Neal Grant watched silently as the cemetery workers buried his family. It was just him now, alone, something he’d never been before. First, his parents and siblings had passed and then his wife and three wonderful children. All of them were gone forever now - all dead at the same time because of a drunk driver and a foggy road. Little did Neal know that this was only the beginning of things to come. Soon he would realize that he had not only lost his family, but must also deal with a failing economy and a nuclear war.

When Horatio Billings returned from a trip, and first met Penny, she was sitting behind his receptionist/paralegal’s desk in his office. He had absolutely no idea why she was there instead of his girlfriend who was also his current receptionist/paralegal.

Before the lights went out, Jack Warrant never considered himself a prepper. That was someone on the edge, a conspiracy theorist or a doomsday cultist who had a fatalistic view of the world. He was neither a theorist nor a cultist. He was an optimist. At least that was what he told himself when the darker thoughts creeped into his psyche as he stared at the ceiling in the middle of the night. Whenever he started down the rabbit hole, he always clawed his way back into the sunlight.

After being launched from their container ships in the Gulf of Mexico, the three specially calibrated nuclear warheads carried by Shahab-3 ICBM’s detonated in space at 10:58 AM, directly over Utah, Kansas and West Virginia. For a fraction of a millisecond, the late morning October sky brightened, the event over with so quickly it was basically imperceptible from the ground.

When he gets tired of seeing elected officials breaking the oath they made to the country, Jake Hunter decides to take matters into his own hands. Finding a few like-minded friends, they begin to carry out their mission. First, they use scare tactics to try to get those officials to keep the promises they made to get elected. When that doesn't make much difference, they resort to other measures. Some turning deadly.

Billy Todd has always been different. Most people called him odd, and those were the nice people. Though he was born with a learning disability, Billy's parents never allowed him to consider himself disabled. Raised to be self-sufficient, Billy might not be as smart as some, but he was a lot smarter than people realized.

Darlene was a prepper. As she wrestled the polymer barrel onto its stand beside the other five, she thought to herself how a whole house cistern would have been so much better, but she hadn’t been able to get a variance to install one. The particular suburb she lived in was like that. Even with water shortages in the news almost every day, they wouldn’t let her, or anyone else, install a cistern. At least they didn’t deny her the barrels. Possibly because she hadn’t mentioned them to anyone. Darlene smiled as the thought crossed her mind.

When Amanda Thomlin finds herself face-to-face with the reality that she may never see her mother again, the overwhelming uncertainty nearly immobilizes her. A kind father figure steps up and takes her under his protection, bringing her into his family.

My purpose for writing this book was to show that a thinking person can not only survive, but live well in a world gone crazy. Live well, of course, meaning compared to most. I wanted to show that one didn't need Bill Gates's checkbook to build a place to survive.

Bethany and Gary had a lot in common. Both were independent-minded and self-sufficient. They were well aware of the dangers in the world and did what they could to be ready for anything, just in case. As the world spiraled out of control, it appeared their worst fears were coming true before their very eyes, just as they were beginning to fall in love and begin their lives together. When disaster struck, they would find their preparations and their love would be tested, but would their struggle to survive bring them closer together or tear them apart?