12/15/2015: Mad World Book One

Ultimately, I would like Mad World to be a series of books about surviving in a world that has gone insane.  

While the initial books will be set in Oklahoma City and the surrounding area.  I would like to collaborate with writers in other cities and make it a series that has different settings.  There wouldn't be a single group of survivors in a single city.  

Instead a reader could pick up a part of the Mad World series set in or near their hometown and relate to some locations they read about. 

     Reynolds didn’t sleep at all after seeing the lasers.  The one pointing west bothered him.  Who would they have been signaling?

     He listened to the woman’s quiet breathing as he thought about any recent scout reports.

     In recent weeks the scouts hadn’t seen anything of note. 

     The most substantial thing they saw was a small herd of zombies walking along the H.E. Bailey Turnpike headed away from town.

     There were empty skinner campsites but no actual skinners. 

     And no contact with the Darren Group had been made in at least two months.  Reynolds scouts would report seeing them in the distance but no confrontations were made.

     The crunching of acorn caps broke Reynolds train of thought and the woman held her breath. 

     “Wha…” she said.

     Reynolds shushed her.

     He heard the crunching again.

     A small quiet birdcall came from the darkness. 

     Reynolds reached over and patted the woman on the shoulder.

     “Go back to sleep.”

     “What was that,” she said.

     “I think it got spooked away,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

     “Slim chance of that.”

     Before Reynolds could start thinking about the signals, the woman was asleep.

     The walk along the highway was nice for Reynolds and the woman. 

     The turnpike was clear and as they rounded the highway to the south they began to see evidence of reestablishing civilization. 

     People worked in the fields lining the highway harvesting corn.

     Reynolds waved at them as he and the woman walked past.

     “You know them,” the woman asked.

     “No, I know where they are from. They might know who I am though,” he said. “A lot of people 

do around these parts.”

     “Where are they from?”

     “You’ll see.”

     They walked further and came to a small neighborhood.   It was at the intersection of Northwest Expressway and the Turnpike. Countryside and fields surrounded it.

     Around the neighborhood barricades and fortifications kept out most of the danger. The majority of houses were intact. Two houses were in the process of being constructed.

     In cul-de-sac’s small markets had been set up with goods for the people to buy.

     “It’s a village,” she said.

     “Yeah. This is Prescott North,” Reynolds said. “Prescott South is just down the road and it’s bigger.”

     “Prescott,” she asked. “I thought this area was Yukon.”

     “Prescott was the name of the man who brought these people together,” Reynolds said. “Technically it might have been part of Yukon.”

     “Was his name?”

     “Shortly after we arranged an alliance he was killed,” Reynolds said. 

     They continued down the road and Prescott North was behind them.

     People in the fields and along the side of the road stopped and waved. Reynolds waved back.

     “These people all seem to know you,” she said.

     “Yeah. When Prescott was killed I extended our patrols and protection to this area.”

     The woman shielded her eyes and looked out to the east of the highway. 

     A large expanse of countryside had been converted into a marshland.  Tall reeds and cat tails swayed in the breeze as ducks lazily paddled around the waterway and egrets stalked prey.

     “Is that a swamp?”

     “Yeah.  This entire area floods on the east side so we don’t farm there.” 

     Fishermen in flat bottom boats sit with lines in the water in middle of the swamp.  Ducks swam by them leaving long v’s in their wake.

     As they continued down the road they came to a barricade at the edge of a long bridge.

     Vehicles blocked the road. Median barriers had been stacked and arranged to create a maze that a car could maneuver if going slow.

     A group of men and women carrying rifles and wearing guns stood near the barriers, talking and laughing in the late morning sun. The younger members held the reigns of a few horses on the side of the road.

     When they saw Reynolds come up they all straightened up a little.

     “Reynolds! Good to see you back,” a man yelled.

     He had a rifle slung over one shoulder and wore khaki colored clothes similar to the men and women he joked with minutes before.

     “Markus. Was that you last night,” Reynolds asked. 

     “You still use that stupid trick,” Markus said, referring to the crunching of acorns Reynolds uses for an early warning system at night.

     “It got you didn’t it?”    

     “Not me, Twinkle Toes over there,” he said.  He flicked a toothpick at a scruffy haired teenage boy who held the reigns of the horses.

     Reynolds recognized the teen as a Prescott villager.

     “Don’t worry about it, kid. Markus has stepped on a few acorns trying to sneak up on me too,” he said. “Where are the rest of your Highwaymen,” Reynolds asked.

     “They headed up I-35, should be back tonight sometime,” Markus said. “Who’s your friend?”

     He looked the woman up and down and tilted his head slightly.

     “Do I know you,” he asked her.

     “Don’t think so,” she said. “Not unless you’re from Agra.”

     “Nah,” he said. He squinted at her and scratched his rough chin.

     “Found her up near Guthrie,” Reynolds said. “How far north your guys headed.”

     Markus shook his head in frustration and looked at Reynolds.

     “Not far.  The old DQ truck stop.”

     “Ugh, what I’d do for a vanilla cone,” one of the kids holding the reigns said.

     “Or chicken sandwich,” one of the Highwaymen said.

     “Or a frosty,” another said.

     Other’s started calling out what they wanted and would never have again.

     “Knock it off,” Markus yelled. “Ya’ll talking about food and we still have a ways to go. Ya’ll be belly aching about being hungry before we get past Yukon.”

     The Highwaymen all stopped and looked a little ashamed.

     “Where you headed,” Reynolds asked.

     Markus glared at them all.

     “These knuckleheads and I are making a run out to Strong City.”

     “Black Kettle country,” Reynolds asked.

     “Yeah, His tribe sent word that they came across some survivors who need a new place to call home,” Markus said.  He was eyeing his men as he talked. 

     “Well, if you see Black Kettle or his sons tell them I said Hello and if they need a place to stay 

this winter they are welcome here.”

     “I don’t know how they are going to survive this coming winter.  The drought out there has them boiling leather and bones,” Markus said. “That’s why he can’t keep the people they found and sending them here.”

     “That and they are white,” a Highwayman said.

     “Some people are just stuck in their ways,” Reynolds said.

     “Those ways may get him and his people killed if they don’t take your invitation,” Markus said.

     “That’s why I hope you see one of his sons instead of him,” Reynolds said.

     “Alright, you bunch of shit heads! Mount up and get moving,” Markus yelled. “Reynolds, can I talk to you a second?”

     He motioned with his head for Reynolds to follow.

     Reynolds nodded to the woman.  She smiled and began walking through the maze. Armed guards nodded and smiled at her as she walked through. Being with Reynolds and not carrying a weapon they figured she was little threat.

     When Markus and Reynolds were alone, Markus stopped and leaned toward Reynolds.

     “Listen, I know her from somewhere, not sure where though,” Markus turned and was watching the sun glint off the water in the distance. “When my guys come back from up north, introduce her to Jessie.”

     “You think he knows her?”

     “Maybe, he’s better with faces than I am.”

     “He is younger than you.”

     “That don’t make him smarter. And I can still kick his ass if it comes to it.” 

12/07/2015: Mad World Book One

I don't like writing before bed but sometimes I'm in the shower and stuff just comes to me.  

I was listening to music all night because I was tired of hearing about San Bernadino and all the crazy things people are doing and saying.  I played 'Highwaymen' performed by Johnny Cash and his friends and as I was showering an idea came to me that got my creative juices flowing.  

The insanity of Mad World is not uncontrolled or unopposed.  There are people like Reynolds out there who want to restore or maintain some sort of order and while it may seem that there is so much working against them, they manage to achieve some of what they desire to come about.  

The look in her eyes told Reynolds she had seen it. Smelled it. Burnt flesh and hair. Body parts cut at the joints. Bones stripped of muscle. Human bones with human bite marks.

     “Skinners,” she said.

     “Insanity,” Reynolds replied.

     “Desperation.”

     Reynolds had seen people resort to cannibalism and they always went mad.  Either from eating diseased meat or guilt, or both, they always lost it and with it their safety, security and sanity.

     “Maybe,” Reynolds said.

     The woman cleaned the rest of the blood and gore off her face and hands.

     Reynolds hefted his backpack on and handed her the shoulder bag. 

     “You trust me with your bag,” she asked.

     “Yeah,” Reynolds said. “There’s nothing worth anything in it.”

     She put it over her shoulder and opened the flap to peer inside. She shrugged and closed the flap.

    

     Reynolds felt relieved to see the smoking spiked behemoth on the horizon that was what remained of Oklahoma City.

     The ruddy evening sky matched the distinctly Oklahoma dirt.  The dry summers had created ideal conditions for dust storms and smoke to combine and paint the sky in reds and rusts.

     Tonight it was particularly sweet.

     “You headed into the city,” the woman asked.

     “No, to the west of it. Just off the highway.”

     Reynolds always felt relieved to see the city.

     “I don’t want to go into the city.”

     “We won’t.”

     “Nothing but skinners and crazy cults.”

     “Skinners, yes. Cults, not that I know of.”

     There were dangers in the metro area.  Zombies still crept through empty buildings.  When someone died out on their own they changed if their brain was still intact.  Some were stuck but some found their way out of their tombs and sought out the living. Then there were the skinners.  More and more people succumbed to the temptation of human flesh when the winter was cold and long.  They were dangerous and a few large gangs of them roamed the city. 

     And then there were the ‘cults’.

     “I heard there was a group that branded their people with the letter D on their faces.”

     Reynolds knew who she was referring to and they were not a cult.

     “The Darren Group,” he replied more as a whisper of dread than an acknowledgement of affirmation. “They only brand their slaves on the face.”

     “They take slaves,” she asked.

     “Yeah,” he said.

     “I would rather be eaten by skinners than taken a slave.”

     “Well neither will happen if we get to the highway before that sun sets.”

     Reynolds led the woman through a small quiet neighborhood and to the edge of a highway.

     From the overpass they could still see the city beyond and a clear view of the sunset.

     “We staying here,” she asked. She watched the sunset and gnawed on a piece of jerky.

     “Yep,” he replied. “We’ll be safe and in the morning we’ll head home.”

     “I don’t want to stay in the city.”

     “We’re far enough away from the bad parts of it.”

     “Okay.”

     Reynolds never slept through the night anymore. 

     He remembered reading somewhere that a long time ago people would wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or so. He found himself doing this and used that time to think.

     Tonight though something drew his attention.

     The dark shape that was Oklahoma City that lay on the horizon was pierced in the center by a tall spire of an office building.

     Once home to an energy company, it was empty for a while and then after the world went mad a group of survivors moved into it that formed a new government for the city.

     Led by an insane dictator the group managed to take over much of the city and now wanted to take all that Reynolds had worked for.

     They became known as the Darren Group, named for the tower that they claimed as their base.

     The tower was visible from pretty much anywhere in the city.  Reynolds watched its dark shape in the distance.

     He heard the woman get up and walk toward him.

     “You okay,” she asked.

     “Yeah. Come here and watch this.”

     She shuffled in the starlight toward him and sat next to him on the highway divider that was blocking the overpass. 

     Reynolds could feel she was about to ask what she was watching for when it happened.

     A series of bright green and orange flashes emitted from the tower.  In the dust and smoke they looked like spikes of green and orange shooting from the tower.  The green one north, the orange one to the east.

     “Whoa,” she said. “Were those lasers?”

     “Yes.”

     “Who were they shooting them at?”

     “Those weren’t powerful enough hurt anything, they were signaling someone.”

     They watched as the lasers flashed in sequences and then went out.

     The Darren Group had agents everywhere and Reynolds saw now how some of them were getting their orders. 

     They watched for about an hour as seven different colors shot from the tower. A yellow laser fired west and Reynolds tried to record the coded message as best he could with marker and cloth. 

     “Why’d you write that one down?”

     “I think it is morse code and my people are that direction.”

     “Are they in danger?”

     “Always.”

12/06/2015: Mad World Book One.

So before the Walking Dead was on television I submitted a zombie television pilot episode to a screenwriting contest. (It is posted in part here: Mad World Pilot ) 

I was disappointed and excited when the Walking Dead started.  It meant zombies would become more main stream and that someone beat me to what I ultimately wanted: a zombie television series.  

Now there are a couple and another would just be overkill but Mad World isn't really about zombies but more about the insane and 'mad' world that followed the zombie apocalypse.  

So now I plan on turning it into a small serial book series.  Fingers crossed. 

     Reynolds ran up to the edge of the clearing and fired two quick shots.

     One shot ripped open the neck of the man holding the woman down on her left.


     The other bullet pulverized the back of the man’s skull on the woman’s right.


     The man with his pants down standing over the woman could not turn around fast enough.


     Three bullets, center mass sprayed blood and gore over the screaming woman. Reynolds ran up to the lifeless body and yanked it back before it could fall on the woman.


     “Are there others,” Reynolds asked. He shot one round into the man with the spurting neck wound.


     She did not reply. Drenched in blood she was looking back and forth at her dead attackers.


     “Are there any others,” Reynolds asked again. He scanned the trees around the clearing.


     He hadn’t heard any yells or stomping through the area.


     “Come on,” He said as he tried to help her up.


     “What?!” She snapped out of her shock.


     “If there were others they would’ve heard the gunshots and would be on their way 
back,” he explained. “Now come on.”


     She shook her head.


     “Fine,” he said. He turned away from her and left her in the clearing.


     “No wait,” she said.


     “No time,” he said. “You refuse to tell me if there were others so you either come with me or I leave you here.”
    
     The woman looked at the bodies around her.  She got to her feet.

Reynolds ducked under a bush and retrieved his a large backpack and shoulder bag.

He rummaged through the top compartment on the backpack.

Retrieving a small pack of wet wipes he handed them to the woman.

“Clean your face and hands,” he said. “I have a clean shirt and jacket you can wear.”

The woman opened the pack of wipes and removed a few.

She began scrubbing her face and hands.

“Did I get it all,” she asked.

Reynolds smiled and shook his head.

She had a circle of blood outlining her sunburned face.

“Here,” Reynolds said.

He handed her a makeup compact.

She opened it. The mirror was intact but the makeup was long gone. She looked at herself in the mirror.

“Not really my color but I guess it will work,” she said.

“Better than blood and guts red.”

The woman began wiping the blood from around her face.

“Were you alone out there,” Reynolds asked.

He had been on the road for about eight days and she was the first person he had to save. Nowadays it was weird seeing anyone on the road out alone.

Everyone had settled.

If the zombies didn’t bite and turn them in the beginning.

If the skinners didn’t catch and eat them after the zombi es.

And if the insane and degenerates didn’t outright kill what was left. 

The remaining people have settled and were trying to make a go in this mad world.  

“No,” she said. “They killed my brothers.” 

“Brothers?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” 

“Guthrie,” she said. “We had ran out of food in Agra.”  

“Agra?” Reynolds asked. “It survived the fires?” 

Zombies decimated the cities while fires decimated the smaller towns.  

During the first and second dry summers the night horizons all around were lit orange and red with the massive wildfires that burned much of Oklahoma.  

“Barely,” she said. “We were hold up in the Agra High School.  It’s was an all metal building and the flames got close but didn’t do any damage.” 

“You were there this whole time?”

“Until we ran out of food, supplies, people,” 

“People?”

“We sent out a people to search for supplies and they never came back,”

“Zombies get em?”

“No,” she said. 

John Croft Casefile: Ghosts in Mexico

     He drove in silence.  He had tried to turn the radio on and this deep into the New York countryside all he got was sporadic chatter between static.  After awhile the chatter began to speak to him and he didn’t like what it was saying. 

     It wasn’t what the voices were saying that bothered him. It was the arguments they had trying to persuade him to turn around.  Go back to New York City and turn himself into the police.  Face justice for the crimes he had committed and die in prison.

     But John knew. 

     As the voices faded and the static returned he knew he was right in leaving. 

     He knew he had committed no crime.

     “But what about your daughter’s death,” a shrill voice broke the static to say.

     “Yes I drove the car drunk,” he replied as the static returned. “I was given a punishment and I a still tormented by it.  The worst punishment though was not having my Marie. But now she is back.”

     “What about the girl in your apartment,” a different voice screeched from the static.

     “That wasn’t real.  I didn’t do that.”  He replied.  “You tried to get me in arrested.  To get me out of the way but Marie saved me.”

     “What about your friend,” a final voice reverberated out of the car speakers. 

     John turned the radio off.

     “What about you, Peter,” John said to the body slumped in the passenger seat next to him.

     The car sat on the side of the road a good ways from where John stood over Peter’s body. 

     He left the running lights on but not the headlights hoping to avoid attracting any unwanted attention from someone who would be on the dirt road at this time of night. 

     Although he was pretty sure if someone was on this road they were probably not up to any good also.

     “Well, you deserved better than this at one point in your life, Peter, but you tried to kill me and I think you deserve to be buried like a piece of shit.”

     John kicked some more leaves over the body.

     

John Croft Casefile: Ghosts in Mexico.

John drove through the darkness that surrounded the lonely New York highway on his way to a town upstate he had never knew existed.

     He watched the yellow lines vanish out of his headlights into the inky black of night. 

     He couldn’t remember when he had last passed another traveler through the dark.  He began to believe he was the only one left on this path through the night shrouded country highway. After the last few days he could believe anything.

     His best friend had tried to kill him.  His life turned upside down.  He didn’t know whom he could trust as his only logical explanation was that he was going insane. 

     How else could he or anyone have explained how the ghost of his daughter was directing him to go to Mexico, New York?