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    Journal
    Journal
    Journal
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Journal

    By Linda Mooney and Gail Smith

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    The handwritten account of one woman's struggle to survive in a world gone DEAD.

    Something has happened to the world, and now the living are gradually becoming the living dead. This is the story of one young woman's struggle to live a life that has no future.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLinda Mooney
    Release dateFeb 3, 2017
    ISBN9781450719391
    Author

    Linda Mooney

    Linda loves to write sensuously erotic romance with a fantasy, paranormal, or science fiction flair. Her technique is often described as being as visual as a motion picture or graphic novel. A wife, mother, grandmother, and retired Kindergarten and music teacher, she lives in a small south Texas town near the Gulf coast where she delves into other worlds filled with daring exploits, adventure, and intense love. She has numerous best sellers, including 10 consecutive #1s. In 2009, she was named Whiskey Creek Press Torrid's Author of the Year, and her book My Strength, My Power, My Love was named the 2009 WCPT Book of the Year. In 2011, her book Lord of Thunder was named the Epic Ebook "Eppie" Award Winner for Best Erotic Sci-Fi Romance. In addition, she write naughty erotic romances under the name of Carolyn Gregg, and horror under the pseudonym of Gail Smith. For more information about Linda Mooney books and titles, and to sign up for her newsletter, please visit her website. http://www.LindaMooney.com

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    • 5/5
      Could not stop reading! I love apocalypse books and this one did not disappoint. The ending was a shocker. My only complaint is that I wish it had been longer!

    Book preview

    Journal - Linda Mooney

    Tuesday, November 13th

    ––––––––

    They can’t climb stairs.  That’s the one thing I keep reminding myself.  And it’s why I always make sure I spend the night someplace that has an upper story.  Some nights I’ve even spent up a tree.  But then you have to contend with them smelling you out during the night so that you wake up with a dozen or so milling around under your feet, bumping into the trunk.

    They can’t see, either.  They’re pretty much deaf and blind.  I guess those senses died along with their bodies.  Yet for some unknown reason they can smell you.  Or maybe they can’t smell you.  Maybe they feel your heat because they damn sure don’t have any of their own. Plus, they make the most awful sounds when they try to talk, if you want to call it talk.  It’s more like a howl or a moan.  No articulation.  Can’t.  No tongues. Those rotted out, too.

    You can tell how long they’ve been dead, too, if you know the signs.  If you know what to look for.  The fresher ones are pretty stiff.  As rigor sets in, their movements get jerkier.  Then they start to slump as they bloat.  Further along, pieces start to fall off.  An arm or finger or ear here and there.  Later on the skin and guts slough off.  If they were wearing suits or lots of clothes when the Big One happened, those guys tend to be held more together.  But the women.  Sheesh.  Especially the young ones who wore barely there attire are barely there anymore after a few months, except for bits of stuff hanging off their skeletons.

    It’s been over three months, nearly four.  At least I think it has.  I have a little pocket calendar I’ve been trying to remember to mark off every day.

    It’s pretty hard to live a nightmare for three months.  It tends to take a toll on your sanity.  I quit trying to make sense of the whole thing long ago.  To try and keep myself together, I’ve been attempting to make my way back home, back to where my mom and dad live.  Or lived.  I don’t know for sure if they’re still there, but I can hope.  And pray.  It’s a whole other nightmare I’m facing.  The home where I grew up is down south in rural Alabama, off a farm-to-market road, out in the country where there's lots of trees to hide behind or in.  Trees that will slow down an approaching dead thing as it bounces off the trunk like a wayward pinball.

    And speaking of smell.  The older the corpse, the worse it stinks.  The scent of decay can sometimes be so strong, you can tell one’s getting near you if the wind’s coming from the right direction.  The fresher the corpse, however, the less chance you’ll know it’s nearby until it’s almost too late.  But usually you can hear them before they get too close.

    This is all jumbled, I know.  Too many things to remember, too much to write down all at once.  I need to pace myself.  Use this journal as a guide to whoever might find it once I’m gone.  A guide or a warning.  Hopefully it won’t come to that, but at this stage in the game, I’m so exhausted both mentally and physically, there’s a good chance I could screw up, and that would be the last of me.

    I like this journal.  I found it at a bookstore in one of those suburbs on the outskirts of some city.  I don’t know which.  I don’t pay attention anymore.  I just head south, toward home, and keep a wide berth from heavily populated areas where the dead things roam more abundantly. 

    Of course, the shops are wicked dark without electricity.  I had to break a window to get inside, which means it won’t be long before dead things find their way inside afterwards.  I’d grabbed some paperbacks, and was on my way out when I spotted this journal.  It’s got a nice leather-like cover.  A gold cover with the word JOURNAL in big black letters stamped across the front.  If you run your fingertips across it, you can feel how the word was stamped down into the cover.  I got the paperbacks to help me pass the night.  You don’t travel at night.  It’s too easy to run into one of those things.  But when you’re alone, you need to do something to occupy your mind, keep yourself from going stark raving mad as your ears tensely listen for the remotest sound which could mean danger.  That’s why I also got the journal.  It’s my thin grasp on the past, on what should have been, or what should be.

    I also grabbed what I thought was a deck of cards to help pass the hours when I can’t keep going and need to stop to get some rest.  They weren’t regular cards.  They turned out to be Tarot cards.  I don’t know anything about Tarot, but the deck had this piece of paper inside it that explained what each card meant.

    One card in particular caught my eye.  It was the Judgment card.  It showed this dock extending out into this bloody lake, surrounded by smears of blood and a crimson looking sky, maybe evening or twilight.  A giant reddish hand was reaching downward toward someone’s hands that were sticking out of the lake.  The hands made it appear like it was their third time down and they were heading for the bottom for good.  Either the hands were waving goodbye or hello, I couldn’t tell, but the whole thing reminded me of this God-awful mess we’re in now.  It’s God’s bloody hand reaching down to pluck out the lone survivor, maybe.  Maybe that survivor is me, and the card symbolizes the life I’m being forced to live, and the world I have no choice but to live in. 

    The paper explanation said, For the understanding of spiritual things, we understand the relationship between God and all of humanity.  Okay, God, so what was the purpose of doing what You did?  Yeah, yeah, I know You said You wouldn’t use water or floods again to cleanse the earth when Judgment Time came around.  But everyone kind of assumed the next cleansing would be by fire.  Big joke on us, right?  You didn’t choose to use fire.  Ha ha ha.  Bet You’re still giggling over that one, aren’t You?

    So I use the Judgment card as my marker to keep my place in my journal.  And every time I look at it I’m amazed at how prophetic the artist was at capturing the future.  The future that is now.

    I’m spending the night tonight on the second floor of a model home.  It smells of fresh paint everywhere, along with the slightly stinging aroma of new carpeting and tile.  It’s a really nice-looking place, all pristine and new and unused.  I faintly entertained the notion of setting up residence here as I warmed up a can of baked beans over the hibachi I’d stolen from down the street.  The area is quiet.  Wonderfully quiet.  No deep-throated screams punctuate the night.  I might be able to get some decent rest for the first time in weeks.

    ––––––––

    Friday, November 16th

    ––––––––

    A cold front came in last night.  Had some fruit cocktail for breakfast.  Broke a shop window to get a coat.  It’s a nice, light-weight blue one.  Filled with down.

    Even though it’s light out, and I use a lot of back roads to travel, I still have to keep a watchful eye open.  Fortunately, the dead things move slowly.  That is, if they move.  Their brains don’t work anymore, so their bodies seem to be stuck on automatic.  Anyone can outrun them.  Sometimes you can see

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