Chapter 1 - The Blast Door
Some families hope they will survive.
Others train like survival is just another Tuesday.
My father belonged to the second category.
He always asked me what the first feature I would add to a prepper home was.
I used to say solar panels or a water filtration system.
He would just laugh and shake his head.
The first feature you add is a door that no one can open, he would tell me.
Tonight, I finally understood why.
The power grid across the entire eastern seaboard collapsed exactly forty minutes ago.
It was not a storm or a rolling blackout.
My phone displayed a final, terrifying emergency alert before all cellular towers went completely dead.
The alert simply read, "Seek immediate subterranean shelter."
I was alone in the sprawling, fortified compound my father built deep in the Appalachian Mountains.
He died six months ago in a private plane crash, leaving me the keys to his paranoid empire.
I spent the first twenty minutes initiating the lockdown protocols.
Heavy steel shutters slammed down over the reinforced glass windows.
The hum of the massive underground diesel generators kicked in.
I was perfectly safe inside this concrete fortress.
I had enough food and water to last a decade.
Then, the perimeter alarms began to scream.
The security monitors flared to life, illuminating the dark driveway in harsh infrared light.
Someone was standing at the main gate.
It was impossible for anyone to have driven up the mountain this quickly after the blackout.
I stared at the screen, my blood running cold as the figure looked directly up at the hidden camera.
He raised his hands, showing he was unarmed.
Then he pulled down his heavy tactical mask.
My breath hitched in my throat, and I took a step back from the console.
It was my older brother, Elias.
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The only problem was, I had buried Elias three years ago after a military convoy ambush in Syria.
I watched in absolute horror as the dead man walked up to the camera and mouthed my name.
