After The Collapse: A dystopian novel of our future after a worldwide economic and social collapse and then of finding friendship and love amidst the chaos. Read online

  After The Collapse

  A Novel By:

  H.H. Stinnis

  Edition 3,

  © May 2016

  Acknowledgements:

  First of all, thank you for reading my book. I know your time is precious. I hope you will consider leaving a review for it on Kindle, as I read and try to answer every one! Also please consider participating in the ‘Discussions’ section of my Author Page.

  I would like to thank my wife Patricia, and my dear friends Dave and Joella for their encouragement and help in making this book what it is today. Most of all, I want to thank my sister Diane for her hard work on this book. I learned so much from her, and she helped me to make the new revision possible.

  I would also like to thank the good people of Colorado Springs and especially of Woodland Park, Colorado. I have used the names of your fine cities in this book, but I can assure you it was only by slight chance that I chose them, as I’ve always loved the Rockies, and their use is strictly fictitious. In writing this book and in doing the research, I have come to fondly think of that area of the country as a ‘home away from home’.

  It was not my intention while writing this book to force a certain set of thought processes on the reader. The book concerns a subject that is very touchy and likely quite frightening to many people, and yet the subject is of vital importance to me, and I am hopeful it will be with many of you, as well. I hope that this book is not only entertaining for you, but that it makes you want to do your own independent research concerning the things that are going on around you in our world today.

  This book is a work of fiction, yet it incorporates many factual elements of our society. Real place names or business names are strictly used in a fictitious manner.

  The book contains references to many products by manufacturer and specific name. Their use does not constitute a recommendation for, or an endorsement of, those products. All the products named in this book are fine products; their mention does not mean I suggest they are the best available, and I received no compensation for using their product names. They were strictly used to add to the details and realism of the book.

  The methods, tactics, processes, or devices described within this book are strictly from my personal thoughts and in some cases are shared by many other fine people out there who believe in preparing. They are not intended to be a definitive set of instructions or guidelines for the reader, and are not presented as the best or only way to do things, should you decide to prepare. You may discover there are other methods and materials that could accomplish the same end result, or even do it better.

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the author.

  Names and persons in this book are entirely fictional. They bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Book 1: Collapse

  1: On Losing & Life Changes (6 Years Prior to the Collapse)

  2: The Cabin (5 Years Prior to the Collapse)

  3: Visible Signs & Final Preparations (The Last 3 Years Prior to the Collapse)

  4: The Beginning of the End (The Week of Black Friday)

  5: The Worst Weekend Ever (1st Weekend of The Collapse)

  6: Last Nails In The Coffin; Part 1 (The 2nd Week of The Collapse)

  7: Last Nails In The Coffin; Part 2 (The 2nd Week of The Collapse)

  8: Tools of the Trade (More on My Gear)

  9: First Explorations (Week 3 After The Collapse)

  10: Daily Routines (Weeks 4 & 5)

  11: First Contact (Week 6: Late April)

  12: A Tentative Guest (Late April)

  13: The Pain of Loss - Revisited (Late April)

  14: Healing and Subtle Changes (Late April to Mid-May)

  15: Uncharted Waters (Late May)

  16: Shopping Trip (Late May)

  17: Encounter (Late May)

  Book 2: Companion

  18: A Christmas of Sorts (Mid-May)

  19: Confessions (Late May)

  20: A New Beginning (Late May)

  21: A New Way of Life (The First Half of June)

  22: The Training Begins (Mid-June to Early July)

  23: The Training Continues (Middle Two Weeks of July)

  24: Threat and Response (3rd Week of July)

  25: Serious Talk (Late July)

  26: Serious Shooting (Late July & Early August)

  27: Free Parking (Late July)

  28: Reconnecting (Early August)

  29: Reconnoiter (Early August)

  30: Old Things, New Uses (3rd Week of August)

  31: United (3rd Week of August)

  32: Meet-Up (Late August)

  33: A New Beginning (Late August)

  34: Guests (The End of August)

  35: Learning a New Skill (Late August)

  36: Keeping the Peace (Late August)

  Book 3: Confederacy

  37: Aftermath (Late August)

  38: Gift For a Friend (Late August)

  39: New Neighbors (Early-September)

  40: Pre-Winter Stocking Up; Part 1 (1st Week of September)

  41: Hospital Run (End of the 1st Week of September)

  42: Revelations (2nd Week of September)

  43: More Friends and a Huge Find (End of the 2nd Week of September)

  44: New Foes (End of the 2nd Week of September)

  45: Debriefing and Downtime (3rd Week of September)

  46: A New Friend (Last Week of September)

  47: Coming Together (Late September, Early October)

  48: The Group Grows (October)

  49: Meet-up and Some New Ideas (Late October)

  50: New Digs (1st Half of November)

  51: New Developments & Decisions (Mid-November)

  52: So Much To Do (Last Half of November)

  53: The Black Knights (The Day After Thanksgiving)

  54: Last Expeditions Before Winter (December)

  Epilogue

  Final Thoughts and Quotes

  List of Characters (In Order of Appearance)

  Introduction

  Complacency is a killer. Many people who studied what our society had become in the decades prior to The Collapse found that the complacency in America was so prevalent that it was one of the elite’s greatest assets.

  Alexander Tyler, a Scottish Historian from the late 1700’s, seems to have foretold our future when he said that nations tend to follow a progression;

  “From bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”

  Tyler made that statement when the original thirteen colonies were still a part of England. And no one foresaw how prophetic it would become for America less than three hundred years later.

  Americans never thought it could happen. They never imagined we could fail as a nation. Therefore, they never saw it coming nor did they plan for it. In fact, Americans had the hubris to think our nation was too big and too powerful, and too necessary to the rest of the world for us to fail.

  Adolph Hitler knew very well how to manipulate and control a nation. He once said; “It…gives us (Nazi leadership) a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them.”

  This proved to be especially true with Americans. To be sure, many would have admitted that things were going in the wrong direction, but still they felt that things would turn around again for America. “Things will change when the Republicans (or Democrats) take over again”, they’d say dogmatically.

  We all want to be left alone - in our comfort zones. But Americans had a false sense of security, believing they would always be safe and secure in their own little houses in their own little towns. They’d argue that “If things ever got that bad in the nation, the National Guard or the police, or maybe the military or the government, will step in and take care of us if necessary!”

  And because of our jealously guarded comfort zones and the resultant assumptions so many people made about their safety, the average person didn’t pay any attention to the writing on the wall.

  As a consequence of our blindness, Americans paid no attention to the growing cancer in this country. They watched the talking heads on the mainstream news programs and felt like they were up to date. Between the TV they were glued to and the newspapers and magazines they read, most felt like they’d been told what was important for them to know; if they even thought about it at all.

  Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Nazi Minister of Propaganda had this to say about the news; “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” And just like in pre-war Germany, we were seeing history repeat itself and yet so many of us couldn’t recognize it for what it was as it was happening right under our very noses.

  People wanted to trust the corporations who brought us the news, and they wanted to trust in what th
ey were being told. And as a result, they didn’t question it. Even when they knew that multi-millionaires (or multi-billionaires) owned those corporations. The problem was, the changes that had just been occurring in our country over the last few generations were things that had been set in motion well over a hundred years ago in some cases. But these were things the news never spoke of. Instead, the news practiced the fine art of diversion. They kept the masses’ eyes off the real news and gave them other things to think about; like the OJ trial or the latest Hollywood divorce…or so many other stories that passed for ‘news’.

  Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451 had this to say about the media in that famous book; “The television is ‘real’. It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn’t time to protest, ‘What nonsense!’”

  It turned out that Mr. Bradbury and a lot of conspiracy theorists were right. We were being fed great gobs of ‘nonsense’ on a daily basis, and we never bothered to look behind it all to what was really important.

  The fact was, so many of the changes taking place in our country over the last century or more had been carefully designed and employed in order to weaken our society from within. Those changes had slowly been destroying our national unity, our culture and our families, our education systems and organized religion, the monetary system and the job markets, and they weakened our morals and our resolve.

  People looked at the decisions coming from the top and called them stupid; when really those decisions were all small stepping stones, and part of a much bigger plan. And if you took the time to look closely enough, and do some independent research, you might just see a method and a pattern to what had originally looked like stupidity. A concerted effort was in motion to undermine our society from within. This country was being brought to a moment in time when the elite would pull it all down and begin again with a new empire and a new monetary system. All creations of their own…and designed for their gain - and our loss.

  The truth of it was, America was not too big to fail. In fact, we weren’t much different from every other world empire that had fallen by the wayside over the millennia. To be sure, we were too big to be brought down by another first-world country (at least not without them being destroyed by us in the process as well), and the big boys knew that. But just as a strong, healthy person can be killed by a cancer that starts invisibly but eventually destroys the body if left untreated, so too can an empire. And those who were truly in power needed only to be patient with the ‘cancer’ process that spanned generations and attacked our country on numerous internal fronts. Then all they needed to do was get us to ignore the spreading disease until it was too late.

  America wasn’t the first great empire to fall from within. Every empire throughout history had their own internal shortcomings, many of which were shared similarities between most of history’s empires. The shortcomings were weaknesses that eventually eroded the internal strength of those empires, and became major contributors to that empire’s demise. An honest look at history tells us that all the great empires fell largely as a result from what had happened within them for many years prior to their demise - and not from a concerted effort by foreign enemies waging war against them.

  And with The Collapse, we truly learned the cruel lesson that history does in fact repeat itself, because at the time of its downfall, America shared many of those ancient empires weaknesses. And just like those empires of old, we were suffering from the ever-increasing greed and corruption in our government, in the political leadership at all levels, and in all of the largest businesses. There was an increased interest in controlling (conquering) the rest of the world and its resources, and not maintaining the home country. The family unit ceased to be important, and there was a frightening increase in the disregard for human life and the sanctity of marriage. Our entertainment became more outrageous, violent, and lascivious. The national sovereignty and unity that had been so important at one time turned to discord, and to a weakening of our borders. The beliefs that once made us great, and that used to be so jealously guarded and held dear to us were all but forgotten. The founding religion had been forced out of schools and businesses, from our courts and even our churches and the family dinner table, while becoming publically ridiculed or even outlawed. Our currency was based on a lie and nothing of value backed it up, and the central bank that we had been warned so strongly against by scores of Americans and foreigners alike, had debased and inflated our currency. And our own government was fully aware of it and went along with the agenda. We had become complacent, slaves to materialism and plenty. The ever-increasing handouts to the masses and the unending plethora of social programs were at an all-time high and had come to be seen as our right to have.

  And again, even these things were prevalent in the most ancient of empires in history. Almost 1,800 years ago, the Roman satirical poet Juvenal said;

  “Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions – everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”

  The Roman government had found the key to pacifying and controlling the masses, and the same formula was being employed by the modern elites. By keeping Americans fed, focused on the material world, and by making their entertainment virtually impossible to ignore, the majority of Americans were written out of the equation and were no threat to the elite or their plans.

  But there was something that differentiated our situation from the ancient empires that preceded us; because in our case, individuals and agencies of vast wealth and power had been planning our downfall for several generations beforehand. In our case, the weaknesses we had in common with the ancient empires of the world had merely been magnified, exploited, and then used against us by the real rulers of this world.

  However, and in fairness to our ancient counterparts, our modern world was a much different place than it had been back in their day. Now, business and trade, commerce and communication, and the markets and other interdependencies of all types, were global in their scale and influence. And most of these things were inter-reacting almost instantaneously, being linked together in complicated and inextricable ways. And worse still, we weren’t fighting against a Nero or a Hitler now. We weren’t battling against a single visible leader or even a group of leaders who were known to all. Now, the real enemies of mankind were the wealthiest people on the planet. These were people who were well beyond conventional billionaire status, and they had their own best interests at heart and their own dark objectives to bring about. They had limitless wealth at their disposal and were relatively anonymous, their names unknown to the vast majority of the world’s population. These were the people who owned the central banks around the world, and consequently they owned vast amounts of land, as well as armies, leaders, and even governments. And that gave them the power to bring countries down…if and when they chose to. But in our case, they wanted more. They wanted all the previous assets in place for the next landlords of the North American continent. Because of that, war was not an option, especially not a nuclear war. And just like all those ancient empires before us had died and were lost in time, now it was our turn in the barrel.

  This is my tale of what happened to bring America down, what took place after our system was demolished, and how I survived what followed, and all that happened to me…after The Collapse.

  Book 1: Collapse

  1: On Losing & Life Changes (6 Years Prior to the Collapse)

  Sharon and I had started preparing (or what is more commonly called "prepping") for a national catastrophe for six years before The Collapse actually happened. My wife Sharon saw the things of the world much the same way I did, and as a result she was just as committed as I was in preparing for an uncertain future.