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Each day, diary entries will be released from the viewpoint of secondary characters of the Dead (A Lot) Trilogy Universe, people we may not have met (yet!) but who still had Poxer issues of their own. . .
Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts
Diary Entry #1
My Millie got the cancer a long time before she told me.
I don’t rightly know why she didn’t say anything. Maybe she was afraid for me. Sometimes Millie was protective in a way that wives shouldn’t be protective over their husbands.
She stopped letting me mow the lawn when I was fifty-five because she was worried for my ticker.
She refused to let me shovel the sidewalk or the path leading up to the duplex, too. Instead, she scrimped and saved so she could pay that fat, lazy, turd, P.J. Marshall, to do it. Sure as shooting he used that money for reefer. He’s just that way.
Yes, Millie was afraid for me, but when she got the cancer she wasn’t scared that I might blow an artery or have a stroke doing things reserved for younger men.
She was afraid for my mind.
Lordy, she knew me so well.
After all, Millie and I went way back a long way, almost to the beginning. I was sweet on her from the moment I first set eyes on her back in Elvira Morely’s second grade classroom at Guilford Elementary School. There weren’t many other colored families in town back then, so it was a big deal that Millie’s family moved to Guilford.
Lord have mercy, but they were a big bunch, too.
Millie had seven sisters and four brothers, and there she was, smack dab in the middle of them all.
She liked me, too, even though I couldn’t string five words together to make a conversation. I was shy back then, but my Mille wasn’t. She did enough talking for the both of us. When we got hitched, and I worked on cars in Hap’s garage while she did the register and kept the books, she talked for me, too.
You see, she knew I wasn’t a strong man. I’m a good man, but I was never a strong man. As the years went on, I suppose shy gave way to reserved. As the decades layered one on the other like drifts of snow in the winter, reserved gave way to thoughtful, or just, ‘that sweet old, Mr. Ludlow’.
So now what’s ‘that sweet old Mr. Ludlow’ s’posed to do?
My Millie’s got the cancer, and now she’s got this other nonsense, too. I don’t know what it is, but Millie and the rest of the folks here in Jolly’s pharmacy, are sick.
Real sick.
I know one thing for sure. I can’t do this life thing without my Millie. She can’t leave me. She just can’t.
I won’t let her.
Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts
Diary Entry #2
My Millie and I had stopped by Jolly’s Pharmacy to pick up one of her prescriptions.
Millie didn’t like to talk about what Dr. McKee had her taking. She called that junk her special candy. I knew they were pain pills, but she didn’t want me to think she was in pain. Millie never wanted me to worry about her like that.
She’s the one who wanted to worry about me.
There were only a few other locals in the pharmacy when everything happened.
Nola Norris was working the front checkout. She’s been riding that register at Jolly’s for over ten years. Nola always told Millie that someday she’d settle down and find a husband, but I had my doubts. After all, she wasn’t much of a looker. Besides, lately she had been covered with angry, red, poison-ivy welts. My Millie asked her what happened. Nola just shrugged and told her there’re some things that you just shouldn’t do in the woods.
Then there was the druggist—John something-or-other. He’s been at Jolly’s since before I worked at Hap’s. As a matter of fact, he’s been there long enough for me to see his hair go from blonde to white, and the crow’s feet around his eyes to become permanently etched on his face like battle wounds.
That trouble-maker girl who went and got herself tattooed all over the place, was there, too. I don’t know her name, but I do know her parents. She ought to be ashamed of herself for the things she’s put them through. When we first came into the pharmacy, I noticed her reading a magazine in aisle six. She was probably getting ready to steal it.
That girl was always bad news.
Millie and I were slowly walking up the cosmetics’ aisle, arm in arm, heading to the front register. She couldn’t walk that fast, anymore, but she sure as shooting could hold her head up high. I don’t mind telling you, my Millie always walked with her head held high, like one of those beautiful carvings on the front of an old-time whaling ship.
I let her guide me as we walked, because I knew that’s what my Millie wanted and I would do anything for her.
I remember trying to decide if, when we got up front, I was going to buy one of those new-fangled Snicker’s bars with the yellow wrapper—the kind with peanut butter layered inside. Lordy knows they’re bad for me. Still, they taste so damn good.
As we walked, Millie started squeezing my arm. I didn’t quite notice at first, but her grip got harder and harder.
“What’re you doing, woman?” I asked her. That’s when I saw her eyes. They weren’t Millie’s eyes, anymore. They were someone else’s eyes—cold and gray.
I didn’t mean to pull away from her. I would never pull away from my Millie, but I was startled. Her beautiful skin—that soft, brown, cocoa skin that I had the privilege of touching for the majority of our lives—was gray.
I took a step back—then another. That’s when I noticed the others.
I keep playing it all back in my mind in slow motion. I don’t know why, because everything happened so quickly. Still, in my head, it takes a million years.
Nola Norris’s poison-ivy welts weren’t red anymore. They were white against gray skin, and her eyes were gray like Millie’s peepers. Pharmacist John was making a bee-line for me—not Millie—just me. He was walking down the cosmetics aisle like someone with cerebral palsy. I couldn’t understand why, because John was a healthy guy—and that trouble-maker girl—she was staggering toward me, too.
“What’s happening, Millie? Honey, are you okay?” I kept saying, “Honey—honey—honey,” like a broken record, the whole time, her grip squeezing my arm tighter and tighter, like a vice.
Finally, my Millie snarled at me. It was an awful sound, like the growl of a rabid dog in a dark alley, hovering over the bloody remains of a dead rat.
That’s when I knew there was something wrong with them all—not just my Millie, but everyone in the pharmacy.
Something was dead wrong.
Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts
Diary Entry #3
I needed to get help, but by the time I got my head screwed on straight, it was too late. There was no help to get.
The few people out in the parking lot had changed, too. Everyone was sick with whatever my Millie had—all with those gray eyes—staggering around like they were drunk, and all them looking like they wanted to eat me whole.
I ran to the back of the pharmacy, into the storage area behind ‘The Great Wall’.
‘The Great Wall’ was where all the condoms were displayed.
That wall has always been a joke in town. When I was younger—a lifetime ago, the other fellas would always head off to the pharmacy right after they cut out of work on Friday afternoons.
They used to say they were prepping to get their jollies at Jolly’s.
I bought my first box there when I was just shy of nineteen. My Millie made me do it. Don’t get me wrong, she was a good girl and made me wait until our wedding night. She said she wasn’t interested in having no babies until we weren’t babies ourselves, anymore.
Behind The Great Wall and in the back of the storage area, I found the basement door opened a crack. Maybe Nola Norris or Pharmacist John had been down there getting some more gummy worms or wax lips to fill the shelves. Candy always flies out of Jolly’s this time of year. Kids are back at school so they often come into the pharmacy to get their lined paper or pencils. The leaf peepers also start coming this way, hoping they’ll catch a glimpse of whatever colors New England is supposed to be famous for. I’ve been here all my life, so I don’t give no never mind about the colors. Still, the Quabbin Reservoir is beautiful this time of year.
There, or Hollowton, or even Apple.
I don’t mind telling you that anyone who’s anyone should know to stay away from Apple, Massachusetts in autumn. People get themselves killed there. Every year when the trees begin to die there are murders. I guess it’s the price people pay for living there.
Hap lives in Apple, so I asked him about the murders once. He just shrugged and said, “Yeah. Apple chews up and spits out a few seeds every year.” I wouldn’t want to live there, that’s for sure. Who would want to approach the fall every year, dreading that you might end up a seed?
Anyway, I got my Millie and the rest of them to follow me down into the basement. Nola Norris kept gnashing her teeth together as she staggered along. It didn’t take but a minute or two before I realized what Nola Norris wanted was to take a bite out of me. I didn’t know what would happen if she did, but I had a sinking suspicion that a bite from Nola, or any of them, would make me just like them.
My heart ached for my Millie. Maybe if I was bitten I would be just like them—just like her.
One bite—that’s all it would take—but I couldn’t do it. Someone had to take care of my Mille.
Once they were all down in the cellar, it was easy enough to lose them in the stacks of shelves with inventory on them like deodorant and tacky little stuffed animals that kids wail for their mammies to buy them, just to make them shut-up.
I took the stairs, catching one last glimpse of my Millie as I did, then closed the door behind them.
Then, without even thinking, I pulled some beef jerky off a spinning rack, cracked open the door and threw several bags down the stairs. After all, I couldn’t let my Millie go hungry, now could I?
And right then was just about the time the lights went out and I was smothered in darkness so black and deep that it stole the breath clean out of my mouth.
Roger Ludlow—Locked in Jolly’s Pharmacy—Guilford, Massachusetts
Diary Entry #4
I’m scared.
I’m tired.
I’m ready to start eating pills behind the pharmacy counter.
I’ve lost track of time, but I think it’s been almost a week now that my Millie and the others have been down in that basement. Sometimes, they can go for hours without making any noise, then all of a sudden I hear them moving, like rats beneath my feet.
I’ve run out of food to feed them. Lordy knows there ain’t no more beef jerky. Soon I’ll run out of food to feed myself.
Now, there’s some fool outside in an ambulance flashing high-beams at me with Morse Code.
I’m not stupid. I know what Morse Code is.
Sure, I’ll play along.
If whoever is out there wants to come in, I’ll let them.
After all, My Millie and the others have got to be starving down there in that basement, with nothing to chaw on but beef jerky.
I’ll let them in, alright.
And if I have my way, My Millie is sure-as-shooting going to be eating well tonight, I’ll tell you that right now.
She is sure-as-shooting going to be eating well.
Novels by Howard Odentz:
Dead (A Lot) (The Dead a Lot Trilogy, Book 1)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fwFMOt
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1Og6vIC
Apple: http://apple.co/1JS1H6v
Google: http://bit.ly/1DvyBrm
Wicked Dead (The Dead A Lot Trilogy, Book 2)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2f9zHDu
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2d4rbK3
Apple: http://apple.co/2e4P3cP
Google: http://bit.ly/2cRscl0
Bloody Bloody Apple
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2erp8f2
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1EZhJ2i
Apple: http://apple.co/1D9txyj
Google: http://bit.ly/1gOKRhF
Little Killers (Only $0.99 til 11/3)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2f9xurS
BN: http://tinyurl.com/hhyrtm2
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/hjjx462
Apple: http://tinyurl.com/zo3n8rc
Google: http://tinyurl.com/hawdd59
About the Author:
Author and playwright Howard Odentz is a lifelong resident of the gray area between Western Massachusetts and North Central Connecticut. His love of the region is evident in his writing as he often incorporates the foothills of the Berkshires and the small towns of the Bay and Nutmeg states into his work.
In addition to The Dead (A Lot) Series, he has written the horror novel Bloody Bloody Apple, the short story collection Little Killers A to Z, and a couple of horror-themed, musical comedies produced for the stage.
