Governments have collapsed. Cities have become graveyards filled with unspeakable horror. People have resorted to scavenging from the dead, or taking from the living. The entire industrialized world has become a wasteland of abandoned cars, decaying bodies, and feral animals. To stay alive, U.S. Deputy Marshal Mason Raines must forage for food, water, and gasoline while outgunning those who seek to take advantage of the apocalyptic anarchy. Together with his giant Irish wolfhound, Bowie, he aligns with survivors of the town of Boone in a life and death struggle against a gang of violent criminals. With each deadly encounter, Mason is forced to accept his place as one of the nation's few remaining lawmen. In a world now populated by escaped convicts, paranoid mutants, and government hit squads, his only hope to save the townspeople is to enforce his own brand of frontier justice.

    With fears of contracting the H1N1 virus running rampant throughout the country, people lined up in droves to try an attain one of the coveted vaccines. What was not known, was the effect this largely untested, rushed to market, inoculation was to have on the unsuspecting throngs. Within days, feverish folk throughout the country, convulsed, collapsed and died, only to be re-born. With a taste for brains, blood and bodies, these modern day zombies scoured the lands for their next meal. Overnight the country became a killing ground for the hordes of zombies that ravaged the land.This is the story of Michael Talbot, his family and his friends. This is their story a band of ordinary people just trying to get by in these extra-ordinary times. When disaster strikes, Mike a self-proclaimed survivalist, does his best to ensure the safety and security of those he cares for.Book 1 of the Zombie Fall-Out Trilogy follows our lead character in his self-deprecating, sarcastic best. What he encounters along the way leads him down a long dark road always skirting on the edge of insanity. Can he keep his family safe? Can he discover the secret behind Tommy's powers? Can he save anyone from the zombie Queen - a zombie that seems by all accounts to have some sort of hold over the zombies and Mike himself? Encircled in a seemingly safe haven called Little Turtle, Mike and his family together with the remnants of a tattered community while not fighting each other, fight against a relentless, ruthless, unstoppable force. This last bastion of civilization has made its final stand. God help them all.

    The endless surface of the water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.Our world is small. We’re on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep within us as taught to us by our forefathers.If I were to walk westward from here, I’d come across a barrier - the Wall. Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that's what everyone says. I’ve never seen one.'Leia lives on an island where children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they’re just ten years old. Across the island runs a Wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it should be shunned because they believe in salvation from across the sea. That's what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors.But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same again. Walt, the boy from the other side of the Wall, isn’t as foolish as she was always led to believe. And as Leia and Walt set out to bring the truth about both their societies to light, all the things they once took for granted fall by the wayside.Their island world is about to change... for better or for worse.

    Left to fend for herself with only a dog as her companion, she sets out on a journey to find others, leaving notes everywhere she goes…hoping that one day someone will come looking for her. When Riley meets the handsome yet mysterious Connor on the streets of Downtown San Diego, they form a bond unlike either has experienced before. When the things that go bump in the night turn out to be more than nightmares, the trio sets off for the mountains in search of an isolated resort where they can hunker down, away from the ominous shadows of the dead city streets. The peace and tranquility of the woods isn’t enough to keep the darkness away for long though and soon Riley and Connor are forced to accept that the World and the few people left alive in it will never be the same. The shadows of their past may haunt them forever…threatening to destroy what little dreams they have left of a future unless they fight to stay in the light and never lose their hope. 1/9 Family and Friends: The dog and I have left to find my Mom. Most of you know where her place is, the corner of 9th and F. I’ll leave a note there before I move on. Everyone here is…gone. I can’t stay. I’m not sure when or if I will come back here but leave a message anyway. I hope you find me. – Riley

    Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected. The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

    From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.

    He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, a malevolent force that feeds on the dark desires of the countless followers he has gathered into his service. His only desire is to find a special child named Swan—and destroy her. But those who would protect the girl are determined to fight for what is left of the world, and their souls. In a wasteland born of rage, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, the last survivors on earth have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity....

    Now four years later, as she steps out from the fallout shelter and into a zombie-infested world, he’s the only thing on her mind. Thanks to her father Peyton is now built to survive: with razor tipped nails, ocular implants and cybernetics that make her stronger, faster, and able to protect herself in a world filled with monsters. Yet all the weapons in the world can’t protect her heart when she runs into Chris again. The once sweet boy of her childhood has now grown into a tortured man--still furious at her for breaking his heart and never telling him why. Now the two of them find themselves on the run, forced to fight their way down the monster strewn east coast to reach the last human outpost on Earth: Walt Disney World. Can they find a way to let go of old hurts and regain the love they lost--all while attempting to save what’s left of the human race?

    No one knows what caused them to attack the living. Fighting for their lives, scattered survivors find the attempted cure to be almost worse than the disease.In the twilight of a shattered civilization, the fate of humankind rests upon the actions of a handful of war-weary survivors. Driven to a scorched corner of the former United States, they alone hold the key to a global reawakening.Or the final epitaph for a dead planet.

    There are no regular people anymore."Ten years ago when the world ended she ran for her life.Five weeks ago the world she'd hidden from came knocking on the door of her secluded cabin.Ten days ago she found salvation hiding amongst the dead.Yesterday she went back for the living.Today she wonders if she will live to see tomorrow.What do you do when the world you were born to is gone?Where do you hide when even your own body isn't safe?Emma ran when her daddy told her to. She hid like he said she should. He was the first person she turned her back on. The first one she let die.Ten years has gone by and she still lives by the simple rules he taught her when she was nine years old."Don't help anyone. Don't go where other people are unless you have to. Trust no one. Always pull the trigger."Until one night she hears the worst sound in the world, a knock. A simple, timid knock, on the door to her cabin.Only the voice of the brave little girl, ready to die for her brother, persuades Emma to open the door.As her fingers turn the lock, she has a terrible feeling she will regret her decision.But even as regret fills her world, so do love and companionship. Things she never imagined she would ever have again.Everything comes at a cost; you decide what you'll pay.

    The Line is the part of the border that lopped off part of the country, dooming the inhabitants to an unknown fate when the enemy used a banned weapon. It's said that bizarre creatures and superhumans live on the other side, in Away. Nobody except tough old Ms. Moore would ever live next to the Line. Nobody but Rachel and her mother, who went to live there after Rachel's dad died in the last war. It's a safe, quiet life. Until Rachel finds a mysterious recorded message that can only have come from Away. The voice is asking for help. Who sent the message? Why is her mother so protective? And to what lengths is Rachel willing to go in order to do what she thinks is right?

    An EMP over North America has destroyed everything electronic. No cars, no planes, no phones, no electricity. Refusing to wait for someone else to help them, ten courageous young people take charge of their future and choose to begin the long journey home. 1500 miles of adventure and lawless country await. Will their determination be enough?Alex, Quinn, Josh, Cooper and Dara - setting out on foot with nothing more than some soon to be worthless cash and a little advice from a trusted teacher, they walk through a burning city that has come to a halt. The devastation they see as they make their way out of the city is a small part of the horror that the nation will become. As the days go by with no food deliveries and no water flowing from taps, civilization will start to crumble and it will be survival of the fittest. With five States and half a Province to cross they will need to plan well, count on each other and pray for a little luck. Even with that, chances are slim of getting home when you are Stranded.

    Two hapless stoners fall under the control of a deranged mercenary. A young woman finds herself trying to keep two lovestruck teenagers alive. A detective must track down a killer who sees the apocalypse as an opportunity. Together they attempt to survive this blackly comic saga of survival, murder, stale sandwiches, and the end of the world. 'Corpses lay all over the street. Some were burnt, their limbs curled into themselves from the heat. Some were crushed, entangled in one of several car wrecks that dotted the road. Limbs, torsos and heads were strewn haphazardly in their wake. Some were just dead, lying there oblivious to the carnage that surrounded them.'

    No matter what the doomsday scenario - cataclysmic climate change, political chaos, societal collapse, nuclear war, pestilence, or so many other dreaded variations - we inevitably believe that even though the world perishes, some portion of humankind will live on. Such stories involve death and disaster, but they are also tales of rebirth and survival. Grim or triumphant, these outstanding, post-apocalyptic stories selected from the best of those published in the tumultuous last decade allow us to consider what life will be like after the end.

    But when you look around at the world as it stands you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer's and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media-hypnotized desperation... And you know that it's only going to get worse. This can't go on; something has to change. What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day? Not a Judgment Day based on childish interpretations of religion, on bias and cultural narrowness... What if you could design a Judgment Day, for the whole world--one that offers real Justice?What would it be like? In John Shirley's novel, THE OTHER END, a wave of light shatters the world's assumptions; human behavior takes a sudden unexpected turn. Swift, a newspaper reporter, has to find his missing daughter in a panicking world even as something from Every Where makes millions of people suddenly look inward. And looking inward, strangely, takes them outward again... And then come the Adjustors. Who are they? Where exactly are they from? They say they're not angels, or aliens... Then who are they? The usual End Timers offer one End of the World as We Know It... John Shirley's courageous, genuinely risky new novel offers the other end. The other end of the ideological spectrum; the other end of the world. Does it involve...aliens? No. Does it involve God? Not really--but then, it depends on your definition. John Shirley, the award-winning author of DEMONS, IN DARKNESS WAITING, CELLARS, A SPLENDID CHAOS, ECLIPSE, BLACK BUTTERFLIES, and so much more gives us a totally unexpected Judgment Day. Something is coming, to near-future Earth--to the whole world. Something is coming that will finally give the human race the chance it never had before...to bring it to THE OTHER END.