Reset: Onset. In a world ravaged by Apocalypse, Reset follows survivors as they struggle to stay alive. If you’re looking for series to binge-read you’ve found it. #Horror #ApocalypticFiction #Dystopian #zombiefiction
U.S.: https://1l.ink/3FBCKX6
U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D1NVQF3PCA
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0D1NVQF3P
MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0D1NVQF3P
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True: True Stories from a small town #1
The True: True stories from a small town are true stories from that place. From my childhood up through my adulthood. Some heartfelt, some heart rending, some the horrible truth of the life I lived at that time… #NonFiction #Crime #OrganizedCrime #Childhood #Readers #KU #Amazon
True: True stories from a small town #2
In my younger days I lived my life like there was no tomorrow. I wasn’t thinking about what to do when the check came due, when life changed, when I crossed someone or they crossed me. I wish I had grown up different, but my time on the streets and the lessons that taught me. #NonFiction #Crime #OrganizedCrime #Childhood #Readers #KU #Amazon
True: True stories from a small town #3
In AA they say that addictions will take you to hospitals, Mental Institutions and Prisons. It’s true. They will. I have been in all of those places because of my addictions. But addictions are not responsible for the life I lead entirely, and certainly not responsible for the things I did. #NonFiction #Crime #OrganizedCrime #Childhood #Readers #KU #Amazon
True: True stories from a small town #4
The True: True stories from a small town are true stories from that place. From my childhood up through my adulthood. Some heartfelt, some heart rending, some the horrible truth of the life I lived at that time…
(Based on a true story from my life. Names have been changed, but truthfully almost all of them are dead now so it doesn’t matter.) #NonFiction #Crime #OrganizedCrime #Childhood #Readers #KU #Amazon
THE DAM
It was summer, the trees full and green, the temperatures in the upper seventies. And you could smell the river from where it ran behind the paper mills and factories crowded around it, just beyond the public square; A dead smell, waste from the paper plants.
I think it was John who said something first. “Fuck it,” or something like that,” I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah,” Pete asked?
“Yeah… I think so,” John agreed. His eyes locked on Pete’s, but they didn’t stay. They slipped away and began to wander along the riverbed, the sharp rocks that littered the tops of the cliffs and the distance to the water. I didn’t like it.
Gary just nodded. Gary was the oldest so we pretty much went along with the way he saw things.
“But it’s your Dad,” I said at last. I felt stupid. Defensive. But it really felt to me like he really wasn’t seeing things clearly. I didn’t trust how calm he was, or how he kept looking at the river banks and then down to the water maybe eighty feet are so below.
“I should know,” John said. But his eyes didn’t meet mine at all.
“He should know,” Gary agreed and that was that.
“That’s cool. Let’s go down to the river,” Pete suggested, changing the subject.
“I’m not climbing down there,” I said. I looked down the sheer rock drop off to the water. John was still looking too, and his eyes were glistening, wet, his lips moved slightly as if he was talking to himself. If he was I couldn’t hear. But then he spoke aloud.
“We could make it, I bet,” he said as though it was an afterthought to some other idea. I couldn’t quite see that idea, at least I told myself that later. But I felt some sort of way about it. As if it had feelings of it’s own attached to it.
“No, man,” Gary said. “Pete didn’t mean beginning here… Did you,” he asked?
“No… No, you know, out to Huntingtonville,” Pete said. He leaned forward on his bike, looked at john, followed his eyes down to the river and then back up. John looked at him.
“What!” John asked.
“Nothing, man,” Pete said. “We’ll ride out to Huntingtonville. To the dam. That’d be cool… Wouldn’t it?” You could see the flatness in John’s eye’s. It made Pete nervous. He looked at Gary.
“Yeah,” Gary said. He looked at me.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’d be cool.” I spun one pedal on my stingray, scuffed the dirt with the toe of one Ked and then I looked at John again. His eyes were still too shiny, but he shifted on his banana seat, scuffed the ground with one of his own Keds and then said, “Yeah,” kind of under his breath. Again like it was an afterthought to something else. He lifted his head from his close inspection of the ground, or the river, or the rocky banks, or something in some other world for all I knew, and it seemed more like the last to me, but he met all of our eyes with one sliding loop of his own eyes, and even managed to smile.
~
The bike ride out to Huntingtonville was about four miles. It was a beautiful day and we lazed our way along, avoiding the streets, riding beside the railroad tracks that just happened to run out there. The railroad tracks bisected Watertown. They were like our own private road to anywhere we wanted to go. Summer, fall or winter. It didn’t matter. You could hear the trains coming from a long way off. More than enough time to get out of the way.
We had stripped our shirts off earlier in the morning when we had been crossing the only area of the tracks that we felt were dangerous, a long section of track that was suspended over the Black river on a rail trestle. My heart had beat fast as we had walked tie to tie trying not to look down at the rapids far below. Now we were four skinny, jeans clad boys with our shirts tied around our waists riding our bikes along the sides of those same railroad tracks where they ran through our neighborhood, occasionally bumping over the ties as we went. Gary managed to ride on one of the rails for about 100 feet. No one managed anything better.
Huntingtonville was a small river community just outside of Watertown. It was like the section of town that was so poor it could not simply be across the tracks or on the other side of the river, it had to be removed to the outskirts of the city itself. It was where the poorest of the poor lived, the least desirable races. The blacks. The Indians. Whatever else good, upstanding white Americans felt threatened or insulted by. It was where my father had come from, being both black and Indian.
I didn’t look like my father. I looked like my mother. My mother was Irish and English. About as white as white could be. I guess I was passing. But I was too poor, too much of a dumb kid to even know that back then in 1969.
John’s father was the reason we were all so worried. A few days before we had been playing baseball in the gravel lot of the lumber company across the street from where we lived. The railroad tracks ran behind that lumber company. John was just catching his breath after having hit a home run when his mother called him in side. We all heard later from our own mothers that John’s father had been hurt somehow. Something to do with his head. A stroke. I really didn’t know what a stroke was at that time or understand everything that it meant. I only knew it was bad. It was later in life that I understood how bad. All of us probably. But we did understand that John’s father had nearly died, and would never be his old self again, if he even managed to pull through.
It was a few days after that now. The first time the four of us had gotten back together. We all felt at loose ends. It simply had made no sense for the three of us to try to do much of anything without John. We had tried but all we could think about or talk about was John’s father. Would he be okay? Would they move? That worried me the most. His sister was about the most beautiful girl in the entire world to me. So not only would John move, so would she.
He came back to us today not saying a word about it. And we were worried.
When we reached the dam the water was high. That could mean that either the dam had been running off the excess water, or was about to be. You just had to look at the river and decide.
“We could go to the other side and back,” John suggested.
The dam was about 20 or 30 feet high. Looming over a rock strewn riverbed that had very little water. It was deeper out towards the middle, probably, it looked like it was, but it was all dry river rock along the grassy banks. The top of the Dam stretched about 700 feet across the river.
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “the dam might be about to run. We could get stuck on the other side for awhile.”
No one was concerned about a little wet feet if the dam did suddenly start running as we were crossing it. It didn’t run that fast. And it had caught us before. It was no big deal. Pete’s concern was getting stuck on the little island where the damn ended for an hour or so. Once, john, and myself had been on that island and some kids, older kids, had decided to shoot at us with 22 caliber rifles. Scared us half to death. But that’s not the story I’m trying to tell you today. Maybe I’ll tell you that one some other time. Today I’m trying to tell you about John’s father. And how calm John seemed to be taking it.
John didn’t wait for anyone else to comment. He dumped his bike and started to climb up the side of the concrete abutment to reach the top of the dam and walk across to the island. There was nothing for us to do except fall in behind him. One by one we did.
It all went smoothly. The water began to top the dam, soaking our Keds with its yellow paper mill stink and scummy white foam, just about halfway across. But we all made it to the other side and the island with no trouble. Pete and I climbed down and walked away. To this day I have no idea what words passed between Gary and john, but the next thing I knew they were both climbing back up onto the top of the dam, where the water was flowing faster now. Faster than it had ever flowed when we had attempted to cross the dam. Pete nearly at the top of the concrete wall, Gary several feet behind him.
John didn’t hesitate. He hit the top, stepped into the yellow brown torrent of river water pouring over the falls and began to walk back out to the middle of the river. Gary yelled to him as Pete and I climbed back up to the top of the dam.
I don’t think I was trying to be a hero, but the other thought, the thought he had pulled back from earlier, had just clicked in my head. John was thinking about dying. About killing himself. I could see it on the picture of his face that I held in my head from earlier. I didn’t yell to him, I just stepped into the yellow foam and water, found the top of the dam and began walking.
Behind me and Pete and Gary went ballistic. “Joe, what the fuck are you doing!”
I heard it, but I didn’t hear it. I kept moving. I was scared. Petrified. Water tugged at my feet. There was maybe 6 inches now pouring over the dam and more coming, it seemed a long way down to the river. Sharp, up-tilted slabs of rock seemed to be reaching out for me. Secretly hoping that I would fall and shatter my life upon them.
John stopped in the middle of the dam and turned, looking off toward the rock and the river below. I could see the water swirling fast around his ankles. Rising higher as it went. John looked over at me, but he said nothing.
“John,” I said when I got close enough. He finally spoke.
“No,” was all he said. But tears began to spill from his eyes. Leaking from his cheeks and falling into the foam scummed yellow-brown water that flowed ever faster over his feet.
“Don’t,” I screamed. I knew he meant to do it, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Don’t move,” Gary said from behind me. I nearly went over the falls. I hadn’t known he was that close. I looked up and he was right next to me, working his way around me on the slippery surface of the dam. I looked back and Pete was still on the opposite side of the dam. He had climbed up and now he stood on the flat top. Transfixed. Watching us through his thick glasses. Gary had followed John and me across.
I stood still and Gary stepped around me. I have no idea how he did. I’ve thought about it, believe me. There shouldn’t have been enough room, but that was what he did. He stepped right around me and then walked the remaining 20 feet or so to John and grabbed his arm.
“If you jump you kill me too,” Gary said. I heard him perfectly clear above the roar of the dam. He said it like it was nothing. Like it is everything. But mostly he said it like he meant it.
It seemed like they argued and struggled forever, but it was probably less than a minute, maybe two. The waters were rising fast and the whole thing would soon be decided for us. If we didn’t get off the dam quickly we would be swept over by the force of the water.
They almost did go over. So did I. But the three of us got moving and headed back across to the land side where we had dropped our bikes. We climbed down from a dam and watched the water fill the river up. No one spoke.
Eventually john stopped crying. And the afterthought look, as though there some words or thoughts he couldn’t say passed. The dying time had passed.
We waited almost two hours for the river to stop running and then Pete came across…
We only talked about it one other time that summer, and then we never talked about it again. That day was also a beautiful summer day. Sun high in the sky. We were sitting on our bikes watching the dam run.
“I can’t believe you were gonna do it,” Pete said.
“I wasn’t,” John told him. “I only got scared when the water started flowing and froze on the dam… That’s all it was.”
Nobody spoke for a moment and then Gary said, “That’s how it was.”
“Yeah. That’s how it was,” I agreed…
Home: https://www.wendellsweet.com
Crime Time 2 contains two complete crime novels in one book.
Livie:
A trip to the weed man goes horribly wrong for a young woman who is skating through life.
Home: https://www.wendellsweet.com
The air hung thick with the smell of ozone and burnt plastic, a lingering scent of their near-death experience. Lonnie ran a hand over the smooth, cool surface of the repaired temporal resonator, its green glow a constant, reassuring presence in the otherwise dim Quonset hut. A man takes a trip back to 1969 and finds he might not be able to return to the future he came from… #Fantasy #SciFi #TimeTravel #Thriller #Readers #Drama #DellSweet
Amazon.com: 1969 eBook : Sweet, Wendell: Kindle Store https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6RMT92G
A Good Plan.
I have a plan. I think I spent a good portion of my life without a plan. Just sort of walking along, not really expecting much at all, at least nothing good. I had a larger view of the world that said, “What happens, happens. It’s pretty much ordained, and so there is little I can do about it.” Does that sound ridiculous? Well, it does to me too, now anyway. But for most of my life I had that thought in my head and so, true or not, I believed it to be true and it became true.
Then one day I woke up. I woke up and I looked at the world and I thought “What the hell have I been doing? Why am I in situations I do not want to be in? Where the hell is this car going? Who’s driving?”
After that I went through a period of cynicism. It is the worlds fault. I didn’t have a chance, someone should have told me. More in that vein. Then I stepped back, looked at it and I realized I had had good breaks. I had seen things clearly. I had looked at it. And I had decided that I didn’t want to drive. I had decided to be a passenger. Well, you got to go where the driver is going then. You have eliminated all of your other choices.
So I made a plan in four parts. My plan was pretty simple.
One: I will retain all the control over my own life that I can. As long as getting that control doesn’t cause me to hurt someone, doesn’t become all encompassing. Doesn’t make me stop seeing that compromise is a part of life. I have thought out my actions rationally, without simply reacting during the heat of the moment. Man, I thought. There is a lot to do to simply have control over your own life. And how come I have to give up some of that control to have control. Isn’t that the opposite of what I wanted? It is, but it is the way the real world works.
Two: I will set goals and work toward them. In that way the things that are truly important to me are attained. Great. That is great. A clear path to a clear future, to… No. The problem is that we do not live in a vacuum. How do you set your goals and have them remain static? You don’t. At least you don’t if there are people in your life you care about. I remember someone asked me, what are your plans for the future, and I said well I plan to leave here, move to the middle of nowhere and live off the land as best I can. Maybe find someone who wants to do that and that would be great, a perfect life.
As soon as I said the words I knew I was not thinking rationally about it. If I love people that are in my life then they should count when I make plans for the future. Having lived most of my life in the vacuum that is alcoholism I had rarely ever considered others. Tough to admit, but true, so as I was saying the words they became untrue. I realized my family and friends were more important to me that anything else. And I realized I had to permanently alter my thinking. The people you love have to count. Compromise is a part of life. People who are living in the world know all about that. Those that are only in the world don’t really understand that. Which type did I want to be?
Three: Doors. I grew up on the streets. Yes, I grew up with a moral code, but chances are it was not the same moral code that most people that know me grew up with. On the street loyalty was a big deal. Men would say, “Hey, I’d die for you,” and they meant it. You could watch someone do the worst thing in the world and you would keep your mouth shut. Loyalty. It was a code. Somehow the cops became the bad guys and the bad guys became the good guys. Sounds like different subjects, but it isn’t. You are isolated from mainstream society. Disconnected: Mainstream society becomes incomprehensible. It makes no sense at all. Meanwhile the people you deal with come in and out of those doors you have. Those doors you can choose to open or close. Only you are so disconnected that you leave them open all the time and people come in and out. You become a doormat. You understand doormat. Doormat makes perfect sense. Use and be used. Except, when you come off the streets you still have the doors open. Wide open. You let everyone in, some you should, some you shouldn’t. Some who mean you grave harm, some who try to love you, but you don’t understand any of that. You only left the door open and the stuff is happening People are coming and going.
So one of things I did was shut the doors. Yes, at first, all the way. Then I realized those doors are there for a reason. A door is meant to be opened and closed. On a warm summer night you can crack it a little to let some air in. In the winter to close it to keep the heat in. And life is the same way. Sometimes you can decide to let that person in. Others no. Still others, crack it just a little. Let that breeze in. Maybe leave the screen door shut to keep the insects out. Poor analogies, I know, but I was a street kid. A street kid who was far from stupid, but carried my ignorance like armor. I finally got it though, and I told my self that from now on I would choose how far I would open that door.
Four: The plan. I will sit down and look at what I really want out of life and begin to work toward it. I will realize that, long before I attain it, something might happen that will cause me to want to change my plans. I can not be so rigid that I can not look at it and realize that it needs to be changed. That my needs have changed. That someone in my life has needs that will affect my own needs and that I may have to sit down and do it all over again. Set a new goal. Come up with a new plan. That it’s okay to do that. That if what you are doing no longer makes sense you need to do something else.
That was how I came up with my plan. My plan was a multi year plan. Save my money. Then go in one direction or the other. Land or sea.
Sea: Buy a boat. A big boat. Cast off and spend a few years, as long as I can, sailing. After all, the price of a house, it is about the same.
Land: Buy some land in the mountains. Build another house, I have done that before, and that’s it, retire. Walks in the mountains. Maybe do the Appalachian trails. Live as close to my characters lives in my books as I can.
Then I mentioned it to people in my life. By the time I got their reactions I realized that I may just have to scrap both plans and start over. Not because any of them said anything to dissuade me, but because I realized how much I loved them and would miss them if I did either of those things. How life really is about compromise. After all, I can rent a boat, can’t I? I can rent a cabin in the sticks, can’t I? I can walk the Appalachian trail, I don’t have to live there to do that. So I made a new plan. My new plan is not to make any other plans until I sit down and think about the people I love and how it will impact them and me.
Hope you had a good week…
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The end has come for most of the world’s population. Small groups of survivors are picking up the pieces… Learning to live again…
When the sun began to peek over the top of the ridge on the opposite shore of the Black River, everyone filed out to the two remaining trucks. It had been decided that Mike and Jan would stay behind while the others went in search of the stolen truck. They switched on and tested two sets of F.M. radios.
#Dystopian #ApocalypticFiction #Horror #Readers #BookLovers #KU #KindleUnlimited
Home: https://www.wendellsweet.com
Earth’s Survivors Apocalypse follows survivors of a worldwide catastrophe. A meteorite that was supposed to miss the earth completely, hits and becomes the cap to a series of events that destroy the world as we know it. Police, fire, politicians, military, governments: All gone. Hopes, dreams, tomorrows: All buried in a desperate struggle to survive.
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The air hung thick with the smell of ozone and burnt plastic, a lingering scent of their near-death experience. Lonnie ran a hand over the smooth, cool surface of the repaired temporal resonator, its green glow a constant, reassuring presence in the otherwise dim Quonset hut. The weeks spent battling the machine, deciphering Finch’s cryptic notes, had left them gaunt and exhausted, their faces etched with the strain of their ordeal. But the pervasive anxiety had shifted; the fear of catastrophic failure was replaced by a new, equally potent fear: the fear of failure to return.Tommy, ever the pragmatist, began meticulously checking the power supply. He meticulously tested each vacuum tube, his brow furrowed in concentration. He’d scavenged the tubes from a junkyard, a graveyard of discarded electronics, and their reliability was questionable at best. He replaced a flickering tube, the replacement salvaged from an old radio, its glass casing brittle with age. Each connection was carefully soldered, double-checked, and triple-checked. There was no room for error. Their lives, quite literally, depended on the flawless functioning of this cobbled-together contraption.Lonnie, meanwhile, focused on the chronometer, a jury-rigged device built from scavenged parts. It was crude, primitive compared to the sleek, digital chronometers of their time, but it was their only way to accurately gauge the temporal displacement. He adjusted a tiny potentiometer, a whisper-thin metal rod, his breath held in anticipation. He’d spent hours calibrating it, using astronomical charts painstakingly copied from a tattered 1969 almanac. Even the slightest miscalculation could mean a landing in the wrong century, or worse, nowhere at all.A science fiction trip through time travel as three men learn the ropes of something they were never meant to know…
#TimeTravel #ScienceFiction #Readers #BookLovers #ReadersofFacebook
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The Criminal Intentions series are collected short crime fiction in each book that I have gathered together to present to the reader, Dell.
Short Stories in this collection:
HAPPY HOLIDAYS – THE TALE OF LIV – THE TRIP – HOOD RATS – THE PHONE CALL – CHEATING AND DEATH – SANTOS – HARROWS
An excerpt from the short story: The Story of Liv
For fifteen long minutes, Liv stood outside in the chilly, pre-dawn rain. Fifteen minutes felt like an eternity when the craving hit. Time stretched endlessly, with every clock and watch in the world ticking away the moments. Finally, she began testing the doors. The front and back doors were locked. She hadn’t considered the garage door, but eventually decided to try it. To her surprise, it was unlocked, although the lock was badly damaged, causing her to hesitate.
#CrimeFiction #WGSweet #BookLovers #Readers #KindleUnlimited #Kindle #Amazon
Home: https://www.wendellsweet.com
The Criminal Intentions books are collections of short stories, some short some nearly novel length that I have combined together in this collection for you to enjoy, Dell.
In this collection are the following short stories:
PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS – A GOOD PLAN – BLACKNESS OF THE SOUL – THE LAST TAXI RIDE – DELLO GREEN – THE ACCIDENT – THE MAN WHO NEARLY TOOK MY LIFE – THE STORY OF THE MEXICAN – WHEN THEY TRIED TO KILL ME
An excerpt from the short story The Accident:
I lay breathing heavy, trying to calm my racing heart. The dream had been so vivid, so real. I had held her and it had felt so good so real so right. She had turned to me and I had opened my eyes and really seen her. Seen what I was holding. A rotting corpse. She was coming closer, holding me, her hands suddenly clutching harder, trying to drag me down into the grave she stank of.
I was covered with sweat, but my heart slowed and I got myself up and made it to the shower.
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