SO many people to thank. As you can see when you glance at my NaNoWriMo fundraiser link on the right, we did very well. As of this writing, we were $90 from our goal. All my thanks to ever single one of you. And to the anonymous donor who matched every donation, I can not begin to express my thanks because the words are simply not sufficient.
Speaking of NaNoWriMo...I am 26,000 words in to the next DEAD book. Not exactly the 3,000 words a day that I wanted, but I am doing well and should finish before my birthday (which was my ultimate goal). I will be offering Beta copies to all the donors, but I would like two more, so if you want to read my new DEAD book before it goes public, and can read it with a critical mind, then I need your help. SO the first two comments requesting to be Beta readers will be selected.
Coming up this week, I have a few guests including Janet Morris and Armand Rosamilia. I hope you will stop by and check out what they have to say. Now, as an added bonus, I thought that I would leave you with an excerpt of Zomblog: Snoe which comes out on Halloween of this year. Enjoy...and feel free to comment.
Friday,
June 1st
Five years ago,
I received my mother’s journal. Now, at age nineteen, I think I have the
discipline to begin one myself. Sure, I tried a few times in the past, but it
just never took. I would forget, and then, once I remembered, so much time had
passed that I would just give up and say why bother.
A few days ago,
Mama Lindsay came back from her unit’s escort of the Rose Colony’s president
out to the Ten Pacific Nations Confederated tribal lands, something to do with
a renewal of a bunch of treaties.
Anyways, she
sent a messenger for me to pick her up after her DECON certification.
(Everybody who ventures out of the confines of a Safe Zone has to be tested
before they are allowed in general population.) It seems she found all my old
failed attempts at starting a journal when she was loading out for her trip.
She didn’t want to bring it up until she got back just in case we had a blow up
over it.
I should
probably come clean with the fact that I supposedly have a hot temper. Mama
Lindsay says it is proof of genetic influence on personality.
So I guess she
decided to wait until she got home to have the big conversation about me
keeping a journal. I think she was being a little silly. After all, it was just
a little scribbling on paper. We have a rule…no arguing before a patrol. Nobody
wants to have their last memories of a loved one be of some fight over
something stupid. We started that rule after Mama Janie and her entire farming
group were wiped out by a Mega Herd—some reports claim there were over twenty
thousand undead that day. I was only five or six at the time, but I think Mama
Lindsay and Mama Janie had gotten into it over something like taking out the
trash or sorting the compost; basically they had an argument over something
mundane. To this day, I’ve never had the heart to ask what exactly they had
quarreled over.
Mama Lindsay
says the only reason she didn’t kill herself in those rough days that followed
was because of me. She said I was her sole reason to live for almost two years
after Mama Janie died. A few days later, Mama Lindsay sat me on her lap and we
made a pinky promise to never let ourselves separate if we are angry at each
other. I am proud to say we kept that promise all these years,
When I met her
at the DECON station, I could tell she’d had a tough run. Half of her weapons
were either missing from their sheathes, or visibly damaged. Her eyes had dark
circles under them and her forehead had those two deep creases that it gets
when she is either exhausted or pissed.
I took her field
pack and we headed to the supply depot for groceries. At first, she didn’t say
a word. Since she had called for me, I knew she would get to it when she was
ready. Finally she just stopped walking and turned to look me in the eye.
“Are you
leaving?”
When Mama
Lindsay asked me that question, I guess I was shocked. More than that, I
realized that I guess I’d known for a long time that anybody who knew me, or
better yet, knew my birth mother, waited to see if I would leave on some crazy
journey.
That is the
price you pay when your birth mother is famous for being a Traveller. By the
way, that’s as close to an insult here as you can get. Here in the Rose Colony,
a ‘Traveller’ is somebody who refuses to be a part of the community.
In the world we
live in, not being a part of a community carries the same stigma as the Old
World welfare whore. I learned in one of my history classes that there was a
small sub-culture of women who had babies, lots of times by different men, and
lived off of checks they got from the government. I came home from school with
a lot of questions that day.
The problem with
Travellers is that they don’t even try to help anybody but themselves. They
scavenge the Old World and sell anything worthwhile to the highest bidder.
Sure, they risk their lives—not many Travellers live past twenty-five according
to the statistics—and usually have some amazing artifacts to show for it, but
it all self-centered.
It hurt me a
little that, after all these years, Mama Lindsay could think I would do
anything like that. I was raised to be a part of the community effort. I can’t
really remember much about Mama Janie, but the images I do have are one of a
person who always helped others and worked very hard. I have one clear memory
about how when she would come in from the fields, she would always have
something from the garden hidden in one of her pockets for me to find when I
helped take them for washing.
It is sad that I
know more about the father who died before I was born and the mother who
abandoned me than I do about a woman who loved me, told me bedtime stories, and
taught me to read and write.
Seeing how
worried Mama Lindsay was at that moment made it that much more nerve-wracking
about what I had to say. When the words came out of my mouth, I was not sure
how she would react.
“I want to join
the Escort and Expedition Force.”
Mama Lindsay has
been the commander of the EEF for three years. I still remember how proud I was
the day that the colony president handed her the sword and crossbow. I knew on
that day that I wanted to follow in her footsteps. I also knew that she wanted
me to choose a safer profession.
I honestly
believe that one of her biggest concerns over me was that I would get outside
the walls and feel drawn to explore the world. After all, it is what made my
birth mother famous.
That brings me
to my birth mother. Meredith Gainey. She and my birth father, Samuel Todd, have
the three best selling books of all time in the ZE (Zombie Era). You might
think it is neat to be the daughter of two celebrities.
No. It’s not.
You see, there
are a few different sorts when it comes to people and my parents. With Sam, it
goes one of two ways; there are the creepy ones who see my father as some sort
of demi-god, they get all weird when they meet me and it is actually kinda
scary. And then there are the ones who have basically memorized his writings
and feel the need to tell me about how “deep and philosophical” my father was
as a writer.
The reactions
about my mother are, shall we say, a bit different. There are some who see her
as this avenging warrior. Her battle with The Genesis Brotherhood is a very
popular story. There are some who see her as one of the early pioneers who
blazed some sort of trail. There are others who see her as a selfish woman who
stands as a reminder for a lot of what was wrong with the pre-ZE society.
I just see her
as the person who abandonded me right after I was born. Don’t get me wrong, I
am thankful. I had two amazing mothers who loved me and devoted their lives to
making me a good person.
I can still see
the look on Mama Lindsay’s face. All of that relief that came first…then the
typical “motherly” concern. No, her baby was not going to follow in her
birth-mother’s footsteps. Yay!
Instead, she was choosing the most dangerous profession in the colony. Crap.
Saturday, June 2nd
Jenifer came
over today. I guess Mama Lindsay told her about my decision. Jenifer travelled
with Meredith for quite a while. She got burned up real bad during the battle
with The Genesis Brotherhood.
I guess it is
okay to call her “Jenifer” in my journal. Everybody else calls her “Madame
President.”
She wanted to
congratulate me on my decision to join the EEF. By the big deal she made of it,
I could tell she was enjoying Mama Lindsay’s annoyance.
Jenifer used to
be the person Mama Janie and Mama Lindsay called when they needed somebody to
watch me. I guess they went through a few sitters when I was two or three
because I was “a hellion” according to the stories. In an act of desperation,
they called Jenifer. I guess they thought a half-burnt young woman with most of
her head unable to grow hair because of all of the scars, coupled with her
shriveled raisin of a left eye, would scare me straight. Instead, it seems that
I formed quite a bond with her.
I was with
‘Aunt’ Jeni when I killed my first zombie. We were out picking wild blueberries
when one came out of the tall grass. Creepers are the worst. Missing their
lower half, they get through the picket lines more often than a walker. This
one had an even bigger advantage: it was a child.
He couldn’t have
been any older than six—my age at the time. His clothing had long since
deteriorated, and the years had taken their toll on the belly of the wretched
thing.
I remember every
detail about that boy. The way you could tell his hair had been curly, even
though it was so caked and matted with filth, the piece of bone that stuck out
from what remained of the left leg—which was missing from just above the knee.
The fact that the entire right leg stayed intact and still had a leather boot
practically grafted to the foot.
Jenifer gave me
a spear and told me it was time that I learned how to put one down. I thought
it would be easy. You hear about it or read my birth parent’s journals and
think there is nothing to it. Pop it in the head and it’s done.
It took me three
tries. The first time, I jabbed and my spear scraped down one side of its face.
The second time, I stabbed it through the neck. I got so mad that I kicked it
onto its back and stabbed it through the eye.
I remember
staring at it for what felt like just a few seconds, but it was noticeably
darker when Jenifer took my hand and led me home. I must have counted each of
the nine remaining ribs a couple hundred times.
Anyways, it was
sweet of Jenifer to come over and wish me luck. I am pretty sure she doesn’t do
that for every single person who enlists in the EEF.
Sunday, June 3rd
My last day as a
civilian—so to speak. I met with a few of my friends. (It is a bit creepy with
how many ‘Sams’ and ‘Merediths’ I know.) We all went out to the corridor with
crossbows, sat up on the barricades, and passed around a bottle of homemade
blackberry wine while we took turns dropping shamblers with the crossbow.
The parents all
hate it when we do it, but kids have been doing this for years. It is some sort
of ritual. Nobody knows who started it, but for some reason, if you join the
EEF, you come out here on the last day. You and a few friends drink a bottle
and shoot the crossbow. The winner is the person who loses the fewest bolts. I
remember something in my mom’s journal about her crossbow being fitted with the
retriever reel. Of course, that is standard issue now. Nobody has bolts to
waste.
I do have a guy
that I like…but we already talked it over and decided that we will hold off
getting serious until I finish my first tour. We almost ‘did the deed’ a few
nights ago, but he was super sweet and it was actually Tim who put a halt to
things.
That brings me
to my sweetie, Tim Coatney. He was one of the kids rescued from that mansion
where The Genesis Brotherhood had their base. He works the farms and is a very
BIG boy. He has this baby fine blonde hair that I love to run my fingers
through and arms that make the world disappear. I know that I am going to miss
him, and I know that it is possible that some other girl will scoop him up when
I leave on my first run.
As I lie in bed
with my candle and this silly little book, I wonder if I will be able to keep
it up. I actually lost it today…it was in the dining hall at the table where I
ate breakfast. I am already wondering how my birth parents carried those damn
things through all the crap they went through.
Monday, June 4th
I feel like I’ve
been beaten with a really big stick. I hurt in places that I didn’t even know I
could hurt. I thought I’d been so clever with my morning jogs and my secret
workouts. Thing is…when it is just you, if a little fatigue sets in, you can
call it quits or ease up. The only reson I’m writing this entry is to prove
they didn’t beat me out there today.
Can I please have a BETA copy?
ReplyDeleteBTW--Way excited to read the rest of Snoe's story!
DeleteYou are on the BETA list April. I will communicate with you via email when it gets close...and Zomblog: Snoe is set for release on Halloween.
ReplyDeleteYay!
ReplyDeleteI'm officially addicted to zombie literature!
Lovin' the Dead series, too. Just started Dead: Revelations. So I'll be ready to go on your latest installment when the time comes. :)