A long string of terrorist attacks has humanity on edge, which prompts John, a very rich man, and his family to buy a mountain in the Rockies and build a massive bomb shelter there. It’s their own version of NORAD—and their salvation. Unwilling to leave any family members behind, John also builds a house with a bomb shelter for his niece, Maggie, who is going to college in Boulder. Meanwhile, an ex-military biologist, Simon, and his son, Peter, have been living above a bomb shelter in a Denver suburb for years, and they are more than prepared, or so they think.

After the attacks subside for a few years, protests against the government roar up across the country. Rampant and uncontained, the situation forces the police to use an experimental tear gas. However, the tear gas has been tampered with, which causes a kind of human rabies, creating a kind of zombie effect in anyone infected. Suddenly, “uncontrollable” means something all together different. Not even John, Maggie, Simon, and Peter, despite their preparations, can anticipate what is to come.

When the infected spread outside the major protest cities, it cripples the country and makes it vulnerable to further attack. An eventual nuclear attack will force the president to respond by attacking the suspected countries, thus creating a domino effect that will become full-out nuclear war, World War 3, and, eventually, the Apocalypse.