Hunter - After The Fall

• by John Phillip Backus

• In volume one of his epic post-apocalyptic adventure saga, master
• storyteller John Phillip Backus brings this not-so-distant vision of the future to life with intriguing characters, gifted narrative, believable settings and mythic heroes and villains. Driven by a riveting storyline brilliantly illustrated by Asheville, North Carolina artist, Chad Schoenauer, the author weaves his linguistic magic until the reader is utterly immersed in this brave new world and dare not fail to turn the next page for fear of missing out.
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• On his own in the Wyoming wilderness, fourteen years after the End War and its aftermath nearly wiped out the human race, self-exiled survivor, Hunter Macintosh, is suddenly faced with more than he bargained for––three sisters and a child crossing the uncharted wilds alone.
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• Suspicious at first, Hunter soon discovers they’ve traveled more than three hundred miles to find him, at the request of their father, Adam Planchet––Hunter’s former commander and comrade-in-arms––whose besieged Colorado community is at risk of being overrun by lawless hordes! Honor-bound by a pledge made many years earlier, Hunter agrees to return with Elise Planchet to help turn the tide before all is lost.
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• Set against the majestic backdrop of the North American Rockies, Hunter – After The Fall is an engrossing tale of adventure, betrayal and hope, where the true character of an individual is thoroughly tested and the outcome uncertain at best. Join Hunter and Elise as they battle bands of outlaws, enraged grizzlies, numbing blizzards, armed militias and their own stubborn hearts in an epic tale of good-versus-evil in a potential future all too easy to conceive!
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• Prologue
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• Six months from the present
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• KEEP MOVING AND don’t look back he told himself, his breath coming in ragged gulps as he sprinted along an empty street in a blacked out city, the hour after midnight. A pale quarter moon hovered timidly in the dark expanse above as the young man scanned the shadows ahead and to the sides, desperate to avoid capture, certain of his fate if caught out after curfew. His mind was reeling with the incredulous events of the past few days, still having a hard time accepting the finality of it all.
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• Gone… it was all gone! The whole damned system had collapsed—destroyed! The radio said it… before it went dead. Major cities hit by nukes—wiped off the map!
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• He heard a woman scream from a building off to his right, followed by shouts and gunshots, but he kept on running, heading for the bridge—Got to get to the river. Up ahead on the road he saw lights! Ducking into an alley he crouched behind a dumpster and tried to quiet his breathing—Got to think... Don’t panic!
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• Men with flashlights passed by speaking in low voices he couldn’t decipher. He waited another minute before moving cautiously back to the street and down towards the water. Ahead he could see torches—watchers on the bridge! He left the roadway and slipped down the bank, angling towards the abutment. At the water’s edge, he took off his shoes and tied the strings together. Wearing them around his neck, he started to step into the river when two figures suddenly rushed out of the shadows, tackling him to the ground. He fought like a cornered animal, but they quickly had him pinned and bound hand and foot with duct tape.
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• A few minutes later they hoisted him up on the side of the bridge with a noose around his neck and roughly shoved him off. “NOOOOOO!” He screamed, plummeting until the rope snapped his vertebrae, severing his spinal cord. The young man’s corpse dangled there alongside dozens of others, young and old, male and female, foolish enough to try to escape. The two hangmen went back to cutting rope and fashioning nooses.
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• On a hillside overlooking the bridge, Hunter peered through a set of night vision binoculars with thermal capability. He could see the activity on the bridge as clear as day and counted six guards here and another six on the opposite side. Strung out along the riverbank, a dozen two-man teams lay in wait to nab anyone hoping to make it to the river—and freedom. All wore red and black armbands. Looks like someone’s already formed up a militia, he surmised, stashing the glasses back inside his jacket.
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• Hunter relaxed and waited. The time to make his move was two hours before dawn when the night was darkest and the sentries most tired. Snapping off a bite of protein bar, he sipped slowly from his canteen, thinking how lucky he was to have been away when it all came down. He glanced over at his newly acquired weapon lying beside him on the ground —a silenced .308 with night vision scope above match grade iron sights. In his backpack were clips filled with ammo— lots of ammo. He sat with his back against a tree and closed his eyes. It was hard to believe it had only been four days.
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• He received the news while returning from a long weekend solo-backpacking trip in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, catching up on some of his favorite outdoor pastimes— hiking, trail running and rock climbing. His wind-up emergency/weather radio came alive on the way back to his truck and at first he thought it must be some kind of a joke. The Emergency Broadcast System warning sounded, and a voice came on saying that major war had erupted, orderingfurther instructions! It apparently started somewhere in the Middle East—a place he was entirely too familiar with—but this time had spread like wildfire all over the world until all major nations and governments were involved!
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• When he got to the truck, he tried the radio, but the FM band was silent. He picked up an independent AM station from a small town somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert that was continuously transmitting the National Anthem followed by short news flashes. Hunter was stunned by the disjointed reports:
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• Washington, D.C. and other major cities had been leveled in midnight nuclear attacks. The national electrical grid was down. Military command and control centers had been bombed and were presumed destroyed. Satellite communications were down. The president, vice president, full cabinet, and most members of Congress were missing and presumed dead in the attacks on the capitol. The federal government was virtually non-existent. With only limited CB radio communications, state and local governments were paralyzed. Police and military forces were in complete disarray. Chemical weapons were reportedly used in several cities. Suspected biological warheads had been deployed. The financial system was gone. The transportation/distribution system had halted. Air transportation had stopped.All media, cable TV, Internet, the GPS system, and cell phone service were down. Social order had devolved into total chaos. Mass hysteria engulfed the population. Riots and looting were widespread. Thousands had died in mob violence. Plague-infected throngs were fleeing the cities.
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• Hunter sat motionless a long while as time stood still. He would always remember the date—June 21st—the summer solstice. When the station faded into static, he knew that this was really it, and he was on his own. He quickly compiled a list of essential equipment and supplies he’d need short term. Long term—well that was another prospect altogether. He just wanted to make it through the next forty-eight hours alive and in one piece!
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• He headed for a local sporting goods store where he sometimes bought ammo for target practice and the little hunting he did. When he got there, it was almost dark. Somebody had backed a delivery truck through the front wall of the place, and there were several bodies on the ground beside it and more in the gravel parking lot outside. Spent shell casings lay all over, and he spotted a handgun partially hidden beneath one of the vehicles.
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• Grabbing the Glock .40, he cleared the chamber, checking the magazine: Empty. He picked up a chunk of the smashed brick façade and threw it into the building: No response. Low-crawling to a nearby body, he discovered it was cold and stiff. He squeezed under the truck in the halflight, carefully picking his way along the floor into the store. There were more bodies inside. There must have been quite a fight—blood and spent shells everywhere! He made his way to the counter and sat on the floor with his back against it.
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• Waiting there in silence for a good ten minutes, he listened, hearing nothing. As darkness fell, he switched on his flashlight and sat it on the counter, dropping his hand away quickly in case someone was hiding there waiting: Nothing. Picking it up, he checked around behind the counter. Another body lay sprawled there, a big guy with his hand still wrapped around an empty .50 Desert Eagle; it was the owner. Hunter checked his pockets for keys. He found what he was looking for on a thin chain around his neck. He knew the guy had a safe in a room in the back where he kept the good stuff—they all did.
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• Grabbing a new black range bag off the shelf and a couple of shotgun bandoliers, he checked the paneling along the back wall for smudge prints. Spotting the not-so-hidden latch, he opened the door. The back room was filled with crates and boxes and lined with shelves. Rows of rifles were lined up on racks against the far wall.
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• In one corner was a gun safe. The key fit the lock, and Hunter tried some numbers on the digital keypad. Street address: Nothing. He went back and got the guy’s wallet. He tried his birth date: Nope. He tried the last 4 of the guy’s SS#: Nada. He went to the filing cabinet in the opposite corner of the room and looked for a file folder with information on the safe: Bingo. He rifled through the file, and the original combination was there in the warranty paperwork. Not obvious, but you had to know where to look. Maybe the guy had been too lazy to customize it, as were many people. He entered the numbers and the thing beeped as the light turned green: Yes!
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• Opening the safe he hit the jackpot—a stack of cash in various denominations, a small pouch of assorted gold sovereigns, a pair each of the latest night vision goggles and binoculars, a concealable twelve gauge shotgun with ten inch barrel and pistol grip, a fully-silenced .308 SR-25 rifle with scope, bipod, sling, and a silenced, laser-sighted .45 Baretta in a custom holster with extra clips! He gathered the weapons and grabbed a bulletproof vest with ceramic plates off a rack before heading back to the front to fill up on ammo. Finally, he loaded a large backpack with the ammo and other useful items from his list and made his way back outside.
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• It was pitch dark and deathly quiet. A light breeze blew from the east, the air cold and wet, foretelling of rain. He checked the street for movement with the binoculars; nothing was there, but he would have to clear out fast. He was sure others would be showing up anytime, and he wasn’t interested in being here when they did.
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• He spent the rest of that night collecting what he needed from the pharmacy, grocery store, outfitters, hardware store, gas station and military surplus. By daybreak he had everything on his list and drove northeast on the back roads for an hour, towing a loaded utility trailer. Backing up into a secluded draw in the middle of nowhere, he caught a few hours of sorely needed sleep. When dusk settled in again, he headed back out on the road.
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• Driving at night and sleeping during the day, he crossed the mountains near Lake Tahoe and continued through the Nevada and Utah backcountry, heading to the secluded forty acres and small cabin in western Wyoming he’d purchased,while still in the military, as a place to retire to someday. Looks like someday came sooner than he expected.
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• Hunter drove with the truck lights out, wearing night vision goggles, and removed the brake and back-up light fuses so he would be nearly impossible to detect in the dark. Along the way, he passed several wrecks and abandoned vehicles, and coming around a curve, he nearly ran over a dead man lying in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere. On the outskirts of a small town, he heard the report of a rifle and floored it all the way through to the other side. The only people he saw were dead ones from a distance, usually sprawled out in diner parking lots or gas stations along the way. On several occasions, he pulled off the roadway and stopped when he saw headlights approaching in the distance. Those driving the speeding vehicles were definitely not into stopping to check him out.
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• As the third day dawned, temperatures continued to drop, and a hard rain mixed with sleet started to fall. He pulled down a deserted farm lane and parked. Donning long underwear and cold weather rain gear, he slept in a hammock up a tree fifty yards from the truck cradling his rifle —just in case. In the middle of the fourth night, he reached the Wyoming border.
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• Approaching the river, he stopped a half-mile back from the bridge adorned in bodies and climbed the hill to check it out. From his vantage point above the bridge, he panned back across the steel span, re-counting the guards and checking their placement. Getting across that bridge won’t be a problem, he reasoned. Doing so without bloodshed? Hunter smiled grimly. He wouldn’t want to bet on it!