Zomblog: Snoe

It has been almost twenty years since the dead rose... Snoe Gainey has grown up in a world where the walking dead are simply a part of life. Raised by her adoptive mother, she has spent her entire life trying to distance herself from the legacy left by her mother. A name from the past rises from the ashes and sends Snoe on a journey where she will discover more about herself in a few weeks than she has during the first eighteen years of her life. Snoe discovers a dead world that leaves her with more questions while offering few answers. As everything she holds dear is stripped away, she must come to terms with just who she is...

From the Inside Flap

Friday, June 1st 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.

About the Author

Welcome to MY world... A few minutes with author TW Brown. Tucked away in the Pacific Northwest with my wife Denise, a Border Collie named Aoife, a guitar collection, and an increasing number of aquariums sporting a variety of fish (cichlids are my new favorites), I live for football season when I can cheer on the Oregon Ducks and be disappointed by my Seattle Seahawks once again. I am a fan of Cookie Monster, KISS, and Dr. Who (along with most things British). His blog can be found at: twbrown.blogspot.com/ You can contact him at:[email protected]   You can follow him on twitter @maydecpub and on Facebook under Todd Brown, Author TW Brown, and also under May December Publications. TW Brown is the author of the Zomblog series, his horror comedy romp, That Ghoul Ava, and, of course...the DEAD series. Safely tucked away in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, he moves away from his desk only at the urging of his Border Collie, Aoife. (Pronounced Eye-fa)He plays a little guitar on the side...just for fun...and makes up any excuse to either go trail hiking or strolling along his favorite place...Cannon Beach. He answers all his emails sent to [email protected] and tries to thank everybody personally when they take the time to leave a review of one of his works.

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