Lurking in the dark corners of J. P. Beaumont's bizarre case was not just a demented mind obsessed with murder, but secrets so deadly that even a street-tough cop could die guessing.

The most terrifying monsters are real and walk among us every day. Meet Lance Belanger, he has only one ambition, to be the most infamous killer of all time. After murdering a single mom and her toddler child, Lance indoctrinates himself into the world of serial murder. Before long, the bodies start turning up all over the country. Each victim is incapacitated by a puncture wound to the spine, then, while still alive, they are dismembered, their arms, legs, and head are severed from the torso.

It is not just the living ships of the monstrous Gorgons or the motion-blurred shock troops of the armored Cyphers that endanger the holdouts in the human bastion of Panther Ridge. The world itself has turned against the handful of survivors, as one by one they succumb to despair and suicide or, even worse, are transformed by otherworldly pollution into hideous Gray Men, cannibalistic mutants driven by insatiable hunger.

Deadly radiation from a passing comet is about to destroy life on Earth. In desperation, the US government constructs a series of underground shelters to protect as many people as possible. They are expected to be underground for 20 years before returning back to the surface. But can they survive their time within the confines of the underground shelter? And what will they find when they finally emerge?

An EMP bomb blasts a small town in Pennsylvania back to primitive times. Former Marine Raider Lori, a committed survivalist, finds herself in a race against the coming winter and a growing foreign threat to ensure her family's survival. As society crumbles around her, will Lori's meticulous preparation be sufficient, or will she fall to the encroaching chaos and snow?