The Way of Dan

Dan Slaughter has given up on appearances. With his wife dead and his kids grown, he’s slowly reverting back to the east Tennessee boy he used to be three decades earlier. He quit cutting his hair and started smoking pot. He drinks when he wants to and sings along with the classic songs of his lost youth.

After an EMP strands Dan in Boise, he escapes to the Idaho mountains with his new friend, Holly. She's not entirely sure what she's gotten herself into. She's straight-laced, pragmatic, and comes from a law enforcement background. Dan is a vigilante who thinks murder is sometimes the best solution to a problem. He's also a weed-smoking drinker who's constantly spouting his personal philosophy, The Way of Dan. Somehow, the two of them have to find a way to survive together in the close quarters of their isolated cabin.

Just when Dan and Holly think things can't get any stranger, a terrifying new presence arrives in their community. Faces smudged with ash. Bodies decorated with mysterious symbols. Crude hides for clothing. Weird rituals conducted in the dark of night.

As summer winds down in the mountains of Idaho, Dan and his group are preparing for a long winter in their hardened underground home. Unlike the majority of Americans, they have power, running water, and plenty of food thanks to the preparations of paranoid podcaster Kyle Cross.

The Rotten Belly Society was an order that existed among some Native Americans tribes of the Great Plains. The members of this society were compelled by powerful visions to devote their lives to being contrarians. In simple terms, they did things backwards for the purpose of educating people on how to behave properly. A similar principle was seen on a popular t-shirt of the 1980s that said, “I’m not useless—I can be used as a bad example.”