Facing Darkness

Facing Darkness picks up where Steps Back left off as groups of survivors struggle to deal with the after-effects of a disaster of unknown origin.            Asher Latham, aka Polar Bear and his small group of former prison inmates had been through a nightmare lasting weeks since the day the power went out, cities burned and they'd been left for dead inside the maximum security prison in which many of them had lived for years serving sentences for an array of crimes.            Even though Asher and his guys found a way out of the prison that nearly became their tomb, most of the men who had been incarcerated alongside them had been gassed to death by soldiers led by a Major Kirkland Daniels of the U.S. Army 157th Infantry.            Major Daniels had long kept his corruption well hidden from those around him within the ranks of the U.S. military.  But, at the onset of the collapse, he recognized an immense power vacuum left in the region and took decisive and murderous steps to fill that void.  He surrounded himself with a select few men who he could trust to carry out any order he issued and quickly worked to take over a large section of North Western Nashville, Tennessee with designs of eventually taking over the entire region.            Asher and his group knew nothing of the Majors' designs or that the soldiers who'd attacked the rail yard killing their friends were the same men responsible for the gas attack at the prison.             Asher and his men managed to get out of the prison and immediately broke into both the prison warehouse and the armory located outside the main prison fence.  While they found little to no food, they did find a large cache of weapons, pseudo military style clothing and gear, tools, fuel and medical supplies.  They managed to repair an old John Deer Gator UTV and an electric golf cart.  Then, they attached small trailers to each vehicle to haul their gear.