Excerpt:
Prologue
MY
NAME IS PAUL CHAPMAN. When I was just fifteen years old, a band of demonic
aliens murdered my father and captured my mother, sister, and me. These vicious
creatures — the source of humanity’s myths of devils, imps, and hellhounds — took
us through a hidden portal to Hell, the nearest planet to Earth in their vast
empire. I spent the next twenty-three years there as their slave.
I was
rescued during the Armageddon War and became the only captive human to ever
escape from Hell. Over the following months, members of the US military and
various specialists spent countless hours interviewing and debriefing me to
learn everything I knew about Hell and the demons. They provided a therapist to
help me recover from my horrendous experiences and adjust to my new life back
on Earth. She recommended I document my life as a slave. This book is my story:
the autobiography of my life as a slave on Hell.
The Hunt-Chapter
1
MY
PARENTS, Robert and Mary Chapman, met while first-year students at the University
of Alaska, Fairbanks. He studied wildlife biology while she studied
anthropology, concentrating her studies on the history and culture of the
native Inuit. Although they had grown up in the Lower 48, they fell in love
with Alaska and decided to remain after graduating.
Dad
had hoped to obtain a job as a wildlife biologist, but such jobs were rare and
paid little. Mom hadan even harder time finding suitable work. So, when my
maternal grandfather died two years later, my parents decided to use her modest
inheritance to buy a dry cabin and live a subsistence lifestyle. They would
hunt caribou and moose, trap small game for furs and food, and fish for salmon
during spawning season.
Mom
and Dad eventually bought a cabin on the north shore of the Kobuk River. Only
seven miles upstream of the tiny town of Kobuk, the house was close enough to
make buying provisions easy. The town’s simple landing strip also made visiting
relatives practical and would enable evacuation in case of a medical emergency.
Miles
from their nearest neighbors, the cabin was also isolated enough to offer all
the seclusion a family could ever want. Nestled between the nearby river and
the Brooks Range a few miles to the north, my parents had found the home of
their dreams.
My
twin sister, Sarah, and I were born a few years later, and we grew up in some
of the most beautiful land imaginable. The chores were many, the work was hard,
but the rewards of freedom and the wilderness’s majesty made the hardships well
worthwhile. I loved the life and couldn’t imagine ever leaving it.
This
story begins when Sarah and I were fifteen. It was early August, and the
Chinook salmon were running up the river to spawn. After breakfast, Mom and
Sarah were going fishing. Dad and I had built a fish wheel, an ingenious tool
that automatically catches the salmon. An underwater fence forces some of the
fish towards the wheel that the river’s current turns. Baskets attached to the
wheel’s rim scoop up the fish and dump them into a box. Mom and Sarah were
going to carry the salmon back to the cabin, clean them, and hang them up over
a fire in our smokehouse. Their work would ensure we would have plenty of
smoked salmon to eat during the long Alaskan winter.
While
they were fishing, Dad and I would hunt moose and check our traps for small
game. We took our rifles and headed upriver away from town. We left our dog,
Sergeant, behind so her barking would warn Mom and Sarah of any bear that might
be attracted by the smell of our fish.
We
started by checking our traps, but they were empty. Not a single one had been
tripped. And we didn’t spot any small game even though we didn’t talk, and we
walked carefully to avoid making any unnecessary noise.
When
it was nearing lunchtime, we turned around and headed back to our cabin. This
time, instead of following the river trail, we hiked up towards the nearby
mountains forming the southern edge of the Brooks Range. As before, the area
seemed completely devoid of animal life, which was pretty unusual. We’d
typically see something, even if it was too far away or on the far side of the
river.
About
halfway home, we spotted the remains of a bull moose that had been recently
killed.
Because
the bears were busy with the salmon, we initially thought it had been brought
down by wolves. But it wasn’t. Enormous chunks of flesh had been removed in
single bites, and the bites’ edges were too clean to have been made by wolves
or bears.
It
was strange that we couldn’t identify the tracks in the soft ground around the
carcass. There were many large and small hoof prints, but they were shorter and
rounder than moose and elk tracks.
Stranger
still were the giant paw prints from the carnivore that had brought down the
moose.
Easily
twice the length of wolf prints, they had only three toes, and the separate
claw marks were much longer than wolf or even bear claws. Dad, the biologist,
was stumped. The prints didn’t seem to belong to any Alaskan wild animal or to
any animal for that matter. The only tracks he could think of that were even
somewhat similar were those of ostriches, emus, and cassowaries.
But
the claw marks were too short for ostrich and emu tracks, and the cassowary
only has one claw that long, not three.
“Dad,
how about a really big dog?” I asked. “Maybe a Newfoundland had lost a toe.”
Dad
shook his head. “Can’t be. See how the toes are arranged symmetrically? And
besides, why would a dog have the same toe removed on each paw?”
“What
about a dinosaur?” I suggested jokingly.
Dad
actually considered it for a second before answering, “You know, it does look a
little like a theropod footprint. It might have been a reasonable hypothesis if
it weren’t for the little fact they’re all extinct except for the birds. No,
this has to be a hoax. Someone’s trying to start a rumor about a strange beast
roaming the Alaskan wilderness. Probably wants to draw tourists hoping to catch
sight of the mythological creature.”
“But
Dad, what about the bite marks?”
“My
guess is that they used a curved knife to make them. Still, whoever did it did
a good job.
They
had me going for a bit. Come on, let’s head home and tell the girls about our
mysterious find.”
So,
we hiked back to the cabin and had lunch with Mom and Sarah. They told us about
the baskets of fish they had caught and cleaned. We told them about the moose
kill we’d stumbled on, the strange tracks, and the huge bite marks. Mom agreed
with Dad that it wouldprobably turn out to be a hoax, but Sarah wasn’t sure
what to think.
After
lunch, Dad and I headed out again to see if we’d have any better luck hunting.
We didn’t.
The
animals, both big and small, were still missing, and we were once more forced
to come back empty-handed. I did, however, carry my camera with me and took
some pictures of our find. For a laugh, I figured I would upload them onto
Facebook the next time I was back in town where I could get internet service.
