Free Ex-Communication: A Novel by Peter Clines Page B

Cooper with clothes and food in it. Mom wasn’t there but all three entries talk about her vanishing. There was a bloody shirt in the car and there’s one entry about finding a dead woman and taking her shirt—EWWW—and one mentions tossing it for the clothes here in the Mini. There was a half-full can of pork and beans on the side of the road and an entry about eating pork and beans. Well, pork. And the can looked like all beans when I checked it. They smelled bad.
    I don’t remember writing any of that. It’s pretty clear in each one I don’t remember the one before it. So if I thought it was the 28th for three days in a row, then today must be the first of August.
    Unless there were days I didn’t write in my diary and I can’t remember them, either. But each one seems to begin where the last one ends, even if I didn’t remember it then.
    I wonder if I had a head injury. Dad said short-term amnesia’s kind of common with head injuries. I think I’m fine now, and I don’t feel any bumps or blood or anything. Maybe I got knocked out of the car (truck? jeep? They told me the name of it but I don’t remember) and hurt my head and wandered around for a couple of days.
    Why didn’t they come get me, though? If I fell out of the car wouldn’t they come back for me? Unless they couldn’t for some reason.
    And how did my old clothes get ripped up? Could that happen just from falling out of the car? Maybe if I rolled through some bushes or something? Or crawled out of a car crash?
    There was a duffle bag in the Mini. I took out some of the jeans and bigger-cut clothes and filled the empty space with food and water. Was I looting? Stealing? When does it become okay to take other people’s stuff? I couldn’t find any sign of anyone else there. When I first saw the bloody shirt I thought it belonged to the car owner, but my diary says I found it in an SUV miles away.
    I spent today heading north, away from the Mini.
    There were a couple zombies, but I saw them before they saw me. They’re pretty easy to dodge. I think they need to be in big groups to be dangerous.
    I passed a few more cars. They all have different license plates. Arizona. New Mexico. California. Nevada. There aren’t enough of any one type for me to figure out where I am. Some of them have dead people in them. Some of the dead people are moving, but they can’t figure out how to open the doors. They don’t react to me when they’re in the cars. I figured that out pretty quick.
    In some of the safe cars I found some more food and water. Some clothes closer to my size. Still no shoes or underwear. I hope this bra holds up because it’s thrashed.
    I need to find a new phone or maybe a watch or something. That’ll help me keep track of what day it is. And I need to find Mom.
    July August 1st 2nd, 2009
    Dear Diary,
    This is going to have to be qui
    August 1st 3rd???, 2009
    Dear Diary,
    Dammit, I know yesterday was the day I found out it was August 1st. I remember it. But there’s another entry. Part of one. I stopped writing and I don’t know why. Did something interrupt me? Did I fall asleep?
    I think I have that Memento disease. The special amnesia that guy had. I shouldn’t’ve been making out with Rick all through the movie. And we even skipped back so we’d have more time. First time at second base doesn’t seem quite as important anymore in the big scheme of things.
    Should I start writing stuff on my arms like he did? I remember that part. Maybe I should try sleeping with the journal in my lap so I always read it when I wake up.
    I woke up in a drainpipe under the road. It was pretty dry. I don’t think it’s rained out here in a while. I was using the duffle bag as a pillow. I had one of those tinfoil space blankets I don’t remember picking up anywhere. There’s nothing in the journal about it, but it says I found cars with stuff in them. Maybe I found it and didn’t write it down.
    I found a road sign. It was right above the