Into Winter

Prologue Welcome to my Four Seasons Series. Into Autumn - A Story of Survival opens the show with Eileen Branson, a San Antonio stock analyst, fleeing the city when the grid shuts down and chaos erupts around her. Out of gas, she meets Lars Lindgren, a Davy Crockett type, and his few neighbors deep in the woods of south central Texas. There, they defend against hordes of intruders who know only one way to survive—take from those who have the skills to provide for themselves. Melissa escapes the chaos in Waco and finds her way to her parent’s home, Reggie and Emily Carston. The Carstons are Lars Lindgren’s neighbors upstream from his homestead. James Lindgren makes his way from Conroe to rejoin his dad and Eileen. Ronald and Sara Weston live downstream from the Lindgren homestead. Samuel and Sally Lin live across the river from the Lindgrens and have two small children, Sean and Debra. James and Melissa find love in the aftermath of their ever changing and challenging world. They have twin boys, Robbie and Ronnie. Lars Lindgren is killed by a rattlesnake bite to the neck when the boys are four years old. His widow, Eileen vows to teach the boys all she can and to make certain the twins know their grandpa as well as if he were there. There is a shortage of women in the area they eventually name Peaceful Valley. When the kids grow up, Debra chooses to marry Ronnie, leaving Robbie and Sean out in the cold. They decide to go on a quest to Corpus Christi in search of wives. Sean and Robbie set out for Corpus Christi in Into Spring -The Next Generation, on a quest to find women. The boys are in their late teens and there are no available women for them at home in Peaceful Valley. They have spent their entire lives in the country, in and around home, and had no idea what was in store for them nearly two decades after the grid shut down and the world descended into chaos. What they find in Corpus Christi is a society ruled by a ruthless dictator, Sandra Hawkins. The boys thought they were prepared for anything, but are spotted by Sandra’s henchmen on a roof at night. The boys are surveying the city under the cover of darkness, unaware that Sandra’s men have night vision scopes. The next morning, when the boys try to enter the city, they are captured and become slaves to Sandra, the mayor of the city. She is a big ol’ southern gal, who takes a shine to Robbie, but is mean and cruel to most everyone else. Sandra has Sean castrated, as she’s done to most of the men, and she forces him to work on a shrimp boat at the Bayfront, one of six compounds within the city. The remaining compounds are the Farm, Hospital, Airport, Police, and Contractors. Robbie is more fortunate. Sandra recognizes him as good breeding stock for her population control program. She needs strong men for her ladies to produce healthy babies for Corpus Christi’s future. Robbie has to work, but his primary job on weekends is to impregnate Sandra’s chosen women at her Farm, her home, and headquarters for her regime. The Farm is run almost entirely by women. Robbie grows to like some of the ladies and even Sandra gets in on his action, but the whole process feels like a form of slavery. He is used to being free, but here he is a prisoner. Everything gets complicated as Robbie is drawn into Sandra’s web. Though Robbie likes most of the young ladies at the Farm and impregnates many of them, he never loses sight of his plan for him and Sean to escape the clutches of Sandra and make their way back to Peaceful Valley. Sean eventually decides to stay in Corpus Christi, but Robbie and two of his lady friends find a means of escape and take the chance. Into Winter opens as Robbie and two female allies are trying to escape in a Cessna Skyhawk at the Airport.