Edge of Fear: An EMP Post-Apocalyptic Survival Prepper Series (American Fallout Book 3) by Alex Gunwick (rooftoppers .txt) 📕

told, she was a beautiful young woman. However, her personality was a major turn-off. Derek preferred practicality to silly flights of fancy. He wanted someone who was his equal, not a sniveling brat. Besides, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about a relationship with anyone. He had to focus on his survival.

Perhaps she could be trusted. Most people would have screamed bloody murder and tried to attack him the second they were untied from the chair. Sierra seemed to go out of her way to prove that she wouldn’t rat him out. Maybe her crush on him wasn’t all bad. Maybe he could use it to his advantage without actually acting on his carnal desires.

As he slowly picked his way around the rough dimensions of the underground shelter, his gaze traced from side to side. Once, he was sure he’d found another ventilation pipe, but it turned out to be an old metal coffee pot, probably abandoned by a hiker years ago. It amused him to think the poor fool had no idea they had been walking over a cold war relic.

Derek passed through a dense copse of pines and turned his shoulders sideways to slip between the frost encrusted trunks. He startled a reddish-brown squirrel, which raced along a slender branch and tittered its annoyance at him from high above.

“Sorry.” Derek shrugged. “Too bad I’m not a squirrel. I wouldn’t need to live underground in a musty concrete bunker. I could find a nice clean hole in a tree.”

The squirrel was unimpressed. After a final squeaky admonishment, it skittered out of sight. Derek chuckled. He shouldered his rifle and trudged on.

Ahead of him, there was a break in the tree line. He was fairly certain he was no longer on top of the shelter, but he decided to explore a little farther. Once he reached the edge of the copse, he discovered a fantastic view of a deep, heavily wooded ravine. Mist partially shrouded its floor. A flock of birds cawed as they flew overhead.

Derek wondered if the mist that shrouded the valley might conceal a source of fresh water. Streams were scarce in this area, and it would be useful to locate one close to the shelter. It wouldn’t take long to check it out.

He was looking for a way down the steep slope when a sharp retort echoed over the mountain. Birds burst out of the trees, flapping toward the heavens as they chirped their alarm.

Derek glanced around, searching for the source of the shot. With the uneven, mountainous terrain, it was hard to figure out where it was coming from. He readied his rifle and turned in a slow circle, eyes and ears strained for the slightest sign.

Gradually, the sound of the shot faded. He began to relax. Perhaps Luke was out hunting and had shot a deer. His belly rumbled at the thought of spiced venison. Yes, that must have been it. Luke shot a—

Pain exploded in his right shoulder. A split second later another gunshot rang out. Derek staggered back. He touched his shoulder. Sticky wetness covered his hand. Blood.

He frantically searched for cover. In his pain-hazed confusion, he forgot how close he was to the ravine. The ground disappeared under his left foot, and he collapsed over the edge. Suddenly airborne, tumbled head over heels down the steep side of the mountain. His ribs cracked against a jutting rock hidden by the fluffy white blanket of snow. A blast of pain shot through his side, but it didn’t slow his momentum.

Derek managed to stop tumbling. He slid on his back, picking up momentum as he fell. His boots dug into the snow as they desperately searched for purchase, but they found none. Ahead of him, the slope broke into a sharp, sheer cliff. He had no idea how far the drop on the other side would be.

He continued to slide, his shoulder and side in agony. His feet scraped through the snow in search of any solid terrain to stop his descent. Finally, his heels smacked into a small shelf at the edge of the cliff. Derek’s knees bent painfully, and with horror, he realized he would still go over the edge. The cliff plunged down forty feet. It was more than high enough to maim or even kill him.

He rolled over on his belly even as his momentum carried him over the cliff. He managed to grab the sharp, rocky ledge, catching his fall, though his knees banged painfully into the sheer rock.

He panted as his limbs strained to hold himself aloft. Then he stretched to throw his good arm over the lip and dragged most of his upper body onto the small, flat shelf.

Eventually, he swung his legs up over the side and sat there, out of breath. He glanced up the slope he had tumbled down, a rough furrow in the otherwise snow-smoothed ravine. Bright spots of red from his bleeding shoulder dotted his path down. He’d been lucky as hell not to break his neck.

He scanned the area but didn’t see any sign of his rifle.

“Shit!”

His heart skipped a beat when he realized the shooter might come to finish the job. He frantically searched for a place to hide. He spotted a narrow fissure near one side of the ledge. He dragged his wounded body across the snow toward the small cave, then crammed his body inside. Hopefully, if the shooter came looking for him, he would see the disrupted snow and assume Derek went over the sheer cliff.

Hopefully.

Luke jogged through a light snowfall. He kept the tree line to his left as he skirted the edge of a ravine. After searching for hours, he couldn’t find any sign of a shooter. Hell, he still couldn’t figure out where the shots had come from. He also hadn’t found Sierra.

Frustration gnawed at his gut. Right now, there were so many things to be done back at the cabin. He was wasting so much time trying to find