by Alex Gunwick
Edge of FEAR
Alex Gunwick
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author
Edge of Fear
Copyright© 2021 Alex Gunwick
All rights reserved
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Description
One survivor’s secret changes everything...
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At the end of EDGE OF DISASTER, Luke finds his daughter Sierra face down in the snow. Now Luke wants revenge. As the cult tries to reassemble under new leadership, Luke and his allies work together to end the cult’s reign of terror. He’ll do whatever it takes to protect what’s left of his family, even if it means sacrificing himself.
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Meanwhile, Derek’s keeping a huge secret. He’s tempted to share it with Luke and his family but telling them could destroy his means of survival. As nuclear winter closes in, Derek must make the ultimate choice between rugged individualism and strength in numbers. Don’t miss the exciting conclusion to the AMERICAN FALLOUT series.
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EDGE OF FEAR is BOOK 3 in the thrilling post-apocalyptic survival prepper EMP fiction series: AMERICAN FALLOUT.
1
Present Day …
Luke squinted as gusts of icy wind whipped across his face. Gnarled oak trees stripped of their leaves did nothing to buffer the onslaught of the coming storm. As he trudged through ankle-deep snow, he seethed. His daughter, Sierra, was missing. He had no idea where to find her.
Weeks earlier, an unknown government or terrorist organization had dropped nuclear bombs on America. New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco had been decimated in the first strike. He’d been in Northern California on business the day the bombs had dropped. He’d fought his way home, narrowly escaping roving gangs and deadly animal attacks.
Now, in the mountains of Orange County, California, he was holed up in his cabin—his bug out location—with his family. Several other survivors lived in cabins in the area. Some were friendly, others not, but they all had to deal with the aftermath of nuclear annihilation.
And now Sierra was missing.
For three days, he’d searched for her from sunrise to sunset. An EMP had taken down the grid. It was lights out everywhere. Daylight was sparse, and all he had were some flashlights and a few solar-operated lanterns. The perpetual gray haze of snow-suffocated sunlight did little to charge the batteries. In a few days, they’d be dead. If he didn’t find Sierra soon, she could be dead too.
He shuddered. No point in dreaming up the worst-case scenario. She was out there somewhere. He’d find her eventually. He just hoped she hadn’t frozen to death already.
As he lumbered through the snow, falling ice crystals stung his eyes and skin. Although he’d been searching non-stop, he couldn’t find her anywhere. There were no tracks, no clues, no sign of her at all.
It was as if the forest had swallowed her whole. It could happen. People disappeared into the wilderness all the time. During basic training, one of his fellow cadets had vanished without a trace. They’d found him seven days later, dehydrated and near death. The cadet had finished some wilderness training before he’d gone missing, but it hadn’t helped. He’d been drinking unfiltered creek water, which had given him the shits, only making things worse. The kid was a fool anyway. They’d booted him out before he could get himself, or anyone else, killed.
Sierra wasn’t used to snowy conditions. Snow wasn’t entirely unheard of on Saddleback Mountain, but it wasn’t a common enough occurrence to warrant extra training. Now, with nuclear winter setting in, Luke planned on instructing his whole family about survival techniques in frigid conditions.
His wife Liz and their thirteen-year-old son Kyle waited at the cabin. He’d told them to stay put. He didn’t have time to chase down more than one person. Preparations for the long winter needed to begin immediately. He’d given them a list of tasks to complete each day while he looked for Sierra, and every day, he’d returned home to find the list complete. He could count on his family, and he wanted them to know they could count on him to find Sierra. It was his mission, and he refused to fail at it.
From time to time, Luke would burst into a run. He’d ignore his training because he was so frustrated and so fearful. Before the bombs, he’d never lost control of himself. Now, he struggled to keep it together. Fear was taking over, and he didn’t know how to stop it. A person could prepare all they wanted for nuclear war, but the reality was nothing like what someone would see in the movies. The reality was so much worse.
Eventually, he slowed to a moderate pace. As he continued carefully along a barely distinguishable game trail, his eyes and ears strained to locate any sign of her. He’d already searched this part of the forest, but he thought maybe she’d backtracked. He wasn’t sure why, but his gut told him his daughter was in this area. It was almost as if he could sense her presence. He wasn’t into that woo-woo crap, but he’d been taught to trust his instincts. She was around here somewhere, but where?
An inexplicable feeling wasn’t much to go on, but Luke had grown desperate. He’d fought too hard, for too long, and had suffered too much making it back to his family only to lose them again.
His jaw clenched.
Densely packed oaks grew thicker along both sides of the path, effectively blocking what little sunlight there was. The mid-day sun hardly cast shadows anymore, and it felt like time was slipping through his fingers. In a few hours, he’d have to head back. He couldn’t risk wasting more battery power while trying to find his way home. He’d have to retrace his steps well before sunset.
Yesterday, he’d spotted members of a nearby cult foraging for firewood less than two miles from his cabin. He hadn’t made his presence known, but he’d kept an eye on them until they’d left the area.
They couldn’t be trusted.
While Luke had been traveling down from Northern California, his wife Liz had fought a nefarious cult leader and his disciples. She’d destroyed the cult and had helped kill the leader, but some members continued to hide in the forest. They were likely to be hostile, and if they managed to get their hands on Sierra, who knew what they would do?
They were zealots, th
e most dangerous kind of foe. They were convinced they spoke for God and that they were doing his will. They used a variety of lies to control their members. So far, they hadn’t reformed into a cohesive group, but if enough of the survivors banded together, Luke had no doubt that they’d come for him and his family.
His breath came in white puffs as he continued up the trail. A stab of guilt cut through his gut. Over the last few years, he’d grown apart from his daughter. Their relationship had been strained during her teenage rebellious years, and things had only gotten worse once she’d enrolled in college. He regretted not trying harder to maintain their relationship. Maybe if he’d been more involved in her life, she wouldn’t have ended up so stupid. Wandering off like this had been dumb. According to Liz, their daughter had been up to all kinds of stupidity since the bombs had dropped. As soon as Luke found Sierra, he was going to have one hell of a conversation with her. She needed some tough love, and now was the time to give it to her … if he found her alive.
His belly dropped. His hands tightened around the ebony stock of his Winchester XPR hunting rifle. If he found her body, another hunt would begin. A hunt for the person responsible.
He missed his friend Boyd. He’d met him while traveling down from Northern California right after the bombs had dropped. Boyd had lost his entire family, and Luke had helped him destroy the men who’d killed his family. Luke had expected Boyd to stay with him at the cabin, but Boyd had been too restless to stay in one place. He’d told Luke he wanted to go back east to look for the rest of his extended family. The journey would take months, but if anyone could do it, Boyd could. He just hoped his friend would stay safe.
Dark thoughts loomed heavy in Luke’s mind, and as he returned his attention to hunting for his daughter, his training took over. His muscles and sinew worked together to maneuver him quickly and silently through the snowstorm. He skirted a small rise in the terrain and came to a crest that overlooked the valley.
At first, Luke couldn’t make out anything through the dense snowfall, but after a few minutes, the storm abated.
He scanned the terrain, taking note of good ambush points, as well as areas with dense cover. Then his gaze fell upon two figures. One stood while the other lay prone in the snow.
With gritted teeth, he brought the rifle up and focused his gaze through the scope.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please, God, don’t let it be Sierra.”
His fingers trembled so much that he couldn’t zero in on the prone body. When he was finally able to steady his hands, the body’s pale, upturned face came into crisp, sharp focus. A raggedy breath burst from his lips. His daughter’s open, haunted eyes stared up at the falling snow, but he knew she’d never see anything again. She was dead.
Enraged, Luke turned his sights on the figure standing over her. He’d make that son of a bitch pay for killing her.
Luke let out a small gasp. It was Derek, the man who’d helped Sierra walk twenty miles from UC Irvine to the cabin. Because Derek had assisted their daughter, Liz trusted him; Luke didn’t. He had no reason to trust him. He barely knew Derek. As far as he was concerned, Derek was a stranger, and therefore not to be trusted.
Luke’s finger curled around the trigger, but then he got a better look at Derek’s expression. There was no satisfied sneer on his face. He didn’t have the horrified look of someone who’d accidentally shot another person. If anything, he seemed sad.
“Strange,” Luke muttered.
He slowly relaxed his trigger finger. He hung the rifle across his shoulder by the attached strap. Derek would live. For now. At least until Luke figured out if he’d killed Sierra or not. Just because he appeared sad didn’t mean he wasn’t the murderer. Plenty of killers felt guilty after the fact. But Luke wouldn’t shoot a man in cold blood without getting the facts first.
In a low crouch, Luke picked a silent path down the mountain toward Derek and Sierra. Luke didn’t want to spook Derek and make him shoot or, worse, run. At least not until he’d had a chance to grill the younger man about his daughter’s death. If Derek was responsible, he’d be dead before he could take a single step away from her body.
Luke increased his speed. He was within ten feet of them when an unseen twig snapped beneath the snow. The sound was nearly inaudible, but Derek’s head jerked up. He turned to face Luke.
“Luke.” His voice was as cold and dead as the wind. “I’m … I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Luke’s lips peeled back in a snarl. Rage spread through his body like wildfire. “You’re sorry? You killed my daughter!”
He raised the rifle and pointed it at Derek’s chest. Derek took a step back. His hands flew up in front of him.
“Wait! Just wait! I didn’t kill her.”
“You’re standing over her body.”
“It looks bad. I get it, but it wasn’t me.”
Luke lowered his shoulder and charged at the other man. He drove the full weight of his body directly into Derek’s solar plexus. Derek’s cheeks puffed as his wind rushed out of him. Both men collapsed into the snow. Luke landed on top.
A guttural, animalistic growl erupted from Luke’s mouth. If he hadn’t been so hell-bent on tearing Derek limb from limb, he might have been frightened to hear himself make such a bestial roar. He grappled with the younger man and managed to grab hold of one of his wrists. Luke shoved Derek’s forearm against his sternum and unleashed a vicious downward punch. Derek put up his free hand and partially deflected the impact, but Luke knew that it still hurt. So did the next blow and the next.
Another howl of rage and fury ripped from Luke’s throat as he struggled with the man who’d killed his child. Derek recovered his senses somewhat and grapevined his right leg on top of Luke’s left leg. With a sudden, powerful surge, he managed to roll over and get on top of Luke, though his wrist was still trapped in an iron grip.
“Luke, you have to listen to me.” Derek’s speech was slightly slurred because of the bloody lip Luke had given him. “I didn’t—”
Luke bit Derek’s hand. The younger man howled in pain and struggled ferociously. They tumbled through the snow, leaving bloody impressions in their wake. While the men battled for supremacy, Luke’s rifle was dislodged in the struggle and ended up a dozen feet away.
Luke wound up back on top. He hollered in triumph as he once again blasted Derek in the face with a vicious punch, but the younger man grabbed Luke’s arm. Derek constricted his abs and threw both of his legs up to grab Luke’s head. Luke’s vision grew dark as Derek applied a triangle chokehold.
As his consciousness began to fade, Luke knew he only had one shot. He gathered his legs beneath him in a squat and surged upward to drag Derek along with him. With both arms and legs engaged, Derek had no way to mitigate the impact when Luke fell forward and drove his head and shoulders into the snowy, rocky ground.
Derek’s limbs went limp as he released their grip. As he caught his breath, Luke disentangled himself from the barely conscious man’s body and staggered over to his rifle. He stood over Derek, pointing the barrel at his head.
“You killed my daughter, you son of a bitch.”
“No, it wasn’t me. I swear.” Derek held his hands up in supplication. One eye was partially swollen shut. Blood trailed down his chin. “It was one of the cult guys.”
“Bullshit.” Luke peered down the scope and prepared to pull the trigger.
“No, it’s not! I swear to you; it was someone from the cult.” Derek gestured toward a copse of oaks. “His body’s over there. I killed the bastard. I killed him, man. I killed him for Sierra.”
The sound of his daughter’s name jarred Luke out of his blind rage. He lowered the rifle a fraction of an inch and glared down at Derek.
“Where?”
“Over there.” Derek pointed. “I swear I didn’t kill her.”
Luke kept the rifle trained on Derek.
“Get up. Show me.” Luke didn’t offer any assistance to Derek as he struggled to his feet. “If I fi
nd out that you’re lying, you’re dead.”
“I’m not lying. Sierra followed me. I didn’t tell her to come along. We found something. Something big. If it helps convince you, I’ll show you.”
“I just want to see the body.” Luke kept his gaze on Derek. He couldn’t look at his little girl lying dead in the snow, not without losing it.
“Okay. Come on. I’ll show you.” Derek started up the mountain.
Luke followed, keeping the other man close enough to shoot, but not so close that he could turn on Luke and get the upper hand.
As Luke’s boots crunched through the snow, Derek dabbed at his split lip.
“What happened?” Luke asked.
“The guy got the drop on us. I don’t know where he came from. He shot at us and hit Sierra. He almost got me too.”
Once Luke spotted the body, he quickened his pace and shoved Derek forward with the end of the rifle. Derek stepped over the face-down body and stood a couple of feet back from it. Luke poked at the body with his rifle, just to make sure the cultist was dead. He flipped the body over. A bullet hole formed a meaty hole between the cultist’s sightless eyes.
“I didn’t notice him stalking us.” Derek trudged over to stand next to Luke. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Luke grunted. He picked up the cultist’s fallen rifle, a cheap but effective bolt action.