Ch. 2

Chapter 2.

            Books spill out from the trunk of my car onto the pavement as if jumping to their deaths after the torment of being locked up in ninety degree weather. Covers flipped open, pages press into the depressions of dried up mud puddles, failing to find a drop of cool respite in the heat wave. I groan and stoop over the curb to pack them back into crumbling cardboard boxes.
Louann comes jogging out of the dusty, vintage general store we had invested in mere months ago, “Jesus christ, Lea, no one is going to want to purchase books in this condition.”

I examine a dog eared calculus textbook, glance at her, and throw it haphazardly into the pile. “No one was about to purchase underlined, creased college texts anyway. Used bookstore or no, we’ll need a lot more variety than this before we’re even able to draw in a single customer.”

Louann’s face was creased with years of judgment. At thirty years of age, no woman should look as worry worn as she did. It’s true that joy crimped her face with lines in all the areas unmarred by anxiety, but the wrinkles revealed the vast contrast in her day to day emotions, an observation that always affected me. Was it more of a hindrance or an advantage to experience such a wide range of intense emotions?

Note to Self

Don't stop writing. Never stop writing. Write write write. Writey writey write.
He may not want the weight of your words, but you need not give them to anyone - just get them out. Lessen the burden.

Ch. 1

Chapter 1.

            That night I had a dream. I was standing in line at a bureau much like the DMV with an application in hand. When it came my turn to speak to the clerk I passed the sheet beneath a barred window and said as nonchalantly as I was registering a car, “Hi I’m submitting a death request.”

“Application for death. The last name of the applicant?”

“Grangely.”

“First name?”

“Leandra.”

“One moment, please.”

            I never saw the face of my teller, nor his hands, and to be quite honest I could not tell you what his voice sounded like. It was now that I realized the earth seemed to be moving. I was quite certain there was an earthquake occurring, and as strange as it sounds considering the aforementioned information, I feared for my life and tried to call out to the teller. I felt a tug at my pants and turned, expecting to see a lost child. However the hand came right out from the floor beneath my feet, and I discovered the floor was not linoleum, tile, wood, or the like. There was no earthquake, there was no lost child. The floor was a moving mass of bodies, crawling upon hands and knees, packed tight together.

Prologue.

prologue

They are given many names. The undead. Zombies. But the most accurate term to befitting of their behavior, would be the old Norse word “haugbui”, used to define “mound dwelling” undead. They are tied to their tombs and therefore do not roam.