One Last Goodbye

By Joseph Sweet

Sergeant Lawrence H. McKenzie is dying, and in his desperation a top secret device may grant him his final wish, but at what price?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Sweet
• Release date: Jun 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301116447

Joseph Sweet

Joseph Sweet was born October 31 1976, and has been writing seriously since the age of sixteen. He currently lives in the upstate NY community of Watertown. Aside from writing he plays guitar and keyboard, writes and sings his own songs, and is an amateur photographer. He has worked in Television and radio doing voices and making and editing commercials, played in several bands, and acted in theater, but his greatest passion is and always has been his writing.

Book preview

One Last Goodbye

by Joseph Sweet

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Smashwords Edition

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PUBLISHED BY

Joseph P. Sweet and Forsaken Press

Copyright © 2011-2013 Forsaken Press and Joseph P. Sweet. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, or internet posting without written permission from Forsaken Press, or the Author, except for review purposes, or that deemed fit by the author for promotion. All persons, places, and organizations mentioned herein, except those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious. Any similarities to any persons, places, or organizations, living, dead, undead, or otherwise, are purely Coincidental.

Forsaken Press

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This story is recommended for ages 18 and up.

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Index:

Front Matter

One Last Goodbye

Free Excerpt from Requiem For Humanity

DAWSON, IVES, AND EDWARDS rushed Sergeant McKenzie into the ruins of the old hotel. The whole place shook as another bomb hit nearby and chunks of concrete rained down around them. All were wounded, and none knew if they would make it through the night. They were acutely aware of their surroundings, all senses as heightened as was humanly possible. They knew that the whole decaying building - pummelled by bombs and withered by gunfire over the years - could come crashing down around them at any moment, but chances of surviving inside were better than out.

Their convoy had been hit at 06:00. It was supposed to have just been a supply run, but someone had known the truth. Only three present knew that they were carrying something other than the official report indicated, and only one of them had the details as to what that thing was. That one was Sergeant McKenzie and he probably wasn’t going to make it through this alive.

They’d been traveling along at 60 mph through hostile territory, as it wasn’t safe to drive any slower and not safe to drive any faster on the war-torn roads, due to debris and potholes. Hell, it wasn’t safe to go that speed, if you asked anyone, but the risks were lower this way, and any risk that potentially kept a bullet out of you couldn’t be half bad. This zone was supposed to be clear of insurgents, but Intel had been dead wrong. Dawson knew the time because she’d looked down at her watch just as the whistling sound they’d come to know all too well came rushing in from the left. There wasn’t even time to swerve. What would have been the point?

An explosion rocked the vehicle, and they were flipping through the air. Someone was barking orders, even then.

Moments later, as they came to a rest - machine guns tearing holes through all sides of the wreckage - most were dead already, or well on their way.

No one knew who was alive or dead. All knew only that they had a weapon and that it had bullets and they had emerged from the wreckage, just as the firing stopped in anticipation, or to reload, or whatever. And then for fifteen minutes all had been lost in screaming and gunfire and pain and death, and all they had known was the blood-lust, fear, and courage that came with war.

Minutes later, they had been running.

They had stopped the initial attack, but more were coming. They were nearby. Machine-gun