The Death Dealer Diaries

by Joy Johnson

  The Death Dealer Diaries

  Joy Johnson

  Copyright (C) 2018 Joy Johnson

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2018 by Creativia

  Published 2018 by Creativia

  Cover art by Cover Mint

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  October 25, 3077

  October 29, 3077

  October 31, 3077

  November 12, 3077

  November 20, 3077

  December 14, 3077

  December 21, 3077

  December 22, 3077

  January 15, 3078

  February 1, 3078

  February 7, 3078

  February 10, 3078

  February 12, 3078

  February 15, 3078

  February 20, 3078

  March 5, 3078

  March 27, 3078

  April 30, 3078

  May 7, 3078

  May 25, 3078

  May 28, 3078

  May 30, 3078

  June 1, 3078

  June 5, 3078

  June 7, 3078

  June 8, 3078

  June 13, 3078

  June 15, 3078

  June 16, 3078

  June 26, 3078

  July 16, 3078

  July 18, 3078

  July 21, 3078

  July 22, 3078

  July 30, 3078

  July 31, 3078

  About the Author

  Dedication

  A Note to the Reader

  October 25, 3077

  My mother told me once that the world did not end as expected. It did not burn down around our ears or crumble beneath the onslaught of a new ice age. She told me that the time of Humans ended because all Humans believed in an idea; one that turned out to be a lie.

  Humans, she said, believed there was no such thing as life on other planets. The whole world believed that if there were such creatures that survived in the universe, they would come in slow, grand space ships if at all. She said that in the end, the Humans thought they would have a fighting chance at peace or war. She said that they ardently believed in this lie with all their hearts; a lie that they created for themselves, and one that thus was their downfall.

  She never told me the story of how the Human world's time had come to an end though, until we came to the edge of a great city; one of the few with buildings still left standing. We were huddled together against the cold winter air in the depths of what she had called, a drainage ditch outside the great city.

  I was in the middle of my tenth winter and had just learned how to snare rabbits. It was cold and I was tired from a long day of searching for food, but I can still remember the dying rays of the sun glowing off the side of her face as she whispered the tale to me. Her dark eyes darted around us nervously as she spoke about the day all the people began to vanish. Her story sounded like the fairy tale my father had often told me as a very small child before he vanished with the others. The fairy tale was about a great Guardian and the struggles of a people long forgotten. He had always made me stay awake while He told me the fairy tale, refusing to let me miss a word no matter how tired I was. This new story that my mother told, though, seemed even more strange to me as I lay there listening to her terrifying tale that night.

  When she had finished telling me her story, her arms tightened around me just as I began to fall asleep. I remember her heart pounding in her chest against my cheek as my mind went adrift with sleep. Somewhere in the darkness of that night, I can remember that she whispered to my closed eyes. She said that she just needed to go get something from inside the city and that she would be back as soon as she could.

  When I awoke that next day, my mother was gone… and she never came back.

  October 29, 3077

  It was the summer after my mother left me that I came across Zephora's veggie patch. It wasn't much back then. It seemed to be growing more weeds than food, but I was starving and hadn't eaten in days. Before I knew it, I was being hauled by my hair, with a mouth full of fresh carrot, before a woman that looked old enough to be my grandmother. She carried a walking staff as thick as my ankle and had a scowl that said she knew how to use it.

  When she asked me what I had to say for myself, I told her the only thing that I could think of; that she needed to plant her carrots deeper. Her two young grandsons, Ephram and Garhet, the ones who had caught me, started snickering. Before I knew it, people hidden in the trees above us were laughing all around. Zephora didn't laugh, but the anger in her eyes faded.

  Some days after Zephora took me in, I discovered that not all people in the group were Zephora's own blood kin. Some were like me, nomads that had no blood kin of their own left. Aleena was one of those.

  I first met Aleena two days after I was accepted into the camp. I had been taken into Zephora's tent as part of a cleansing ritual, and was sitting alone in cold soapy water when I first saw her. She was being hauled into the tent by a long haired woman I later learned was called, Hashella.

  Aleena screamed and fought so ardently with Hashella that I feared for what the long haired woman's intentions were. I slipped out of the small wooden barrel of soapy water and hid naked behind it to watch. Hashella, with her back to me, pulled a pair of long shears from a heavy wood table in the corner. As she yelled at Aleena, she dragged her down over her knee by some pine benches, and began cutting crude gobs of Aleena's hair off. Great tears rolled down Aleena's cheeks. Her pleas for mercy fell without impression upon the long haired woman's willfully deaf ears.

  After listening for a time, I began to feel very bad for Aleena. It seemed to me that Hashella was gaining more satisfaction than was rightly just from the situation. It made me angry to watch this long haired woman being so cruel. As quietly as I could, I crept across the room. Hashella, whom was so happily transfixed by the torment she was visiting upon the poor girl, did not see or hear me take the other pair of shears off of the table from behind them. Nor did she feel or hear when I began cutting two feet of her hair off in the exact same ugly fashion as she was visiting upon Aleena.

  It was only when Zephora came into the tent to check on me that Hashella found me behind her. However, I did manage to slice off the last strands of her long hair right before her eyes. That was the first and last time I ever heard Zephora laugh, and Hashella cry.

  Later, I learned the importance of long hair to the group. Zephora doesn't believe in punishment through pain, she believes in punishment through shame. She once told me, “What makes a stronger memory? The one that lasts but a moment, or the one that lasts a few months or even years?” Her belief is that hair takes longer to grow back than a beating does to be forgotten. Thereby, the longer your hair is, the more respect you have earned from the group over time. A quality that others can use to both give privilege and deny it. Zephora's silver hair flows down to the lower part of her back, as is the same with all the distinguished men and women of the family. This is also possibly why Hashella cried so hard when I sliced all of hers off.

  Aleena and I, however, have been closer than sisters ever since that day. Through good times and bad, we've spent the past five summers letting our hair grow shorter and shorter.

  October 31, 3077

  Zephora is angry with us… again. I can tell because she
has the same look in her eyes as she did the first day I got caught pulling carrots from her family's garden. Aleena and I are to have our hair cut another inch shorter tomorrow as punishment for straying beyond the bounds of our camp again. The other family members look down upon us more so now because we get our hair cut almost every other week. At this point, my black hair is almost cropped to the nape of my neck. The length of my hair, though, really isn't the issue I'm worried about; Aleena's irrational behavior is a deeper concern for me.

  She is convinced that the camp should break apart and move away from each other. She ardently believes that we are endangering ourselves by staying together. Zephora believes that we must grow our numbers as quickly as possible to re-establish the human hold over Earth. The arguments between the two only get worse by the day. Sometimes I swear Aleena's face turns redder than her short hair when Zephora dismisses her notions.

  After one of their fights last night, we set out to the North to scout out some new terrain. When we passed the boundary line of our camp, I asked Aleena why she was so desperate to break apart the family. Her glare was set to the North, and all she said to me was that she knew what would happen to us all if we waited too long in one area. She added after a moment of hesitation that our numbers were growing too large; that soon, we would be noticed.

  Then, when I didn't say anything, her eyes found mine. A soft sadness filled them, and she said that there would come a time when I would have to make a choice as well; a choice between my life with Zephora's family and my friendship with her.

  November 12, 3077

  The first truly dark, heavy snow clouds rolled in yesterday. The scouts up on the mountain ridges surrounding our camp finally returned for the winter season. Many of them reported just barely beating the first winter snows down the mountains. Garhet and Ephram were among them. I had not seen them in a full four cycles of the moon.

  Zephora threw a small winter's feast in honor of the scouts' safe return. This, everyone knew would be the last of such bounty until the next harvest came in. In light of that knowledge, everyone was in a high spirit to enjoy the little celebration while they could. The last gleaming rays of the sun watched our small family as bonfires were set ablaze. Pigs were then cleaned and set upon spits over open fires. Ballads of all different kinds were sung in the voices of both the old as well as the young while we watched the meat cook. Children began dancing before the ballad singers acting out some of the songs' scenes, while others sat down to watch.

  My mind was pleasantly empty of all my worries when I found Garhet's bright green eyes watching me from beside a bonfire a goodly distance away. He was whittling at a piece of soft pine with a sharp knife. Ephram, on the other hand, was sitting next to him on a log facing the other direction. He was laughing at a funny ballad that I vaguely recall was about a young woman who wished a cow into a man. As Ephram elbowed Garhet with each passing joke, trying to get him interested in the story, a strange fire ignited inside me.

  Garhet's eyes traveled the length of me without an ounce of shame. It seemed like he was almost shocked to see me. As I stared at him, I could tell that there was a difference in him. I couldn't understand it at first. It was subtle, but it was there. Then, like a rush of cold water over hot skin, I realized that Garhet's soft eyes held an awareness now that they hadn't the summer before; they now held the soul of a boy grown into a man.

  I wondered briefly if it really could be that we had finally reached that age. The age that I have seen countless others wander into and stumble out of with babes in their arms. Quickly, I counted how many summers I had seen, and then I counted Garhet's. The air could barely climb into my lungs when I realized that Garhet was a full three summers older than I. Shock filled me even more so when I realized that he was now a full two summers beyond the age Zephora had set for us to choose a lifelong mate. A memory of the harrowing cries of pain that I had heard this summer leaking out of the birthing tent came to the surface in my mind, and quickly I turned away from him.

  I tried to avoid his gaze the rest of the night, but each time my eyes found his, they seemed to hold a dark secret; one that was born of his seemingly sudden maturity, and one that was also only to be seen in brief moments just before my eyes danced away from his.

  Later that night, with every soul asleep beneath the stars, my dreams reflected the secret in his eyes back into mine. Even in the cold of the oncoming winter's embrace, I sweated with heated knowledge. By the cold morning's light, I prayed to whatever guardian spirit that might still care for a simple human and asked that what I feared wouldn't be so.

  November 20, 3077

  I try to focus on my work in the root cellars but it is no use. My mind is pulled apart between my emotions and my responsibilities. Aleena came into my tent two nights last, and warned me that when the winter frost thaws enough for travel she is going to leave the camp. Her red hair is so short now that it grows in odd patches of different lengths off her scalp.

  My heart aches to change her mind, but in my gut I know she is making the right decision. I know Zephora is wrong. I can't deny it any longer. I've watched the numbers in our camp swell dramatically over the past four summers. We now stand nearer to fifty strong. That number is too high, even for how far into the wilderness we are. Soon the vanishings will begin here as they have in every other area that grew large populations. When my father vanished we lived in a rural area outside a major city that my mother had called, New York. My mother warned me for years afterward to stay away from large groups of people. When I was a child I didn't understand, but now I do.

  My heart pounds with fear and sadness over this notion. More than a quarter of my life has been spent with this one family. They have taught me how to read and write; cared for me when I have been sick, and trained me how to survive in this now desolate world. Will they be reduced to dim memories like that of my mother? I don't want to leave, not now, not without Garhet…

  December 14, 3077

  I try to calm my shaking hands, but it is of no use. I can barely write these horrifying words… They came without warning. They took without emotion, and they vanished with their prizes before the rest of us could move a muscle. Aleena was right. We should have listened to her while we had the chance.

  Zephora, our great mother, is among the vanished. Sorrow fills my heart for her loss. I long to cry for her, to mourn her vanishing, but there simply isn't time. Without her guidance, any sense of direction has been lost. Chaos is all that remains for us now as we run through the wilderness in different directions. Each of us desperately hope we can get far enough away from the vanishing site before the second wave of vanishings can begin. This is how the major human cities first fell. No one understood that the creatures hunted in waves, and with each wave more of them appeared to take what was easy prey.

  Aleena was able to collect a satchel full of vegetables and two jars of fruit preserves before the cellar emptied from the looting. Garhet and Ephram were able to collect most of the pieces to their tent, and I was able to salvage my pack full of hunting gear. The long tongued machete that I have always worn strapped to my leg is my only protection now as we run for our lives.

  December 21, 3077

  It has been seven days since our departure from our old life. We are desperate, dirty, and alone. The snow has receded to the higher elevations, and the small flagon of water that I had kept in my hunting pack ran dry two days ago. Ephram and Garhet are growing weaker by the hour. Arguments have begun to break out among us as fatigue has set in.

  Initially, our decision to ascend the snow covered mountain range to the North seemed an easy one to make. Garhet and Ephram knew the paths our scouts had used, and though they had never traveled them after the heavy snows of winter had arrived, they were confident that they could find our way easily enough. Aleena, though, had refused to take the nearest path up the mountains for fear that the Reapers, as we call them, might take to that one first. This was why we chose to run the four day course dow
n into the canyon that lay before the northern passage into the mountain range. The conversation lasted but a few moments before we struck out on our way as fast as we could.

  To our dismay, though, the water that jogged down a little creek in the canyon was brackish and undrinkable. We had hoped to refresh our water supply with it when we arrived, but instead we were forced to ration our food and what little water we had left even more diligently. In the end, even this was to no avail. We found that by the end of the fifth day, our journey had not only robbed us of our water, but had only brought us to the base of the Northern pass.

  Sweat, the sun, and exhaustion are all we have for companionship now as we are two days' journey up into the steep inclines that surround us. Ephram and Garhet mourn the loss of their family without tears and as quietly as they can. Aleena and I have warned them to try and save their bodies' water as well as energy.

  Aleena and I are also aware, though they would not have us know, that they are afraid. They have never been away from the other members of their family, and fear being alone in the wilderness. As for Aleena and I; though the memory of life before the camp is dim, it is still there, and what was once forgotten about life outside the camp soon returns to our minds. We have taken to quietly sharing our knowledge with each other when we absolutely must take time to rest, as we do right now. As I suck on wild mint leaves to ease my thirst, I take comfort in this small exchange of survival notes, and thank the guardian spirit that I am not alone as I once was in my tenth summer.

  We hope to make higher elevations before the day is spent tomorrow. If we do, we will be able to melt snow and drink. On the other hand, by the looks of Garhet and Ephram, if we do not make it to our mark – I do not know how we will survive.

  December 22, 3077