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Rachelle Reese is the co-author of the following print books:

Bones of the Woods

Mind of a Mad Man

She also writes living novels at http://www.textnovel.com

To view other e-books by Rachelle Reese at Smashwords, visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rachellereese

Late July – not sure of the date and can’t look at my calendar

I was angry when the power went off at quarter after four. I’m anxious to be finished and rejoin the world I exiled myself from three months ago so I could finish this novel. The novel is close – so close I can taste the closing words on my tongue. Bittersweet, the way I like them.

Amanda flipped through the pages of the red leather-bound journal, looking for a name, a year. She found nothing. She had found the book and two nice ink pens under a floorboard in the crumbling house near the edge of the property her parents had bought last year. Her father had gotten a job in the mines nearby and they were hoping for a fresh start away from the addicted city. That was what her father called all cities. He had been raised in the country and hated the traffic and the rude neighbors honking their horns and then smiling their fake smiles at each other over four-foot fences. Hated the identical houses that stretched endlessly side-by-side with exactly twenty feet between them. Hated the mind-numbing, vitamin water that flowed from every drinking water tap. So when scientists discovered that the tiff rock in the Undiscovered Foothills could be ground and processed to create an anti-anxiety medicine, her father was one of the first to sign up.

Amanda’s mother had not been happy. “You know you’re a hypocrite, don’t you? You know they’ll put that medicine you’re mining right into the water.”

“I’ll be mining it, not drinking it,” her father had replied. “They’ll do what they want with or without me. I plan to build a house with a well.”

And so their arguments went. But in the end, her father got the job, they bought ten acres of land and five weeks ago they moved in.

They had lived in the new house just over a month when Amanda discovered the crumbling house. “Why do they call it the Undiscovered Foothills if people lived here before?” Amanda had asked at dinner that night.

“People never lived here, Amanda,” her mother had said. “Not in my lifetime.”

“They did live here once though. I found a house.”

Her mother had become visibly nervous. “Don’t go near it. Terrorists might have lived there. There might be bombs, chemicals, and who knows what else.” She’d glared at Amanda’s father. “I told you it was a bad idea to move outside of civilization.”

Her father had shrugged, “It’s probably harmless, Julie. There were lots of people who lived in rural areas before the terrorist attacks. And most of them were just normal people.”

“Still.”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Amanda had learned that it was sometimes easier to just go along with her mother’s worries than to argue with her, especially since they’d moved. “I won’t go back there. It’s too long a walk, anyway.”

Of course, Amanda had gone back. There was nothing better to do. She had three more weeks before she could enroll in school. That was the rule when you moved out of the safety net – seven weeks of quarantine. It was the same way going back inside. That’s why most people who lived in the cities never left. Who could stand sitting at home and doing nothing for seven weeks?

So Amanda had spent most of last week exploring the house. From what she could tell, a woman had lived there alone. The clothing was mostly rotted away, but she could tell it was old by the style. Pre-terrorist more than likely, maybe even older than that. There were stacks of books, but most of them were too moldy to read. There were dishes stacked in cupboards and piled in an old-style sink. There were even a few old cans of food. Amanda could barely make out the expiration dates, but she was pretty sure they had all expired before she was born.

She had noticed the loose floorboard yesterday and it had bothered her all night. Her imagination ran wild. It could be just a loose floorboard or it could be a passageway to a secret world or a tomb. Or a room full of bombs, her mother’s voice interrupted her daydream. Amanda pushed it aside. After all, her father had come from outside the city and he wasn’t a terrorist. So first thing in the morning, Amanda had taken the crowbar from her father’s toolbox and gone back to the house.

And now she had a book and two very old pens. At first she’d been disappointed, but then she’d realized that the book might help her solve the mystery of who had lived in the crumbling house and what had happened to her.

I’m hoping the power won’t be off long, but I can’t see a reason it’s off at all. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the winds are still, unusually still for this time of year. And I’m sure I paid the bill. Well, if it’s not on tomorrow I’ll drive down to Kyle’s Gas and Grocery and use the pay phone there to call. I knew I should have kept that old wire phone. You never know when you’ll need one.

Next morning – still no power
And today promises to be ghastly. I didn’t sleep much last night. The air was so warm and still I couldn’t breathe. It was even hot outside. Tornado weather, they call it. Maybe that’s why there’s no power. I never realized how dependent I am on electricity. I’m out of practice writing with paper and pen and I can’t even get a glass of water because there’s no power to run the pump. So here I am drinking yesterday’s coffee cold. This would happen two days before I’d planned to make a supply run. Well, off to Kyle’s. If nothing else, I can buy some bottled water.

Same day, afternoon
I’ve spent my whole life writing novels, trying to make them suspenseful, yet realistic. If I’d written about today my editor would have sent it back as too far-fetched. Well, I’m writing it now. And it is reality, not fiction.

I went to Kyle’s to call the electric company and buy a few things to tide me over until the power comes back on. When I pulled up, I knew something was wrong right away. Kyle’s is never empty. There are always a couple old men out front whiling away the day and at least a person or two at the pumps. Kyle charges more than anyone in town, but he’s a good ten miles from any other station, so he gets plenty of business. Got plenty of business. I parked right in front and went inside. There was Kyle, face down next to the cash register in a pool of blood. From the smell, it seemed he’d been dead a day or two, but you never know. As hot as it is, a body would rot pretty fast. And wouldn’t you know, the power is out there too. Well, I went to the pay phone. First I tried to call 911. It rang and rang without an answer. Next, I tried the power company. This time I got the after hours recording. I pressed 2 to report a power outage and eventually a person with a heavy Indian accent answered. “I need to report an outage,” I said.

“We are aware of the problem, mum. But we cannot contact the office. We think it might be …”

“What do you mean you can’t contact the office? Where are you?”

“Mumbai. India.”

“Great. Just great. My power is out in the middle of the United States of America and my call gets answered in Mumbai, India. Where the hell is Mumbai, India?”

“It used to be Bombay, mum.”

I hung up the phone. Just my luck. I’d have to drive all the way to Park Hills to get answers. And I only had a quarter tank of gas. I took three bottles of water from the warm refrigerator and started to put a ten dollar bill on the counter, then changed my mind. Kyle didn’t need the money now and someone would probably just steal it anyway. When whoever he left the store to reopened, I’d settle up then.

I grabbed a couple bags of chips and a candy bar and stepped back outside. Then I noticed the stench. It was bad inside, but it was almost worse outside. And the sound of crows was deafening. I thought about leaving, and probably should have, but I’ve always been dangerously curious. So I followed the squawking and found the bodies just in time to see a crow tear a piece of flesh from one old man’s face and hop to the side to eat it. The other body was unrecognizable, so much flesh had been torn away. But from the clothing, I figured he was probably the other old man who always stood out front. Killing Kyle, I could almost understand. He was a greedy man who watered down his gas and shorted people change. The two old men were harmless characters who’d like nothing better than to tell you the rambling story of their lives. I couldn’t imagine someone killing either one of them.

At this point, I was anxious to leave there. I planned to drive to the police station in Park Hills to report the murders and ask them if they knew anything about when the electricity would be turned back on.

I drove back down the curvy roads, past my house, and the other way. I passed no one, which is not unheard of but a little odd. When I got to the highway, it was a different story. It was clogged with cars and trucks – and every single one of them was standing still. Their engines weren’t even running. And then I saw the people – hunched over steering wheels, lying at the side of the road, some in pools of blood, others with their faces contorted in unexplained agony. I stared at the carnage, trying to disbelieve it all. It was heatstroke, not real. I took a swig from the water bottle I’d opened when I left Kyle’s. As I threw back my head, I heard something smack across my windshield. I jumped, spilling half the bottle of water in my lap. But I didn’t even notice that until later because a man, very much alive, was clawing at my windshield. His face was distorted, pressed tight against the glass, his fingers left bloody smears, and he was shouting something I couldn’t make out.

I panicked, threw the car into reverse and backed down the country road as fast as I dared. He still clung there, screaming his incomprehensible scream. I slammed on the brakes. The screaming man flew through the air and hit the ground. I backed down the road until I found a driveway I could turn around in. I thought about going back to see if the man was dead or alive. But something about his screaming mouth terrified me. I decided to stop by Kyle’s for more supplies and just go home. I’d take enough to last a week or two.

So that’s what I did. Now I just have to wait it out. I’ll try to go to town again in a few days. By then maybe the National Guard will have cleaned up the mess.

Amanda’s watch warned her it was lunch time. She put the book and the pens carefully back where she had found them and replaced the floorboard. They were safe there for all this time, they’d have to be safe for longer. If her mother found the journal, she’d never hear the end of it.

As she walked through the woods back to her house, her mind raced so fast, she didn’t notice the chiggerweed until she came out of it and realized her skin was crawling. Chiggerweed was one of the only things her father had warned her about. “You’ll have no immunity to them,” he said. “They’re bad enough for an old country boy like me, but for a city girl like you they’ll be hell.” She tried to brush them off, but by the time she got home, she knew that some had bitten into her flesh. Fortunately, her father was at the table when she walked in.

“Dad, I did something stupid.”

“You didn’t go back to that house, did you?” her mother asked.

Amanda ignored her mother’s question. “I wasn’t paying attention and I walked through chiggerweed.” She held up her ankle, which was just starting to blister.

Her father ran his finger over on of the bumps. “That might be a chigger bite. You’ll know soon enough. For now, you’d better go take as hot a bath as you can stand and try to get them off you.”

“If it’s chiggers, what’ll they do to her?” Amanda heard her mother ask as she ran off to the bathroom.

“Itch like a mother-fucker.”

“Luke! I hate it when you talk like that.”

“What? It’s the truth. Have you ever had a chigger bite?”

“Of course not.”

“Well I have. And they itch like a mother-fucker.”

Amanda hurried off to take the hottest bath she’d ever taken.

***

“Dad, what were the terrorist attacks like?” Amanda was helping her father burn off weeds so they could plant some grass. What she really wanted to do was go back to the house and read more of the journal, but there was no getting out of helping this afternoon.

“I was just a little boy, Amanda. And they didn’t strike where I lived.”

“Then why did you move to the city?”

“The government put up the nets a few years after the attacks started. They said it was the only safe place to be. My parents believed them, like most people back then. And so they sold their land to the government and moved to the city.”

“What happened to the land?”

“Like this, I imagine. Just wasted space until some pharmaceutical company finds a resource on it.”

“Do you think they’ll strike again?”

“Who?”

“The terrorists.”

“They’re all long dead, Amanda. The government rounded them all up and injected them with some concoction. Humane execution, they called it.”

“What if some escaped?”

“Well, if they did, they must not be interested in terrorism anymore. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in over twenty years.”

“Do you think there was a terrorist strike here?”

“Here? No, that’s doubtful. All the strikes I heard about were in big cities. That’s why they blamed us rural folk for the outbreak.”

“Outbreak?”

“The terror outbreak. That’s why your mother’s so paranoid about that old house. The government convinced people that all the terrorists were from rural areas. So you’d be safer inside the net. Believe me, quarantine back then was not the piece of cake it is now. You had to be careful what you said. I know several people who never made it out of quarantine.”

“Where are they now?”

“Dead, I imagine. Or in some asylum. I never tried to track them down. Some things you’re just better off not knowing.”

“What do you mean?”

Amanda’s father just shook his head and lit the gasoline on fire. The fire spread fast. It had been a hot, dry summer. “Man the hose, Amanda. Don’t let the fire break through!”

Amanda watched for embers and hosed them down. She made sure every little flame was out.

Another hot morning
I sat on the back porch all night and watched the full moon creep across the motionless tree line. It was too hot inside to sleep, so I surrounded myself with citronella candles and braved the mosquitoes. It’s been two nights now with almost no sleep and I’m beginning to wonder if the horrific events of yesterday were only a waking nightmare caused by exhaustion and heat. Something that awful cannot be real. So today I will worry only about surviving until the power comes on. I’ll drive back down to Kyle’s and fill my tank and some gas cans with gas. If the heat continues, I can at least sit in the car with the air conditioning on for a short time.

Early evening
The heat broke this afternoon – at last – with strong winds, lightning and rain. I stood in the rain and felt almost clean for the first time in days. Tonight I’ll celebrate by barbecuing the steaks I had in my freezer. I checked them and they were still cool to the touch, so they should be fine. Tonight, for once, I’ll sleep.

It’s a beautiful night. The world is bathed in pumpkin light. The sun is falling, falling. I will sleep.

Morning
A good night’s sleep and I’m convinced that nothing I saw was real. I will drive to Park Hills today and get the power restored.

Days later

It’s real. There. I said it. I killed the crazy man and the cars were still there, all backed up on the highway and going nowhere. And it’s all too fucking real. Crows and other predators had eaten on most of the corpses, so even if the government did find them, they’d be hell to identify. So what have I been doing? Crying mostly. Crying because there’s a pretty good chance that no one will ever read what I’m writing, let alone the novel I hid myself away to finish. But for some reason, I’m still alive. Alone. And when I die, that will be the end.

Early autumn
It’s been some time since I wrote. I figured it wasn’t worth wasting the ink if there was no one left to read it. But, to hell with that. I’m a writer. It’s what I do. And who knows…there might be someone out there, somewhere.

It’s amazing what you can hear when you listen to the woods and there are no cars, no airplanes, and no helicopters. For example, I hear a bird whistling, high and strong, and crickets chirping, and frogs singing because it rained today. It probably won’t be so bad being the only person left alive. As long as I survive, of course. And if I don’t, well there’ll be no one around to bury me, so I guess I’ll be crow food like all the others.

Anyway, I’ve decided to try to tell the story of what I think happened. I’m a strange one to tell that story, since I was outside of the world when it happened, but looking back there are some things that should have served as a warning.

First, there were the helicopters. Some nights I’d be up late writing – I miss writing at night – and I’d hear a helicopter flying low. Sometimes it would fly so low, I’d be afraid it might clip the treetops. It was dark, after all. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but looking back now it does seem odd. Why would a helicopter fly low across the forest in the middle of the night? Unless it was doing something illegal. Drugs, maybe? Weapon smuggling? I’m not sure. And what does that have to do with what happened? Maybe nothing. We’ll see where the story goes.

It was getting hard for Amanda to read the words. At first she thought maybe the ink was smeared or the page was dirty. But then she looked up from the book and realized the sun was low in the sky. She’d better go. As it was, it would be dark when she got home. Her mother would be hysterical. She placed the book carefully back in its hole and put the floorboards over it.

Then she started home. Her ankles felt like they were on fire, which reminded her to go around the chiggerweed. It was a longer path, but she really didn’t want more chiggers. All around her, the world was pumpkin-colored and a bird with a high-pitched squeal sang in the trees as she walked. She guessed the chirping sound might be crickets and made a mental note to ask her father. There were crickets in the city, but nowhere near as deafening as these. As she hurried down the trail, the world changed from pumpkin to rose and then to violet. Luckily, she could see the lights of the house up ahead. She’d really hate to get lost in the woods in the middle of the night. Besides, she could hear thunder rumbling in the distance.

When she walked in the door, her mother was pacing. Up and down the kitchen floor, she walked. “It’s all your fault that terrorists kidnapped her!” she yelled at Amanda’s father.

“There are no terrorists. Relax,” he said. “Calm down. It’s just the water. You’re not used to it yet.”

“You and your water. That’s why we’re here in the first place, isn’t it. Because you had to have your vitamin-free water.”

Amanda closed the door. “I’m here, Mom. Relax.”

“Where have you been?”

“Just out walking. I lost track of time.”

“How can you lose track of time? You have a watch. And you have eyes. Couldn’t you see it was getting dark?”

“I was listening to the crickets and they put me to sleep.”

Her father ran to the door and stuck his head outside. “Those aren’t just crickets singing, Amanda. Hear the deeper sounds? And the higher giggling answer? Those are frogs. It’s going to rain. Isn’t that wonderful? The frogs are telling us it’s going to rain. You don’t get that inside the safety net. Come, both of you. Listen and smell.”

Amanda walked over to her father and he put his arm around her. She took a deep breath. “Smells like a shower, only cleaner.”

“That’s little droplets of water.”

“Water has a smell?”

“Rain has a smell.”

Amanda looked over her shoulder and noticed her mother had left the room. “Why is Mom going crazy?”

“I’m not sure, Amanda. I think it’s a withdrawal symptom. Remember, for her whole life she’s drank water inside the safety net. Now she’s drinking pure, fresh well water. No added chemicals. I think her mind is just overwhelmed.”

“Will she get better?”

“I hope so. If not, maybe she can find a doctor who will give her pills. But I hope it doesn’t come to that. I really want us all to be alive here. Do you feel alive, Amanda?”

“More than ever, Dad.”

“Not bored any more?”

“Not bored at all.”

“Good.” He kissed her forehead and the two of them stood in silence and watched the storm.

After it was over, he asked, “What did you think?”

“Beautiful,” she replied. “Beautiful, but frightening at the same time. I was afraid the trees would snap in half.”

“They do sometimes. But this storm was mild. They can get much worse. I’ve seen trees pulled out of the ground, roots and all.”

“Is it the lightning that causes the power to go out?”

“What a funny question. There haven’t been storm-related power outages since I was a boy. See, these days they run the wires underground. Back then, they ran them above ground so trees could fall on the lines and knock out the power. What have you been reading?”

“Just a book I found.”

“You’ve been to the old house, haven’t you?”

“Don’t tell Mom.”

“Of course not. Is there anything interesting there?”

“All kinds of stuff! Clothes, dishes, books. The person who lived there was a writer.”

“How do you know that?”

“I found her journal. That’s what I’ve been reading.” Amanda shut up suddenly. She wished she hadn’t said anything about the journal. She remembered her father saying ‘Some things you’re better off not knowing’ and wondered if he believed it. If he did, the journal definitely fell into that category.

“What does it say?”

“Oh nothing much. Just stuff about her life.”

“Well, maybe when you get done with it, you’ll let me read it.”

Amanda shrugged, “Sure, Dad.” She kissed her father on the cheek and excused herself to go to bed.

Amanda fell asleep easily, but woke in the middle of the night. She could swear she heard a helicopter flying low over the trees. She got out of bed and went to the window, opening it wide. There was no helicopter light, but she heard the whirring of the blades. And she no longer smelled rainwater. Instead she smelled something that reminded her of vitamins.

I’m not really sure how much time has passed since the power went out. I know it was hot then, I think late July and now the leaves are starting to turn yellow and red. I can almost see them turn. It’s amazing the things you notice when you’ve got nothing much to do. Last night I watched the sunset change my world – because it is my world now – from bright blues and grays to deep amber, then to rose, and then finally to twilight blue. A rainbow in succession. And through it all, black dragonflies darted back and forth, resting briefly on a blade of grass, and then darting off in a different path. It was watching that sunset that made me realize I needed to write again. If only to recapture my world so that someone else knows I existed and that the dragonflies existed and the monarchs and the crows.

The crows are very much still here. One laughs at me every afternoon. I think it’s waiting for me to die. But I’ve made up my mind not to. The main thing is to drink and eat. I’ve found a spring where I can gather water. I started drinking there some time ago. At first just a little to make sure it didn’t make me sick. But now I drink exclusively from the spring. Food is another issue. I’ve eaten nearly everything from Kyle’s. But I can fish. There’s a lake nearby and there are poles and lures at Kyle’s. There were also some vegetable seeds on a sale rack at the feed store down the road from Kyle’s. I’ve taken some and started lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes in pots. I’ve never had a green thumb, but perhaps given the necessity, I’ll be able to keep them alive.

I’ve considered learning to hunt too. I’m sure I can find guns and ammunition if I search other houses. I shot a gun once at a target. I needed to know how it felt to shoot a shotgun so that I could write about it correctly. I’m not accurate, but I’m sure I’d get better. That’s one thing I definitely don’t understand. Most of the people who died were murdered – beat up, strangled, shot. The highway was like a battleground where neither side survived to claim the victory. What made all those people kill each other? I struggle with the idea of killing a squirrel or a wild turkey for sustenance. I can’t imagine killing another human being.

On the way home, Amanda played close attention to the leaves of the trees. Very green – that’s how she’d describe them. Greener than anything she’d ever seen.

After she got home, she found her father. “When do the leaves turn colors?”

“Another month or so. Why?”

“The writer told about it in her journal. I wanted to see it.”

“It’s beautiful, Amanda. You’ll love it. The air has a different smell then, too?”

“Like vitamins?”

“No. Why would it smell like vitamins?”

“Last night something woke me up and when I went to the window, I smelled vitamins.”

“It must still be that water working its way out of your system. You still have another week of quarantine, you know. You’re body’s still flushing out the poison.”

“Dad, why do they call it vitamins and you call it poison?”

“I just don’t think people need it, sweetheart. That’s all.”

“How’s Mom tonight?”

“Better. I think the withdrawal might be ending.”

“I hope so.”

“Me too, Amanda. Me too.”

***

A cool day
It’s cool this morning. Cool enough for me to put on sweats and a sweatshirt instead of the shorts and t-shirts that have been my uniform since I exiled myself last May. Also cool enough to remind me that winter does come eventually to this part of the world. So today I took the axe out of the shed to start cutting fallen trees into firewood. The axe was left here by the previous owner. They also left a splitting hammer. Chopping wood is something I’ve done before. As a young girl, I helped my father cut wood. But it’s not something I thought I’d ever do again. Usually I purchase a rank or two of wood for cozy fires on the evenings I need extra comfort. Fire has always been more an emotional thing for me than a physical necessity. This winter, fire will keep me alive.

As I held the axe in my hand, I thought again about the people who’d murdered and been murdered. I wondered what it would feel like to split a skull with an axe, as one woman’s had been at a farmhouse I visited looking for eggs. Her head was split in two and a man lay nearby her, a bullet through his nasal cavity. I guess he wanted to be sure he didn’t linger. Of course, I did murder in the mad heat of summer. I threw the crazy man from my windshield. But I consider that self defense. At least that’s how I think about it now. If it had been murder, I would have made sure he was dead by backing over him or something. That’s not what I did. I just removed him from my windshield.

Judge, jury, defendant, and prosecutor. Some days I feel like I have split in to all four. It’s not too different from writing a novel – you are your characters to some extent. The difference here is that each one is really me. There is no characterization or plot development. It is just me, playing out my different roles. Splitting hairs.

Splitting wood. I held the block against the top of the log and brought the splitting hammer down hard. The log splintered and fell into four pieces. Kindling. Essential when starting a fire without fire starters. Speaking of fire starters. I think I saw a few at Kyle’s – leftover from last winter most likely. But a few are better than nothing. Especially on days when I have to use wet wood. And matches. I’ll need to pick up matches next time I’m there.

The shed is still there; Amanda remembered seeing it. She wondered if the axe and splitting hammer were still there. She’d been so busy exploring the house and reading the journal that she hadn’t even looked in the shed.

She put the book back in its spot and replaced the floorboard. Then she walked to the shed. Like the house, it was crumbling and the paint had peeled off almost completely. She tried the door and it opened. Didn’t people lock anything in those days, she wondered. She stepped inside. It was mustier than the house and dark. She propped the door open to get as much light as she could. No good. She would have to come back with a light stick.

As she left, she tried to imagine where the woodpile might have been. Close to the house, probably. At least that’s where she’d put it. The safety net didn’t keep the cities from getting cold. Amanda had shivered on many a cold morning when she’d had to walk to the subway station to take the subway to school. She wondered how warm a fire could keep you. She’d never seen a fire before. They were outlawed in the safety net. And even accidental fires were rare. Guns were outlawed too, even outside the safety net. Amanda wondered if there was a gun in the house. If there was, should she tell anyone?

Walking through the tall grass on the way back to the house, Amanda stubbed her toe on something. She looked down and saw a rotted wooden stick with a large metal mallet. It looked like a hammer, but much larger. She bent down to take a closer look and noticed slender white sticks arranged almost in the shape of a hand. Then she realized she wasn’t looking at sticks. She was looking at the bones of a hand. She carefully moved the grass around and found two arms, two legs, rib bones, and even a skull. She felt a shiver run down her spine. She was sure she was looking at the woman who wrote the journal. Amanda’s scream joined the noises of the forest and she started to run. She was halfway home before she stopped running. “I’m being stupid,” she told herself. “The woman had been dead for years. She probably starved to death that winter or maybe even froze.” She tried to calm herself as she walked toward the house. “Otherwise Mom will ask a million questions.” Deep breaths. Concentrate on something different, like that butterfly over there. Or that one. There are a lot of butterflies today. Just keep walking calmly. Back to the house. So you touched a dead person’s bone. It’s not like it’s the first time. Remember anatomy class? You touched lots of bones there. It’s no different.”

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