Ex-Communication, Peter Clines [ebook reader online free txt] 📗

I woke up in the back of a pickup truck. There were some blue quilted blankets in it and a couple tarps, so it was kind of comfy. It had really huge tires—Janice calls them “compensation tires”—so nothing could see into the back if it walked by. It seems like a good place to sleep. I don’t remember finding it and there’s nothing here in the diary about it.

There were a couple zomb exes wandering around outside the truck. I ducked down quick and none of them saw me. I opened a can of beef stew and tried to eat. All the potatoes and carrots tasted wrong and slimy, like the beans in the pork and beans. There was a can of P&B in the truck with all the beans left behind.

I remember Dad said the ex-virus did something to the exes to make them last longer. Maybe it’s doing something to the meat, too? But how did it get in the cans? And does that mean I’ve been eating meat filled with virus?!?!

The exes wandered off after an hour or so and I slipped away. I walked north for two hours before I found the watch. It was on an older guy, lying on the side of the road (lying or laying? Honors English student but I can never get that right). He had silver-gray hair and a beard and glasses. His skin was all dried out, but it was still creepy touching him. There’s another journal entry that says I took a shirt off a dead woman because my clothes were ripped up and I was practically naked.

The watch is this big, gold thing. A retirement watch, I think. It’s like a bracelet on my wrist, even when I make it small. It looks expensive.

February still doesn’t make any sense. Dad said the desert was freezing in the winter. It’s cold, but I don’t think I could’ve been walking around half-naked and with no food for three days. Although it doesn’t feel really cold now. Maybe the date on the watch isn’t right? Do digital watches go fast when they start to run out of power? That doesn’t make sense. Things go slower, right?

My feet hurt and they look bruised. I think I’ve been walking a lot. For a long time. But they’re not cold. Shouldn’t they be cold if it’s really February?

I just had an awful thought. What if it really has been seven months somehow? I was looking back through my diary and the last entry said I was going to keep heading north. But what if I found something and started heading south again? Or east or west? If I didn’t write it down I’d just wake up and head north again. I could’ve been walking back and forth for seven months now!!!

Mom and Dad might think I’m dead!! They don’t know I’m wandering around out here with a head trauma or something!

I’m on top of a Ford Explorer tonight. It’s all locked up tight and there’s a body behind the wheel and another one in the backseat. The one in the backseat is twitching but it can’t smell me, so it isn’t really reacting.

I think there’s a city a couple miles north of here. There’s a big sign another two miles down the road from here. I can’t make out a lot of details. Far away things look hazy, like there’s thin clouds in the air or something. Or maybe it’s me. My eyes hurt like I’ve got a couple cat hairs stuck under my eyelids or something. I tried rubbing them all morning and it didn’t help. The old guy with the glasses and the watch had a little bottle of eyedrops. They helped a lot, but the far stuff is still hazy.

Can a head injury make you nearsighted?

February 23rd, 2010

Dear Diary,

This is messed up.

I woke up and found a big gold watch on my arm. It said it was February 23rd, which I knew was wrong because yesterday was August 3rd. But then I sat down tonight to write in here and the last entry was dated the 15th. And I read it and I remembered the truck and finding the watch and that was yesterday. I’m sure it was yesterday and I’m only remembering days wrong.

I think this watch might be broken. I read the last entry, but I just can’t believe five days slipped by without me knowing about it. I need another watch. That way I can tell if this one is right or not. A control watch, that’s what Dad would say.

It’d be easy to find a watch in a city, but there’s no sign of that city I mentioned in the last entry. I climbed up on the roof of this big-rig to look for it. I’m back in the middle of the desert again. No sign of any big population centers. No road signs.

I wonder if I should start making a list of cars and trucks. Or just their license plates. I could use them as landmarks so I can tell if I’m doubling back over somewhere I’ve been before.

I wonder if I got into the city, wherever it was, and didn’t have time to write anything. They’re all probably overrun with exes at this point. I might have just been dodging undead the whole time.

I wonder if I should try to find a gun. Maybe a shotgun or something, or some pistols so I can go all Milla Jovovich on any undead I find. I’ve never fired a gun before. I mean, I’ve played GTA and some Call of Duty, but I don’t think that counts.

I wonder where Mom and Dad are. I wonder if they’re looking for me. I hope they’re okay and not too worried.

February May 21st ???? 23rd WHO CARES?!?

Oh God!!! Oh God this can’t be right!! I can’t be one of them. They don’t have minds! They can’t think or feel or