Fiction Survival Stories

This third volume of Louis L'Amour's collected stories is a thrilling tribute to the unique spirit of our frontier heritage and proves again the enduring popularity of America's favorite storyteller.

When the black rain began to fall, it was a worldwide phenomenon that mystified everyone. There was little time to ponder the cause. Most animals died at the onset. While some humans were unaffected, others experienced a half-death of sorts, morphing into blood and flesh-crazed creatures with a desire to hunt the living. Climbing Fox Wattana of the Henomawi Nation claims responsibility for the black rain; he says it will will ensure the ultimate extinction of the United States government as revenge for robbing his people of their land. Cole "CB" Baxter isn't taking this lying down.

When a planet-destroying Delver suddenly appears in the sky of Detritus and vanishes just as suddenly, FM knows that the last free human society got lucky. Her Skyward Flight companion, Spensa, figured out how to draw this Delver away, but it won’t be so easy next time. The forces of the Galactic Superiority will be back - and if the Defiant Defense Force can’t figure out a way to escape the planet, humanity’s destruction is only a matter of time.

Deep into the coldest, Midwest winter on record, an electromagnetic pulse has taken out the nation’s power grid, plunging St. Louis into frigid darkness. Can ordinary people survive the apocalypse? Pre-med student Raine Caldwell is about to find out. The government isn’t coming to rescue her. If Raine and her group are going to make it, they must save themselves. After finding themselves in a community terrorized by ruthless and dangerous people, Raine and the others in her group must pull together to find justice, when one of their own is taken.

Beneath the inky black surface of Lake Ness lurks something too monstrous for this world... Gerry Lawson, a washed-up scientist slowly recovering from a life that got out of his control, finds himself saying yes when his cousin Marnie asks him to help her and her partner Jim with an outdoor survival program for disadvantaged kids. Not quite sure what he's let himself in for, he slowly adjusts to the isolated environment of Lake Ness and the challenges of living with a bunch of often erratic and unpredictable teenagers. However, it's not long before their best-laid plans start to unravel. ...

"The Dawn of Civilization" is a captivating and immersive journey into the prehistoric world. The story is set in a vast and rugged wilderness, where towering mountains and deep valleys are home to an array of dangerous creatures. The tribe is governed by a leader who takes guidance from a council of elders and is based on a clan system, with a culture rich and diverse, with a complex system of beliefs and customs passed down for centuries. The characters are larger-than-life, and readers will follow their journey as they navigate life's challenges in the prehistoric world. The struggles ...

It's 1944 and the world is at war. Hideki lives peacefully with his family on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. Until the day WWII reaches their door. Hideki is drafted into the "Blood and Iron Imperial Corps" to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed two grenades and a set of instructions: go off into the jungle, and don't come back until you've killed an American soldier. Meanwhile, young American soldier Ray Majors has just landed on the beach in Okinawa. He doesn't know what to expect, or if he'll make it out alive, but he knows he must keep moving forward.

Audie Award, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2016. The year is 2575, and two rival mega-corporations are at war over a planet that's little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra - who are barely even talking to each other - are forced to fight their way onto one of the evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

A slow, sickening roll. A mournful shriek from the sirens. For the small town of Port Blossom, it’s the beginning of the end. On a quiet Friday morning, the residents of a peaceful Oregon coastal town are going about their lives. A mother hurries to get her daughter to school. A weary teacher prepares for one last field trip before retirement. A proud innkeeper argues over repairs to her historic hotel . High above them, a lone seismologist on a forced vacation understands the terrifying truth: a megathrust earthquake has just ruptured the Cascadia subduction zone, and a catastrophic ...

Ten concentration camps. Ten different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It's something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis, who have taken over. Everything he has and everyone he loves have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner - his arm tattooed with the words Prisoner B-3087.

Fresh off of heroically saving their city from nightmarish monsters, 12-year-old reformed thieves Arthur and Wally are determined to join the Wardens of Weirdwood, defenders of the border between the Real and Imaginary worlds. Their mission: Defeat the Order of Eldar, a shadowy group that is willing to do whatever it takes to expand their power - even exploit the magical creatures of the Fae. When the Order opens what seems to be a Rift between the worlds of the living and the dead, they set up a menagerie of ghosts to make money off those grieving for their lost loved ones.

In Tag’s world, children are disappearing. “Youngers” who venture Outside are windswept—vanishing in the swirling snow—Tag’s sisters among them. Many have tried to find the lost children; all have failed. And since the Other Times, the Powers That Be seem intent on keeping it that way. Little remains from those times: snippets of songs, heaps of plastic trash, and a few banned texts—including a book of fairytales.

In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel". They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers.

Can a robot survive in the wilderness? When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is - but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants. As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home - until, one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

He didn’t want revenge. He didn’t want redemption. He wanted out...on his own terms. Emmett “Red” Callahan was supposed to disappear inside Alcatraz, the coldest, hardest prison in America. A decorated Navy engineer turned convict, Red keeps his head down and his mind sharp, Waiting. Watching. Planning. Because no cage, no matter how well built, can hold a man who refuses to be broken. But when the fog rolls in, so does his chance to vanish, and with it, a race against time, tides, and the eyes of everyone determined to see him fail. With only a stitched-together raft, a stolen tide...

Swift, a young wolf cub, lives with his pack in the mountains learning to hunt, competing with his brothers and sisters for hierarchy, and watching over a new litter of cubs. Then a rival pack attacks, and Swift and his family scatter. Alone and scared, Swift must flee and find a new home. His journey takes him a remarkable 1,000 miles across the Pacific Northwest. The trip is full of peril, and Swift encounters forest fires, hunters, highways, and hunger before he finds his new home.

Zimbabwe, 2194. General Matsika's three children sneak out of the house on a forbidden adventure and disappear. Immediately,the general calls Africa's most unusual detectives: the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. Together these three detectives combine their superhuman powers to find the missing children. It's a dangerous mission that leads them from the seedy streets of the Cow's Guts to the swaying top of the Mile-High MacIlwaine Hotel.

Maddie and Logan were torn apart by a kidnapping attempt when they were young. They were only kids - Logan's dad was POTUS and Maddie's father was the Secret Service agent meant to guard him. The kidnappers were stopped - but Maddie was whisked off to Alaska with her father, for safety. Maddie and Logan had been inseparable...but then she never heard from him again. Now it's a few years later. Maggie's a teenager, used to living a solitary life with her father. It's quiet - until Logan is sent to join them.

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20s. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters—or Freaks—who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings.

An LGBTQ Post-Apocalyptic Romance “Kid has a point, though. You’re not worried about bringing a strange man home?” Alison gave him an unsmiling look. “Just don’t try anything.” Her free hand clutched the knife at her belt. “You wouldn’t be the first man I’ve ever gutted.” When a stranger finds his way to their camp, Alison is wise to be wary. She can't be too careful in the devastated world they've found themselves in after the Fall. She had the children, Manuel and Tammy, to consider. Dangerous animals and raiders were the norm these days and protecting their ...