the kid, past the bodies that lay on the ground, one a young girl.
Behind Tom, Lydia dropped the barrel of her gun and sighted
on the kid’s back. Tom stared at her dumbly for a second and then followed suit.
The seconds played out as the blood continued to slowly leak from the kids face. His tongue darted out and tasted it where it ran from his nose. He tried to push it away from his lips where it ran and dripped down onto his chin.
“Last chance, Bitch,“ he said. He brought the barrel of his gun down towards her. At the same time Bob took another step sideways. The kid’s eyes darted to Bob. The gun dipped and swiveled towards him. “I told you…” he began.
All four guns spoke at once and the kid seemed to do a quick tap dance before the gun fell from his hand without firing. He tried to suck in a breath but collapsed onto the dirty asphalt instead.
Before anyone could react, the silence was split by a scream from across the river. A young boy stood silhouetted by the rising sun on the opposite side of the river facing them. Something shifted from his side. “I’ll kill you… I’ll kill you… You killed my brother,” the boy screamed in a high falsetto. His arms came up quickly.
“Hit the ground,” Candace yelled as the kid opened fire with the deer rifle he had in his hands.
Everyone hit the dirt except Lydia whose face registered astonishment as she turned slowly to the river to face the kid.
Candace yelled again as she raised herself to both cut and bruised elbows and began to fire back across the river.
The kid managed three shots before Candace hit him. He slowly toppled over and splashed into the river. Lydia stood. Her mouth open wide, staring across the river to where the kid had been.
Candace raised her eyes to where Lydia stood, and they caught on the ragged, gaping hole blown through the back of her t-shirt. She continued to stand. Seeming to still be looking out over the river. Her mouth working.
“Lydia,” Candace whispered.
Lydia slowly turned, her mouth still working but silent. A small neat hole wept blood down the front of her shirt. Her chest hitched and her eyes fluttered.
Tom lunged to his feet, his eyes dazed, and ran to her, catching her as she slumped forward. Her eyes flickered once more as he eased her to the ground.
A small tight smile came to her mouth. “Killed me,” she wheezed. Her eyes closed, and her chest stopped its struggle for breath.
~
The silence seemed to go on forever as Mike and Janet waited. Sudden gunfire erupted in the distance again. Janet moaned and Mike pulled her closer to him. “Ssss alright,” Mike told her. ”Alright.” He didn’t believe it any more than he had the last time he’d said it. The burst of gunfire came and went just that quickly, and then silence fell hard on the still morning air.
Janet held herself rigidly. Mike could feel her tremble against him. He patted her head. A stupid, useless, meaningless thing to do, he told himself, but he continued nonetheless, patting her head and stroking her hair. Useless, but if nothing else, it seemed to help calm him.
He drew a deep breath, and the radio squawked. “Mike?” Bob asked.
Mike took a deep breath and swallowed hard before he trusted his voice to answer. Jan let go of her breath in a deep whoosh and drew in a long, deep shuddering breath. Mike stroked her hair once more.
“Yeah,” Mike answered quietly.
“It’s bad,” Bobs voice broke as he spoke. “It’s bad, Mike. It’s bad.”
In his head Mike was already hearing the words he didn’t want to hear. He had heard everyone’s voice except Candace’s. It only stood to reason… Still, he didn’t want to hear it.
“It’ll be okay,” Jan told him. She pulled him tight. Her own hands trying to pull his head against her breast. “Mike… It’ll be okay.”
“It’s Lydia,” Bob said. His voice choked with emotion.
“Candace?” Mike asked. He hated himself for asking. He hated the weakness in his voice. How could it be Lydia, he asked himself. I just heard her voice. How could it be?
“I’m here, Babe,” Candace said through the crackle of static. Behind her voice they could hear what sounded like sobbing. The sobbing came across clearly as she stopped talking. “We’re on our way back… We’re coming back… It’s over,” Candace said. She held on to the button for a split second longer, the smooth silence spitting quietly, then the radio in Mike’s hand went back to solid static once more.
~
“Be careful, Honey. Be careful.” Mike’s voice came through the radio in her hand. She nodded, and then keyed the mic. button, “I will. We’re coming back.” She looked around her.
Tom sat cradling Lydia in his arms. Bright, thick blood covered the ground under her chest and the side of Tom’s pant leg. The three other bodies lay close by. Bob stood, ashen faced, his gun still held tightly in one hand.
The pickup truck idled noisily about a hundred yards away from where Candace stood. The doors hung open. The Suburban and the State truck rumbled from behind her. Maybe, she thought, five minutes had passed since they had spotted the truck and stopped behind them. The kids had come out shooting. Just like in the movies, Candace thought. Exactly that. Hell! They had acted like it was a movie. Five minutes and four people dead. She shook her head slowly.
Tom looked up from the ground and met Candace’s eyes.
“Let’s get her in the truck, okay, Tom,” She said softly.
Tom’s head slowly nodded.
“What… what about these… these others?” Bob asked.
“Fuck them,” Tom rasped. “Fuck them! They can rot right there. They’re not going in the truck!” He looked at Candace defiantly.
“Okay,” Candace agreed. “Okay… Bob?” She waited until Bob’s eyes left Lydia’s body. “Help Tom with Lydia?”
Bob nodded and started towards Tom
“No,” Tom said quietly. “Don’t need help.” He swiped a blood covered hand across his eyes, leaving a bright smear of scarlet across his forehead as he did. “I’ll do it. I’ll take care of her.” His voice shook at the last, but he got to his feet, carefully holding Lydia in his arms, and headed for the pickup truck.
“Bob,” Candace said, motioning to the bodies.
Bob looked at her questioningly.
“In the river. We can’t just leave them here.”
Bob nodded, and together they bent to pick up the first body.
A few minutes later Candace let the last body slip from her hands and plunge over the cliffs and into the river far below. She turned her palms upright and stared at them for a second.
“Candace,” Bob said. She nodded and followed Bob back to the truck.
Tom sat behind the wheel, Lydia slumped on the passenger seat, her head resting against Tom’s shoulder. “You okay to drive?” she asked.
Tom nodded. His eyes met her own. They were red, and tears perched on the bottom lids waiting to spill down his cheeks. He cleared his throat, started to speak and then cleared his throat once more. “I’m going to drive out of the city. There’s a small little place out by Huntingtonville. My parents grew.
up there. There’s a cemetery there…” He trailed off, and Candace saw the tears that had been perched on his lower lid begin to course their way down his cheeks. He started to speak again, shook his head and gave up momentarily. Candace turned her eyes up to the clear blue morning sky and waited. Tom’s voice came to her quietly a few minutes later as she watched the empty sky.
“There’s a shed… In the Cemetery… I thought.” His voice choked up again.
“Yeah. Yeah,” Candace said softly. “You go. We’ll stop and get Jan and Mike. They’ll want to be there.”
Tom nodded. His hand fell to the shift lever on the steering column. His eyes, tear-filled and overflowing, swept up to her once more.
“You’ll be okay to get there?” Candace asked.
Tom nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He turned his eyes back to the road.
Candace nodded. “We’ll meet you there.” She stepped away from the truck and watched as Tom pulled slowly away.
Mike ~ March 15th
It’s been a very long day in more ways than one. We are five now. Lydia is gone. It’s crazy, but true. Tom is in bad shape, sitting by the fire reading Lydia’s diary.
We buried her today in Huntingtonville, a little place outside of the city. There’s a cemetery there right by the river. Tom’s parents are buried there. Now Lydia is too. It took a lot of work; the ground is still frozen a few feet down. It could’ve been worse. If everything wasn’t melting, we would’ve had a much harder time digging the hole. Tom couldn’t bring himself to do it. Bob and I did it.
To make the explanation short, we were ambushed. I shouldn’t say we. I wasn’t even there. Neither was Jan. We were left behind to watch the cave.
It started in the night; these kids came and stole one of our trucks. We didn’t know they were kids of course. It turned into mess. Three kids are dead. Young kids. What a waste. We don’t even know why they did it, why they chose to shoot at the others. None of it.
Everyone is messed up, me included. Jan too, because we weren’t there. But it’s over. This part’s over, but really it’s not over at all. I don’t know what’s next. None of us do. The day has already lasted fifteen hours so far. The sun doesn’t seem to be moving at all. We don’t know what to make of it. Everyone just wants to get past this day, for it to be over.
Lydia ~ March 15th
Lydia is gone. They took her. I can’t believe it, it’s like a nightmare. I can’t deal with it. I won’t forget it. Tom.
~Huntingtonville~
The moon rode high in the sky. Frost gleamed from the freshly turned dirt that lay scattered across the gravel of the road that led into the cemetery. Silence held, and then a scraping came from the ground, muffled, deep.
At the edge of the woods, eyes flashed dully in the over-bright moonlight. Shapes shifted among the trees and then emerged from the shadows onto the gravel roadway. One dragged a leg as he walked, clothes already rotted and hanging in tatters. A second seemed almost untouched, a young woman, maybe a little too pale in the wash of moonlight. She walked as easily as any woman, stepping lightly as she went. The third and fourth moved slower, purposefully, as they made their way to the freshly turned soil. They stopped beside the grave, and silence once again took the night, no sounds of breathing, no puffs of steam on the cold night air.
“Do you think…?” The young woman asked in a whisper.
“Shut up,” the one with the dragging leg rasped. His words were almost unintelligible. His vocal cords rotted and stringy. The noises came once again from the earth and the four fell silent… waiting…
Her hand broke through into the moonlight. A few minutes later her head pushed up, and then she levered her arms upward and began to strain to pull herself up and out of the hole. She noticed the four and stopped, her pale skin nearly translucent, her blond hair tangled and matted against her face and neck. Her lips parted, a question seeming to ride on them.
“It’s okay,” the young woman whispered, “it’s okay.” She and one of the older ones moved forward, fell to their knees and began to scoop the dirt away from her with their hands.
“It’ll be okay,” Lydia mumbled through her too cold lips.
That is it for me for another week. I am winding down the weeks until this blog will be no more. Next week will be the last blog. I wish you all a happy holiday season, I’ll be back next week, Geo Dell
This has been a busy week for me. But I think that when we stay busy, doing things we like, the time does tend to fly.
A little treat for you.
The Zombie Plagues
All rights reserved.
Published by: Writerz.net Publishing
This Excerpt is used with permission.
Copyright Geo Dell 2013 – 2015 All rights reserved.
~
Beth lifted her eyes from the map just as the first of the undead broke from the trees behind the back of the last truck.
“Jesus! Jesus, Billy… Dead!” She shrugged her machine pistol off her shoulder and caught it with both hands. She was already moving toward the back vehicles. In front of her Bear was turning away from her, back toward the rear. His massive frame blocking her view. Somewhere towards the back truck someone began to scream. Iris, she thought. It was Iris who was screaming.
She found herself running at that point. Her legs pumping effortlessly. The adrenalin surging through her veins. Iris was in the truck with Mac.
She had no sooner had the thought then she heard another voice began to scream. She couldn’t place it but as she rounded Bear, catching up and passing him, she saw that two zombies had Mac on the ground, tearing chunks from his arms as he tried to fight them off.
“Beth!” Billy screamed from behind her. “Right. Your right!”
She had been just about to fire her pistol at the two Zombies attacking Mac and so even as she turned, she did not turn her pistol completely but kept it aimed to the front towards Mac and the two Zombies. By the time she registered how close the three zombies were to her there was no time to turn the pistol and fire. They were nearly on her. She had no more registered their faces, jaws wide, teeth gnashing, she had not even had the time to worry about her own fate yet, when the lead zombies head blew apart in a spray of blood and bone.
She blinked involuntarily and managed to bring her pistol around as the two remaining zombies tried to reverse direction in mid stride. Their eyes were wild. Trapped looking. She bought up the pistol and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened and her heart staggered in her chest. The safety… The ****ing safety, her mind screamed, and that was when another Zombie hit her from the side, and she went sprawling onto the dirt road. There were two more on her before she could get turned over. She felt the first bites and ignored them as she concentrated on getting the safety off the pistol, she had somehow managed to hold onto as she fell.
The passenger door on the second truck flew open and Scott Jefferson flew from the truck, machine pistol blazing as he ran. The gunfire all along the road was crazy. It had instantly become a war zone. He made it halfway around the hood of the truck when he stepped into a crossfire and his head exploded, spraying across the hood of the truck.
Bear sprayed the woods with his machine pistol. The dead had all come from the same direction and once he had focused on them it had been easy to mow them down. They began to slow, some turning to run back into the woods, some standing as if they didn’t know what to do. Bear launched himself away from the truck fender he had been leaning against and began to run at them, firing as he went. A scream building from his throat.
Billy had staggered to a stop just past the end of his rear bumper. He had watched Scott come into his line of fire and he had instantly let loose of his trigger, but it had been too late. He was in shock and time seemed to slow to a crawl. His eyes swiveled back around, and he saw that Beth was pinned to the ground by two Zombies. He yelled and charged the zombies, raising the stock of his rifle, smashing in the back of the head of the first zombie, kicking the other aside with a hard shot to the ribs and spraying him with a short burst that took his head from his shoulders after he had rolled a short distance across the ground.
Marcus had stopped at the last truck and dragged the young man through the open window, two more joined him and pulled him the rest of the way through the window as Marcus lunged through the open window and fastened his teeth on Iris’s throat as she tried to fight him off, and the inside of the truck became a slaughterhouse. He was so engrossed in feeding that he did not see the machine pistol’s barrel as it thrust through the open window a few minutes later. He only barely felt it as it bit into the back of his head. Bear pulled the trigger, and his head blew apart. Iris stopped screaming.
Something happened to the remaining Zombies. It was like a switch had been flipped on every one of them at the same time.
They stopped in mid stride, tried to turn back to the woods, but the machine pistols mowed them down where they stood or as they turned to run. Bear, Billy and Beth were on their feet moving in a loose line toward the wooded area.
Behind them some of the others that had stayed in the trucks came out now and joined them. The gunfire held strong for a few moments and then everything stopped all at once. The last zombies either fell or managed to get far enough into the woods as to no longer be seen.
Silence fell all along the road. It held for what seemed like minutes. The haze of smoke from the gunfire hung heavy in the late afternoon air. The headlights of the tucks cut through it making it dance through the blue-white beams of light. The overcast sky and the sudden silence made it seem as though night had arrived all at once. There was very little to hear in the silence.
The still running trucks, a scraping scrabbling sound as one of the undead tried to crawl off the road and into the woods. Beth turned shakily from the woods, her face hard, set, she pulled her knife from her side sheath, took a few steps and straddled the zombie. She reached down, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back as he snapped and snarled. The knife flashed as she embedded it into the side of his head. She thrust one booted foot against his head and pulled her knife free, letting his head fall into the dirt.
The silence held for a second longer and then Beth began to sob as she sank down to the ground.
Posted by Jay 02-20-2024 Warming up here in the western part of New York: It is amazing to me that at the end of last week we had temperatures in the 50’s, but Saturday and Sunday in the single digits. This morning is a balmy 13 degrees and slated to reach the 40’s. What a weird winter. I will be working on web sites all day long. I do it on Monday because I know that by Wednesday, my next opportunity to do it, I will be completely sick of the week and dreaming of a sandy beach and a cold beer. There are few sandy beaches here in New York. I remember the Gulf Coast when I was down there however and those beaches were gorgeous. I keep telling myself that I will retire there and call it a life. Just a beach bum walking about… With a girlfriend… And a cold brew… And a sailboat too… Yeah, that sounds about right. So where are we, Wednesday? Damn, still Monday morning. Well this is going to be a great week I can tell, so I am just going to jump right into it. I will get busy, but I will leave you with a look at Earth’s Survivors Watertown. Watertown is much different than the other Earth’s Survivors books. It does deal with some of the same characters, and the same town, places, but the focus is on the lives those characters lived before the apocalypse came along and skewed it all. I hope you enjoy the preview and I hope you use the links at the end of the preview to get yet another preview or download the book. I will be back on Wednesday, Jay…
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Cover art Copyright 2016 Wendell Sweet
Watertown Center Shop and Stock April Evans
“Going home?” Alice Chambers asked.
“Yeah,” April agreed. It was early morning, the sun just coming up, shining through the dirty front windows of the store.
“I could drop you. I know it’s not a long walk, but if you wanted a ride, you know,” she blushed and her face colored.
The Shop and Stock was on the main highway nearly directly across from the entrance to Lott road. It was a half mile down the road to the trailer park. Not far. She walked it all the time, including early morning and late evening.
April’s rule of thumb with Alice was not to lead her on. Not to give her false hope. Alice wanted to be with her, it was clear. There had been a time when they had been together, but that was over and had been over for nearly a year. She didn’t want her to think that it might start up again. Letting her give her a ride home might make her think that there was hope. It might, and that could hurt her and she didn’t want to do that.
“I think the walk would do me good, besides it’s just incentive for me to buy a car,” April said. “You’re saving?” Alice asked. Her face had become sad when April hadn’t said yes. Her sad eyes were magnified behind her thick glasses.
“No, but I hope to be… That’s the incentive part. It’s just that it costs so much to live…” April stopped, regretting she had said as much as she did.
“Well they say two can live as cheaply as one,” Alice said. Her eyes became hopeful again.
Sometimes April wondered why she didn’t just do it. Almost everyone at work thought she and Alice were an item anyway. Guys at work didn’t even hit on her anymore, and occasionally she would catch girls looking at her speculatively, like the new girl, Haley, beautiful: She had some sort of tribal tattoo that covered one arm and disappeared under her sleeve. It peaked out when her shirt lifted enough to bare her stomach, making April wonder where else it went. Dark blue against brown skin. She had been looking at her, wondering about where that tattoo might go one day last week when Haley had caught her. They had both smiled and looked away.
“You didn’t say anything,” Alice said.
“I’m sorry, I zoned out… You know, maybe two can live as cheaply as one… I guess it is something to consider,” April said. She had no idea why she had said it except that it was true. She had two guys at the trailer park that were interested. She couldn’t stand either one of them, but they were persistent. And she supposed it was only a matter of time before something happened. Probably something she didn’t want to happen. She kept an aluminum bat next to the door, but she was a young woman living alone in a bad place. It was probably only a matter of time.
Alice was smiling up of her. “Are you sure about the walk? It’s such a bad place,” Alice said, echoing her thoughts.
“Sure… You’re right, Ali. Listen, I have a cold six-pack in my fridge, if it didn’t stop working again that is, maybe we could have a couple of beers, unwind from the night,” April said. “It’s morning, but technically it’s night to us.” She laughed.
Alice positively overflowed. “Sure… I’ll… I’ll get some chips?” She looked at April as if asking permission. April nodded almost imperceptibly. That was how they had gotten together in high school. Alice asked, April had never said yes, just that tiny little nod, but that had been all that Alice had needed.
Alice hurried off now and April told herself she wasn’t building her hopes up to dash them. She was sick of the trailer park: Sick of her life right now. Before she ended up with one of those clowns on either side of her, she would move back in with Alice. She shocked herself with the admission, but then she realized it was the truth. Maybe it was the truth she had been hiding from herself, but it was the truth. Alice came back blooming. A totally different woman than the shy, unassuming person she normally was. She walked close to her as they left the store. She could see Alice wanted to slip her arm through hers, so April did it herself. She just slipped her arm through hers as they walked across the parking lot to Alice’s car.
Alice seemed to be in shock, but a happy kind of shock. April was surprised, but it lifted her mood too.
Route 81 rest-stop Watertown Danny and Daryl
“Who would really know?” Daryl asked. “I mean really, Danny?”
They were stopped at a rest area a few miles outside of Watertown New York. The trunk was open and they had looked through what was there. It was far more than they had thought, far more than Carlos had led them to believe. Neither of them knew how much, but they had a good idea. They had already made small holes in four of the bricks and discovered they were dealing with both cocaine and heroin. And since the holes had been there they had taken a bit of each. Only a little: Nothing that would be missed, probably, but that had been three or four hours ago at another rest area when the curiosity had gotten the best of them. That and their withdrawals after a two week crack binge and the little that they had taken was gone.
Now they were trying to decide if they took a few full bricks whether they would be missed. There were eight bricks of coke, and six of heroin in the black duffel bag. That was a tight fit. They had purchased a cheap foam plastic cooler just outside of Rochester and filled it with beer and packages of lunch meat and cheese. They had purchased bread and other stuff for the long trip. Thinking all those weeks of not eating right would catch up to them and they’d be starving. And they would’ve been except they had gotten right back into the coke. They were numb again. Hunger was on the back burner once more. All their bodies craved were more cocaine and maybe some heroin to chase it.
Daryl pulled the zipper on the blue duffel bag and opened it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Danny asked.
“You know goddamn good and well what I’m doing,” he said. He reached in and took one of each brick. “Holy Jesus,” Danny said. “You’re crazy. They’ll kill us.”
Daryl licked his lips. “Maybe… But… Maybe we can blame that on the other guys. You know, they got the shit! They played with it. Our word against theirs, right?”
“Christ,” Danny said. His hands shook slightly, but then harder. Before he could stop himself he reached into the duffel bag and pulled out two more bricks, one of each. Daryl’s eyes bugged.
“I don’t know, man. That is a lot. Two is enough,” he said.
“To get killed over?” Danny asked. “Fuck that! If it’s gonna get us in the shit and we gotta lie our way out of it we might as well make it worth it,” he said. He looked at the untouched ice chest, popped off the foam cover and plunged the bricks down into the ice. Daryl took a small chunk of the cocaine, sealed the brick back up and plunged both of his bricks into the ice chest too. They piled up the errant ice cubes and arranged the packages of meat and cheese to hide the bricks underneath them, breathing hard as they did: On the verge of panic.
“You can see the foil,” Danny said.
Daryl grabbed the plastic bag that the lunch meat had come in, fished out the bricks and wrapped them up tightly in the plastic. The bag was white and blended much better under the ice this time. “Can tell, not really,” Daryl said. He had already sniffed some coke. Danny wasn’t far behind.
“Looks fine,” Danny agreed. “Let’s go.”
They both reached up to slam the trunk lid down, scaring the hell out of each other as they did. They laughed nervously and then got back into the car.
“Alright, I’m getting on top of it now, man… It’s gonna be all right,” Daryl said.
“Yeah… Yeah,” Danny agreed as he started the car.
Watertown Thompson Park Ben Neo
“This is a really big deal, Ed. As in a million plus, you see?” Ben asked.
“Sure,” Ed said. “I get it. Well, you mean a million plus as in more than a million dollars?” he asked.
Ben laughed. “Yeah, more than a million, Ed: These guys, well, I don’t know these guys. They’re really just hired flunkies. Pick up the stuff, drive it from point a to point b, that kind of thing. They’re probably not professionals. So we’ll have to make up for that by maintaining our own professional standards, Ed. We’ll just be cold: Aloof, removed. No laughing if they crack a joke. No small talk at all.” He handed Ed one of the flat black 9 mm guns. The one he had shoved under the front seat.
Ed looked it over. “Grips broken?” he asked. He fingered the tape that wound around them.
“No,” Ben told him. “That’s friction tape, stops them from getting prints… Most of the time at least. It’s what I call a throw away gun. Cheap, doctored up with tape in case I do have to toss it and I don’t have time to wipe it. Ground down serial number. Here’s a spare clip.” He handed him a clip. “The one in that gun is full, and there’s one in the chamber. I do that by putting one in the chamber then ejecting the clip and replacing that one in the clip. Then put the clip back in. Sometimes an extra bullet can mean a lot. All you need to do is flick off the safety, aim and shoot… You got that, Ed?” Ben asked.
“Yeah… Yeah… I do,” Ed agreed. He looked nervous. “Do you think we’ll have to shoot, Ben?”
“Sometimes… You can shoot, right?” Ben asked. He knew he owned a 9 mm and that he had taken a weapons class in Syracuse a few years back. He had carried a sidearm and had, had to train on a rifle when he was in the service. He had checked all of that out. He also knew he was a poor shot. Myopic, and even with his thick glasses his depth perception, which was critical to accuracy, was bad.
“Sure, sure, it’s just been a while,” Ed said.
“Just make sure you don’t shoot me, or yourself,” Ben said.
They were at the lookout in the park standing near the trunk of the car waiting for the other car. It could be a few minutes, maybe as much as an hour, Ben thought.
Ed nodded. “I won’t,” he said, unsmiling.
Ben had no idea what to expect. He knew what they were driving, but he had no idea how far out they were, all Tommy had told him was the make and model, a big silver-blue Toyota, and their names. They had picked up the stuff in Brownsville earlier that morning, and they were on the way. He popped the trunk lid and snapped open the catches on the big brown suitcase. Neat rows of bills: All hundreds. Ed whistled.
Ben removed one of the stacks, set it aside and closed the case. “Your pay,” Ben told him.
“How much is that?” Ed asked. His eyes were a little bugged out. He’d never seen that much money anywhere. Not even in gangster movies, which were his favorite kinds of flicks. It was a lot of money.
“Eighty thousand dollars per stack,” Ben told him.
“You’re kidding? I’m making eighty thousand dollars for this deal?” he asked.
Ben smiled and nodded. “I told you it was big.”
“Yeah,” Ed smiled. His mind was thinking about all the things he could buy with eighty thousand dollars.
Ben’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, looked at the caller ID window and turned to Ed. “It’s my boss, I’ll have to take it,” he said. He walked away leaving Ed to his thoughts and answered the phone.
Suncrest Trailer Park Lott Road April Evans
It started out bad and got worse. First Alice tried to kiss her when they got to April’s trailer. April had pretended she didn’t see it coming and turned it into an embrace. But once they were inside she tried again and they had ended up in an argument.
“It’s my fault, I should’ve walked home. I didn’t mean to lead you on, Ali, I didn’t,” April said.
“But… You held my hand. I know you want this just like I do. I know it. Why can’t we just be together?
I don’t get it… You’re not seeing somebody else, right?” Alice asked.
“No… It’s not about that… It’s about compatibility… I’m not like you, Ali. How else can I say it?” April asked.
Alice broke down into tears. “But you are…” Her voice fell to a whisper. “You’ve made love to me, April; better than any man ever has… Ever could… You are like me,” she sobbed.
“I’m not,” April said. “We did those things. I was drunk. I was upset. I hated what had happened to me, you know that, it didn’t mean to me what it meant to you, Ali, it didn’t.”
Alice jumped up. “So I’m the one who is sick? Interested in the wrong sex? The Lesbo?” Her anger was barely in check. She was spitting the words out, tears streaming down her face. “Well fuck you, April Evans. I know about that boy at the end of the road. The one you talk about. If that’s what you want, then fuck you, take him.” She ran to the door, flung it open and rushed down the steps. Her car started as April got to the door, and she heard the gravel spit and clatter against the aluminum siding of the trailer as she took off. Two trailers over a curtain parted and a woman’s face looked out into the gloom of early morning. Her eyes nearly skipped across April, lingered briefly and then the curtain edges fell back together. April sagged down to the top step and lowered her head into her hands. She got up a few minutes later, went inside and grabbed two of the beers. She left one in the plastic collar, slipped an open collar over her wrist and let the second can hang from it. As she went back out she picked up the aluminum bat, closed and locked the trailer door. She walked out to the end of the gravel road that cut down into the trailer park and looked towards the end of Lott Road.
There was a guy, not a boy that lived at the end of the road. She had mentioned him to Alice. She shouldn’t have. He was just a guy. She had seen him go by a few times, but he had never paid any attention to her. She had even waited on him at the store a few times. Nothing: He wasn’t interested; Alice had that all wrong.
She hefted the bat in one hand. There were wild dogs all over the place. They lived in the woods and raided the county dump where it backed up to Lott Road for their means of survival. It was best to be prepared. More than once she had driven one away with a quick tap from the bat. She took one of the trails that lead out of the trailer park and cut down toward the end of the road. She sipped at one of the beers as she pushed some overhanging small branches aside with the bat. The sun was finally starting to rise, casting shadows along the dirt path. She wondered about the boy at the end of the road as she walked…
A few weeks back we were on the way home and the muffler fell off the car. It decided to hang on by the barest of thread and so it dragged all the way home and made a hell of a racket.
I consider myself a do-it-yourself guy. Sort of like a modern-day cave man: Even if I can’t do it well, shouldn’t do it; been warned not to do it, I’m doing it.
So, I got on-line found the parts locally: Muffler and tailpipe turn down piece and after nearly having to take a nitro over the price I looked on Amazon, where I buy everything, and found the same parts for less than a third of the local discount auto bargain fix-it-yourself guy’s price. I determined that since I have Prime and free shipping, I could get the parts in two days and so I ordered them.
The parts came after much finger clicking and tapping and cat petting (I didn’t have to pet the cat the cat just wanted to be petted). I spent two hours on a piece of cardboard from a shipping box wrestling the parts into submission. Ye-Haw, I thought. I know, not very caveman like, but I am not sure exactly what a caveman would say since they didn’t have Chevy’s to work on. I believe back then all they had was Fords.
Mom drove the car into town… Well toward town… She made it a mile and then I heard one hell of a racket out front. I was in the back in my office. It sounded like someone started a lawn mower: One of those old ones that the muffler had rotted off of. Well, I was half right, it did have something to do with mufflers. Curiosity led me to the front of the house where mom informed me the muffler had fallen off.
If you are a caveman, you do not believe in this. Things you fix stay fixed. Bears sleep through winter. Naked bodies should have hair on them… So, I refused to believe this. I went outside and looked under the car and sure enough the muffler had fallen off. Impossible I said, yet there was the evidence in front of me. A new muffler all scraped up from being dragged home by the tailpipe hanger.
This is the part where I said some cuss words, we have all never used and then I got out my trusty cardboard and crawled back under the car. Hmmm, I said. And hmmm again, and then I looked forward to see why the muffler had fallen off as it was obvious the muffler had been torn loose as the clamp was still attached. That was when I noticed that the entire exhaust was on the ground. All of it… All the way to the front of the car at the catalytic convertor.
They pay almost $550.00 scrap for a junk car now and I thought, well, ol’ Chevy you are dead meat. I had visions of Breaking Bad and Walter and Jessie crushing up the Bounder. Sigh. But then I went back on-line, skipped the local’s this time and priced that front section of pipe to the header pipe. I assumed it was two pieces, maybe three. In the old days it would be, but it was all one piece. I found the same pipe, called the Resonator pipe because it has a built-in resonator and a long pipe that joins to the catalytic converter and then extends to the wheel well and then all the way to the back of the car, for wide variances in the prices: From a few hundred to fifty bucks. I used a few more carefully chosen expletives having to do with things I use expletives for and then bought the pipe, a pair of ramps to drive the car up onto so my fat butt could crawl under the car, some clamps and some cat treats because the cat was right there and had seen the treats on my frequently ordered list and meowed. No stupid cat is my Houdini.
Yesterday I am editing a story and the last parts arrived and so I went out at noon and dragged out my now crumpled and smelly cardboard (It was rained on, and I think a neighborhood dog wizzed on it too) and went to work. Two things here: One; I am out of shape barely getting back on my feet, so I told myself I would go slowly, ha ha ha. Two, rotted, rusty pieces of metal are not having any happy thoughts at all, and this pipe system was no exception. I ended up having to cut the bolts off of the Catalytic convertor where the resonator pipe joins to get it loose, that was after an hour of prep work, um, crawling around looking at this and that and wishing it would fall off. After I cut the pipe loose, I realized there is a reason they do these things in a garage on a lift. How to get the pipe out? So, I jacked one side of the car up and gained enough room to get the old pipe out and the new pipe in. I called that car so many names it turned from silver to red.
Anyway, in with the new pipe, back on with the muffler, all new hangers, bolts, clamps and voila a new system was in place. I went back into my cave with the other cave men and grunted with satisfaction. Tomorrow we are going hunting… er editing…
Happy Holidays: This is the time of year where everyone I meet is either really happy and full of the holiday spirit, or really miserable and waiting for the season to be over. It is a real eye opener to take a trip to the local Walmart.
I had to make a trip to the post office the other day, Friday, with my mother. This is the way mom does things; We’re drinking coffee, watching the morning news, I’m going through all of my overnight emails and posting/printing what I need, Mom stands up and says, “Well, we better get going.”
“Um…” I say.
Mom just looks at me like I’m an idiot. I’m pretty sure that I am part idiot, on my father’s side, of course, but I don’t like acknowledging it.
“Uh,” I try.
“Well,” Mom says as she turns away and heads for the coat rack with her purse. “If we’re going to the post office we better get going.”
Two things here: When Mom picks up her purse, she’s going somewhere. Two; she never tells me before hand, although she believes she does, or, more disturbing to me, I believe she doesn’t.
“Well. You have to mail that thing to your brother, and I have to get stamps,” Mom says. She actually stops and turns around to look at me.
The thing to my brother is not even packaged yet. It isn’t packaged yet because she told me to wait as she had packages to send with it. “Uh, I thought you said to wait?”
“We did.”
I looked down at my laptop and the emails. Obviously, I wasn’t going to be reading that stuff right now. I got up and got the thing boxed up as quick as I could, went back on-line for a few moments and printed a shipping label, grabbed two other packages that needed to go, and headed for the door…
The post office was no big deal. You might ask what this has to do with Jolly Moods and Walmart. Well, after we left the Post Office, Mom announced that she needed to make a quick trip to Walmart.
There is no such thing as a quick trip to Walmart. Not with Mom. And, I don’t even need to say it, and if I did it would make no difference, I thought we were only going to the post office!
First there was parking, at Walmart, on a Friday. The parking lot was jam packed with jolly shoppers shaking fists and dropping F bombs all over the place.
“Don’t listen, Mom,“ I told her.
“If that $#@& thinks he’s taking that $#%@*&# spot, he’s got another think coming,” Mom said as she accelerated and swung into a just vacated spot.
“Uh,” I said. The guy in the truck she had slammed the parking door on blew his horn. “Hey!” I said. I waved one hand, was tempted to pop up one finger and didn’t. I just smiled and waved like we were best friends or something.
“?$#@%^,” Mom said. She opened the door and leaned out but the guy looked away and then drove off. Frightened away by a little old lady.
The store was a treat. I have agreed to always be on my best behavior in Walmart… The supermarket… Sears… Well, pretty much everywhere I don’t want to be. But, that is not an easy task, especially at this time of year with all the happy couples and shoppers, or Halloween with all the kids, or Valentines day with all the In Love people. Mom just throws her purse into one of those electric carts and she’s gone. Pity the fool that steps in front of her.
A year or so ago I went with my aunt and my mom to the same store. My aunt recently passed, but that day she was heading for the produce aisle, and you can believe she got there fast. Never mind the little kid she almost ran down or the man she actually drove into, and that was just inside the doorway. I looked for mom, but she was gone already. Off to the other end of the store no less.
I opened my mouth that day and these words fell out: “Um… Do you need help?”
“Yes,” she said. What fun that had been, but I truly believe I saved a few lives that day.
Since then, I have learned not to hang around. Make sure all the small children are out of the way and then head in another direction. And don’t look back unless there is screaming… Loud screaming…
So, Friday, mom twisted the throttle and rocketed away. She sideswiped a pallet of Christmas stuff, an old man with a cane watched her carefully, I was sure he intended to club her if she got too close, but they passed each other with nothing but dirty looks.
Meanwhile I’m standing in the aisle watching. On Friday… With Christmas shoppers everywhere.
“What the #$@%!” A jolly shopper said as he went around me, glaring at me.
“Oh, Ed,” his wife said. “Don’t be so…” He dragged her away.
“Excuse me,” I said. I turned and nearly walked into a mother and her forty-two children she was dragging through the store.
“Eeeek,” she said. Or, it sounded like Eeeek to me. I turned back around and one of her kids darted around me and stuck his tongue out as he went.
“Make yer #$%^@#$ mind up,” a young guy said as he darted to the right and shot around me. His girlfriend, wife, obviously in love with him, shot me a pitying look as he dragged her by me.
“And a Merry #$%@^&% Christmas to you too,” I muttered. I spied a partly empty aisle and slipped into it. Why was the aisle pretty much deserted? Feminine hygiene products. And, no, I don’t own a vagina of my own.
Apparently, they don’t have any holiday editions of those things, and I cannot imagine they are very often given as gifts…
“You know, Bob. I was thinking of getting Alice one of those fancy whatchamacallits in the feminine hygiene aisle for Christmas.”
“Fred, Alice will kill you.”
“But, they’re supposed to be…”
“She’ll kill you, Fred. Kill you.”
Hence the aisle was empty. I glanced around briefly, some old guy passing the mouth of the aisle shot me a look that said he was shocked I was in that aisle, like I was doing something bad. That reminded me, as I looked around once more, that there was nothing there for me. I did not possess the necessary equipment to be in that aisle, so I left.
I made my way through the merry crowd of shoppers, happy couples and wild children, picked up a few more swear word combinations that even I hadn’t known, and found the home office section.
The home office section, the electronics section and the automotive section are pretty much my go to places. I can always find something there to look at and usually buy too. Of course, it’s Christmas shopping mania time, so you really can’t stop to look, you sort of have to look far ahead, judge the crowd speed, and then snatch up what you wanted as you pass it by. Don’t get it on the first go around? Tough $%#@. Get back in line and try again.
I left there with my padded mailers I had needed and headed for the grocery part of the store. 6000 shoppers looking for food. All holiday happy. Sure.
It was easy to find Mom, I just looked for ripples in the crowd, and listened for the occasional scream or shout. It led me right to her.
As a man, here is how I shopped when I was single: Wait for payday… (Why is it I made just as much money single as I did married, yet when I was single I was always broke waiting for payday?) So, while waiting for payday, I wrote down all the things I needed. I mean an exhaustive list. Should I pick up some feminine hygiene products in case a female friend comes over and needs them? Better, just to be safe. Cereal? Meat? I made nice lists. Meanwhile, I never ate at home. I stopped at fast food places all of the time because I was young enough to eat whatever I wished and get away with it. About the time payday came around I realized that and took another look at my lists:
Mustard? Absolutely. What else can you put on a Bologna sandwich?
Tampons? Did I really write that down? Cereal? What?
Uh… Oh yeah, Bologna… And Beer… and bread, the other loaf from two months ago is moldy
That was it. So, I would go to the store, directly to the three places I needed to go, and in under a minute I was at the checkout, elbowing a little old lady out of the way, ready to go. Not so with Mom. Mom has to make the entire circuit. Not only did she not tell me when we left home that we would also be going to Walmart after the post office, but now that we’re there she has jumped right into the spend, spend, spend Holiday attitude, no doubt bought on by all the cussing.
Do we have to go to every aisle? Yes. We do.
I trailed along listening to bitching and griping from all the other men and women that also didn’t want to be there.
“Listen, Barb. I don’t give a $#$% if we have a %^$%$#@ Turkey or a %$^&# Ham…”
“No… I didn’t run over your foot… Yeah? Well %^$# you and your old lady too.”
“What did you say?”
A nearby mother grabs her kid and protectively drags him away. “Mommy, Mommy, I think that one guy is gonna $%#@ up that other guy… Mommy … Mommy…”
Mom just drove right through the middle of them.
“Sorry,” I said as I followed behind Mom. I’ll tell you the truth, it defused the argument, and that was probably good news for the one guy as the other guys wife looked like she could have kicked his @#$ in a minute, and was about to. We finished Moms circuit, purchased six hundred things we really didn’t need, and headed for home.
Back home, I wondered over all of that holiday cheer. So much love from the couples and family members I saw in the store. The holidays in general. Am I missing the closeness and togetherness of being married? Being in a relationship? Is the holiday season better for those folks? Then I remembered just how it was in those relationships I had, and that every one of them ended, was over. And that there was a reason for that. Are you #$%^&$@ crazy? I asked myself.
Probably, I agreed.
No. Going to Walmart just reminded me that some married folks are just looking for opportunities to kill each other, or anyone else. They are miserable and the holidays only make it worse. Hey, when you are single you only get lonely. And, you don’t have to go to Walmart! … Unless your mom tricks you into it… I don’t think I’m going to Walmart for a while…
One last word on ex-wives: A person actually said this to me the other day.
“Oh yeah. I’m friends with my ex, aren’t you?”
“Um, no… None of them,” I said.
“Huh. My ex likes me.”
“Yeah… Mine doesn’t.” The uncomfortable silence fell right about then. “So… what about those Jolly %#@&*^$ shoppers at Walmart,” I asked?
“Oh… Those $#@^@&%,” he said.
Okay. That was my week. I hope you are all having a great holiday. I did my shopping online. Lazy, I know. We got about 12” of snow here Thursday evening, and we’re supposed to get 14” or more tonight. This past Fall I had a chance to buy a snow blower cheap. I cannot tell you what stupid argument I used to talk myself out of it. Oh well. I’ll be back next week.
Hey check out this new book by Sam Wolfe: The Bone Clan…
The Bone Clan
The battle lasted for hours, leaving behind a trail of blood and destruction. When it was finally over, only a handful of warriors remained standing. Deh gave the command to abandon their territory, fighting the attackers off while the women and the children were spirited away. #Prehistoric #CaveMen #eBooks #Apple https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-bone-clan/id6473810386
This is song I wrote about a Train Ride on the Sunset limited several years ago, before it crashed in a swamp behind my house just a few months later. I spent almost three days straight riding to NYC, and three days riding back. It really affected me. I saw a lot and a lot ended up in the song…
Verse 1 Rode the limited… Halfway across America… Up through the south-lands and into the frozen north… Day on day… Listening to the sound of the steel rails… Met so many people on that train and some of the faces still remain… Son’s and daughters… Mothers and fathers… A sad young woman riding next to me… Night after night… Stars painted on her fingernails… And she dreamed her dreams… Yes she dreamed her dreams… Oh she dreamed her dreams… As the train rolled on…
Instrumental—————- Acoustic run through of the verse structure —————————————
Verse 2 Drinking a beer from the bar, and watching the world go by… Sliding by the windows of the car and falling away to wherever memories go… Making peanut butter crackers… With the little boy across the aisle… I laid my hands on his mother’s swollen belly… I felt her baby move, as I and her little one ate our lunch in the aisle at her feet… Oh it made me feel… As alive as the baby in her womb… Made me smile… Oh it made me smile… And I dreamed my dreams… Yes I dreamed my dreams… Oh I dreamed my dreams… And the train rolled on…
Hook 1 And the days slid by, riding on the Limited… All the towns and villages we visited… And the time slipped by, living in the slow lane… Traveling across my world by train. Verse 3 Made up a story … … … In my head … About the sad young woman riding next to me… It was how… somebody broke her heart and stole her smile… Um hmm… Left her sad inside instead… Then she said hello with a smile and her face became something beautiful. We talked the night away until she fell asleep lying against my arm… She slept so deep… Like she was sleeping in her own room… In her own bed. And she dreamed her dreams… Yes she dreamed her dreams… Oh she dreamed her dreams… As the train rolled on…
Verse 4 My last night passed me by like pages in a book… The boy with his belly full of crackers sleeping next to me… Yeah… And the girl with the broken heart, she dreamed her dreams as we rolled on through the night… Walking on the other side… Watched the world slide by… The towns and cities we passed… … Spots of light… … Spots of life gathered here and there.. I rode the limited across America… I rode the limited across America… it was a good long ride… It was a good long ride… And I dreamed my dreams… Yes I dreamed my dreams… Oh I dreamed my dreams… And the train rolled on…
Hook 1 And the days slid by, riding on the Limited… All the towns and villages we visited… And the time slipped by living in the slow lane… Traveling my world by train. Dreaming my dreams… Dreaming my dreams… As the train rolled on…
Why I Wrote It: * I took a train trip on the Sunset Limited from Alabama to New York and then back many years ago. This is the story about some of what happened. I could probably write several songs about it. That train trip has found it’s way into my writing, lyrics, books, short stories. It was probably one of the most memorable things I have even done. Just sort of stepping out of life for several days. The pregnant mother and her little boy were real. We really did make peanut butter crackers and sit in the aisle and eat them. The sad girl next to me was real too… * There is music written for these lyrics.
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