Shelter by Steve Rogan

Shelter Dean Golinski’s recently deceased father, Marek, believed ‘they’ would come for everyone at some point in time, so he’d made some very serious preparations, fracturing his family in the process. Marek believed ‘they’ would seize any opportunity to test the mettle of the nation; a chisel strike here, a chisel strike there, and then the final blow to render freedom and liberty to slivers and dust. Being estranged from his sister, Jacqueline, for the most part of fifteen years, Dean couldn’t convince her not to go to the Comerica Park refuge shelter when a coronal mass ejection, 1,000 times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859, was reported to be enroute to Earth. Played down by official sources, Dean was convinced of the event’s anticipated severity after watching a video blog posted by Professor Martin Monroe, a discredited Astrophysicist from Ireland; yet everything he said, Dean found, was corroborated through other reliable sources. It was enough to convince the majority of America’s citizens into an exodus to the many shelters set up around the country. Dean, however, moved swiftly to occupy a location his late father had prepared for whatever flavor the End Times would take. As if ordained by fate, an assassination attempt is made on the POTUS at a Seattle golf club dinner the day before the CME event, and an opportunity is seized to initiate a game-changing strategy across the U.S., and refuge shelters to protect the country’s greatest asset forms a key component of that strategy. Dean soon discovers that the sins of the father are indeed paid by the son, as he finds himself and his sister somehow linked to Russian interference within the U.S. political system, in addition to becoming prime targets in a hunt to keep the country’s over-haul mission on track. Dean’s late father wasn’t crazy at all; he was right!

Adult • Science Fiction/Dystopian • Science Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic