New books and the weekend creeping up

Posted By Dell Sweet 05-02-18

The weekend is creeping up on me. I think someone stole a few days and tried to slip one over on me. Or I would, except it really is Wednesday.

I would like to mention the book Zero Zero. I wrote this book some time ago, as in years and it is only now available. I write an end of the world book series Earth’s Survivors and this book is in the same vein. Different, but I think equally good. I mean that.

I was talking about this place today with someone today. How it did not start out to be an indie publishing vehicle, but simply an outlet for my own digital book copies. Now there are nine writers here and I doubt it will stop there.

I guess we don’t say much about ourselves so maybe now is a good time to do that. We are all writers. This site was first started to create a space for Writers, Musicians and Artists. We have many of each and many who do all of those things. One thing I have come to realize is that creative people wear many hats, not just one or two.

None of us own the site, but three of us work here fulltime. Yes that makes it nice, we get to write as we write. In fact it is encouraged. The owner is not a writer or a musician or an Artist. She enjoys all three things and many others though and so she gave us this and allowed us to develop it and build it. That did not happen the way some of us saw it happening.

I can’t speak for the others but I saw a site where writers, artists and musicians all hung out and marketed their work. Now we have a site where all those things have occurred. The writers, musicians and artists are here, we talk all day sometimes, back and forth, give advice or work on projects, etc. If someone asks me to help, I do. I wrote two of my most successful short stories that way. One of the other writers wanted to publish an anthology and wanted some of my work in it. Something new. Something different. Okay. I offered Zombie Fall and Rapid City. Neither of those stories would have happened if I had not been in that creative process with others.

There are top grade musicians here. I do my own music. I used to play in bands years ago. But I have not stuck with it: Although I love it I have too many other obligations on my time. So I have turned to other musicians to catch up on the new technology, so to speak, because three of my characters in the Earth’s Survivors books write music and I want to be able to provide that music on the website as it evolves.

My point is that the creative processes here are really good. They help all of us to be better at what we do, and in some cases write things we would not have written, and, the big deal, it is not what we had planned to build here. And it continues to grow. I couldn’t be happier and I’m glad to be a small part of it too.

I believe I mentioned before that I am a tech wizard, well, at least in my own head, but, I am common sense stupid. Lacking, sadly, in that small area of the brain that says ‘What?’ or ‘Hey wait a second!’ Nope. My brain just says, ‘Yeah go ahead who cares,’ or, ‘Hey it ain’t my problem, know what I mean?

Here’s an example: I picked up a screwdriver yesterday that I had bought in case I needed it. Brilliant, because, six months after I bought it? I needed it. Brilliant. There is the brain in action. I did not have to go buy one, simply go get it and use it. But since I needed it I had to open it. Except it was packaged in that stiff, molded, welded-plastic stuff. You know, the stuff that was predicted to be gone soon because Walmart supposedly hated it? And because there were several injuries reported after trying to tear it open. Yes. That is the knowledge I had when I picked up the package, that it could hurt me. I think that is as far as my common sense thinking went because immediately my Brain said, ‘Yeah, may be, but it won’t hurt me.’ No explanation as to why it wouldn’t, just that it wouldn’t. And that is the problem with my lack of common sense. My dumb self went… ‘Okay’ and immediately began to try to rip the package open.

After ten minutes and two cuts I gave up and admitted that my brainiac self had duped me again, bandaged my two hurt fingers, thanked God I had not lost a limb, and marveled over why we don’t issue this to our soldiers. They could present it to the enemy… ‘Here. Enjoy this Swiss Army knife that you can use to stab me to death.’ Our Soldier Smiles at his enemy. The enemy looks suspicious, but I have found a lack of common sense is a pretty, well, common thing. Especially in undeveloped countries that don’t know what that stuff is. So he tries to open it and end up slicing himself all up. Great weapon. I’m sure it could work.

Eventually, with the help of a pair of scissors, I did get the screw driver out, but I cut myself once more because the edge where I had cut it was so sharp. And I wondered, because people who lack common sense often wonder about stupid things and I am no exception, what if you bought a pair of scissors encased in that crap? And you bought them because you had to have them to open that sort of packaging?. What could you do? Could you go back to the store and use a complimentary pair of scissors to cut open the packaging? Could you go get your carpenters knife (Razor Knife) and slice it open with that? (I did this once while holding the packaging on my lap. NOT Recommended.). Do you even have or own a Carpenter’s Knife? Could you run over it with the car and break the packaging? Nope. Doesn’t work. Nevertheless, I thought of all these things anyway. No, I decided, I would bend the package until the scissors popped through. That would work. So now I plan a trip to my local Walmart so I can buy a pair of scissors and try my theories. And once I get them open I’m going to run with them and see if that old wives’ tale is true. I mean, after all, how can it be dangerous if you don’t fall? I don’t plan to fall.

Well that’s my week. I hope your work week had some amusement in it for you as mine did. Check out the free e Book list here. It’s a beautiful night here in New York, 68 degrees and low humidity. I just mowed the lawn a little while ago, so add the smell of fresh mown grass to that. If I had a pond and a fishing pole I’d be all set, but I do have a chair and a porch and I think I’ll go watch the sunset. I like the way my characters in my books get to do that. They think of those things, maybe because they have lost so much. They take time to enjoy and appreciate those simple pleasures now. Enjoy the Week… Dell.

ZOMBIE PLAGUE: BOOK TWO preview

ZOMBIE PLAGUE: BOOK TWO

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ZOMBIE PLAGUE: BOOK TWO

One

On the road

~ March 26^th ~

The camp was up before dawn, tents packed away and breakfast and coffee taken quietly together around the low embers of the camp fires. The breakfast didn’t consist of much more than the coffee and a few energy bars, but it suited their purpose well enough. The Dog, who still had no name, was going person to person and begging little tidbits even after his own breakfast of canned meat.

As the sun was touching the horizon, the small caravan of six vehicles were once again winding their way southward, leaving the roads where they were impassable and taking to the fields.

The two Suburbans that had been fitted with lifts and bigger tires had no problem with the on and off road transitions. It was tougher for the other four vehicles.

They monitored the radios as they drove along. Bits and pieces of conversation and skip came through the static. Sometimes clear, sometimes garbled and barely intelligible, but there were no conversations they could follow. Mike had never been a C.B. Radio fan, but Bob had been and he explained skip to everyone.

Skip could be two thousand miles away, or only a hundred. It was a signal that hit the atmosphere just right, or cloud cover, or a mountain range, and carried farther than it normally would have. You might talk to someone a thousand miles away as clearly as though they were no more than a mile down the road. And you might have that conversation for ten minutes or two hours and then suddenly they were gone because those atmospheric conditions that had allowed the conversation had changed.

Early on, Mike had thought about Ham radio. You could reach around the world with Ham radio. But Bob had explained that Ham radio accomplished that with relays. All the people that did the relays were most likely gone, at least for now. Maybe they would be back eventually, but they had heard nothing but a soft electric hiss cutting across the miles the two times they had tried the bands, and no one had answered their calls.

The F.M. Band had also remained dead. It seemed all the traffic was on the C.B. Channels. The V.H.F. Bands, normally used for Marine conversations, were empty too. But that offered a secure option for them to talk without being overheard. As they drove through the morning now, they talked back and forth on the V.H.F. Band, monitoring the C.B. and the F.M. Bands.

They filled their tanks two hours after dawn at a collapsed gas station next to the interstate. A length of rubber hose connected to a hand operated Kerosene pump made the job quick. The only hard part had been locating the underground tank. The cover had been found though, the cap spun off, and the odor of gasoline drifted up into the air telling them that the underground tank had not been ruptured.

The little area that serviced the interstate contained a large garage, two small Mom-and-Pop stores, the gas station and a chain auto parts store right next to the garage, probably built with the garage in mind.

On the other side of the asphalt parking lot sat a motel unit that had seen better days. Most of the units were flattened. The swimming pool was cracked and empty; wire mesh and what looked to be a bottomless void graced the middle of the rust stained pool. A second row of motel units running parallel to the pool looked to be untouched. Across the road were two name brand outlet stores, obviously placed to take advantage of the interstate. They had pulled the trucks onto the cracked pavement of the gas station, and after they had finished gassing up the trucks, Mike had gathered everyone together.

Bob and Tom came back from checking out the garage and the auto parts store just after the trucks were gassed up. Bob nodded his head at Mike.

“You noticed Bob and Tom looking over the garage,” Mike said. “We’re thinking of stopping here. We’d probably end up here for a few days while Bob and Tom work on the other four trucks. And we need a few other things: tail gate swing outs that can hold a spare tire, gas can too, roof racks to carry gear, lifts, better, bigger tires… In short, the things we had intended to do back in Watertown.” He looked around, trying to catch the eyes of each person individually.

“You can see how much easier it is for the two Suburbans to get around wrecks, buckled roads, down in to and out of ditches. It just makes sense to give the other four trucks that ability, otherwise they’ll just be slowing us down. You saw a little of that this morning.”

“Makes sense,” Janet Dove agreed.

Molly nodded. “My only concern is, are those…” she paused and her face reddened, “People,” she managed after a long pause, “coming after us?” Her eyes were dark and questioning. Mike could read the fear in her posture.

“I doubt it,” Candace said. She spoke quietly but forcefully.

“We’ll listen in on the radios,” Nellie added.

“They won’t come. In the city they knew how to get around… Out here,” Patty waved her arms around, finally lifting them to the sky. “They wouldn’t know what to do. Couldn’t sneak up on us.” She shook her head. “I just don’t think they’re the kind that want to deal with even odds.”

Candace nodded in agreement. “You know, Molly. Spineless, right?”

Molly nodded and Mike watched the fear leave her and something closer to determination replace it. She nodded her agreement once more, looking directly at Candace as she did.

Mike cleared his throat and continued. “The reason we traveled on was to put some miles between us and them. It’s a long way for them to come. I don’t see it,” Mike said. He let the silent nods continue for a moment and then continued.

“There are other things we can do, things we need. Canned goods, maybe one of those cows, or a deer. They seem to be wandering everywhere. There really is enough to keep all of us busy for the next few days while Bob and Tom get the truck situation straightened out.” He paused but no one spoke. “So… If there are no real objections?”

“Let’s do it,” Molly said.

“Yeah, I’m for it,” Patty added.

As Mike turned away, Patty, Candace, Molly and Nell began to set up a plan for monitoring the radios. Everyone agreed that they would probably hear about anything coming their way long before it reached them. Molly went over to the garage a few minutes later and pitched in, helping Bob and Tom move whatever was in the way so that they could reach the racks and garage bays. There were two tow trucks that they used to do most of the work, but chains and muscle power accomplished the rest.

In the end, they cleared out three stalls that they could work in. Molly stayed, and not long after Nell found her way over and began to work side by side with her.

The garage was a prefab steel building that, either because of a whim of the Gods’ or its design, had remained standing. By the time some others were returning with a cow and two large does in the back of one of the pickup trucks, the garage was ready to go. Molly and Tom wheeled out a towering chain-fall for the hunting party to use to dress out the animals and then went back to work.

By late afternoon the third Suburban was well under way. The lift was done, brush-guards installed and they were working on the carrying racks. Mike and Ronnie stopped by to look over the effort and were amazed. The Suburban looked like something that had rolled out of some sort of Safari outfitters garage, or a futuristic end of the world epic, Mike joked. But that sent them all into silence for a few moments, and Mike didn’t mention it again.

Molly and Nell were working on bolting a huge winch to the front bumper of one truck while Tom and Bob worked on stripping out one of the pickups to get it ready for a lift kit.

Tim and Annie had made their way to the garage and then found themselves drafted and made part of the work crew. Annie was in the third stall laying out the parts they would need for the lift on the pickup truck while Tim worked at mounting the oversize tires to new, larger rims, using a pair of heavy iron bars and his body weight to accomplish the work. He and Annie joked back and forth as they worked.

They were using a small twelve volt air-compressor to inflate the tires after they had them mounted. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves, Mike thought, and they seemed happy to be in each other’s company.

Outside, near the far end of the garage, the chain-fall had been set up, and a group led by Janet Dove, which included Sandy and Susan, were hoisting a large cow up into the air.

“Mike,” Janet said as he and Ronnie passed by on their way out of the Garage.

Mike paused.

“We would like to smoke most of this meat… If we’re going to be here a few days, I thought…”

Mike nodded. “Yeah. Might as well, Jan. We have the time,” He assured her, “And, it’ll help to have the meat with us, who knows what’s ahead.” He shrugged.

Janet Dove smiled, turned away, and Mike stood watching as the huge cow began to lift into the air from the back of the pickup truck before he and Ronnie turned and walked away.

A few minutes later, the two of them fell in with Candace and Patty who were sifting through what the chain stores had to offer in the way of clothing, canned goods and whatever else they came across that they could find a use for. They passed by Lilly who had taken over the toy department, blocked off one aisle, and was keeping Brian and Janelle busy. She smiled and waved as they passed. Janelle waved back. Her dark eyes finally looking rested and happy.

Brian had built himself the biggest Lincoln Log village that Mike had ever seen and was now busy populating it with dozens of green, plastic Army Men. Mike smiled and Brian took the time out of his game to smile back at he and Ronnie. He held a large plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex in one hand which seemed to Mike about to wreak havoc on the village and its population of Army Men.

A half dozen trips with Candace and Patty, and late afternoon turned into early evening. Fires were burning to smoke the meat. Two large roasts were spitted over a huge fire pit made of field stone. A stew was bubbling in a pot that had been suspended over the flames. Nearly everyone had found a reason to stop by the area Janet Dove had set aside for cooking, most arriving just as she had been about to send some others out looking for everyone to round them up for dinner. The Dog was running around in circles, happily racing from person to person, tail wagging crazily. The smell of roasting meat hung heavy in the still, cool air.

~Early Evening~

Everyone sat close together at several wooden picnic tables that Janet had drafted a few volunteers to bring over from the collapsed section of the motel. They had sat in a small clearing not far from the building, untouched, while everything around them had been leveled.

The temperature was in the low forties, but with the early evening sun still shining, it felt much warmer.

Mike sat next to Candace, Ronnie on his other side. Across the table, Molly sat with Nell. They were both laughing, involved in conversation with each other. It was the happiest that Mike had seen Nell or Molly.

Canned potatoes, fresh beef and venison, a stew that held a bit of everything in it and a steaming platter of peas dominated the table center. Everyone had heaped up their plates. Too long eating thrown together meals or energy bars had left them hungry for real food.

Their basic protein needs had been met, but there was nothing like real food to make you… Happy, Mike decided. He looked around the table at all the smiling faces. It was actually a mood elevator, he decided.

“What’s on your mind, Baby?” Candace asked. Her eyes smiled, but her mouth wore a question he had come to know was more serious than her smile insinuated.

He bent forward and kissed her, making the smile on her face spread wider still. “I was thinking how happy everyone looked.” He turned his head and let his eyes sweep the tables once more, then turned back to Candace whose eyes and face now wore another look he was becoming familiar with. He bent forward and kissed her once more. “I’m pretty sure I love you,” He told her.

She laughed, “Pretty sure!” She slapped his arm with one hand. “You better be more than pretty sure, Mister.”

Mike laughed and kissed her again. “Positive,” he said. “I’d be lost without you.” His eyes turned serious. “That’s the truth,” His voice dropped to a near whisper as he leaned even closer. “I love you so much that I don’t have words for it. I only know it’s real. I only know I need you.” He kissed her once more and sat back up to catch Annie giggling and looking away.

Candace laughed beside him. An easy laugh that eased the seriousness of the conversation.

“I hope we’ll have some time later on,” she said, her voice still low, husky.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Mike told her.

“I was looking at that garage building,” Ronnie said from beside him.

Mike nodded.

“It’s one of those industrial prefabricated jobs. I’ve put up a few, but I had no idea how well engineered they were. They hold up pretty well, or at least this one did. The buildings not really damaged at all.”

“I noticed that too,” Mike agreed, “What are you thinking?”

“Well,” Ronnie grinned, “When we get where we’re going, it may not be a bad idea for a dwelling… or dwellings. At least for a temporary dwelling until we build… if we build. Lightweight, easy to put up. Easy to insulate. Not bad in an earthquake, if that stuff’s not completely done with us.”

Mike was nodding his head. “I’m for it, but are they hard to come by? I mean, where could we get one?”

“Not as hard as it seems. There are outlets where you can buy them in larger cities. And there are thousands already set up. We could take them apart pretty easily, take them where we want them and put them back up. All the structural supports are pretty much the same. You just add more or take away to make the building the size you need. Very lightweight, so they’d be easy to transport. They’d go up or down pretty fast,” Ronnie finished.

“Has my vote,” Bob added. “Fast, easy. They seem solid. It will save us a ton of time.”

“I’ve seen them around. I think it’s a good idea. We wouldn’t have to worry about wooden structures falling down on us.” Mike looked around. “Almost all the wooden structures are down. Concrete seems okay, for the most part, steel. But wooden structures just give too easily. Putting them up fast would also be a plus,” he finished. He raised his eyes from the ground – he had a habit of looking at the ground to visualize his thoughts – and saw that Molly and Nell had been listening to their conversation. They were nodding their heads in agreement.

“That garage is really solid,” Molly agreed.

“Cement’s cracked here and there, but the building itself held up really well,” Nell agreed. “I don’t even like walking into a wooden building anymore. You can feel it move, hear the creaks and groans… pops.” She shook her head.

Mike and Ronnie both nodded.

”It’s a good plan,” Mike said. He turned his head to Molly. “Where did you learn to turn wrenches?” he asked her.

Molly smiled. “My dad had a race car. It started out as a hobby but became something else. He’d work on it all week long and then run it in races on the weekends.” She smiled shyly. “When I was a little girl, as far back as I can remember, I used to go out and watch.” She laughed. “Pretty soon I was fetching wrenches, parts.” She laughed again. “The first time I came in with greasy hands, I thought my Mother was going to die. When I was fifteen, my Dad bought an old beat to shit Mustang. A sixty-four. It was a project car, he’d said. We’d work on it in our spare time together, finish it up and sell it for a profit.” She smiled and her eyes misted as she seemed to be looking back through the years.

“It took nearly a year of work. That was also the time I was eligible to get my permit. The day I got my license, he handed me the keys,” she finished, smiling happily at the memory.

“Pretty nice,” Candace said.

“Yeah, except it got smashed flat when this,” she lifted her hands and gestured helplessly, “happened. But once we’re where we’re going to be, I think I’ll try to find another one, or maybe a two door sixty-two Chevy Impala. I’ve always liked the way those Chevy’s look.” She shrugged, “Crazy, I guess, but I really think I’m gonna do it. There must be one somewhere.”

“I can see that,” Patty said. “Or something else worth rebuilding.”

More than a few heads nodded in agreement.

“Sometimes,” Patty added as an afterthought. “The thing you find is better than the thing you thought you wanted.”

Nell looked at Molly. Molly smiled, and Nell leaned closer and kissed her.

“You two?” Candace asked.

“Nell tempted me,” Molly said.

“It’s like Patty said, sometimes the thing you find is better than the thing you thought you would find… or want. I hadn’t expected this much out of life in the old world let alone this one,” Nell said smiling, but serious. She worked her hand into Molly’s and leaned closer to her.

Mike’s eyes swept across Patty’s face, expecting to see a smile but finding a distracted, sadness on her face instead. Patty swept it away so quickly though that he wasn’t sure just a second later that it had really been there at all. Maybe, he decided, he had imagined it. After all, Patty had found the better thing she hadn’t known she would find in Ronnie. There would be no reason for that sadness to be on her face. He found his own hand holding Candace’s, and she leaned into him for a kiss.

“Get a room, you guys,” Tim said as he and Annie passed by. Annie was blushing but had a huge smile on her face.

“Horn dogs,” Tim told her as they walked away, laughing with each other and holding hands as they went.

“Horn dogs?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know about you but I am no horn dog,” Janet Dove joked as she passed by.

The thought of prim and proper Janet Dove making a statement like that caused everyone to crack up. Janet stopped, a shocked look on her face.

“Good one, Jan,” Candace said.

“I can’t believe I said that,” Janet said.

Everyone cracked up then, including Janet Dove.

~Evening~

Candace lay in the crook of Mike’s arm as they talked quietly.

“Gotta go in about five minutes,” Mike told her. “My watch.”

“No,” Candace said. “You can’t go if you can’t get out of bed. Besides, we paid for the room for the night,” she finished and laughed.

Mike chuckled. “This is nice. Privacy, first we’ve had in… well, forever.”

“When we leave, we’ll be back to getting none at all again,” Candace told him. She snuggled against his side, one hand resting against the flat of his stomach, her index finger drawing small circles. “But,” she lifted her eyes to his. “I guess I have to let you go. Just think about that alone time for later.” She kissed him softly. “Something to keep you thinking about it.” She turned away, swung her feet to the floor and began to get dressed.

“You do give me things to think about,” Mike told her. He trailed his fingers down her back, bent forward and kissed her shoulder.

Candace looked back at him. “Do you want to make that watch?”

Mike laughed. “No, but I have no choice at all.” He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “Later,” he said.

“Later,” She agreed.

The room had not been in bad shape. It was funny how fate could be, Mike had thought. One wing flattened, one untouched. From sleeping in a cave a day ago, to sleeping in a real bed the next.

The room was dusty, a slight musty, unused odor, but dry. The roof had held up. The walls seemed untouched.

“Where are you going?” Mike asked.

“With you.”

“You’re not on, Babe,” Mike grinned.

“Correction. I wasn’t on. You had Patty on, but she wanted to spend time with Ronnie, so we switched. That way, when we’re done, we can come back here again…” She cocked her eyebrows. “And take our time?”

“What, not be rushed?” Mike asked.

She stood and turned into him as he was getting ready to leave. A beautiful woman wearing only a pair of white socks, which was all she had managed to get on. She stretched up onto her tip toes and kissed him. His hands pulled her close. She pulled away with a smile.

“I thought you were coming with me,” Mike said.

“I am,” She giggled.

He reached for her once more, but she skipped away. “We’ll never get there, Baby,” she told him.

“As it is, I’ll probably be thinking about you throughout the whole watch and waiting to get back here. God, Candace, you’re so beautiful.”

She looked at him seriously. “Keep that up and we’ll never get out of this room.” She crossed the short distance between them and kissed him once more. “Say it just once more?”

“You’re beautiful,” Mike told her as he pulled her close.

It was about an hour and a half past sunset when Mike took over one of the perimeter guard posts from Susan. It was simply the far corner of the garage complex that overlooked a field and the highway beyond it.

“Quiet?” He asked.

“Pretty much. The dog… what’s that dog’s name anyway?” she asked.

“He doesn’t have one,” Mike admitted. “We, uh… we just call him The Dog, you know. He survived. He got through it same as us; he made it, you know. He’s The Dog.” Mike finished lamely.

“Oh. Sounds like a little guilt there, Mike. Maybe we should all get together and name it,” Susan suggested.

Mike nodded.

“Well, anyway… The Dog kept looking off towards the highway. He didn’t, like, bark or anything. I thought maybe deer, cows, something else. But with the meat drying, it could have drawn anything at all. The fires and so many people should be enough to keep anything away. Even if it’s wolves, they’ll probably stay away, right? I just thought you should know about it.”

Mike nodded. “Could be something, but you’re probably right. Most likely it’s nothing. I imagine the smell of the meat will draw every carnivore in the area. That’s okay as long as they don’t try to bother us. There will be plenty of scraps when we’re gone.”

Susan nodded this time. “Mike,” she hesitated and Mike nodded for her to continue. “Well, I wondered what you thought about Jan and Bob’s idea of settling in the wilderness. You know, deep in the middle of nowhere… a new Nation.”

Mike nodded slowly. “I think they really want to do it. I think they really believe in it, Susan,” he shrugged. Her eyes questioned him. “Okay… and… And I wish I could believe in it they way they do. Not that I believe it won’t work. I think anything we do will take hard work, a good deal of hard work,” he shrugged again. “And I think they’ll put the work in, I really do. Maybe you’re asking me what I want to do, and I can’t tell you that. I don’t know… I haven’t decided. It’s something Candace and I would have to take the time to sit down and decide, and we just haven’t had the time to do that.”

“You know, in my head the old world was selfish. It was all about selfish. The me-generation? Something like that. And I’m not saying I was any better. I wasn’t. Oh, I had my friends, and I helped them when I could, but when it came down to push or shove, it was me. It was me, and a lot of the people I knew, worked for, with, associated with, were the same way. Social on the surface, but scratch that surface and it’s a different story. Push or shove… and not an overly hard push or shove either.” He looked at her and Susan nodded.

“At least for me it’s been that way. I guess I sound cynical. But it’s not that way anymore. I’m not that way anymore. It’s not about me. It’s about me and Candace. And it really isn’t about us either. It’s deeper. There are people here I’ve really come to care about. I mean really care about. Do you realize that I haven’t watched T.V. Since the night this all started? Sounds ridiculous, right? None of us have, but I did computer work. Scripting, C, C plus, plus, graphics, more. I used to turn my computer on, turn on the T.V. for company and go to work. Eighteen hours sometimes, even longer on occasion. It… that… was my life. No relationships. No one to really care about. No time for it. And everyone I knew was the same way. Superficial. Shallow? Yeah, that too. Well… I don’t do that anymore; I don’t want to.”

Susan nodded. “Everyone I knew was too busy living to think about how they were living,” she said.

“That I do understand,” Mike said. “But not now, you know, somewhere, in some secure building, on some secure server I have a couple of bank accounts that were well over a million dollars each.” He laughed. “All means nothing now, Susan, nothing. I am happy with what I have. I don’t want what I used to have.” He sighed.

“The Nation? Probably a great idea. I can think of only a few things that I could do that would matter as much to me as that does to them. Kids… love… Candace, you know? Do it right, not like the old world. And that’s the rub. It depends on Candace… and the baby. She’s trying to get pregnant. It seems like almost everyone is.” He rubbed the flat of his palm along his jaw feeling the stubble that was softening into a beard. “If she wanted to do it, yes. If she wanted to travel to Alaska, yes. When the time comes, and it’s probably not all that far away in the scheme of things, but when the time comes for Bob and those that have committed to go with them, and those that will – I know there will be more – when that time comes, if Candace wants to go with them, I’ll jump in with both feet. That’s the truth of it.”

Susan’s eyes were misted. “Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you for being long winded and entirely too personal on short notice?” Mike asked.

Susan laughed. “No, for being honest. I think I’m going to go have a talk with a young lady. I’ll see you later, Mike,” she said. She smiled and then walked off into the shadows of the night.

Mike watched her go. Apparently everyone was more appreciative of people now, not just himself, he thought. He turned his attention to the field and the highway. After his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could see the dark shapes of cattle grazing in the field, a few deer mixed in with them.

He thought about what he had just said, how much he felt for Candace. How for the next few nights they would have a real bed. His mind filled with thoughts of her. He almost missed the radio call, almost wrote it off as one of their own, until he realized it wasn’t.

“Hello the camp,” the voice repeated.

Mike unclasped the radio from his belt and raised it to his mouth and spoke. “I guess you mean us,” he said more calmly than he felt…

Geo Dell on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/author/geo-dell/id712828068?mt=11

Geo Dell on Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Geo+Dell?

Geo Dell on Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=Geo%20+Dell

Geo Dell on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GeoDell

Geo Dell on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/George-Dell/e/B00T94K198

Zombie Plagues on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/25728

Zombie Plagues on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Zombie+Plagues+%2B+Dell+Sweet

America The Dead Book Links…

By Dell Sweet & Lindsey Rivers

The Earth’s Survivors America the Dead series follows the individual groups as they struggle to survive the apocalypse. These are designed to be single stories, yet still part of the Earth’s Survivors story. The Dead, the problems of finding food. Problems with other groups of survivors.: It’s all here as the survivors pick themselves up and begin to live again…

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: Begins The End by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 1. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 76,130. Language: English. Published: September 12, 2014 by independAntwriters Publishing.

When a catastrophic natural disaster looms on the near horizon, the government releases an airborne virus designed to make the human race better able to survive. Those that do survive are picking up the pieces of their world, and those that have died lay in their death sleep, but in their bodies the virus works on, mutating, setting the stage for a second catastrophe far worse that the first.

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: Los Angeles by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 2 · Recommended reads. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 57,380. Language: English. Published: September 12, 2014 by independAntwriters Publishing.

An apocalypse of epic proportions has shaken the Earth to it’s core. In the bigger cities the dead are growing quickly in numbers. Growing intelligent as they continue to change and mutate. They have one thought in their rotting brains, take over the world, and destroy those that live in the process. Billy Jingo leaves Los Angeles hoping there might be something better on the other coast…

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: Manhattan by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 3 · Recommended reads. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 58,560. Language: English. Published: February 16, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

Donita’s Notebook March 1st (Night) Quakes, at least three. Warmed up fast, and all the dirty snow that was piled along the streets has melted. Torrential rains. Thunder and lightening in the snow storm that came after sunset. Didn’t last long; turned back to rain. Parts of the projects are burning. Jersey is burning. The sky is red-orange, everything across the river is on fire. No one has come.

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: War At Home 1 by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 4 · Recommended reads. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 78,950. Language: English. Published: February 16, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

Gabe Kohlson moved away from the monitors. “Heart rate is dropping, don’t you think…” He stopped as the monitor began to chime softly. “Dammit,” Kohlson said as he finished his turn. “What is it,” David Johns wheeled his chair across the short space of the control room. “Flat lined,” Kohlson said as he pushed a button on the wall to confirm what the doctors already knew. Clayton Hunter was dead.

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: War At Home 2 by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 5 · Recommended reads. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 69,770. Language: English. Published: February 25, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

Donita: The hunger was terrible, all consuming, and it came in crashing waves. The impulse to feed seemed to be the only coherent thought she had. It was hard to think around, hard to think past. It was all she could do not to rush from the trees, find the smell that tempted her and consume it. Eat it completely. Leave nothing at all…

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: Zombie Fall by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 6 · Recommended reads. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 86,580. Language: English. Published: March 22, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

Arlene’s Journal It’s the night before the six will leave to go back to the outside. I think of it that way… The outside. This place overwhelmed me for the first little while. That and having to kill a man. But it was worse for those who stayed behind when we made our way to this place. If they had not stayed to fight the rest of us would not have been able to get away…

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: The Zombie Plagues by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 7 · Recommended reads. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 83,790. Language: English. Published: March 22, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

Donita walked down Eighth Avenue towards Columbus Circle. Behind her a silent army followed, numbering in the thousands. From the circle they would take the park. There were thousands of the living camped out in the park. She could smell them on the air that flowed past her face as she walked. They had believed they were safe in their numbers, and for a time that had been true, but no more…

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: The Fold 1 by Lindsey Rivers

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 8. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 91,250. Language: English. Published: July 29, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

They made it to the top of the pass just in time to watch the sleigh approach the steep grade that would bring it to the top of the pass. An older man sat high on the wagon, driving a team of four oxen. The man, somewhere south of sixty, Mike thought, set the brake on the sleigh and then looked down at the five men. Visitors to the Valley settlement of the Nation. Jessie sets out on her own…

Earth’s Survivors America The Dead: The Fold 2 by Lindsey Rivers

Series: Earth’s Survivors America The Dead, Book 9. Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 96,300. Language: English. Published: July 29, 2016 by independAntwriters Publishing.

Jessie Jessie came awake in the darkness. When she tried to move her hands to her throbbing head, she realized they were securely bound behind her. She also realized that there was some sort of light source near her, and it had only seemed dark at first because her eyes were tightly covered. Blind folded, she told herself, and she was gagged as well. She tried to sit up…

Dell Sweet’s Books are also available at:

Amazon – iTunes – Nook – KOBO – Smashwords and many other book sellers

A short comedic story I wrote to illustrate that you can write about anything at all as long as you invest yourself in it…

DOGGY DAY AFTERNOON

IN THE SQUAD ROOM:

The detective set the open box of doughnuts down on the table, sighed, and then levered himself back into his cheap, plastic chair.

“Okay… Tell me about the dog…” He reached forward, snagged a doughnut, and began to chew, neatly catching a blob of jelly that burst from the side of the doughnut with one fat finger.

I thought for a moment… “Okay… It was like this…”

HOW MUCH IS THAT DOG CRAP ON THE SIDEWALK:

It was a clear, sunny day. The cracked sidewalk stretched out before me like a yellow bricked road that somehow had escaped coloring. I saw the dog crap on the sidewalk just before I saw the hunched over dog… Plop… Another missive joined the pile. The dog looked up at my widened eyes and grimaced, grunted, then growled.

“What the $%#@,” the dog said. “Never seen a dog take a crap?”

I was momentarily flummoxed. I knew dogs could talk, in fictional writings anyway, but I hadn’t realized that I would meet one on a city sidewalk in the middle of the day. The dog, a Pit Bull breed, straightened up, spun around and looked at the pile of crap, sniffed twice, and then looked back up at me. I checked his collar. No license. In fact, no collar.

“Hey, Man,” I started. “I mean, Hey, Dog, you got to have a license,” I told him.

“You saying a dog needs a license to take a crap, Mo-Fo?” He walked towards me, stiff legged. I notice that as he talked he teeth seemed to wiggle in his jaw, his words were slightly slurred.

“Uh, well, no… I mean a dog license… A license for a dog.”

“So I need a friggin’ license to be a dog? I can’t just be a dog? Oh, you frickin’ people make me laugh. A damn license to be a dog…” He looked back up at me. He had looked away, shaking his head. “I don’t got no frickin’ license, Mo-…” His eyes flew open as he teeth clattered to the ground. “Fwuck,” he said as they plopped into the pile of crap, broke free and clattered to a stop. “Somawevabeesshh.”

“Ha, Ha ,Ha,” I said before I could think. “Your teeth fell in the…”

He stuffed the teeth back into his jaw, launched himself to his hind legs, and the next thing I knew I was staring down the barrel of a Nine mm pistol.

“Holy crap,” I managed as the dogs paws settled on my chest.

“Holy crap,” The dog mimicked in a high falsetto. He swatted my face with his free paw, and then shoved the gun halfway into my nose. ”Give me your wallet.” I fumbled in my pocket and fished out my wallet, the dog fumbled around, stretched one rear leg up to hold the wallet as the other skimmed through it. He fished my license out and began to look it over.

“Hey, Dog. That’s a drivers License. No good for a dog.” I tried a smile on my face.

“You know,” the dog said, “Smiling means a whole different thing to a dog. An ape, most animals in fact. It’s a sign of aggression.”

I quickly wiped the smile off my face…

HUNGER SPEAKS:

The detective broke in…

“You gonna eat that last doughnut,” he asked?

I looked down and noticed there was only one doughnut left in the box. “Uh, no… Go ahead,” I said.

He reached down and then motioned for me to continue with one white powdered finger.

“Uh.. Yeah… So…

DOGGY TOUGH GUY:

The dog looked over the license (Warning… Scene stolen from Good fellas) “Okay,” The dog said, “You may know who I am, but I know who you are… Where you live.” He looked at me and I nodded. He fished a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to me. “Go get me a license. I’ll be right here waiting.”

THE REST OF IT:

The detective interrupted, talking around the doughnut, bits of clumped up powdered sugar and doughnut flying as he spoke. I winced as I felt a piece hit my lower lip. “So,” he looked down at his notepad, “The City Clerk says you got a license for a Mixed Beagle dog.” He looked back up at me.

“Yeah… See, I figured that way you could find him easier… I mean, how many Pit Bulls are walking around with tags for a Beagle.”

“Uh huh,” The detective said. “Maybe he read it?”

“A dog that can read,” I asked? “That’s pretty hard to believe.”

The detective nodded again… “Okay, So…”

“Yeah, so…”

When I got back from the City Clerks office the dog was waiting. He took the license and the tags and then handed me my wallet back. He took another twenty though for crack. He was a crack-dog.

“Whoa, a Crack-dog,” The detective asked? “Why didn’t you mention that before? How do you know?”

“Um, because he said something like…. “Yo, Man. I need another twenty to buy two tens at the spot.”

The detective nodded and motioned with the now clean finger to go on.

“Well, that’s it. He gave me back my license and told me if I ever told he would come and poop on my lawn everyday… And he threatened to bite me…”

“Did he bite you,” The detective asked?

“Well, no, but…”

The detective waved one chubby hand. “No Bite, can’t charge him.”

I looked at him incredulously. “Are you F *$#ing kidding me?”

He frowned. “Watch your goddamn mouth. We got kids around here.”

I looked, but could see no kids. I nodded anyway. “Well… He stole twenty bucks… No, forty bucks…”

The detective shook his head. “Look, how do I know that? You could be making the whole thing up… Dogs bite… You ain’t got no bite, do you?”

“No,” I agreed.

The detective shrugged.

“He pooped on the sidewalk… I saw him.”

“Uh huh, but then he’s a dog. Now if you catch a person doing that…” He shrugged again and looked down at the doughnut box. “Look, I got work to do…. Anything else?”

I shook my head, knowing I was defeated…

BACK IN IT:

As I left the police station I saw the dog two buildings down, standing in the shadows.

“I told you,” The dog yelled. “I warned you!”

As I turned to run, I reminded myself to pick up a poop scooper… And some bags… and some PoliGrip as a peace offering. It was a clear, blue skied day as I raced down the sidewalk running for home, the dog right behind me…

I hope you enjoyed that crazy short story. Check out these book sellers and my social contacts for more free short stories and full length eBooks…

Where to find my books…

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wendell-Sweet/e/B00B6QPHNM

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Dells

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/author/dell-sweet/id722382569?mt=11

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22dell%20Sweet%22

KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=Dell+Sweet

Where to find me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SweetDell

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Myspace: https://myspace.com/dellsweet

Microwave ovens and presets on microwave ovens

I like microwave ovens. They have made our lives better, I truly believe that. How else can you get a hot cup of coffee from yesterdays leftover coffee in just about 120 seconds? Not that I do that.. I mean drink yesterdays left over coffee… Okay… I do.

Here’s the thing though, it’s coffee! That’s my only argument. It should be enough though. I mean it’s like sacred, isn’t it? If I were living in a cave and discovered the coffee bean and bought it to my fellow cave dwellers they would probably build a shrine for me and worship me… Paint pictures of Coffee beans on the cave walls instead of hands, horses and signs for water. History would have been changed! Well, would have been changed had that happened.

So, no. I won’t throw out coffee. I guess that is a shocking admission, but it’s true.

Once, I can’t remember the movie, some western, the character threw the dregs of the coffee in his cup on the fire. The other guys around the fire looked at him like he was crazy… Crazy! And he must have been. I was just a kid at the time and I thought he was crazy! After that the other cowboys ostracized him. And he wasn’t asked along for the next roundup. That’s how serious a thing coffee was for cowboys back in the day. So I don’t throw away coffee. Which brings me back to microwaves. Don’t you wish your mind worked the way mine does? See how I came right back to where I wanted to be? Okay, I don’t even know how my mind works, I just thank God that it does. So Microwaves…

I like the idea of a Microwave, but I do have some issues with them. First, you can not make popcorn consistently. In fact I went to make popcorn the other day and the bag said “Do not use the Popcorn Setting on your Microwave.” Huh. Then why have the setting there? Isn’t that the whole idea? Ease of use? Push one button? Well we’ll get to that in a minuet. The bag went on to give precise microwave instructions. If you have this many “Watts” use this amount of time. This many, that amount of time. I had a headache when I finished reading it. Finally I put the popcorn back into the cupboard and got some chips instead. I sank into a deep depression over the whole technology thing. How can you eat microwavable popcorn if the button settings are wrong and you have to spend three hours figuring out wattage? You can’t just get out a pan and some butter, tear open the bag and do it that way, can you?

Well, as I sat eating my chips that I didn’t want I thought about that. There are a lot of buttons on a microwave. For instance, there is a beverage button on mine. It doesn’t work for beverages though. It leaves them too cold or too hot. But what if you accidentally pushed the popcorn button? And what if you then found out the popcorn button worked for beverages? Wouldn’t that be great? Well it does. I tried. But the beverage button will not work for Popcorn. What a mess that was. But in the end, I did go back out there, rip a popcorn bag open, and put it in a pan with some butter. Guess what? That did work.

As for the coffee on the popcorn setting it did come out pretty good, but I have an aversion to using a button marked Popcorn for coffee. But I wonder. If the popcorn companies don’t want you to use it, why do the microwave companies still make a popcorn button? Hmm. And if the beverage button doesn’t work for beverages, what the hell good is it anyway? And if coffee is the most nuked beverage, why not a Coffee button? And, stay with me here, if the Popcorn button isn’t used anyway, why not re-label it Coffee? Then I wouldn’t have to feel so bad about using the popcorn button for my coffee. Hey, I’m going to get one of those little label makers and make a coffee sticker and put it right over the Popcorn label. That will solve my problems for now. Feel free to just copy my idea and paste it on your own Microwave! No need to say thanks.

That only leaves the power button on mine. But that is kind of cool. You can press it, set the time amount, and watch the little turntable go around and around….

The Earth’s Survivors books on Smashwords…

1 Earth’s Survivors Nation Series: Book One: Apocalypse, the battle begins…

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/515457

2 Earth’s Survivors Nation Series: Book Two: Rising from the ashes. Some Survive… https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/274539

3 Earth’s Survivors Nation Series: Book Three: The Nation. Society begins to rebuild… https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284050

4 Earth’s Survivors Nation Series: Book Four: Home In The valley. The Nation rises…

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/304012

5 Earth’s Survivors Nation Series: Book Five: Plague. The dead take over the cities… https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/555784

6 Earth’s Survivors: Watertown. Step back in time to a few months before the Apocalypse. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/616299

7 Earth’s Survivors Nation Series: Book Seven: World Order. The story of the Fold… https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/616938

All seven Earth’s Survivors books in one collection. Follow the survivors as they struggle https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/664945

Author Dell Sweet on Smashwords: Click here

Hey it’s Wednesday and a free look at the novel Watertown

Posted by Geo 08-02-2017

It is a hot day here in New York. Rain and cold, sunny and too hot. No in between here lately. I have chosen an excerpt from Watertown, this is a prequel to the series. I realize that may stop some people from reading it. Unfortunate, it is a good book and you will miss a good story line. But if you are interested in only things that are Nation, OutRunner, Fold or Alabama Island related then you might not care about missing this book. If, on the other hand, you like reading about Billy Jingo, Bluechip and the area around the story town of Watertown, then you might want to sit down and give this a read. Well worth your time and one of two scheduled prequels this year.

As for the rest of the week, well we’re halfway! Enjoy it, Geo…

EARTH’S SURVIVORS: WATERTOWN

By Dell Sweet

LEGAL

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

This novel is Copyright © 2016 Wendell Sweet and his assignee’s. The Names Dell Sweet and Geo Dell are publishing constructs owned by Wendell Sweet. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the author’s permission. All rights foreign and domestic are retained by the Author and or his assignee’s.

Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.

This excerpt is used with permission. It is not edited or content and is rated 18+

Watertown, New York

Jefferson County Transfer Station 2

Sergeant Alice Tetto

Alice backed the car around to the open container. Late afternoon was a perfect time. The county residents not in evidence: The large trucks done with their routes for the day. The dump about to close down for another day. Whenever she had something to dispose of and she needed privacy, she timed it so that she was here in the late afternoon just as she was now.

Sergeant Smith had met her on a back road on Fort Drum. That was not as risky as it seemed. Fort Drum had been a small winter camp back in the early nineteen hundreds: When it had expanded the first time from Pine Camp to Camp Drum it had incorporated the small village of Leray. The whole township: Farms, streets, the Leray Mansion, fields. At the third expansion, when it became Fort Drum most people had forgotten about the old township and its farms and roads rotting away on the reservation.

When Alice had come to work for Major Weston at Bluechip she had come from Drum. Re-assigned to bridge a gap, so she had thought. She had found out after that Weston had requested her specifically. Probably after reading her personnel file.

She had a certain propensity for violence. Her psychological evaluations showed an aptitude for following orders without question, and a certain flexibility of morals that some would find alarming, but which the government had already used her for more than once. Killing didn’t seem to affect her the way it did others.

She had served in Afghanistan and watched fellow soldiers fall apart when it came to killing. It didn’t bother her at all. Killing was part of the job. That was how she looked at it then: That was how she had explained her lack of apathy to the shrink that had talked to her when she had been reassigned after the second tour to Drum. It was nothing special, it was how she was built.

Weston had embraced that side of her, and the old farms and fields hidden in the lost recesses of the base had become the perfect place for her to dispose of problems for him.

Unfortunately, the base was used more and more lately as a training facility. Because of that it had become somewhat unpredictable for her to dispose of problems there. The last two times she had nearly been caught, and that had forced her to adapt to a different strategy. The transfer station had proven to be the perfect alternative when there were large troop placements training or on maneuvers at the base.

Alice shut down the car and walked around to the back, looking in all directions, trying not be obvious as she did it: There was no one around.

The sexual relationship with Weston had simply happened. Another moral flexibility she had acquired in service to her country. Sometimes sex was also part of the job if you were a woman. An asset was an asset. Weston was not unattractive, but it hardly mattered. What did mater was that he found her desirable.

She had been summoned to General Wesley Lee’s office twice now. Both times under the guise of monthly training that was required for her security level. Not even Weston knew who his real boss was, but she did.

The first time had been two years before, just weeks after she had started her new job. The last just a few weeks before. The General had not known what was missing, he had simply called her in to encourage her to see the job to the end. That end was coming fast, he had told her. Nothing more. Just a pep talk, she had decided, to keep her in the loop. It had been so long at that point since she had seen him that she had begun to wonder if she was still working for the General at all. The summons had solved that issue completely.

She keyed the trunk lock and the lid rose slowly.

There was an end to her time with Major Weston. It was coming soon. The General hadn’t been more specific, but he hadn’t needed to be, she had already known. Maybe more than the General himself did, and Alice was not the sort of soldier to question orders from the chain of command. She had briefly wondered if it meant she would need to terminate Major Weston herself: If it was required, she would. She saw no real problem with it. The question in her mind was what might be next.

She looked down into the trunk. Smith had been easy. Bluechip was a small facility. Even with Drum nearby it was under its own command, not a sub command of the nearby base. There were a few hundred soldiers assigned there, and they all tended to socialize with each other, shunning the soldiers from the nearby base. If asked she would not have been able to put the reasons for that into words. Pride? A sense of place in the scheme of things? The elevation that the sense of working on something apart: Something special, afforded you? It was all of those things and more. And she knew, even when most of those who worked at the facility didn’t know, what was so special about Bluechip. Every problem she took care of knew something. And every one of those problems had given up their information before she had allowed them to die.

Two weeks before it had been a reporter from Syracuse. He had gotten a little too close: Spooked Weston. Weston had put her on him. She had taken him out after meeting him in a bar. Men could be so easy like that. He had followed her back to what he thought was her hotel room for a fun time. It was her hotel room, but rented only to do a job. A few hours later he had gone out to her car in her luggage. The next afternoon he had come here.

She knew about the meteor DX2379R. She knew it would probably hit instead of miss: And if it did miss it would not be by enough to matter at all. She knew all about project Bluechip’s real underlying mission, development of the SS-V2765 virus. She knew what it had been developed to do, and she knew all the problems that the General did not know about: She knew what it did do. She knew how Gabe Kohlson had been able to smuggle it out of the facility. She knew that the new Challenger he had been driving should have been a big tip off to Weston, but somehow he had overlooked it. She knew how he had sold the idea of stealing it to a local bookie he had been in deep with.

A drug developed to allow soldiers to live longer in combat, it had an unforeseen benefit. It would not allow you to die: You could live forever. She was sure he had downplayed just exactly how that second life would be lived.

The bookie, she assumed, had passed the message on quietly: Was it worth the relief of a five thousand dollar debt? Ten thousand? Whatever it had been that Gabe Kohlson’s gambling habit had racked up, it had been wiped out and there had been at least enough left over for the Challenger: Whoever held the real reigns on those debts had forgiven it. Kohlson had delivered and then, somehow the whole thing had gone bad.

Jimmy West worked for that person, whoever it was: If forced to guess, she would say Tommy Murphy. He was the biggest and the baddest: The most likely to be able to capitalize on information and a product like that.

She didn’t like to guess though, and that part of it had nothing to do with her at all. The truth was that even though Weston could not see it, it didn’t even matter. The end was coming. If the General pulled the plug first or the Meteor hit, or the scientists were right and even a close pass by that meteor would set off a sequence of destruction that would end society as they knew it: It didn’t matter. It was over already, one way or the other; just nobody was laying down yet. Nobody was calling it quits yet. Her included, so, she supposed she was no better than Weston, or the General for that matter.

She looked down into the trunk at the bundled and bagged remains of Sergeant Smith, lately of the Quartermasters office at Bluechip.

He had met her on one of those back roads. It was a good place to meet even when there were maneuvers going on, and there had been.

Maneuvers meant gunfire, even live rounds. The whole area was off limits during maneuvers and training sessions, but she could have cared less about that. He had met her in a small clearing just off a one lane blacktop that had been chewed to bits over the years by tank treads, on the promise that she needed to show him something very important. She had taken him around to the trunk. He had been eager. The lid had risen to a plastic lined interior and she had shot him twice in the temple as the puzzled look had still been riding on his face. There had been no need to question him: There was nothing he knew that she needed to know.

A camouflaged rain suit had slipped right over her own uniform, and she had gone to work with an ax and a sharp knife that had been laying on the floor of the trunk waiting. By early afternoon the bagged remains had been resting in her trunk and she had been on her way to the transfer station.

She reached down, hefted the first bag out of the trunk and launched it into the huge steel container. Five minutes later she was finished and had paid her dumping fee as she left, smiling up at the woman in the office as she passed over the scales and drove out the gate.

______________________________

I hope you enjoyed the preview. Take a look at the new work listed this week.

Earth’s Survivors: SE Three. Get all of the Outrunner books in one place. Free 20% preview!

Get it at iTunes | Nook | Smashwords

Get Watertown now: iTunes | Nook | Kobo | Paperback | Smashwords

Have a great week, Geo 🙂

Home work and a free short story, The Dam

Posted by Geo 10-16-2015

Home work and a free short story, The Dam…

This past week I let all the work there still is to do on this house go and kicked back and wrote. This winter I will catch up on my other projects and that should be fine.

What went on this week:

Monday night my cat kept me up all night long yowling. There was a female outside and when I let him out Tuesday morning, that was it. He never came back.

Tuesday I spilled a very small amount of coffee onto the keys of my laptop and messed it all up. How you might ask could I be so stupid as to spill coffee on my keyboard? I don’t know. Plain old stupidity… Half awake… A cup of coffee in my hands… All the above. After determining that, yes it was fried, I bit the bullet and headed to eBay where I found a replacement.

Wednesday I wrote all day and into the next day (3:00 AM). Sparrow Spirit came back from editing and I set it up and released it on Amazon. I also added the first book to Amazon and then made the series Amazon exclusive. More about that in a minute.

Thursday I did the same, and then tried to put together some computer parts I purchased. Failed. Realized I had bought a BTX form factor Motherboard (Advertised as an ATX), and even though it would not have fit the case I bought, I had not purchased the ATX case I thought I had, but a MATX case. Confused? So was I. After a gazillion hours trying to make it all fit I went online and looked for solutions. Ha Ha, I say that with the deepest sarcasm.

To fix the situation I needed to purchase a BTX form factor case, but I quickly found out a BTX case is hard to come by and more expensive than the whole combination I had bought. So I looked for an MATX board to put the processor I had purchased on, but an MATX board, at least the ones I found, would not hold as much memory. They were generally more expensive with less to offer.

Which begs the question, why? I have noticed that a lot over the last several years. Want to buy a dog? Well a German Shepherd or a Malamute, both about the same size, will cost about the same price. But a small dog, I won’t mention the breed costs more than either of those dogs. Huh. On that subject: As a dog, if a cat can kick your ass you’re probably too small.

Anyway, I finally decided to buy an ATX board and case. That worked except I was out more green. BTW if you followed all of that you are probably as geeky as I am.

Friday I did some editing on Smashwords books. Writing, and eating Candy Corn. I have to admit it was great to get back to writing, but the Candy Corn was pretty good too. And listing all of those computer parts I bought that I no longer need. Let’s see. I spent about $250.00 in parts that I didn’t use, and another $200.00 in parts to actually build the thing; plus the cost of another laptop (Used on eBay), a really good deal for $125.00, I would say this week the computers won. And the thing is, in this society you cannot do without them. I guess I’ll be happier on Monday when the laptop shows up and in a week or so when I put my fast computer together and convince myself that I am not really an idiot at all, technology is just faster than it used to be… Did that make sense? No.

What did I learn this week?

#1. Cats are not very useful when it comes to making you feel good about yourself. I mean they take off chasing the lady cats and don’t even bother to come back. That is a direct hit to the old self esteem. Of course maybe he was kidnapped or eaten by a dog, or a Sasquatch: After all there have been a great many Sasquatch sightings lately on the National Geographic channel of all places. I hope he didn’t suffer. That is of course if he was eaten. If he did run off with a lady cat I hope she takes him for everything he has.

#2. Laptop computers really suck. I have spilled whole sixteen ounce Cokes on my desktop keyboard, no problem except the keys began to stick bad. Also the laptop keyboard stayed screwed up, I had to plug in a USB keyboard to type with, until I bought the replacement laptop. Second, I looked up form factors with Google. Holy Crap. The odds of me getting the wrong parts are very high, especially since some people that sell them don’t have a fricken clue what they are selling. There are dozens of form factors. Let me geek this out for you. Form factor refers to a common build for a particular board, across different manufacturers. Same pin connections, width, length. Etc. The last time I built a machine I only knew of two form factors, ATX and MATX which is a smaller board, and then there were proprietary boards built by some manufacturers. Yeah. No longer. So now I think spend the extra and have someone else build it to your specs. And after I get through this fiasco I will do that the next time.

#3. Writing is easier on the body than building a house is.

#4. I am no longer sure I should drink and keyboard. Coffee, Coke, it always ends up on the board before I am finished.

Other stuff:

Earth’s Survivors News: The first four Earth’s Survivors books have been put in a collection or SE series. Buy two books at a time and save money, plus get more for your buck too:

SE 1 | SE 2 | SE 3 | SE 4 | SE 5

The Zombie Plagues: The five books that make up the series and an few bonus books.

Everything else is in line and going well. Well, except computers, Cats and coffee cups.

I will leave you with a true short story…

THE DAM by Wendell Sweet

Blog Edition: Used with permission

This work is copyright protected. You may read it in its present form. You may not alter or transmit it by any means. If you would like to share this material with someone, please direct them to this URL. This is not a work of fiction. The people and circumstances really existed and I have faithfully reproduced the circumstances without excessive artistic license. I have changed names to protect innocent people.

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 its 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 a while.”

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…

I hope you enjoyed the short story. Check out Crime short stories here. Check out a collection of my short stories here.

New releases this week: Amazon:

Dreamer’s Worlds: The Legend of Sparrow Spirit: Made Amazon Exclusive: Get a FREE Preview here.

Geo Dell The Nation Chronicles: Zero Book 1 in this Fan Fiction series, where the books are in the order fans chose and parts of the stories are fan suggested. Get a FREE Preview Here.

Geo Dell The Nation Chronicles: Death The second books in the story introduces you to the gang from Alabama Island. Get a FREE Preview Here.

Smashwords recent releases:

(Smashwords books distributes to iTunes, Nook, Kobo and many other book sellers.)

Earth’s Survivors Life Stories: Beth The Life Stories series follows individual groups in the apocalypse. They can both be read alone or as a series. Get a Free Preview right here.

Earth’s Survivors Life Stories: Bear Bear is the leader of the Outrunners, the team that track down and kill the dead, removing the threat so the Nation can be safe. This is his story. Click here for a FREE Preview.

Okay, that is it from me. I hope all is well in your world, enjoy your weekend, Dell.

New books from author Dell Sweet

Star Dancer by Dell Sweet

Price: $1.99 USD. Words: 61,250. Language: English. Published: June 6, 2017 by independAntwriters Publishing. Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Space opera, Fiction » Science fiction » Utopias & dystopias

Star Dancer is an inner galaxy cruiser, transporting inmates and materials between the penal colonies on the Moon and Mars, as well as supplies and people to the bases scattered throughout the Solar System. Her captain, Michael Watson purchased Star Dancer right out of school, but the last few trips have left him longing for more adventure out in the wider expanses of space…

Get it: iTunes | Smashwords | NOOK | KOBO

Earth’s Survivors Life Stories: Billy by Dell Sweet

Series: Earth’s Survivors Life Stories. Price: $1.99 USD. Words: 102,780. Language: English. Published: June 6, 2017 by independAntwriters Publishing. Categories: Fiction » Horror » Undead,Fiction » Horror » Crime

A top secret drug that resides within a top secret facility finds its way to the street and from there into the world where it just might end the human race all on its own. Follow a cast of shady characters and criminals as they go about their criminal business and and just maybe, inadvertently start the apocalypse…

Get it: iTunes | Smashwords | NOOK | KOBO

Necro by Dell Sweet

Price: $1.99 USD. Words: 58,290. Language: English. Published: May 18, 2017 by independAntwriters Publishing. Categories: Fiction » Horror » Undead, Fiction » Thriller & suspense » Action & suspense

Necro looks at the Zombie Apocalypse through the eyes of one couple as they awaken to it and try to keep themselves alive through it. John is an average guy. He doesn’t believe in monsters. That may have to change. Kate has never believed in much of anything including herself, but she is learning to believe again. Together they take their first steps into the land of the dead…

Get it: iTunes | Smashwords | NOOK | KOBO

Crime Time by Dell Sweet

Series: Crime Novels. Price: $1.99 USD. Words: 127,500. Language: English. Published: May 11, 2017 by independAntwriters Publishing. Categories: Fiction » Thriller & suspense » Crime thriller,Fiction » Thriller & suspense » Action & suspense

Crime Time is a collection of nine crime stories from author Dell Sweet. From short stories to near novel length… … When a man tells you he has the moral flexibility to include murder in his life if he deems it necessary this is probably not a man you should be hanging out with. Jeff Johnson had reminded himself of this fact about Robert Biel more than once…

Get it: iTunes | Smashwords | NOOK | KOBO

Knock, an Earth’s Survivors Book from Dell Sweet

KNOCK

This material is NOT edited for content

This material is copyrighted.

Beth had stopped at the edge of the housing development. It was dark, lit only by the headlights of the truck. Cars and trucks sat neatly in driveways. The streets were empty. Heavy dust seemed to blanket the whole scene. Little trails cut from place to place.
“Spooky,” Billy said. “Volcanic ash?”
“Probably… What do you think the trails are?”
Billy frowned. “It has to be the dead.”
“It doesn’t have to be the dead… Could be small animals raiding house to house… No garbage any more so they have to get into those houses and get what they can or starve… Or it could be the dead.”
“Great, you had me ha…”
Something hit the truck hard and it rocked on its springs. The smell of death hit them about the same time, and Beth hit the gas, mashing the pedal into the floor boards.
A rotting hand came through the open back window and fastened around Beth’s throat, her hands left the wheel as she was yanked backwards; the truck spun hard to the left and accelerated, her foot still mashed on the gas.
Billy lifted his gun and shot the zombie in the face. It seemed slow motion at first, the face exploded as it fell away into the back of the pickup, Beth drew a deep breath and tried to grab the wheel, but it was too late. Everything sped up to real time and the truck roared forward and slammed into the side of a house, continuing on through the wall and into it. Her foot had slammed down on the brake and the truck finally stopped several feet inside the house.
Billy hit the dashboard hard and then rebounded and slid under the dash as the truck plunged into the house. Seconds later he scrambled out from under the dash, the smell of gasoline was strong, the smell of the hot motor equally strong. He looked over at Beth but she seemed dazed, her eyes unfocused, a trickle of blood running from somewhere under her hairline, mumbling softly under her breath. Billy levered his door open with a little help from his foot, it screeched as it opened. The screech of metal was very loud in the silence of the house. The headlights were still on, illuminating what looked to be a kitchen.
The smell of death came to him over the smell of gas and hot motor…

Dell Sweet uses I Tunes: Get A Free Extended Preview with I Tunes

Also on: Smashwords | NOOK | Kobo | Paperback