Infected Journal: Entry #1 Happy Birthday: Part 3

The fast food stop shops around me, shrouded in shadow and darkness, hid the screeching runner. It saw me, but I couldn’t see it. A unique situation, I might add, because I didn’t know where it would come from. The mall’s design laid the food stop in such a way that the food court itself was in the center and the “restaurants” surrounded it.

As the scream faded back into silence, I came down to the height of the tables. Crept steadily to the food court. Here I had more tables to move around. More sun blocks overhead illuminating the place both helped and hurt me. I’d have a better chance of spotting the infectee before he attacked, but it would have an easier time tracking me, as well. Assuming it was alone I could try to sneak around it and stab it in the head before it knew what hit it.

Nothing happened. The scream completely died off into nothingness and nothing else happened. Without interruptions I was making my way between the tables. I pushed chairs out of the way and moved tables as needed to make my way through, making some noise but....

 

By Jack Thomas

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What Daniel Did Wrong

In my attempts to develop four characters for a novel, I will begin to experiment with them here as occasional "Blogs". With all hopes I'll find a couple of subjects and scenarios I like and they'll transfer to the bigger story if I ever write it. This is part one of this experiment to develop characters Daniel, Scythe, Prodigy and Cross.

By Jack Thomas

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The Pirate Joke

During a conversation with my friend, Ellie,  I remember this hilarious joke I heard. I don't remember where I heard it, but I just had to share it. Ellie also had a joke to tell me, but I forgot and left.

Anyway, here is the story of the time I told her that joke.

By Jack Thomas

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Infected Journal: Entry #1 Happy Birthday: Part 2

Now that our hero has gone deeper into the mall he will see more opportunity to find the first thing on the list, but he is also increasing his chances to come across infectees. He'll need to keeps his eyes peeled and his attention focused to avoid putting himself in a situation he can't get out of.

By Jack Thomas

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Perspective

The human condition has us constantly face a struggle to accept how little we know. A unique perspective is enough to re-frame our complete understanding of our lives and the people in it. At any given moment there are countless ways in which we are missing the picture obvious to others.

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At a café with a friend, a conversation about a person’s ability to change came up. Mike, the friend at the café, said that people lack the ability to change. That regardless of what the surface might seem like, the internal working of a person, their thoughts and feelings on what they are doing remain the same.

I disagreed. I’ve seen change in the most random or drastic of ways. So, I told him this story:

I knew a guy, 22. A composed individual, he never really broke the rules. He never stepped out of line. Because of this, his life was an endless cycle of following the rules and hating himself for being unable to break out. Self-loathing fueled madness consumed his moment to moment interactions, but he bottled that shit up. He bottled anything unacceptable to the rest of society.

While attending college on scholarship to be a criminal attorney, the way his father always wanted him to be, he worked in a law office. The pay was enough to afford him a car, a single bedroom apartment and enough play money to get that wide screen TV he never used. His tasks at the law office were small and simple, like filing, proofreading, and all the annoying phone call related things like scheduling and…

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Infected Journal: Entry #1 Happy Birthday: Part 1

After surviving the spread of an infectious plague a young man sets out to search the wasteland for Valentine's Day gifts for his girlfriend.

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After his adventures in Infected: The First Ten Days, a young man sets off to get his lovely girlfriend some gifts for her birthday. It just so happens to be that this is all taking place in the Post-Viral Outbreak world.

Follow this sarcastic romantic on his quest to get the gifts and exit the mall with his life in Part 1 of this episodic short story.

By Jack Thomas

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