Apocalyptic Fantasy

Cotton Crossing was a dead end, but not for Ginny Mills. She's just marking time, getting experience in the county library system, before moving back to a decent urban environment. Then the phones stop working. Lee Quartine knows there's no way the pretty girl at the library will even look at him. Especially since he can't open his mouth. He knows he's a hick, but when the power starts going out and the woods are full of strange creatures, it's good to have someone around who can build a fire. And kill.

The galaxy burns. The enemy, a race of alien scorpions, storms from star to star. Planets smolder in their wake. Across the galaxy, they hunt humans. Long ago, we humans had a planet of our own. Long ago, we could have resisted the scorpions. But today we are refugees. We are lost in darkness. We haven't seen Earth in 2,000 years. We, the last humans, must band together. We must resist. We must fight the scorpions. And we must find Earth! Only Earth can unite us. Only Earth can kindle our hope. Only on Earth can we defend our species.

The Gateway Project was going to save our world by opening up a doorway to infinite versions of our planet. But the threshold has gone completely out of control, sending all those other Earths onto a collision course with ours. Now, our reality is cracking apart. Abby Corman did not open the Gateway, but she is the only one who knows how to close it. But an alien Hunter and her pack of deadly hellcats have stepped into our world, and they will stop at nothing to kill Abby.

Jay is a prisoner at a government mandated labor camp in the post war world, and is willing to risk his life in order to escape. Nothing can be worse than his current reality of working for no pay and choking down the slop they call food. The day before his big escape, Jay is handed an envelope and told to report to headquarters. It turns out he's been selected to participate in the Rare Bull Program (RBP), as he's one of the country's few surviving fertile males. The program is in its infancy, and it's his only way out of the camps. His entire life changes in an instant, as he puts on the ...

The Mechano Lord’s Leader is finally locked out—but Earth is far from safe. Just as survival seems within reach, Gaia’s true Monsters come calling. Rockland ‘Rocky’ Barkclay is done playing nice. With the Guild Collective’s invasion looming, humanity needs to level up—but old-world politics are slowing progress. While Sela maneuvers the political powers, Rocky does what he does best: smash through problems and grind for strength. Focusing on his Territory, Dungeon Development, and Place of Power, Rocky finally sees real gains. But have Gaia’s monsters just been in hiding?

Jason and Sophie are teachers at a rural high school north of Tampa, Florida. When an EMP attack spreads chaos and lawlessness, they are unexpectedly left responsible for a group of their former students. Without electricity, phones, or transportation, civilization collapses, and terror reigns. Jason's background as a decorated Army Ranger former officer and his history as a prepper help them. But can they survive in a world where organized predators prey on the young and innocent?

This is a SHORT STORY set within the ongoing THE UNSEEN franchise. Potential spoilers ahead! This short story stars the youngest character in the intense THE UNSEEN franchise, Hope Diaz. Her survival is one of heartache, terror, and perseverance, an event that occurs during book two of the main series, DESOLATION.

It's called "the event", an unimaginable cataclysm that shatters 600 million years of the Earth's timeline. Our world is gone, instantly replaced by a new one made of scattered remnants of the past, present, and future, dropped alongside one another in a patchwork of "shards". Monsters from Jurassic prehistory, ancient armies, and high-tech robots all coexist in this deadly post-apocalyptic landscape. A desperate group of survivors sets out to locate the source of the disaster.

Once a fearsome warrior of the new order, Kane discovers a secret that has damned humanity since the dawn of history. Now banished as an enemy of the state, he joins forces with Brigid Baptiste, keeper of the archives, and Grant, brother-in-arms and innovative weapons specialist. In the place that was once called New Mexico, Kane finds the first hidden clues to humanity's future.

America is on the verge of a second civil war, and Ava must pull it together if she wants to survive. Violent protest, widespread destruction, and politicians who insist on letting the disassociated vent their rage will bring America to her knees, threatening to decapitate the laws, principles, and values on which the country was founded. Ava refuses to give into fear, but she simply cannot survive on her own. She must deal with her crisis of faith and learn to trust other people, or she’ll never make it through the bloodiest period of America’s history.

When Jason Walker and his dog MMax are both badly injured in an IED explosion while serving in the European war in 2038, they are evacuated back to the United States for the chance to recuperate and heal. But before the two can reach the relative safety of their designated VA hospital in Tennessee an EMP blast creates havoc and brings down their plane, leaving them alone and vulnerable amidst the chaos of a country that is on the verge of complete and utter social collapse.

For 32 years archaeologist Julius Gabriel investigated the Mayan calendar, a 2,500-year-old enigma of time and space that predicts humanity will perish on December 21, 2012 (the winter solstice). Julius believes that certain mysterious sites represent pieces of a global puzzle linked to the salvation of our species. Ridiculed by his peers, Julius dies before he can solve the doomsday prophecy. Now only one person can prevent our annihilation: Julius' son, Michael, a patient locked up in a Miami mental asylum.

X is trapped living in the slums of the last remaining city on Earth. He can only venture out beyond the towering walls to scavenge relics of the old world when the sun is up. At night, like everybody else, he hides inside from the monsters of the shadows...until an unexpected death occurs a little too close to home. With the blame on his shoulders, and trigger-happy guards on his trail, X has no choice but to run. But the city was never a safe place to begin with, not really, and his only slim chance of survival lies outside the walls, in a landscape empty of humanity.

A cold sense of dèjá vu becomes reality as the group emerges from a gateway they'd survived before — a grim graveyard of lost friends and nightmares. The consuming need to escape the dangerous melancholy of the place forces Ryan and company onto the frozen tundra, where an even greater menace awaits. The forbidding land harbors a dying tribe — cursed members of the ancient Inuit, who seize the arrival of Ryan and his band as their last hope to appease angry gods...by offering them up as human sacrifice.

Sam Wallace had prepared for the end of the world as we know it. But when an EMP attack strikes as he's two hundred miles away from home, his survival skills face the ultimate test. Back home, Sam's wife, Lauren, the mayor of their small town, faces her own daunting challenges as she struggles to keep their son alive, care for her elderly parents, and keep their town from descending into chaos. When Unicoi falls into the hands of traitors, desperate residents take refuge at Camp Wallace.

In the radiation-blasted heart of the northwest, Ryan and his companions form a tenuous alliance with a society of women warriors in what may be the stunning culmination of their quest. After years of searching, they have found the gateway to the pre-dark cabal of the Illuminated Ones — and perhaps their one chance to reclaim the future from the jaws of madness. But to seize tomorrow, they must confront its deadly guardians: what is left of the constitutional Government of the United States of America.

In her new collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh delves into the dark heart of contemporary life and life five minutes from now and how easy it is to mix up one with the other. Her stories are post-bird flu, in the middle of medical trials, wondering if our computers are smarter than us, wondering when our jobs are going to be outsourced overseas, wondering if we are who we say we are, and not sure what we'd do to survive the coming zombie plague.

Return to the zombie apocalypse wasteland that is the Rot & Ruin in this short story collection from Jonathan Maberry. Benny Imura's zombie-infested adventures are well-chronicled in the gripping novels Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, Flesh & Bone, and Fire & Ash. But what else was happening while he was on his quest? Who were the others navigating the ravaged landscape full of zombies? Bits & Pieces fills in the gaps about what we know about First Night, surviving the plague, and traveling the land of Rot & Ruin.

Seventeen-year-old coder Jinx Marshall grew up spending weekends drilling with her paranoid dad for a doomsday she's sure will never come. She's an expert on self-heating meal rations, Krav Maga and extracting water from a barrel cactus. Now that her parents are divorced, she's ready to relax. Her big plans include making it to level 99 in her favorite MMORPG and spending the weekend with her new hunky stepbrother, Toby.

They survived the storm. They survived The Colony. But not everyone made it home. Not everyone made it back to the safety and security of the cabin. Nila now faces yet more difficult choices. Protect her daughter and friends at all costs, or once again trust those who claim they can save the world. With a possible cure on the horizon, what lengths will people go to in order to save the remainder of the human population?