Plot summary
It is a typical evening in a typical suburban community outside of New York City. At the residence of physician Bill Stockton, he enjoys a birthday party being thrown for him by his wife Grace and their son Paul. Also at the party are Jerry Harlowe, Bill's brother-in-law; Frank Henderson and Marty Weiss, Bill and Jerry's former college roommates; and the wives and children of Jerry, Frank, and Marty. Bill is well known and liked by this gathering. Moreover, Bill has repeatedly ministered to the health and well-being of each one of the guests.
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. Suddenly, a Civil Defense announcement overheard by young Paul is made that unidentified objects have been detected heading for the United States. In these times, everyone knows what this means: nuclear attack.
As panic ensues, Stockton locks himself and his family into his shelter. His friends become hysterical and now want to occupy the shelter. Stockton offers his basement to the guests, but the shelter itself has sufficient air, provisions, and space for a total of three people. The once-friendly neighbors do not accept this. All of the previous cordiality is now replaced with soaring desperation: pent-up hostility, nativism, and other suppressed emotions boil to the surface. They break down the shelter door with an improvised battering ram. Just then, a final Civil Defense broadcast announces that the objects have been identified as harmless satellites and that no danger is present. His neighbors apologize to each other, and to the doctor, for their behavior; yet Stockton wonders aloud if they were all destroyed without a bomb dropping.
Credits
Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, The Shelter (The Twilight Zone). Paragraphs and formatting adjusted; illustrations, reference markers, block quotations and non-story material omitted.