Today, seven years ago, my husband of 19 years, 2 months, died. Worse day of my life, by far. I therefore wanted to share a scene of someone dying. The issue with that: I have two scenes with deaths.
I don’t want you to read those yet. Because spoilers. I was about to say what the scenes are from, and I don’t even want to do that, because that reveals too much. Therefore, I am giving you the first page of an unfinished book called Greystone Maine:
Brenda stared down the barrel of the rifle, the head of the cow in sight. She found it a few days ago, and thought about killing it right away, but needed to find a safe place to cook it first. There were too many dead out here and if they smelled the meat, would come running. Or shambling was maybe the better word. She found a cave close to the cow, up the side of the mountain. There was a path, but it was tricky to navigate. She would be able to out maneuver them if it came to that.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to take the entire thing back to the cave, but she would be able to take a nice sized chunk. And tonight, for the first time in four years, she would have fresh meat; she would have steak.
Brenda cleared her mind and stopped thinking about steak cooked to perfection with butter and juices. She pulled away from the rifle and shook her head. Her last meal before the world went crazy was steak, potatoes and sweet corn on the cob. Dad cooked everything on the grill. It was her favorite meal. Her dad died while cleaning the grill. Or rather, he was bitten and she shot him when he tried to attack her.
She took a few deep breaths and aimed her rifle again. She saw the cow, and its rather wide eyes. Brenda frowned and moved her head away from the rifle. Her own eyes owned wide.
“Son of a bitch!” She cried out. The dead below looked around for a moment, then went back to tearing apart her cow. He beautiful brown and white Holstein.
Cat Stark 