“John paused and looked back down the street for a moment. I’m living in a damn Norman Rockwell painting, he thought yet again, for the thousandth time.”

John’s description of Black Mountain will change radically over the course of the story. This quote from the opening chapter sets the baseline for normalcy, and the horrors that follow can only be appreciated in the context of this comparison. 

“Something was wrong. And at this moment, for the first time in a long while, his ‘city survival senses’ were kicking in [...] The interstate, at that instant, had become the wrong neighborhood.”

This quote ominously foreshadows the barbarism about to be unleashed. John originally comes from New Jersey, so he has considerable street smarts. Living in rural North Carolina, he never expects to draw upon those instincts.

“‘The enemy will never attack you where you are strongest. … He will attack where you are weakest. If you do not know your weakest point, be certain, your enemy will,’ Charlie said.”

Charlie quotes Sun Tzu’s treatise on warfare while the town council debates the source of the EMP strike. This quote, which applies to the United States as a whole, is equally applicable to Black Mountain because it will need to shore up its weakest defenses against local enemies.