Showing results by author "Dell Sweet" in All Categories

The sun, a pale disc bleeding into the hazy sky, offered little warmth. Kelvin’s gaze was drawn to every passing vehicle, his mind a sieve sifting through the mundane for signs of danger. A dark sedan, its make and model lost in the glare, idled at the intersection. Was it just someone waiting for the light? Or was it a shadow from their past, a hunter sent to reclaim what they had taken? The paranoia was a physical presence, a cold knot in his stomach that tightened with every passing mile. Liam, beside him, was no better. He’d started flinching at the slam of a car door, his eyes ...

The Nation “Hey,” Cammy smiled. “I thought you were just going to go on sleeping forever.” Beth levered her arms down to scoot up in the bed and nearly banged the stump of her arm against the side of the bed before Cammy stopped her. “Honey... Honey... Your arm. You have to be careful,” Cammy told her. She took her under the arms and lifted her gently back into the pillows. “Oh God,” Beth whispered through her dry lips as she stared down at the stump of her arm. “Somebody chopped off the rest of my arm.” Her eyes came up to Cammy's own. “Honey, Sandy had to take it. It...

The State Park sign was overgrown, sun faded and leaning at the side of the road. The four trucks sat idling just inside the treeline of the old narrow road that lead down into the campground. The driver's door of the second truck in line popped open, and Beth, wearing military style fatigues and carrying a wire stock machine pistol, walked up to the driver's side of the lead truck and tapped on the glass. Billy looked up from the map he was reading. “Beth, Just checking out this map. I think this is right.” His finger jabbed at a spot on the map that had been circled with red ink. “...

Michael Watson is the captain of an inner galaxy cruiser: He Purchased Star Dancer right out of school and has spent the last twenty years running people and supplies to outposts within the confines of the Solar System and the established bases on the Moon, Mars and Saturn's moons. The times are changing though and the big money is in the longer out of system runs. To do that he'll need a crew and a bigger ship, but he has the ambition and the rest just might fall into place. A new navigator, the beautiful Petra starts him thinking in a new direction and not just about Star Cruising. Maybe ...

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. And my time working for bad people after that just set me up for the mistakes that would nearly end my life more than once. Even people who were supposed to care about me did their best to sacrifice me when the time came to pay the check. Luckily, for me, some things and some people got in the way and stopped some of ...

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, yet every day he found himself hanging around, giving him lifts to do job searches, parole, where ever he needed to go: Even hanging around with him at night... Nine stories that are hard edged, entertaining and good, fast rides ...

The schematics for the neural network were a symphony of complexity, a testament to the intricate beauty and terrifying potential of the human mind. Emily, hunched over her console, felt a profound connection to the data streams flowing before her. Each line of code, each simulated pathway, represented a step closer to her ultimate goal: the creation of a consciousness untethered by the frailties of the flesh, a mind capable of processing the universe at speeds that would leave organic brains gasping in its wake. This was not merely about overcoming the limitations of biology; it was about ...

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. Not really taking care or caution. Something has happened to the weed man though, he isn't answering the door, and that just escalates because Livvie has o know what has happened inside the house, she can't just walk away. Maybe there will be free drugs, something special, something unexpected. She didn't know, but she had to open that door and find out... (From the story) The heroin became a less frequent companion, its presence ...

The King is dead, the headlines screamed. A hard, hard day. But, what if the king wasn't dead? What if the king just got fed up with all of it and called it quits... The quiet cadence of Aaron’s days was rarely broken by external disruptions. His hermitage in the bayou was, by design, an exercise in profound isolation. Yet, the world, like an persistent tide, would occasionally lap at the shores of his self-imposed exile. These intrusions were not of the dramatic, attention-grabbing variety that had once defined his existence. Instead, they arrived as fleeting whispers, carried on the ...

The humid New York City night air hung heavy, thick with the scent of exhaust fumes and desperation. It clung to the skin like a second, grimy layer, a miasma composed of stale hot dogs, overflowing dumpsters, and the perpetual hum of a city that never slept. Under the flickering neon glow of a forgotten alleyway, a fractured mosaic of sickly green and searing red, Jenna and Marcus watched the transaction unfold. It was a performance they had rehearsed a thousand times in their minds, a delicate ballet of risk and reward, but the reality was always more visceral, more charged with an almost...

Then I saw him. Robby. He hadn't changed much. Still the same lean build, the same unsettlingly calm demeanor that had always made me both wary and fascinated. His eyes, though, held a sharper glint, a honed edge that spoke of survival in a world even harsher than the one behind bars. He was a predator, disguised in the sheep's clothing of a casual acquaintance, and the way he sat at the bar, radiating an aura of dangerous nonchalance, sent a chill down my spine. He caught my eye and offered a small, almost imperceptible nod, a silent acknowledgment of our shared history. The years melted ...

The air hung thick and greasy, a miasma of stale beer, cheap whiskey, and desperation clinging to the shadowed corners of the bar. Smoke, thick enough to choke a horse, curled lazily from ashtrays overflowing with crushed butts, painting the dimly lit space in a hazy, sepia-toned gloom. Robbie sat hunched over a sticky tabletop, the flickering neon sign outside casting long, distorted shadows that danced across his face. He nervously tapped a chipped mug against the scarred wood, the sound sharp and brittle in the oppressive silence. Across from him, Marva nursed a drink, her eyes darting ...

The air hung thick and heavy, a humid blanket clinging to the skin even in the pre-dawn chill. The city, normally a cacophony of distant sirens and rumbling traffic, was unusually quiet, punctuated only by the rhythmic tremor that vibrated through the very foundations of the buildings. It wasn't a major quake, not yet, just a series of unsettling shudders, a prelude to something far more destructive. This was the kind of morning that scraped against the nerves, a low hum of anxiety that tightened chests and made even the most hardened criminals pause. In a cramped, dimly lit apartment above...

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. I may have used because I believe it solved problems, or to cover pain, but the decisions I made, I made because I wanted to make them. Because I chose to make them. This is about the life that I lead that took me down the path of addiction that ruled almost all of my life. Although my addictions were ...

Amy and Diedra are best friends, maybe more, something always seems to be in the way every time an opportunity to explore the possibilities arise. Dave Plasko is serving a long sentence at Huntsville state prison, and after that he will be transferred to New York to serve more time. Rebbeca Monet is working her way up the ladder of success in the television reporter game. A hurricane of epic proportions is heading towards Mobile Alabama. The lives of the people involved will never be the same again…

Earth's Survivors Collection Two contains the complete text from books three and four of the Earth's Survivors series, The Nation and Home In The Valley. It also includes bonus material, a complete major character bibliography, plus information from the series and the future plans for the series. Save when you buy both books at once and get more of what you want. Earth's Survivors 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, ...

Laura and Joe live lonely lives, but they are dreamers. When they close their eyes they dream travel through space and time, to other worlds with little more than a thought, but dreaming comes with a purpose. They have both fought that purpose, but when they meet each other in the dream world, that meeting creates a longing that neither can deny. A purpose, a destiny both must choose to follow.Laura Kast: Laura is a dreamer: When she was a little girl she knew she was destined to dream. She fought it and that fight nearly killed her, She found herself on the streets, drug addicted, away ...

Earth Date 2096-08-25 16:52:58 Star Dancer Michael He got a good look at Petra as he flagged her through the air-locks: All fresh air; your basic space bug-Earth bug delousing unit. People had at one time believed that space was sterile. A few serious contaminations early in the century had stopped that. Of course the delousing process rendered you sterile. It was the same, male or female. The price you paid, so you banked your eggs or your sperm and didn't give it any more thought. Space travel, constant radioactive exposure, caused all sorts of birth defects. It only made sense. She was ...

He had been lying half in half out of the gutter for the last several hours that he knew of. He had no idea how long before that. Days? Weeks? Weeks seemed wrong. Days, he decided. He turned his attention back to the roadway before him. Was it a roadway? When he thought roadway, he thought highway, something like that. From what he could see this was more like a city street. It had never occurred to him in the passing hours to move his head, but the thought of it being a street in a city had caused him to move his head slightly so he could look around to be sure. Slightly, but enough to ...

It happened so fast, Mike told himself later, that no one had, had any time to react. They had heard nothing. Two watches were posted, Nellie and Tim on opposite ends of the circle. Nellie facing the highway, Tim looking back towards the mall. Molly had just stood up to walk over and talk to Nellie when the shot had come. The flat, loud crack of a high powered rifle. Mike's head spun hard as it automatically turned at the sound and tried to duck at the same time: He saw Nellie falling and falling, and it seemed as though there were a fog around her head for a second and then it was gone, ...