Lost Diary (BGM).wav

Some songs that I made years ago. All original project files lost when my hard-drive was destroyed earlier this year (about 4 years of work on my music). There is alot of my old music scattered around, but I try not to think about how much I lost. I didn't back any of it up so I must not have wanted to keep it all very badly! I have backups for everything now though :) I'll make more music soon I promise, mostly been working on my guitar playing lately. Feel free to make an illegal second paypal account, send it 5 dollars then give me the login information to the new paypal account if you enjoy my work. It's only getting more passable!

~~~

1: Gloaming (Winter in Colorado)

2: Ghosts of Gold (A place to stay)

3: Departures (https://youtu.be/PV1mKV6YCq4?si=RhPRnGVf3KXfOBBa)

4: Love in Escape (Dying in a hospital)

5: Blue Tent (Wind pressing in)

6: Resting (Not scared of my bed anymore)

7: Kindness (An hour passed in a church)

8: Orange (Smoke and my first car)

9: Penguins (https://drive.google.com/file/d/131oveqmrNgAKub2DLMTRCqaTkDevxzJ0/view?usp=drive_link)

10: Palm (Live at Gold Camp Christmas)

11: Greyhound (Alone in the desert)

~~~

At that moment, Olson began begging one of the guards to let him rest.
He did not stop walking, or slow down enough to be warned, but his voice
rose and fell in a begging, pleading, totally craven monotone that made
Garraty crawl with embarrassment for him. Conversation lagged. Spectators
watched Olson with horrified fascination. Garraty wished Olson would shut
up before he gave the rest of them a black eye. He didn’t want to die either,
but if he had to he wanted to go out without people thinking he was a
coward. The soldiers stared over Olson, through him, around him, wooden-
faced, deaf and dumb. They gave an occasional warning, though, so Garraty
supposed you couldn’t call them dumb.

~~~

Olson had not spoken for two hours. He had not touched his newest
canteen. Greedy glances were shot at his foodbelt, which was also almost
untouched. His eyes, darkly obsidian, were fixed straight ahead. His face was
speckled by two days of beard and it looked sickly vulpine. Even his hair,
frizzed up in back and hanging across his forehead in front, added to the
overall impression of ghoulishness. His lips were parched dry and blistering.
His tongue hung over his bottom lip like a dead serpent on the lip of a cave.
Its healthy pinkness had disappeared. It was dirty-gray now. Road-dust clung
to it.
He’s there, Garraty thought, sure he is. Where Stebbins said we’d all go if
we stuck with it long enough. How deep inside himself is he? Fathoms?
Miles? Light-years? How deep and how dark? And the answer came back to
him: too deep to see out. He’s hiding down there in the darkness and it’s too
deep to see out.
“Olson?” he said softly. “Olson?”
Olson didn’t answer. Nothing moved but his feet.

~~~

“Exhausted?”
“Well, I’m getting there.”
“No, you’re not getting exhausted yet, Garraty.” He jerked a thumb at
Olson’s silhouette. “That’s exhausted. He’s almost through now.”
Garraty watched Olson, fascinated, almost expecting him to drop at
Stebbins’s word. “What are you driving at?”
“Ask your cracker friend, Art Baker. A mule doesn’t like to plow. But he
likes carrots. So you hang a carrot in front of his eyes. A mule without a
carrot gets exhausted. A mule with a carrot spends a long time being tired.
You get it?”
“No.”
Stebbins smiled again. “You will. Watch Olson. He’s lost his appetite for
the carrot. He doesn’t quite know it yet, but he has. Watch Olson, Garraty.
You can learn from Olson.”
Garraty looked at Stebbins closely, not sure how seriously to take him.
Stebbins laughed aloud. His laugh was rich and full—a startling sound that
made other Walkers turn their heads. “Go on. Go talk to him, Garraty. And if
he won’t talk, just get up close and have a good look. It’s never too late to
learn.”
Garraty swallowed. “Is it a very important lesson, would you say?”
Stebbins stopped laughing. He caught Garraty’s wrist in a strong grip.
“The most important lesson you’ll ever learn, maybe. The secret of life over
death. Reduce that equation and you can afford to die, Garraty. You can spend
your life like a drunkard on a spree.”
Stebbins dropped his hand. Garraty massaged his wrist slowly. Stebbins
seemed to have dismissed him again. Nervously, Garraty walked away from
him, and toward Olson.
It seemed to Garraty that he was drawn toward Olson on an invisible wire.
He flanked him at four o’clock. He tried to fathom Olson’s face.
Once, a long time ago, he had been frightened into a long night of
wakefulness by a movie starring—who? It had been Robert Mitchum, hadn’t
it? He had been playing the role of an implacable Southern revival minister
who had also been a compulsive murderer. In silhouette, Olson looked a little
bit like him now. His form had seemed to elongate as the weight sloughed off
him. His skin had gone scaly with dehydration. His eyes had sunk into
hollowed sockets. His hair flew aimlessly on his skull like wind-driven
cornsilk.
Why, he’s nothing but a robot, nothing but an automation, really. Can
there still be an Olson in there hiding? No. He’s gone. I am quite sure that
the Olson who sat on the grass and joked and told about the kid who froze on
the starting line and bought his ticket right there, that Olson is gone. This is
a dead clay thing.
“Olson?” he whispered.
Olson walked on. He was a shambling haunted house on legs. Olson had
fouled himself. Olson smelled bad.
“Olson, can you talk?”
Olson swept onward. His face was turned into the darkness, and he was
moving, yes he was moving. Something was going on here, something was
still ticking over, but—
Something, yes, there was something, but what?
They breasted another rise. The breath came shorter and shorter in
Garraty’s lungs until he was panting like a dog. Tiny vapors of steam rose
from his wet clothes. There was a river below them, lying in the dark like a
silver snake. The Stillwater, he imagined. The Stillwater passed near
Oldtown. A few halfhearted cheers went up, but not many. Further on,
nestled against the far side of the river’s dogleg (maybe it was the Penobscot,
after all), was a nestle of lights. Oldtown. A smaller nestle of light on the
other side would be Milford and Bradley. Oldtown. They had made it to
Oldtown.
“Olson,” he said. “That’s Oldtown. Those lights are Oldtown. We’re
getting there, fellow.”
Olson made no answer. And now he could remember what had been
eluding him and it was nothing so vital after all. Just that Olson reminded
him of the Flying Dutchman, sailing on and on after the whole crew had
disappeared.
They walked rapidly down a long hill, passed through an S-curve, and
crossed a bridge that spanned, according to the sign, Meadow Brook. On the
far side of this bridge was another STEEP HILL TRUCKS USE LOW GEAR
sign. There were groans from some of the Walkers.
It was indeed a steep hill. It seemed to rise above them like a toboggan
slide. It was not long; even in the dark they could see the summit. But it was
steep, all right. Plenty steep.
They started up.
Garraty leaned into the slope, feeling his grip on his respiration start to
trickle away almost at once. Be panting like a dog at the top, he thought . . .
and then thought, if I get to the top. There was a protesting clamor rising in
both legs. It started in his thighs and worked its way down. His legs were
screaming at him that they simply weren’t going to do this shit any longer.
But you will, Garraty told them. You will or you’ll die.
I don’t care, his legs answered back. Don’t care if I do die, do die, do die.
The muscles seemed to be softening, melting like Jell-O left out in a hot
sun. They trembled almost helplessly. They twitched like badly controlled
puppets.
Warnings cracked out right and left, and Garraty realized he would be
getting one for his very own soon enough. He kept his eyes fixed on Olson,
forcing himself to match his pace to Olson’s. They would make it together,
up over the top of this killer hill, and then he would get Olson to tell him his
secret. Then everything would be jake and he wouldn’t have to worry about
Stebbins or McVries or Jan or his father, no, not even about Freaky D’Allessio,
who had spread his head on a stone wall beside U.S. 1 like a dollop of glue.
What was it, a hundred feet on? Fifty? What?
Now he was panting.
The first gunshots rang out. There was a loud, yipping scream that was
drowned by more gunshots. And at the brow of the hill they got one more.
Garraty could see nothing in the dark. His tortured pulse hammered in his
temples. He found that he didn’t give a fuck who had bought it this time. It
didn’t matter. Only the pain mattered, the tearing pain in his legs and lungs.
The hill rounded, flattened, and rounded still more on the downslope. The
far side was gently sloping, perfect for regaining wind. But that soft jelly
feeling in his muscles didn’t want to leave. My legs are going to collapse,
Garraty thought calmly. They’ll never take me as far as Freeport. I don’t think
I can make it to Oldtown. I’m dying, I think.
A sound began to beat its way into the night then, savage and orgiastic. It
was a voice, it was many voices, and it was repeating the same thing over and
over.
Garraty! Garraty! GARRATY! GARRATY! GARRATY!
It was God or his father, about to cut the legs out from under him before
he could learn the secret, the secret, the secret of—
Like thunder: GARRATY! GARRATY! GARRATY!
It wasn’t his father and it wasn’t God. It was what appeared to be the
entire student body of Oldtown High School, chanting his name in unison.
As they caught sight of his white, weary, and strained face, the steady beating
cry dissolved into wild cheering. Cheerleaders fluttered pompoms. Boys
whistled shrilly and kissed their girls. Garraty waved back, smiled, nodded,
and craftily crept closer to Olson.
“Olson,” he whispered. “Olson.”
Olson’s eyes might have flickered a tiny bit. A spark of life like the single
turn of an old starter in a junked automobile.
“Tell me how, Olson,” he whispered. “Tell me what to do.”
The high school girls and boys (did I once go to high school? Garraty
wondered, was that a dream?) were behind them now, still cheering
rapturously.
Olson’s eyes moved jerkily in their sockets, as if long rusted and in need of
oil. His mouth fell open with a nearly audible clunk.
“That’s it,” Garraty whispered eagerly. “Talk. Talk to me, Olson. Tell me.
Tell me.”
“Ah,” Olson said. “Ah. Ah.”
Garraty moved even closer. He put a hand on Olson’s shoulder and leaned
into an evil nimbus of sweat, halitosis, and urine.
“Please,” Garraty said. “Try hard.”
“Ga. Go. God. God’s garden—”
“God’s garden,” Garraty repeated doubtfully. “What about God’s garden,
Olson?”
“It’s full. Of. Weeds,” Olson said sadly. His head bounced against his
chest. “I.”
Garraty said nothing. He could not. They were going up another hill now
and he was panting again. Olson did not seem to be out of breath at all.
“I don’t. Want. To die,” Olson finished.
Garraty’s eyes were soldered to the shadowed ruin that was Olson’s face.
Olson turned creakily toward him.
“Ah?” Olson raised his lolling head slowly. “Ga. Ga. Garraty?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“What time is it?”
Garraty had rewound and reset his watch earlier. God knew why. “It’s
quarter of nine.”
“No. No later. Than that?” Mild surprise washed over Olson’s shattered
old man’s face.
“Olson—” He shook Olson’s shoulder gently and Olson’s whole frame
seemed to tremble, like a gantry in a high wind. “What’s it all about?”
Suddenly Garraty cackled madly. “What’s it all about, Alfie?”
Olson looked at Garraty with calculated shrewdness.
“Garraty,” he whispered. His breath was like a sewer-draught.
“What?”
“What time is it?”
“Dammit!” Garraty shouted at him. He turned his head quickly, but
Stebbins was staring down at the road. If he was laughing at Garraty, it was
too dark to see.
“Garraty?”
“What?” Garraty said more quietly.
“Je. Jesus will save you.”
Olson’s head came up all the way. He began to walk off the road. He was
walking at the halftrack.
“Warning. Warning 70!”
Olson never slowed. There was a ruinous dignity about him. The gabble of
the crowd quieted. They watched, wide-eyed.
Olson never hesitated. He reached the soft shoulder. He put his hands over
the side of the halftrack. He began to clamber painfully up the side.
“Olson!” Abraham yelled, startled. “Hey, that’s Hank Olson!”
The soldiers brought their guns around in perfect four-part harmony.
Olson grabbed the barrel of the closest and yanked it out of the hands that
held it as if it had been an ice-cream stick. It clattered off into the crowd.
They shrank from it, screaming, as if it had been a live adder.
Then one of the other three guns went off. Garraty saw the flash at the end
of the barrel quite clearly. He saw the jerky ripple of Olson’s shirt as the
bullet entered his belly and then punched out the back.
Olson did not stop. He gained the top of the halftrack and grabbed the
barrel of the gun that had just shot him. He levered it up into the air as it
went off again.
“Get ’em!” McVries was screaming savagely up ahead. “Get ’em, Olson!
Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”
The other two guns roared in unison and the impact of the heavy-caliber
slugs sent Olson flying off the halftrack. He landed spread-eagled on his back
like a man nailed to a cross. One side of his belly was a black and shredded
ruin. Three more bullets were pumped into him. The guard Olson had
disarmed had produced another carbine (effortlessly) from inside the
halftrack.
Olson sat up. He put his hands against his belly and stared calmly at the
poised soldiers on the deck of the squat vehicle. The soldiers stared back.
“You bastards!” McVries sobbed. “You bloody bastards!”
Olson began to get up. Another volley of bullets drove him flat again.
Now there was a sound from behind Garraty. He didn’t have to turn his
head to know it was Stebbins. Stebbins was laughing softly.
Olson sat up again. The guns were still trained on him, but the soldiers
did not shoot. Their silhouettes on the halftrack seemed almost to indicate
curiosity.
Slowly, reflectively, Olson gained his feet, hands crossed on his belly. He
seemed to sniff the air for direction, turned slowly in the direction of the
Walk, and began to stagger along.
“Put him out of it!” a shocked voice screamed hoarsely. “For Christ’s sake
put him out of it!”
The blue snakes of Olson’s intestines were slowly slipping through his
fingers. They dropped like link sausages against his groin, where they flapped
obscenely. He stopped, bent over as if to retrieve them (retrieve them, Garraty
thought in a near ecstasy of wonder and horror), and threw up a huge glut of
blood and bile. He began to walk again, bent over. His face was sweetly calm.
“Oh my God,” Abraham said, and turned to Garraty with his hands
cupped over his mouth. Abraham’s face was white and cheesy. His eyes were
bulging. His eyes were frantic with terror. “Oh my God, Ray, what a fucking
gross-out, oh Jesus!” Abraham vomited. Puke sprayed through his fingers.
Well, old Abe has tossed his cookies, Garraty thought remotely. That’s no
way to observe Hint 13, Abe.
“They gut-shot him,” Stebbins said from behind Garraty. “They’ll do that.
It’s deliberate. To discourage anybody else from trying the old Charge of the
Light Brigade number.”
“Get away from me,” Garraty hissed. “Or I’ll knock your block off!”
Stebbins dropped back quickly.
“Warning! Warning 88!”
Stebbins’s laugh drifted softly to him.
Olson went to his knees. His head hung between his arms, which were
propped on the road.
One of the rifles roared, and a bullet clipped asphalt beside Olson’s left
hand and whined away. He began to climb slowly, wearily, to his feet again.
They’re playing with him, Garraty thought. All of this must be terribly
boring for them, so they are playing with Olson. Is Olson fun, boys? Is Olson
keeping you amused?
Garraty began to cry. He ran over to Olson and fell on his knees beside
him and held the tired, hectically hot face against his chest. He sobbed into
the dry, bad-smelling hair.
“Warning! Warning 47!”
“Warning! Warning 61!”
McVries was pulling at him. It was McVries again. “Get up, Ray, get up,
you can’t help him, for God’s sake get up!”
“It’s not fair!” Garraty wept. There was a sticky smear of Olson’s blood on
his cheekbone. “It’s just not fair!”
“I know. Come on. Come on.”
Garraty stood up. He and McVries began walking backward rapidly,
watching Olson, who was on his knees. Olson got to his feet. He stood astride
the white line. He raised both hands up into the sky. The crowd sighed softly.
“I DID IT WRONG!” Olson shouted tremblingly, and then fell flat and
dead.

The soldiers on the halftrack put another two bullets in him and then
dragged him busily off the road.