Synopsis — After the Fall

After the Fall

With the threat of a global nuclear war having dimmed, there are still those rouge nations who have the power to unleash this calamity —  changing our world, completely and forever. Jaded as we have become in an age of in-your-face news coverage, there may yet be that one crisis, that one time, when the unthinkable become reality.

It is at just such a moment that Abigail Callon finds herself. As the daughter of a well-connected diplomat, she's enjoyed a life of luxury and privilege, though this has hardly made her soft, rather endowed her with a sense of duty and the assurance of command. Asked by her distracted father to handle the scandal about to erupt over the actions of her drug dependent and indulged younger sister, she has no choice but to agree. Furious, she heads to the country house where Rachel has been quickly bundled off to dry out before meeting with the authorities.

Once home Abigail cannot abide her sister's weakness and they argue bitterly. Things are said that can?t be taken back. It?s only later as she passes the evening with friends that she?s informed by the family overseer that Rachel has stolen one of the cars and run off. She has no time to react before the unthinkable occurs ‹ a warning from the Emergency Broadcast System. A disaster of epic proportions is about to unfold.

Desperate and terrified, those at the Callon house that night take shelter in the wine cellar below. They are a small, frightened lot ‹ Abigail, her overseer Evan Wyatt, best friends Laine and Jeff Fulton, the brave and beautiful Julia, bright, entertaining Anna, and the newlyweds, Ellen and Michael, just back from a romantic honeymoon. Somehow this group of close friends manages to endure the dark days, endless and terrible, as they await news of what?s become of the world above, their families and friends, all they?ve ever known. When at last the time comes to leave the shelter of the cellar, no one has any idea of what to expect.

The destruction is devastating, awful and overwhelming, scarring the men who witness it first. Evan in particular, is torn up inside by the deaths of the ranch hands, who clearly sacrificed themselves to protect the occupants of the house. These men had been a part of his everyday world ‹ he?d liked them and trusted them, worked along side them and fought hard to win their respect. Their deaths weigh heavily on his conscience. Both he and Abigail are profoundly effected by the selfless sacrifice, and a new determination to be worthy of that loyalty is born within each of them.

And so they make their way into the town itself, uncomfortable in the erie silence, heartbroken at the sights of the terrible last moments of the townspeople, many of whom they knew. Those hours change everything for the survivors, and they arrive at the town square to find the tattered remains of a once robust town, milling around and waiting for answers. Desperate and afraid, Abigail makes her way to the Council chamber and is invited to become a member of the only authority left in town.

As she and the others struggle with the enormity of the destruction, and the challenges of the world left to them, the townspeople face threats from all quarters. Some tough, terrible decisions need to be made, and no one seems capable of making them, leaving Abigail alone to bear the burdens. And when at last protection arrives in the form of a military division, no one is really sure if they are any safer with the detachment of well-trained soldiers and their formidable commander than they were helpless, on their own