The Arrows Beyond Anthology: An Apocalyptic End-Time Thriller

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Carl Raydon enlisted, young and naïve but the Marines had matured him. Two combat tours taught him things. Most of all, how easy it was to die. Indecision, hesitation, or an unfocused thought meant death. But the Corps was no place to raise a family. He and Ella raised theirs on a ranch in a remote part of Washington State. Their four children learned to work hard, play hard, and be there for each other. Carl and Ella introduced their kids to Jesus and showed them how to be truly independent by fully depending on Him.
The EMP attack happened after the four Raydon kids were grown and had their own families. The values that had been instilled in them had been passed on to the next generation. They would need those values more than Carl could have imagined. The EMP attack should have, like Pearl Harbor and 9-11, brought people together as they struggled to regain their footing. But decades of tribalization, victimization, and political apathy doomed the nation. America broke under the strain.
The Raydon children struggled to make it back to the family ranch and once there, struggled to defend it. The federal government went after those it thought were responsible. The real culprit, though, was much more sinister. A worldwide cabal of industrialists and foreign nationalists conspired to bring America down and divide the spoils.
A patriot, Major Aaron Styles, along with the Raydons, discovered the plot and stopped it short. But the damage had been done. America would never again be a world leader. Now split into factions, America, has tried to reunify but after twenty-five years, remains splintered. Large portions of the mid-east, including Washington D.C. have been left uninhabitable because of nuclear power plant meltdowns. The edges of the nation have been nibbled away by China, Mexico, and a defecting Texas republic. Major Styles stopped the conspiracy, but at its core, were the highest levels of the military and industry. The truth left him hopeless. That hopelessness was overcome when Carl Jr. introduced him to Jesus.
Styles joined the Raydons on their ranch but their desire to be left alone was not to be. The conspirators, now in charge of the government, couldn’t leave Styles and the Raydons free. Again, the Raydons had to defend what was theirs, but the forces against them were too much, and they fled into the mountains. With a bounty on their heads for twenty-five years, they have had to fight the government, bounty hunters, and nature. Many have been lost. Carl and Ella’s grandchildren grew up knowing what Carl learned in the Corps, it’s easy to die.
America came to grips with its new place in the world but needed a scapegoat for its failures. That scapegoat became Christian fundamentalists at first, then all Christians. The story was fabricated that the conspiracy Major Styles uncovered was that fundamentalists, disappointed that America was rejecting historical Christian values in favor of secular hedonism, sought to destroy the nation. The Raydon family, strong believers, became the face of the terrorists. Christians came under persecution when the lie took hold. In Asia and the Middle East, the retribution was quick and extreme. Europe eradicated what remnant was left. America, once the vanguard of protection against worldwide persecution, was powerless to influence others. Not only powerless to stop persecution, it soon embarked on its mission to eliminating the church. Religion wasn’t outlawed, only the Christian faith. The Christian church was first discouraged, then made illegal in the name of America’s national security.
The Arrows Beyond Series begins here, with the values and foundation of faith that began with Carl and Ella. Twenty-five years after the event, Aaron Styles remains watching over the Raydon grandchildren and they still fight. But now, each in their way, against a common enemy, the dawning darkness.