Last Request

By Tyler Grant

Last Request is too real to be simply classified as horror fiction. The elements of the supernatural occult are smothered by the disturbing actions of a modern legal system.
A school shooting in a college library takes the lives of undergraduates and staff and puts Marcus Atwood directly in the line of fire. Surviving a bullet is just one trial he must endure. Marcus, a black man, must survive the prejudice that blames him despite his innocence.
Last Request touches on the sensitive and cruel nature of what justice, if you can call it that, looks like in these modern times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyler Grant
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463237052

Tyler Grant

Tyler Grant is the author of dozens of comedy, suspense, and horror stories, including the popular “Tyler Grant’s Series of Voices”. He holds a Master’s in English and worked as a news journalist for six years prior to writing short fiction and novels. You can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Tyler-Grant-Books. Be sure to like his page, and follow for updates regarding his latest work. Grant lives in Washington State.

Book preview

Last Request

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Copyright © 2020 Tyler Grant

All rights reserved.

ISBN:

DEDICATION

For The Constant Reader

Author’s note

Last Request is a difficult story to discuss. I guess you could say I wrote it in a trance. As a former student of several universities, and as a current teacher, I am always aware of the rise in school violence around our country. My heart goes out to victims of school shootings, and I am ever vigilant in my own school, watching for any indication that my students or coworkers are facing any threat. That being said, my sympathies go out to any reader who comes across this work and finds it triggering. Let this be your warning:

What you are about to read is incredibly violent, and involves the deaths of numerous undergraduate students at a university shooting that is entirely fictional.

When I wrote Last Request, I wanted to capture the essence of innocence that is stolen from the collective body of students when such an act of violence is committed. It was never my intention to recreate a school shooting. I believe that those who commit such acts do not deserve the credit and attention our media adorns them with. This story has elements of the supernatural that hint at underlying causes of evil that grow within the body as bad thoughts fester in the minds of those who are too weak to withstand the onslaught of the devil’s constant and persistent pestering.

I write a great deal about evil and its efforts to conquer good. People ask me all the time if I am deeply religious, and I give them all the same response.

It’s really none of your business.

Don’t take that the wrong way. I mean no disrespect. I just write what I write because that’s what comes to me. I’m really just a courier of ideas. I don’t know where they come from, and I don’t know why they come to me.

But they do.

This is one of those… those special ones… that I wish I’d never written. And I wrestled with the idea of publishing it for years, but on the advice of a good friend and former editor, I went ahead with the idea of releasing it to the public.

The original idea came to me as a 17 year-old student attending SPSCC through the Running Start program. I enrolled in a creative writing course, the only one I ever took, and the instructor requested that we write about the scariest thing that could ever happen to someone while they are at school.

Many of my peers discussed things such as: lose their term paper the day it is due, forget to submit the edited copy, have the frequent and horrifying dream that you show up with no pants to class and then find out that it’s really happening… etc…

I turned