The Pocket

THEY DIDN’T NEED TO WIN A WAR OF BULLETS. THEY JUST NEEDED TO TURN OFF OUR LIGHTS.

On a Tuesday evening, every circuit from the Pacific to the Atlantic dies at once. No warning. No coming back. Fire Captain Jacob Rome is twenty-five miles from home. He walks. Past stalled cars, past the first fires, past the first bodies. This is the shape of a country realizing, in real time, that no one is coming.

His wife Olivia is already moving. A NICU nurse, two kids, a cold house, a propane tank that won't last the winter. She doesn't panic. She prepares.

What they build is called The Pocket. A stretch of Oregon foothill. A handful of frightened neighbors turned garrison. Office workers and schoolteachers learning to butcher, to dig, to stand watch with a rifle across their knees.

But The Pocket can't hold forever. Winter is close. A splinter becomes sepsis. A neighbor becomes a threat. And somewhere beyond the dark, the people who threw the switch are planning their next move.

The EMP wasn't the end of America. It was the opening move.

C.J. Lenz is an American fiction author best known for The Western Eclipse Series, a grounded, highly realistic exploration of post-apocalyptic survival, community defense, and human resilience after an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).A Fire Captain and Paramedic in the Pacific Northwest, Lenz brings years of real-world emergency response, crisis management, and tactical leadership directly to the page. Frustrated by post-apocalyptic fiction dominated by superhero tropes, bulletproof protagonists, and unrealistic military gear, he began writing to deliver authentic, hyper-grounded stories where real logistics, resource scarcity, and human psychology drive the narrative.When he isn't on shift or working on his next manuscript, Lenz lives on ten acres in Western Oregon with his wife, a Registered Nurse, and their two children. Together, they manage a homestead complete with gardens, feather-footed poultry, and honeybees. An avid camper and traveler, both locally throughout the Pacific Northwest and internationally, his firsthand experience with self-reliance, land management, and emergency medicine forms the backbone of his fictional world.Published under CAMC Publishing, C.J. Lenz's novels emphasize true-to-life mechanics, agrarian cooperation, and the stark realities of standing your ground when modern infrastructure disappears.