Big Jim Collins dies, and his family rejoices. After decades of abuse, his wife and sons are finally free from his tyranny. One son follows in his father's footsteps, while the other son takes a different path. But the brothers never really escape their painful childhood. It defines each of them and leads them to a final, terrifying destiny. Death comes again at the Collins farm on a quiet, starless October night. Both brothers will pay for the sins of their father in the shadow of the bleeding tree.

Big Jim Collins dies, and his family rejoices. After decades of abuse, his wife and sons are finally free from his tyranny. One son follows in his father's footsteps, while the other son takes a different path. But the brothers never really escape their painful childhood. It defines each of them and leads them to a final, terrifying destiny. Death comes again at the Collins farm on a quiet, starless October night. Both brothers will pay for the sins of their father in the shadow of the bleeding tree.

Annihilate and obliterate are oft used terms in the summer of 1962, and the village of Windsor, Iowa, is under siege by its own hysteria. The Cold War haunts every doorstep, as do threats of bombs from overseas--life extinguished in a horrific mushroom cloud. A sign of the times, people in the small town are in a constant state of readiness for nuclear war.

In his fervent quest for survival, wealthy construction magnate George Dobbs builds a state-of-the-art fallout shelter big enough for the entire town. Carved into the nearby hillside, the shelter is impenetrable with a door...