They break down the shelter door with an improvised battering ram. All of the previous cordiality is now replaced with soaring desperation: pent-up hostility, nativism, and other suppressed emotions boil to the surface. The once-friendly neighbors do not accept this. Stockton offers his basement to the guests, but the shelter itself has sufficient air, provisions, and space for a total of three people.

His friends become hysterical and now want to occupy the shelter. Suddenly, a Civil Defense announcement overheard by young Paul is made that unidentified objects have been detected heading for the United States, indicating a nuclear attack.Īs panic ensues, Stockton locks himself and his family into his shelter. Everyone is friendly and jovial, even when mention is made of Bill's late-night work on a fallout shelter which he has built in his basement. Moreover, Bill has repeatedly administered to the health and well-being of each one of the guests. Bill is well known and liked by this gathering. Also at the party are Jerry Harlowe, Bill's brother-in-law Frank Henderson and Marty Weiss, Bill and Jerry's former State University roommates and the wives and children of Jerry, Frank, and Marty. At the residence of physician Bill Stockton, he enjoys a birthday party being thrown for him by his wife Grace and their son Paul. It is a typical evening in a typical suburban community outside of New York City. But in this place, in this moment, it does happen. It is not meant to be prophetic, it need not happen, it's the fervent and urgent prayer of all men of good will that it never shall happen. What you are about to watch is a nightmare.

It is one of the few Twilight Zone episodes to feature no supernatural or sci-fi elements. ' The Shelter' is episode 68 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 3)

Fallout shelter sign