Excerpt From "Crazy", my NaNoWriMo Novel

I am not exactly known for my happy and cheerful stories.  This year is no different.  My novel begins with a harried divorcee, Donna Carroll, sitting in a diner.  She's back in her small home town, trying to recover from a public, humiliating divorce.  Suddenly, a man stabs a waitress for bringing him too much ice.  In the aftermath, Donna learns that this is not a one-of-a-kind incident - people have slowly been acting just bonkers.  Donna learns about a woman, Matilda, who burned her house down with her husband in it.  The following excerpt is from the site of the burned down house.  Donna just showed up to investigate:

Donna got out of her car and walked around the yard.  She saw tire tracks

from the fire trucks, next to an old, beat up station wagon.  She peered into

the car, but only saw trash from too many trips to McDonald’s drive thru, 

a dirty picnic blanket, and a water bottle filled with dirty water.  A noxious 

smell emanated from the car and Donna backed away, glad the car windows 

were closed.

Treading carefully, she walked over the blackened ground.  Coals crunched 

under her shoes as little puffs of black dust arose with each foot step.  She 

smelled smoke, only the smell slightly changed as she walked.  I wonder if

the smells correlate with different burned objects.  I wonder if one of the 

smells is burned Milo.

The thought drove Donna to hold her breath as she rushed out to get to 

grass.  There, she wiped her hands over her clothes and stomped her feet 

to remove all the imagined pieced of Milo Gives that clung to her. Just then, 

she heard a car driving up.  Ye gods, who would want to come here?