Until then, I may post an occasional piece of prose from time to time here, or I may use this space to update my tens of readers with useless personal info. For example, another reason for a temporary moratorium on the Kaidenshi Cycle (that’s what I’m calling this entire world my stories are set in, in case I forgot to mention it) is that I’m working two jobs plus side work to stay afloat and I rarely have time to sit down and write. On top of that, I’m getting married next year and getting the house fixed up in preparation is a long process.

So, while I’m working out some of the bigger details of the Cycle in the background, there won’t be a lot of on-topic stuff here. I just might throw out some health tips every now and then, as that is another aspect of my life that is finally getting some much needed attention. It will also keep my mind on it, as I tend to procrastinate (who knew?).

So begins Chapter I of Book I of this dark yet whimsical tale about Adam Farr, a young lad who goes to Boston during the summer of 1779 to seek apprenticeship with a Tory merchant, but finds himself embroiled in a conflict he wants no part of. Set mere months before Massachusetts ratifies its state Constitution, the very one upon which our nation’s grand document is based, this graphic serial novel attempts to show the day-to-day lives of families torn between Loyalism and Rebellion against the Crown. As the first part of the story slowly unfolds, we get a short glimpse into the life of a rural family without a father figure present, of a worn down mother trying to raise two boys while their father is away and their adult brother seems to have little patience with them.

As young Adam and his elder brother Noah ride into Boston, a tumble with soldiers foreshadows the violence to come from the constant tensions between the Redcoat army and the patriotic but fearful Colonists. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger for poor Adam, caught in the middle of a war he barely understands.

The artistic style of the book is reminiscent of the woodcut prints of the era, with angular features and straight lines dominant. Action scenes make great use of light and shadow, especially given the stark black ink on white medium. Facial expressions are simple, but effectively convey the character’s emotions most of the time. Lettering is somewhat inconsistent, though I do like the use of a serif font for emphasis in contrast to the irregular sans serif used for normal dialogue. The level of detail overall is also inconsistent; closeup and action scenes are very detailed whereas distant shots and panoramas seem rushed or oversimplified.

This work is certainly a welcome diversion from the usual mutant superhero or otherwise sci-fi laden graphic novel so popular these days. Mr. Heffernan has succeeded in drawing the reader into the gripping conflict that led to the founding of our great nation, as well as the mystery of the Liberty Eagle.

You can visit the author’s page here.

© 2012 Morgan Johnson

I will definitely be putting out something in the next couple of weeks, and it will be either a review of a quaint little historical fiction graphic novel, another chapter of my current project, or perhaps something else entirely. Whatever it is, I hope it is as entertaining as I’ve been told my little “zombie” story has been so far.

And just to sate the curiosity of some of my readers, yes I do know exactly where I’m going with The Last Dance, I’m not just making it up as I go along (though I will say that certain details and sometimes entire scenes come to me on the spot). I know how I want the story to flow, and how it will end. I’m also going to reveal something that I was saving for later, but might as well get it out there now: It is but a tiny part of a vast universe of stories and novels that are in my head, and while it is your typical horror fiction, not everything I write in this universe will be painted with the same brush. I’m really looking forward to revealing this world of imagination to you all!

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For my celiac/gluten sensitive friends and followers

This is an easy, quick and TASTY recipe for peanut butter cookies! You will need:

1 cup peanut butter (natural preferred, crunchy is an option)
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 egg

Mix the above ingredients together until the mixture is uniform. Roll into balls about 1 inch or so in diameter and place on a nonstick cookie sheet. Press down on each ball with a fork or your fingers until it is fairly flat. Bake at 350° for about 10 minutes. Let them cool for a while before moving to a rack or plate to finish cooling.

Depending on how big you make them, you can get anywhere from 12-20 cookies.

Please note: I didn’t come up with this but I’ve been making peanut butter cookies this way, without flour, for as long as I can remember. I’m sure my mom taught me. I realized yesterday as I was making a batch that they are a perfect celiac-friendly snack, so enjoy!

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The freaks were pounding on the glass door and windows, groaning and mouthing unknown words at Sarah as she stared blankly at them. She shook her head and ducked back down behind the chewing gum aisle, and forced herself to relative calmness as she remembered that she had four rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber, a full load. I can make it out of here, she thought to herself as she crept towards the back of the store.

The pounding grew faster, gaining a sort of rhythm that made her stop short and listen. It was almost as if they were working in tandem, beating on the glass with a steady boom-boom-boom-BOOM. She watched with a sense of morbid curiosity as the tallest one stopped pounding and bent down to the ground. She couldn’t see what he was doing because of the angle of the aisles between her and the windows, but when he came back up with a piece of cinder block her curiosity changed to horror and she bolted for the heavy drink cooler door. Frantically yanking on the handle to no avail, she realized it was secured with a large padlock just as the glass to the left of the store’s entrance shattered, pieces tinkling on the ceramic tile below. She turned and leaped for the bathroom door directly across from the cooler. As she entered the small windowless room and began to shut the door, she looked again at the front of the store. In the tiny bit of twilight she could just make out the outline of the tall one standing up as he cleared the hole he had made in the glass. Screw this, she said to herself as she raised the Remington 770 rifle to her shoulder and flipped the safety off. At this distance, a scant fifteen feet, she didn’t even bother zeroing in with the scope as she fired a round into the creature’s head.

The second monster had already begun climbing through the hole behind the first, and wasn’t fazed by the spray of blood, brain matter and skull fragments that peppered him as his leader went down. He was fast too, faster than the three Sarah had killed days before. He had already cleared half the distance to her by the time her second shot took off the top of his head. The remaining two, an elderly man and a young woman who could have been Sarah’s age, seemed to be trying to climb through the hole together and were getting stuck. Sarah had no problem picking them off, and as they bled out from the holes left in their skulls by her trusty deer rifle she edged around them towards the door. Despite it being almost completely night time, there was more light outside the store than inside and she could see down to where Ware Street branched off the main highway; there was some sort of movement at the intersection but she couldn’t make it out. She didn’t waste any time as she shouldered the gun on one arm and her backpack full of supplies on the other, and unlatched the door. As she squeezed out and started making her way back down Main Street towards her apartment, she heard the telltale groaning and murmuring of them coming from her left. She looked down Hogansville Road again and saw what appeared to be several bodies moving towards her, slowly but steadily and definitely aware of her.

She picked up her pace, nearly sprinting towards the large building looming in the faintly starlit sky. As soon as she made it to the beginning of the stairs leading up to her hallway, she stopped and listened for any movement. All she could hear was the steady thrumming of her own heartbeat and her shallow breathing as she tried to be as quiet as possible. She cursed herself for the third time for going on this foolish venture, knowing full well that Nathan would arrive in the morning and they could have gathered rations then. Her boredom and restlessness were likely to be the death of her tonight.

As she crept up the stairs she realized she was not alone in the building. She could clearly hear footsteps and groaning coming from somewhere on her hall. As she reached the last step she stopped and peered around the corner towards her apartment. In the faint light from the battery-powered emergency lighting she could see a large shape with its back to her, softly moaning and staring off the far balcony into the darkness. She debated firing her last round into the back of its head, but she knew the sound would only draw the small crowd she had seen on the street a few minutes ago. For all she knew they were even now shambling towards the parking lot of her building, headed for the stairs she just climbed.

Slowly, quietly she eased around the corner and began a slow crouching walk towards the brutish man, the butt of her rifle raised in both hands and pointed towards the back of his head. She silently thanked the building manager for installing weatherproof carpet on the concrete hallway; without it her footfalls would be echoing loud enough to wake the dead. As she got within a foot of the creature standing next to her apartment door, he suddenly raised his head and sniffed the air the way she imagined a huge grizzly bear would upon smelling prey on the wind. With no time to think about it, she rammed the butt of the gun into the back of his head and stepped back quickly. He went down to one knee for a moment, then turned and snarled at her with a vicious, feral sound. She barely bit back a scream as she slammed the butt of the rifle into his cheek, shattering the bone and sending a spray of bright blood across the wall. He collapsed on his side on the floor, and she pounded the stock into his temple three times. There was a sickening crunch with the third blow that caused his massive head to cave in and one eye to pop out of the socket.

She tried to stop shaking as she turned and fumbled for the key attached to her backpack, frantically looking down the hallway towards the stairs she just came from. The open air design of the apartment building made it quite possible that her short battle was heard in the street below. She finally got the key into the lock and turned the knob, opened the door and slid inside, closing it back with a soft click. She locked the knob and deadbolt and fumbled for the battery powered lantern she kept by the door. As she flicked it on she half expected to see a room full of creatures ready to rend her flesh from the bones, but her tiny apartment appeared completely empty. She started to raise the rifle to her shoulder and begin clearing the home, but was disgusted when she saw the blood and hair matting the dark grey butt. She sighed and wiped it off as best she could on the arm of her threadbare old sofa and continued with her routine, going from room to room with the rifle pointed ahead, her left hand awkwardly steadying the barrel and holding the the lantern aloft at the same time.

Once she was sure there was no threat, she headed back towards the small living room and sat on the sofa, opposite the end soiled with the monster’s blood. It was then that something clicked in her head; the lighting wasn’t all that good in the hallway but she was sure the creature’s blood was a bright, hot red. She was no doctor but she knew that if they were truly zombies in the movie sense they should have dark, coagulated blood if any at all. At first she wondered why she had never noticed this before but then realized she had never been this close to one. From a distance it was easy to see a garden-variety rotting corpse in the way they shuffled and moaned as they walked, but up close they appeared to still be alive!

She was torn from her epiphany by the sound of beating on her door. She quickly switched off the lantern and as quietly as possible, crept towards her bedroom and the secret compartment in her closet. She didn’t think any of them were strong enough to break down her door, but she wasn’t taking any chances by hanging out right beside it. As she got settled onto the floor of the dark, cramped space and closed the false-front entrance, the pounding ceased and the moaning grew fainter. She morbidly wondered if they decided to make a meal out of the big fellow she killed. She shuddered at that; not the thought of them cannibalizing one of their own but at the fact that she killed a living human being. As she began drifting into unconsciousness she wondered if the government knew these things were alive.

To Be Continued

© 2011 Morgan Johnson

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“Damn it!”

Sarah tossed the walkie-talkie on the floor, then immediately sucked in her breath as the back cover flew off and the batteries, drained of their life, went in every direction. She picked it up and carefully examined the casing. She had no real clue how these things worked, unlike Nathan, but it looked undamaged. She gathered up all the batteries and put them back in, replaced the cover and turned the knob in a vain attempt to resurrect the depleted device. The only sound she heard was the click of the volume knob as it turned to the “ON” position.

She thought about the last thing Nathan had said to her before she lost his voice to the ever more quiescent airwaves. “I’ve decided we’re going to come for you first, since you’re closer. No sense in going all the way to Hannah’s Mill first, then backtracking to you.”

“But aren’t you worried about them?” she asked, concern for his parents clearly ringing in her voice.

“The last I heard from Dad, he and Mom were doing just fine in the safe room, and he keeps that thing stocked to the ceiling. They could survive a nuclear winter in there!” It was hard to tell over the radio’s scratchy reception, but it sounded like he was much more worried than he was letting on.

“What about Patrick’s parents?” She asked.

“What? Honey, you’re breaking up. If you can hear this, we’re coming for you as soon as the sun comes up. Stay put and keep away from … and windo…” As his voice faded she frantically turned the squelch and volume knobs to no avail. The batteries had finally given out.

Trust had been an issue for Sarah in the past few years. She had never really gotten over her parents’ divorce so long ago; her father simply disappeared and she hadn’t heard from him since. The death of her mother four years later nearly destroyed her. It was in Nathan that she found some stability; for the first time in her life she felt like she wasn’t going to be abandoned or left behind. Still, she felt her characteristic pessimism clawing its way to the surface of her consciousness, bringing the wisps of fear and doubt it always carried. That was the last thing she needed now!

“Screw this sitting around and waiting, I’m going to restock,” she whispered to herself, and started towards the corner of the living room where her rifle stood, blued finish blending in with the dark wallpaper. Like Nathan, she had only seen one group of them a couple of weeks ago, and she had little difficulty picking them off with the .243 deer rifle left behind by her last boyfriend when he was taken to jail for dealing drugs. She shouldered the harness and peered out her apartment door’s peephole, the fish-eye lens giving her a view of nearly eight feet of hallway on either side of the door. It was getting dark outside but there might still be enough sunlight to make it to the gas station down the street and back.

She eased the door open and peeked around the frame; nothing on the left. As she looked past the door to the right she jumped and just barely suppressed a squeal of fear. The glowing eyes she saw staring back at her belonged to a cat, not the ghostly face of a doomed neighbor as she first imagined.

Slowly she walked around the cat, willing it to stay quiet and not meow at her. To her relief the creature settled down on its haunches and began purring and grooming itself. She had seen it around the building before the Event, and was pretty sure it belonged to a family one floor up from her. They must have left it behind when they were evacuated by the military.

As she crept down the two flights of stairs leading to the ground floor, she recalled the harrowing days after the toxin was released. Watching the families piling into the Army personnel transports made her decision for her: She knew she should stay behind and wait for Nathan instead of taking room that might otherwise go to a child or grandmother. She felt she was strong enough, smart enough, to handle whatever came her way. Besides, she had been sure the reports of spontaneous cannibalism by exposed victims were gross exaggerations. The media was always blowing things out of proportion. So, when the soldiers came to her building and started breaking down doors she calmly unlocked and opened hers, then hid in the cubbyhole between her bedroom closet and the kitchen pantry until they decided no one was home. She had discovered that hiding place years ago when she was dating Kevin. He would come over drunk or high, looking for more than just the dinner and movie they would normally share before she sent him home with a platonic hug, and rather than fight him and risk being date-raped she would hide until he left.

It wasn’t until two nights after evacuation that she saw first hand how serious it really was. She had heard a frantic screaming, and rushed to the window just in time to see a man knocked to the ground by three other people, one of them just a child. All three were disheveled, their clothes bloody and torn, and even though the scene was lit only by a streetlight she could see the boils and lumps on their skin. As the child began to chew into the man’s throat the screaming changed to an abrupt gurgle, then stopped altogether. She reached for her rifle and almost sobbed as she brought the little girl’s forehead into the cross hairs of the Bushnell scope. Just a gentle squeeze on the trigger and the monstrous face that had once been someone’s daughter snapped back with the force of the round. The back of her head exploded in a messy pattern on the edge of the circle of unnatural light cast by the lone streetlight.

The other two ghouls were quick to locate the source of the thunderous shot, but Sarah was quicker with the rifle bolt. She snapped another round into place with a quick lift-pull-push-drop and fired again. This time she got the larger of the two adult males through one eye, and before his body hit the ground another round was flying through the air towards the third monster’s temple.

She had watched a lot of zombie movies as a kid, and she was pretty sure the poor guy in the jogging suit would soon rise to seek flesh too. The only problem was, he was angled so that his head was obscured by the rest of his body. She would have to go down there to finish him off…

A movement out of the corner of her eye snapped her back to the present. As she made her way across the parking lot towards the street, she realized it was just the wind picking up and blowing leaves across the pavement. Only two hundred feet to the corner store, but it seemed like miles to her unnerved mind. She stopped moving when she realized where she stood; it was two weeks ago to the day when she had stood in this very spot and put a bullet in the head of an already dead man. The blood stains were faint but still visible; animals or something else had carried off what was left of the man. The sun, of course, had taken care of the bodies of the three creatures she had destroyed. Piles of bones were all that was left of their carcasses.

As she approached the store, she slowed and strained her ears, hoping all she would hear was the wind in the alley between the storefront and the laundromat. Nothing was there, so she crept up to the store window and slowly peeped inside. The sun was nearing the horizon now and she could just barely see the shelves and a beer cooler. She knew this was a small store and the only way in without a key was by breaking the glass in the door or windows, so she felt confident the building hadn’t been breached. Still, she was nervous as she slid the key into the deadbolt and slowly turned it, gritting her teeth at the loud click of the bolt snapping home. She eased the door open and quickly scanned the little store while locking the door. It appeared as undisturbed as she had left it sixteen days ago when she first raided it for food and supplies. She had seen the owner evacuate with everyone else, and after the military vehicles were long gone she had found to her surprise it had been left unlocked. Even better was finding the owner’s spare key under the cash register. She now felt it would be a safe haven as long as the cannibals didn’t figure out that it was easy to break into with something as simple as a brick.

She took a plastic hand basket from the stack on the wall and began filling it with boxes of crackers, bags of corn chips and beef jerky, and cans of Vienna sausages. Not really a vegetarian diet, but that went out the window when the world ended, she thought to herself as she scoped out the coolers, avoiding the dairy section and its disgusting aroma of spoiled milk and curdled cream. In the fading light it was difficult to read the labels but she was familiar with the bottle shapes. Settling on a few IBC Root Beers and as much bottled water as she could fit in a second basket, she turned toward the front of the store and froze.

The sun was almost completely down, but there was just enough light to see the hollow eyes of the four figures staring back at her through the storefront glass.

To Be Continued

© 2011 Morgan Johnson

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“Are you ready yet?”

“Not yet, I still can’t find it.”

“Okay, well hurry up, son.”

“Don’t call me son! You’re not my dad.”

“I know, sorry. Old habit.”

I’m not sure why I do that. Years ago, seems like ages ago now, I dated a woman who had a son about this boy’s age. I called her boy that and he found it both annoying and funny at the same time. It seems ironic since I’ve never met his mother, yet I call this one “son” too.

I finish cinching up my pack and think back to life before this phantasmagoria began. Not much of a life really; I had a house, a girlfriend, a beater for a car, a job I hated, and a family that I saw occasionally. I still have the house, for a few more minutes anyway. I’m sure I still have a girlfriend but the lines of communication were severed last night. The car is still running and that’s good, but it’s a gas hog and these days that is a real problem. The job? Well let’s just say things are dead there.

I hope my family is still out there somewhere; I’m torn between going that direction or trying to find the love of my life. She’s “just a girlfriend” to the people who called themselves my friends but to me she is everything I’m living for now. I make my decision: She’s closer by nearly thirty miles, and it would make more sense to find her first and then backtrack to the little town on the edge of nowhere that my family calls home.

I look out the window and the boy is playing on the front porch, obviously aware of the danger as the sun seems slow to rise on this chilly morning. Still, his youthful nature takes over and he is, for a few moments, oblivious to the nightmarish reality of life these days.

“These days!” I whisper to myself. “Hah!” It’s been just a few weeks since everything went to shit. I don’t have high hopes for the planet; the last radio broadcast I was able to pick up spoke of the dangers of being outside at night, and all the other public service announcements our woefully unprepared government could come up with. There was a brief interview a few days before with some scientist, just a numbers guy really, saying that approximately one percent of the world’s population would survive this event. That’s still a hell of a lot of people, so I doubt our odds are even that good.

Then again, we do have a daytime advantage. Anyone who’s come in contact with one of the things knows what the sun does to them. And they’re not mindless like all the movies would have you think. Oh no, these ghouls are crafty! You would think they were the ones trying to cling to life and not us, hiding in houses and anywhere else they can avoid the sunlight during the day, like so many rotting vampires. But they don’t want our blood, they simply want to eat us.

I tap on the window to let him know it’s time to finish packing. Grabbing some canned dog food from under the counter as a last resort reminds me of my hairy roommate, lost to the creatures during the first few days of this nightmare. He was not their goal, I was; they don’t care for the taste of dogs but they were quick to rip him apart when he was bravely tearing off their legs for daring to invade our front yard. The next day there was a knock at the door and this boy was standing there, bloody, disheveled and scared but wise enough to have survived on his own for nearly a week.

For one thing, he was holding a pistol and pointing it at my forehead as I opened the door. He obviously knew that one of the creatures would never open the door during the day, so I had to be human. Still, he wasn’t taking any chances. “Where are your parents?” was, oddly enough, the first thing I could think of while staring down the barrel of his .22 caliber Ruger.

“I don’t know, I got separated from them when we were trying to get to my grandma’s house,” he said, barely holding back a sob.

“Well put that thing away before you blow my head off!” I told him, with what I hoped was a warm smile.

“Okay, you don’t act like a monster.” He lowered the pistol and immediately ran inside, still checking out the darker corners of the room as he went.

That was two weeks ago, and we’ve been holed up in the attic at night since then, only coming out when we’re sure the house is empty. From this vantage point I’ve been able to determine that the plague hasn’t spread this far yet; I haven’t seen any creatures out since that random mob, and there’s never been a breach of the house itself. But after losing radio contact with my family yesterday morning and my girlfriend last night, I have to leave this haven behind and go find them. I’m sure their batteries have just run out; those cheap Radio Shack CB walkie-talkies eat AA cells like our zombie friends eat us. I’m on my last batch too, so it makes sense. Better to think of that than the alternative.

“I’m ready!” the young man shouts from the attic, and he starts climbing down the steps with my huge backpack strapped to his shoulders. It’s really too big for him, but it’s light and it carries his share of survival gear with room to spare. I pick up my gym bag full of food, water, shotgun shells and other necessities of life and head to the door. One last look at my tiny castle as I’m loading up the trunk with as many supplies as I can; I doubt I’ll see it again.

To Be Continued

© 2011 Morgan Johnson

So, with that said, I welcome you to my little corner of inspiration and dreams. I hope you like what I publish. Speaking of, I intend to publish excerpts and snippets from time to time here, to see how well they are accepted. If it looks like a story is going in the right direction, I’ll continue it to the end and publish it in the real world. Right now my intention is to at least release an e-book format of every completed work. I don’t have a time frame for releases, as this is purely a hobby and I work A LOT in the real world.

So, thank you for taking the time to check out this little project, and I look forward to seeing your feedback!

-Morgan