Zomblog 04: Snoe
Written by: TW Brown
Cover Art and Design by Denise Brown
Zomblog: Snoe
©2012 May December Publications
The Split-tree logo is a registered trademark of May December Publications LLC.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or May December Publications.
Printed in the U.S.A.
“Vix” Kirkpatrick…
For refusing to accept that sometimes a story comes to an end.
Foreword
Just over a year ago, August of 2011, I released the ‘final’ book in the
Zomblog
trilogy. The release of
Zomblog: The Final Entry
marked the end of a journey that I never expected to take in the first place. When I wrote the first book, it was as a warm-up for what I considered to be my official entry into the zombie genre. I was more than a little surprised at how things turned out leading to the eventual publication of that first
Zomblog
. When the demands came for more…I agreed. The logic is simple, as a writer, I work for the people who read my work. When they wanted more, I was obliged to give them what they requested.
When I decided to make this book a trilogy, I figured that was a good number. Lots of people write trilogies. So, when I released that third book, I put all my Zomblog material in a cabinet and bid a fond farewell to the series that really gave me my first push. Now it was time to move on…or so I thought.
At first there were just a few comments. And that is fine.
“Always leave ‘em wanting more.”
That is an old saying in the entertainment biz. Then a few of the letters became insistent. One person in particular, a person I’ve come to regard as a real friend, Vix Kirkpatrick, insisted that the story was not over. More than once.
I will go on record as saying that this three book arc will be the end of the
Zomblog
series. All good things must come to an end, but after some time with the character, Snoe and I became better acquainted and this gives me the chance to take things in a new direction. After all, this is almost twenty years after the initial zombie rising. I’ve always said that there is more to the genre than just ‘rip and tear’ scenes. And this allows me the opportunity to explore a world that has an entire generation that has known nothing but a world where zombies exist.
Never say never…
October 2012
TW Brown
Friday, June 1
st
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 abandoned 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 2
nd
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.