Simsion. Zero prefers to keep his life simple. Although he is easily one of the largest and cleverest boys in his year, he runs from any sign of confrontation. His best friend—his only friend—is nothing like him. Obsessed with the world outside of the city walls, Lefty is always pushing the boundaries set by society's Elite. It’s only a matter of time before they have gone too far and they’re forced to face the horrors of the "old world" on their own. Can they survive and learn to coexist with the dangerous Remnants of the old world? Are the Remnants of the old world even the worst of their problems, or do the Elite of their own society pose an even greater threat?

    This is Volume 2. Look for Volume 1 in the series for more great stories!When the world falls apart, when civilization collapses, when life as we know it ends, our greatest terrors becomes real. Perhaps it's nuclear war with its poisonous radiation, hideous plagues or chemical contamination, rogue artificial intelligences controlling killer robots, or zombies that turn our friends and neighbors into inhuman monsters. What can the common man or woman do in the face of apocalyptic fears?Apocalyptic Fears I and II are collections of bestselling, award-winning or just plain exciting stories by some of the best independent authors of today.Knights and Demons: Tanshuku by Greg DragonSurviving the apocalypse means staying clear of monsters. Alysia never dreamed her first years as an adult would be spent fighting demons. However, as the chosen warrior of the Turevila, she must defeat them in order to save the world.Massacre at Lonesome Ridge: A Zombie Western by Samantha WarrenSheriff Connor McClane would like the world to leave him in peace at the bottom of the bottle he's crawled into. Unfortunately an army of the undead, led by Charity Banks, very unhappy transplant to the west, have other plans for him.You Will Be Like God by Steve StrobleIn 2095, being a parent is complicated but eliminating grandchildren is profitable. Bud Lee believes he has proof that his boss is plotting to decide Earth's fate by recruiting surrogate children into a think tank named The Club.Ink: Red, by Al K. LineThe needle buzzed. The nightmare began. Strapped to a gurney, Edsel watched in horror as they tattooed his entire body bright red. His captors were overconfident; he escaped, only to be chased across the ravaged city.Numbers Game by Rebecca RodeTreena isn't sure she wants to be Rated anymore. This number will brand her forever. But Rating Day comes and her number is announced-and it shocks everyone.Swarmers by R. V. DoonA lethal virus with no known cure is awakened in a secret lab and goes airborne. Their world is forever altered, and the stunned survivors must keep fighting for their very existence.Thrown Away, Parts 1-3 by Glynn JamesAmong the remnants of mankind it is thought that the strangers who live behind the barrier, inside their protected city, may still hold that secret. But no one taken by the hunters from the city ever comes back.The Flense: China by Saul TanpepperA fiery train crash in northern China. A sinking off the Libyan coast. Villagers vanish in Ghana. Each event is preceded by the sudden spread of a mysterious ailment and is followed by the appearance of a man dressed in black and silver who witnesses claim is the devil himself.Zombie Maneuvers by Griffin CarmichaelBefore the world fell apart, Janet's life was already indistinguishable from Hell. In Connor, she'd thought she found a strong protector, someone who would take care of her. What she got was a brutal man who used and abused her.The Moon Dwellers by David EstesSeventeen-year-old Adele, a member of the middle-class moon dwellers, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for her parents' crimes of treason. Against all odds, Adele must escape and find her family while being hunted by a deranged killing machine named Rivet.The Protectors by Ryan KingIt's been twenty years since the Great Plague.

    When Riley was born, her mother escaped the Breeders, the group of doctors using cruel experiments to bolster the dwindling human race. Her parents do everything possible to keep her from their clutches-- moving from one desolate farm after another to escape the Breeders' long reach. The Breeders control everything- the local war lords, the remaining factories, the fuel. They have unchecked power in this lawless society. And they're hunting Riley.When the local Sheriff abducts the adult members of her family and hands her mother over to the Breeders, Riley and her eight-year-old brother, Ethan, hiding in a shelter, are left to starve. Then Clay arrives, the handsome gunslinger who seems determined to help to make up for past sins. The problem is Clay thinks Riley is a bender-- a genderless mutation, neither male nor female. As Riley's affection for Clay grows she wonders can she trust Clay with her secret and risk her freedom?The three embark on a journey across the scarred remains of New Mexico-- escaping the Riders who use human sacrifice to appease their Good Mother, various men scrambling for luck, and a deranged lone survivor of a plague. When Riley is shot and forced into the Breeder's hospital, she learns the horrible fate of her mother—a fate she'll share unless she can find a way out.

     Author's note: This story was previously published as ENTER THE DEATH CIRCUS. EPISODE 1: When love is crime, who will save the guilty? After falling in love and fathering a child, a young criminal refuses to voluntarily throw himself into a lake of fire to gain his community's forgiveness. So he's sentenced to death and sold to the owner of a spaceship that buys criminals like him. But the ship and its crew are not quite what they appear to be.

    He gets sucked in to an “off the books Black Ops mission” to rescue victims of Human Trafficking being sold into sexual slavery. He meets Nõnkos Zia or Nõn. A woman born in South Africa and herself a former victim of Muti-medicine, a type of medicine still practiced in South Africa that weaves the occult and human sacrifices into the locals belief system. She is also a victim of human trafficking, from which she barely escaped after taking revenge on her captors. They are outsiders in a dark twisted tale of deceit, lies and double crosses that take them to the “Darien Gap” of Panama, one of the most remote areas in the world to hunt human traffickers.

    Technology has been reduced to legend, monsters roam the forests, and fear reigns supreme. But that is just the beginning... The wind-borne spores are spreading, disfiguring men and twisting their minds, turning them into creatures that threaten to destroy the townships. Among the townsfolk, political and the religious, dissension is spreading. Through it all, a mother must protect her son...

    It triggers dreams of disasters. Tragedies that happen exactly as he envisions them. He learns that not only can he see the future, he can change it. Then the unthinkable happened and everyone ignored his frantic warnings. Thousands die. Suddenly, the Feds are pounding on his door and the name they have for Taylor isn't urban hero. It's enemy combatant. And, it means they can do anything they want to him. Anything at all.

    Except now he cannot escape the war that follows every step of the way as he and Henry—his comrade in arms—seek rest and recuperation in the mountains.Instead of wine and women, they find Germans and a secret plot to destroy France’s hub of munitions production. Cut off and outnumbered, they recruit a motley army comprising a women’s auxiliary and an old farmer with a big rifle and bad attitude.There’ll be no rest for these soldiers, not until Michel and Henry go to war.

    The RIFT Saga begins here.In the ruins of what was once North America lays the Covenant, a nation forged by the iron will of the Moon people, who descended from their dusty refuge on the Moon after the Fall. The Moon people are wealthy, ruled by a strong government who protects its citizens from the dangers from outside their borders. Their greatest achievement is having learned the secret of immortality, and every citizen has the opportunity to live nearly forever if they choose to, a life of riches and abundance.The English are the descendants of the original inhabitants of this place, and they live very different lives from that of the Moon people. They only live to serve the greater good, and citizenship is something few have the opportunity to earn. At the age of fifty all non-citizens are subjected to mandatory euthanasia. In order to maintain a sustainable society, they are told.Every year a number of girls and boys at the age of eighteen are selected for Service to the State. The brightest and most talented are sent to become Students. The strong, the fighters and the athletes become Janissaries, a band of soldiers protecting the northern border from the enemies of the Covenant. The Wardens, a secretive organization known to operate far to the west, near the Rift, which makes up the border to the wastelands, sometimes choses one or two initiates, but nobody knows what becomes of them. And then there is the Corpus, where the whip rules and backs are bent.Those who complete their Service, may become citizens. And although they will never be equal to the Moon people, they will have access to all the riches and opportunities granted by the Covenant leadership to its citizens.As Sue is nearing Selection Day, she secretly hopes to be chosen, despite having to leave her mother and brother behind. She doesn't crave glory or wealth though. A man or woman with citizen status can do a lot of good, and although few return to their home towns, Sue hopes to return to give her family a better life on the other side of Service.But the Covenant is rotten to the core, and as she begins to learn its secrets, Sue must question everything she has always taken for granted. Soon she will find herself in dire peril, for she has seen the truth and there will be no turning back after that...This science fiction dystopian trilogy is set more than two centuries after the events of Exodus, in a future dystopian society forged from the ashes of global disaster."Mr. Christensen has absolutely found his genre, and I hope he keeps the stories coming!"

    A network of wormholes connects the far-flung segments of humanity, allowing virtually instantaneous travel between Star Systems connected by this vast, invaluable network. But what happens when one of those wormholes collapses and an entire Sector of relatively poor worlds is left to fend for itself without support, without guidance, and without the vast infrastructure of the Imperium available to its citizens? What might such a society look like after two centuries of independence, having been left to devise their own culture, values, and government? Welcome to the Chimera Sector. The citizens of this seemingly-forgotten splinter of the Imperium hold one belief above all others: Only when the leaders fear the voters as much as the voters fear the leaders can harmony be achieved. To achieve this harmony, a special type of guild was created called the Timent Electorum. The operatives of this guild -- called 'Adjusters' -- work at the behest of the voting public, and exclusively punish political corruption, tyranny, and treason with the ultimate sanction: assassination. This is the story of one such Adjuster, Jericho, who forges an unlikely alliance with an urban detective, Masozi, whose steadfast adherence to the Sector's core principles have placed her in harm's way. Acting together in a tenuous alliance, they will follow a trail of corruption across the Virgin Star System and witness the birth of a conflict which will forever change them -- along with the entire Chimera Sector.

    You die, or you Qualify. The year is 2047. An extinction-level asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and the descendents of ancient Atlantis have returned from the stars in their silver ships to offer humanity help.But there’s a catch.They can only take a tiny percent of the Earth’s population back to the colony planet Atlantis. And in order to be chosen, you must be a teen, you must be bright, talented, and athletic, and you must Qualify.Sixteen-year-old Gwenevere Lark is determined not only to Qualify but to rescue her entire family.Because there’s a loophole.If you are good enough to Qualify, you are eligible to compete in the brutal games of the Atlantis Grail, which grants all winners the laurels, high tech luxuries, and full privileges of Atlantis Citizenship. And if you are in the Top Ten, then all your wildest wishes are granted… Such as curing your mother’s cancer.There is only one problem.Gwen Lark is known as a klutz and a nerd. While she’s a hotshot in classics, history, science, and languages, the closest she’s come to sports is a backyard pool and a skateboard.This time she is in over her head, and in for a fight of her life, against impossible odds and world-class competition—including Logan Sangre, the most amazing guy in her class, the one she’s been crushing on, and who doesn’t seem to know she exists.Because every other teen on Earth has the same idea. You Qualify or you die. * * *EXCERPT!Now you can read Chapter One in its entirety (click here)!* * *

    Just like everyone else. For years, Mari has been anxiously awaiting the day when she will receive her Amplifier; a small device implanted behind the ear that gives someone limitless capabilities through verbal commands. But once she finally becomes Amplified and begins mandatory Training with the rest of her peers, she begins to see that her natural ability to resist and act for herself brings dangerous consequences, as well as unwanted scrutiny from Governor Plenaris, the Community's most revered official. She grows increasingly wary of the Amplifiers as she watches how they affect her friends and brother, constantly wondering if Amplification is really as fantastic as she thought it would be. Sure, she can perform elaborate acrobatics and recall obscure information, but how can she be sure the Amplifier isn't controlling her? Perfect for those who enjoyed Divergent and Ender's Game, The Amplified is the first in a clean three book series that explores a society where no one has to make any effort as long as they know the right thing to say.

     A group of men including Richie, Buddy, and the unlikely Elvis resolve that times are way too hot in Miami, Florida and decide to trek out, on their own, as far to the north as they can make it. Richie, who is the leader of their faction, suggests Alaska as the most favorable destination and the journey begins. They find themselves navigating the U.S. and Canadian Highways through long and lonely nights, sleeping in underground dwellings to avoid the deadly radiation of the daylight hours. Throughout their travels they scavenge limited supplies in department stores and gas stations in order to sate thirst, hunger, and the need for ammunition to protect against the looming threat of human nature. As the three life-long friends make their way toward Alaska, they encounter new friends in the form of a strong, but damaged, woman who will hold them even closer together, a young girl and her substitute father, and an improbable stray cat. They find grave dangers in the forms of a loving father and his two seemingly innocent daughters, groups of cannibals and the people trying to avoid them, and a lack of easily procured supplies that have met the same fate as the charred plants and animals of the globe. The sun, though the most obvious hazard to their journey, is seemingly the easiest to overcome. Only determination, cunning, and loyalty to each other can ensure their survival in this savage existence.

    They didn’t foresee the consequences of such a creation, however.Deemed The Genesis, the Intelligence quickly decided humanity couldn’t continue in its current form, that if it did, destruction awaited the world. Resorting to drastic measures, entire generations of humans grew from laboratories, and within a thousand years, the threat of destruction evaporated.Now, in a world where humans must meet specifications to continue living, a man named Caesar emerges. Not meeting specifications, indeed, thinking things no human should, eyes fall on Caesar, eyes that could kill him or lift him up, lead him to tragedy or revolution.

    What comes is a blinding blizzard, and a mass disappearance of nearly every person Robby Pierce knows. He and his family flee, trying to escape the snow and the invisible forces stealing people right from the street.Miles away, Brad Jenkins battles the same storm. Alone, he attempts to survive as snow envelops his house. When the storm breaks, Brad makes his way south to where the snow ends and the world lies empty. Join Brad, Robby, and the other survivors as they fight to find the truth about the apocalypse and discover how to live in their new world.