Disgraced LAPD officer Jason Long needs to get away from the cameras and clamoring reporters. When his friend Harris offers to hire him as a winter caretaker for his remote hunting lodge in the Crazy Mountains of Montana, it's an offer too good to refuse.

The world of man was brought to its knees with the zombie apocalypse. A hundred and fifty years have passed since man clawed and climbed his way back from the brink of extinction. Civilization has rebooted, man has begun to rebuild, creating new communities and society. It is on this fragile new shaky ground that a threat worse than the scourge of the dead has sprung... Once again, one man finds himself once thrust into the forefront of a war he wants nothing to do with and seemingly cannot win.

Almena Guillory, better known as the Grizzly Queen of the West, has plenty to recommend her for the noose, but US Marshal Apostle Richardson enforces the law, he doesn't decide it. When a posse tries to lynch Almena ahead of her trial, Apostle refuses their form of expedited justice - and receives a bullet for his trouble. Before escaping, however, Almena unexpectedly saves his life by absorbing his wound through the use of dangerous flesh magic.

Fifteen-year-old Benny Imura lives in a world infested with zombies where, when a kid turns 15, he must get a job to continue receiving food rations. Benny has no interest in the family business of zombie killing, but figures he doesn’t have much of a choice. He’s tried out a bunch of other jobs, and hasn’t found anything he likes. But as Benny starts training with his brother, he learns things about being human that he never expected.

Once, Frank Morgan had a wife and a future on the land — until a rich man with a grudge drove him out of Colorado. Since then, Morgan's taken up the one skill that always came easy — gunfighting — and drifted to a mining town in the New Mexico Territory. But there's nothing easy about two vicious gangs descending on the town and threatening to wreak havoc. With his reputation preceding him, Morgan is elected to stand in the outlaws' way.

James Crowley met his mortal end in a hail of gunfire. Now, he finds himself in purgatory, serving the White Throne to avoid falling to hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his servitude and fade away. His not-so-sacred duty as a Hand of God? Use his new abilities to hunt down demonic beings that have infiltrated the mortal realm. This time, the White Throne has sent him to the middle of nowhere: a Western town called Dead Acre with a saloon, a moldy church, and little else worth talking about. There isn’t even a sheriff.

When an impressionable runaway joins a group of buffalo hunters in the 1870s, he begins to question whether it is nature that he must confront--or the nature of man.

In 1875, two young Sioux are lynched in Lockwood, Wyoming, by a makeshift posse for a crime they may or may not have committed. Ethan Ramsey knows he must act quickly to prevent a bloody retaliation from their Sioux tribe. Can he gain the trust of both the Sioux and the townspeople of Lockwood to allow enough time to unravel the mystery of the crime and ensure justice is fairly served?

Parker Stanley's family had a dream: to start a new life in the Far West. But en route, a Cheyenne band slaughters his parents and abducts his sister. Then cowboy Clay Springer rides to the rescue - and comes up with an idea. He's got a team ready to deliver goods to the Mormons in Utah, but he's short on funds for supplies. He knows that Parker managed to hold on to his family's savings, so he suggests a 50-50 partnership. With a three-wagon, seven-man team, Parker and Clay will traverse the barren land, but out in the wilderness, Parker's sister needs saving - and he has vowed to find her.

St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts - mangled soldiers, tortured slaves, the innocent victims of war - and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated cities as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains west with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.

He began his life as a slave. During the Civil War he escaped and lived among the Indians in the Oklahoma Territories. He learned to ride, shoot and track prey from his adopted people. When the war ended, he was recruited as one of the first black marshals in the history of the west.

It was passed down from generation to generation. The legend of The Dark'Un, the strange beast that roamed Pale Dove Mountain. The dark monster that no one had ever seen - at least not and lived to tell about it - except, so it was said, old Fletcher Brice who lived at the foot of the mountain. No one really believed in The Dark'Un. It was just a story to make a child's flesh crawl.

The weird, wild west - an American frontier populated by gunslingers, rattlesnakes, outlaws, zombies, aliens, time travelers, and steampunk! Twenty-three of science fiction and fantasy's hottest and most popular authors create all-new tales, written exclusively for this anthology. Aliens and monsters, magic and science are introduced to the old west, with explosive results.

The last days of the Civil War. With Richmond under siege, Confederate soldier Luke Jensen is assigned the task of smuggling gold out of the city before the Yankees get their hands on it — when he is ambushed and robbed by four deserters, shot in the back, and left for dead. Taken in by a Georgia farmer and his beautiful daughter, Luke is nursed back to health. Though crippled, he hopes to reunite with his long-lost brother Smoke, but a growing romance keeps him on the farm.

When Kate Thompson's father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the 18-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.

When Kate Thompson's father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the 18-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.

Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden—especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way—is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in.

Earl Swagger is tough as hell. But even tough guys have their secrets. Plagued by the memory of his abusive father, apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a decorated ex-Marine of absolute integrity — and overwhelming melancholy. Now he’s about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet. It is the summer of 1946, organized crime’s garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good.

Deadwood Gulch stars bounty hunter Cas Everett, lightning fast on the draw and deadly as a nest of rattlers. When Cas returns home and finds his ma, pa, and siblings planted in fresh graves, he vows to call down the thunder on all those responsible.

Mauled by a giant grizzly and left to die, 16 year-old Jose Olano's chances for life were remote. Then, like a guardian angel, came Robert "Gray Eagle" McAllister, one-time army scout and sometime outlaw. In his flight to escape a posse, he finds the brutalized body of Jose. Knowing his decision to help Jose may mean his own death, he stays and brings Jose back from the brink of death. Thus began one of the greatest companionships ever known to the Idaho frontier.

Justice is a drifter with no fear and no memory, trailed by a violent past. Nora is a beautiful widow bravely raising her young son on an isolated New Mexican ranch. When a ruthless cattle baron pushes longhorns into the valley, Justice vows to protect Nora and her boy. But how can he succeed against thirty hired guns… including the four outlaws who left him for dead?

The literary legacy of USA Today best-selling author and Medicine Pipe Bearer Award nominee Ralph Compton lives on in Ride the Hard Trail. Hiding from the law, brothers Lin and Chancy Bryce hire on as cowpunchers at a widow’s ranch. But soon they’re embroiled in a range war with a nefarious cattle baron who has a small army of hired guns protecting his interests.

St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts - mangled soldiers, tortured slaves, the innocent victims of war - and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated cities as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains west with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.

Heaster Wharton is dead, and his passing might mean an end to hostilities between the Manders and the Coys. If the the elderly patriarch showed the kindness and foresight to split his land cleanly between his feuding descendants, then a truce could be arranged. But his final request is a strange one, delivered across the country to the straggling remnants of his tribe. Representatives from both families must visit a cave at the edge of his property in the hills of Kentucky.

Fifteen-year-old Benny Imura lives in a world infested with zombies where, when a kid turns 15, he must get a job to continue receiving food rations. Benny has no interest in the family business of zombie killing, but figures he doesn’t have much of a choice. He’s tried out a bunch of other jobs, and hasn’t found anything he likes. But as Benny starts training with his brother, he learns things about being human that he never expected.

Part lawman, part tracker and part magician, the Wardens are monster-hunters—tasked with protecting people from the nightmarish creatures that have invaded the world of men. However, despite being descended from a long line of Wardens, Errol Magnus believes it to be the absolute worst job on the planet: How could a single occupation simultaneously be the most boring, abominably stupid and extraordinarily dangerous profession imaginable?

Rafe Kincaid controls everything in his life... until he meets Julia. Julia Gilliland has always been interested in the natural world around her. She particularly enjoys studying the fossils and formations in the magnificent cave near her father’s house. The cave seems plenty safe—until the day a mysterious intruder steals the rope she uses to climb out. Rafe Kincaid is a man used to being in control—of himself, his brothers, and his family’s ranch.

Among the Northern Cheyenne of the Great Plains lives a boy named Winterfox, whose family has fought monsters since the days of the Spanish conquistadors. In the aftermath of Westward Expansion, he has become the sole heir to their blood feud against the Beast. Winterfox comes of age in the long shadows of the American frontier, a time when magic has not yet passed into myth. It is a place where the mundane and fantastic still walk side by side, and the warrior society of the Rédo’osnin Dog Men will be remembered a little while longer.

The Facility is a research centre that specialises in cryptozoology, the search for legendary creatures. Once these ‘cryptids’ are found, they are caged, abused and experimented on to graft their physical prowess onto ordinary soldiers. Even as the Facility’s troops hunt down Shaw, and the cunning Cryptid Nine plans her escape, something far more horrifying is emerging from hibernation to feed. And both human and cryptid will discover that nothing can stop the Wendigo....

Louisiana, 2065. A lot has changed in the 43rd year of the Kurian Order. Possessed of an unnatural and legendary hunger, the bloodthirsty Reapers have come to Earth to establish a New Order built on the harvesting of enslaved human souls. They rule the planet. They thrive on the scent of fear. And if it is night, as sure as darkness, they will come.

On this pitiless world, the indomitable spirit of mankind still breathes in Lieutenant David Valentine.